nutbean

This is where I think you may get lots of differing opinions - our real problem is that we have had far too few "greats". We have had plenty of big sky rockets that flew high into the air gave us moments of brilliance and fizzled just as quickly and we have plenty of honest servants who given their all but have a look at, for example, Hawthorn over the past 30 - 40 years and I can count a couple of dozen greats and we have had one only that could hold their head in their company. But I also agree with you that this is only part of the problem and every part of the club comes up short over the years.

why is easy..its called ego and they love themselves ( their own self importance and sound of their own voices) more than the club. If they thought for a moment about the "club" instead of themselves they would realise they damage that has and can be caused and could be avoided by taking criticisms, complaints and gripes in a discrete manner to the right people.

Its not that difficult If you are an ex player, ex coach, ex board member or ex president OR current of all the former 1/ if you have something positive to say about the club sing it from the highest rooftops 2/ if you wish to be critical and after examination understand that publicity surrounding your gripes could damage/hurt the club then take your gripes to the current managments only (quietly) its not the difficult

I dont go to pick out mistakes and I support the team through thick and thin but as it stands now I think we need some realism and understand that our midfield in particular is thin. Whilst I dont like to think of players as crap can you point me to a less credentialled midfield than ours ?

I think the key is we need two midfielders to step up to elite. That wont be Jordie or the likes of Magner but what will happen is they will improve and be better contributors on the coat tails of the "stars". The closest we have to elite is Jones and he has a waaay to go. I am not "married" to Jordie being in the team but the good teams have the likes of Swan and Pendles and they bring their second stringers into the game. I see Jordies limitations but at this stage I see limitations with all the midfielders.

Jordies real worth will only unfold when our midfield improves - I dont think he will ever be our number one go to midfielder but as your 3rd midfielder getting clearances he could prove his worth. He needs to be 1st in the chain which is his strength not last. He needs to be giving it off to a finisher.And what is required is instant spread the minute we get the ball - even if his next option is only half a metre clear he needs that option. Its a bit like criticising our kick outs from full back - the kicker is not the problem - it is the complete lack of movement and clear options that is the undoing of us. Jordies kicking is not up to it but it is not too hard to imagine him progressing to sitting in a Carlton midfield setup with Judd and Murphy - getting the first clearance and handing it off to those two who make extraction look easy. He actually reminds me of an early Cameron Ling (not just the hair) who was definitely behind your Abletts and Bartels but he came to the fore by becoming more damaging because of him getting some loose ball due to the concentration on the more credentialled midfielders. Lings disposal improved as Geelongs midfield did. It is amazing what a little less pressure and a few more options can do for your disposal.

Im more optimistic than you OD. I think we will be tearing it up by the third half of the year.

I look optimistically at recruits to take the club forward but like you mentioned Billy, the drafting under Bailey was meant to be the fix and everyone was massively excited at the time and look how thats turned out. So whilst I am excited about the likes of Viney, Toumpas and Hogan I will keep my powder dry. What does give me optimism is Neelds ( and by extension the FD's) approach to the football club. I have no idea if he is a good "game day" coach or not but I cannot recall a coach of ours who has dropped Ex Captains, best and fairest winners and club favourites. Whether his approach is ultimately successful or not remains to be seen but I am really excited to have a professional football department that thinks nothing of reputation or past performance or "bleeding red and blue" - all that matters is to perform on and the off the field the way the FD want or be gone. I believe this approach will bring success.

My issue with potting any assistant coach is the only person qualified to judge would be Neeld. If we want to base Royals worthiness purely against the result of his little area where he has been coaching we need to ditch Rawlings and Brown and ALL assistant coaches under Bailey. To those saying he has had long enough to work some magic on players have got it 100% right - it would take magic to get some of midfielders mentioned performing. If Neeld moves on assistant or keeps them is my indication if they are doing the job required.

I can ( but i can argue with anything) My take is as RPFC's - Vlad was blindsided by AA with the investigation but once the AA fanfare Ta-ra Ta-ra, an investigation, yippee, was announced Vlad was not going to be able to stop it so what has happened since smacks of managed process ( except I am dirty over the need of the AFL for a pound of flesh because their pound of flesh is rotten to the core) So what has been stage managed - 1/ find us not guilty of tanking and then other clubs dont have to be investigated - that happened 2/ find us not guilty of tanking and it is going to be hard to strip away gaming licences - we will see but that is what may happen As above I am upset about the vindictive nature of the AFL that they needed ROI for their investigation and had we held firm like I believe a Collingwood would have done and told the AFL "charge us with tanking or charge us with nothing" then we would have got nothing instead of this trumped up farce of a penalty.

we will differ on a few things above- firstly CC was transferred out as a consquence of the $500K - he has been out for over a year - way before the investigation even started. I suspect he was moved out due to his over-forthrightness with players. CC's comments can be looked at subjectively - joking or not joking and he gets suspended for a year - Trigg rorts the salary cap and gets 6 months ? I will never agree that 12 months is a fair penalty. The AFL was looking to come away with something, anything and CC was it. Whilst I am happy to move on, I have made my feelings known that whilst this will now conclude this awful chapter in an expedient manner - it is exactly that - expediency and something strong clubs like Collingwood would not accept.

My problem is not that CC said something dumb, which I think he did - it is the disproportionate whack that he has received and that is where the majority of sympathy is coming from. And I believe the whack he received is because of what I think we are all in agreement on - they could not get us on anything else. I also believe Billy, that you are using misdirected logic - We were fined $500K and CC is unemployed for a year because of comments. You have focused on something costing us $500K instead of asking the most important of questions..so i will ask you - do you think that the club should have been fined $500K and CC lose his job for a year over the comments he made ( as reported - we only have "as reported" to make our judgements). I am absolutely black on white on this - we should have been hit for tanking ( and 6 other clubs investigated as well ) or cleared. One or the other. What we ended up with is the AFL being passive aggressive. ( i want to hit you for tanking but i cant so i am going to whack the hell out of you for dumb comments)

This will take you back OD - do you remember Nepean Hwy after mordialloc having 3 lanes - one lane in one direction and one in the other. The middle lane could be used to overtake by EITHER traffic direction as long as no cars were coming !!!!!! We used to call it the "suicide lane". I tell people this story and they dont believe me.

I am all for nuturing but the reality is that if there if a star emerges from Casey he will be open to all comers in the draft.

Can you please hand back in your membership for a year and pay $100K in fines - you may have meant this as a joke but many took that comment seriously and in turn burned their membership tickets. Whilst we cant prove that you actually wanted Caroline Wilson as no 1 ticket holder, you have brought the MFC into disrepute by making such a "horrible statement"

now THERE was a beard...

My only criticism of the coaching panel on McKenzie is he had a particularly good game last year when he had about umpteen handballs - all pretty effective - and the coaching panel said - all good but we want you to kick more. If his handball can be effective as opposed to his obvious sub par kicking then why not let him play to his strengths ? I dont recall anyone coaching Greg Williams and telling him to handball less ( not that I am saying Jordie can handball like diesel)

I say the same to ex board members/ex presidents/ex anyones as I do to ex pollies - thank you for your services when you were in position to actually implement policy/change and whether you were succcessful or not you are thanked for your efforts. Now you are not in a position to implement change/policy it would be appreciated if you would fade quietly into the background making neither comments or actions detrimental to your former club/party. You had your moment and it is over - what is required are people who are going to be constructive and support the current administration - if you are truly unhappy with the current administration, then in a calm non destructive manner put your hand up publicly to stand at the next election. I have read on here people alluding to people agitating in the background and if this is correct then this means you - there has only been one public agitator so I am directing this to him as well.

Me too. " I'm a failure but its much easier to blame others"

spearmint rhino richards ? i wonder if we can all get the 'land discount ?

therein lies my problem - we have to continually stomach the club taking a cheaper or easier option and to do this you have to compromise. So lots on here are happy with the compromise or accomodation - I, for one, am not. I will ask a hypothetical that everyone will have their opinion on 1/ Would the AFL go hard at Collingwood with what the same stuff as they had on us ? 2/ Would Collingwood cop the penalty we have been given Just a thought

Dear Brock, Thanks for the ten large you chipped in previously. No chance of you stumping up another $490K is there since you took it upon yourself to open up that stupid yap of yours ? ( you stumped up, half witted, bogan) Regards Us.

I try to be unemotional about my team but the reality is that it has volatile, highly charged emotions attached to it. I understand the pragmatic approach taken by club however I cant help but feel exactly the same as you DC and shafted is very accurate description in my eyes and the words "rolled over" come to my mind. Again pragmatism dictates that you dont bite the hand that feeds you but the comment that reasonated with me the most was " the AFL required Melbourne to prove its innocence whereas a court would require the AFL to prove the MFC's guilt".

Couldnt agree more. Our crime is two fold - Chris Connolly being a little too blatent and numerous disgruntled ( or lilly livered) employees/ex employees rolling over and blabbing. The most amusing aspect of all this is thousands of posts and endless restating of positions and everything hinged on the same question - what is the definition of tanking - as of today we are no clearer. ( well ..we are but even I dont have the moxy to put down the definition that could be extropolated from this farce as it would be laughable in the extreme)

I feel let down....I understand that it is good to get this crap out the way before the start of the season but I cant help but feel we rolled over. The things we did badly 1/ Chris Connelly being so blatant in a meeting AND 2/ Having enough people hear him that either became disgruntled later and rolled over on him or were weak livered and rolled over on him OR 3/ there was documentary proof. Thats where we went wrong. The reason I feel sick is the sheer hypocracy of the proceedings, the precedents, and GM presser regarding what he considered manipulation (CC's comments) and the other example given of Freo resting players for a home final. Its a con job and not a very good one.