nutbean

We dont know what was said at interview but if he sprouted (successfully) the same lies as he did in his March presser then alarm bells wouldnt have gone off. Your Emma Quales suggestion is simplistic but if you want to follow that path then all clubs should follow suit as she hasnt been wrong with 1&2 in my memory.

Nothing surer. I look at some of the talent we have had and bemoan that they have not had the ability to maximise their talent. Whilst I am not suggesting that Col could be a Judd but I will ask why not ? - I will suggest he has the talent to be in the top 50 players. He has so far not shown the ability to maximise his talent. I will make a bold prediction (purely from "speak" not "actions").I think Neeld and his staff over the next three years will develop stars because I beleive he will set the bar way higher than it has been. I like what Neil Craig has said about expectations - that what ask the palyers to do may not suit all the players and they make no apologies for that - I love that attitude -Time will tell if we are able to maximise this lists talent and make some Sylvia's into Judd's.

Should we have interviewed Martin - yes - although I'm not sure what it would have achieved. Two of you articles are from now - after the event. He has spoken to 12 clubs, and not Melbourne, which doesn't surprise him. The one article that was prior to the draft had as a probable no 3 pick and "He, like everyone, expects Tom Scully and Jack Trengove to go No. 1 and No. 2.". Scullgove were a lock and again all we are doing is looking in the rear vision mirror. Scullgove were clearly the first two picks at the time. Did we interview Niknat the year before ? Yes. Why ? Because clearly there was a choice of who was the best player at number one pick in the 2008 draft. In hindsight I wish we had taken Martin. But again I will ask to produce anything to suggest that at the time someone anyone even gave the slightest hint that the 1&2 pick should include Martin or anyone else ?

But its how you define ability. I define ability being able to make the most of your talent. You can rank players talent and Colin Sylvia is up the top and Nat Jones is somewhat lower. - in terms of making the most of what talent you have Jones is near the top of all our players. ( God love Big Jimmy - this is where he excelled)

Interested who you think we have shyed away from. The only person I think you can make a case for is Darling. I dont agree with the nice guys adage. I prefer hard guys win premierships. You can quote your Terry Danihers and Glen Archers but think Collingwood and even Geelong last year - not a matter of nice or not nice - its a matter of hard. What I am expecting this year ? Hitting more contests harder. I dont need guys playing nasty like Mitch Clark - i want everyone playing hard like Ro Bail.

I was thinking about this. I do not want the boys playing FOR Jimmy. I want the boys playing LIKE Jimmy. I want them to have ingrained Jimmy DNA. Seeing most of Jim's games I will state that Jeff White had more natural talent in his little finger than Jimmy had. What Jimmy had ( in all aspects of life) was the ability to get 100% out himself. He would run until he dropped, he would never take a backward step, he made sure he always made a contest. He had a desire and a hunger. He was a fantastic footballer because of his sheer will not his talent.Through the smashing of the 1988 GF there was one player that stood up ( and didnt take a backwards step -he got reported to boot) I want his legacy to be all the boys committing to play football like Jim Stynes.

I agree with this to the extent that again I will bang on about how we have failed in development. I dont think we draft nice boys - I think we do not challenge our players to be the best and have a hard edge. I believe we have to some extent accepted mediocrity. We laud that under Daniher we were the most successful Victorian team in terms of finals played. I counter that we did not have that hard edge or the extra 5% to take our boys from good footballers making the finals to really good footballers going further and deeper into the finals (and to the ultimate). I'll ask you - The Roo's have never been labelled soft by club outsiders. Have we ?

I will respect your opinion on Darling but mine differs - I think this is more an external opinion on this board rather than internal - I don't buy this image of us only drafting nice boys (think Byron Pickett). I don't think we passed on Darling thinking he was pick 8 talent with a pick 27 attitude. I genuinely believe we think that Cook was a better pick.We can respect each others opinion. Having said that there was one simple reason that we did not pick or interview Martin - Scully and Trengove were clearly identified as the first the best two prospects. I love Nathan Jones but we have all seen his tweets - do you think he would have interviewed to this perceived "nice boy image" ? If we stayed away from the likes of Fevola because of his image and being a bad boy then in that case I support the club - the man is a train wreck. If Martin was head and shoulders above Scullgove we would have picked him. He wasnt.

hmmm..."at the time"....interesting concept. It is a concept that is not quite understood by many on these boards. I don't poo-poo the Darling vs Cook argument as there was quite vigorous debate on this very board about who we should take with our first pick in that draft- some said a firm yes to Darling and some said no. I respect the Watts/Niknat debate as people were split on who we should take. There were many different opinions on the Gysberts/Strauss/Tapscott selections and proposed alternatives. Until someone somewhere points me to where they said we should have taken anyone but Scully/Trengove with the first two picks very close to draft time I will counter anyones argument about how we failed in these draftings with "thank you Captain Hindsight." I suggest your post be amended to say " I dont know ANY rather than I dont know MANY" It is interesting that for a long while the preferred flavor was Scully/Butcher. I'm thinking I wish the doubts on Butcher hadnt surfaced that made him drop to no 8 as he is looking like he will be more than ok.

Shed tears this morning. My thoughts go out to the Stynes family. Rest easy big Fella - gone but never forgotten

majored in corporate speak 101

I think Cam again would respond I enjoy the feedback of all our members and whilst I appreciate your concern over certain aspects of commercial dealings of the club, I can assure you that the commercial dealings of the club are in line with common business practice and are approved by the board and fully audited by the accounting firm of schmendrik, schmo and scheister. As to the 186 point, as much as you may want to point to other factors for the loss, the MFC is not the first club to be on the receiving end of a thumping at skilled stadium ( albeit, I reccognise it was a massive thumping) and we will not be last. We are trying to instill into our players the need to be responsible for their actions and responsible to the club to perform each and every week on the field. I ask you this question - do you not think the players, the 22 players who took the field are ultimately responsible for kicking goals and playing well enough to make sure we win. These are the guys representing us on the field. Absolving the players of responsibility and searching for answers elsewhere does an injustice to everyone else at the club. A culture of shifting blame is not a culture we want to foster. I hope this has helped Ned.

perhaps summiting ?

A baby harp seal walked into a club.

I understand all that but I just grind my teeth that a player can do the same thing as butcher nine times out of ten and the player will gets up and the only thing that happens is a free kick. When you punch someone in the head I am happy that if the love tap means the player gets up then one week however when teeth are spat out then 4 weeks. The force of the punch will result in most cases, the extent of the injury. Some tackling ( aka spear tackling) falls into the same boat - the higher you lift and themore pace in the tackle, the more you can expect a worse outcome. But Butcher's "recklessness" has most on here saying -" gee not much in it". The reason we are debating is because of the outcome. To me this incident is all about the outcome and I hate a case being adjudicated purely on the outcome.

The word "Sacked" has been used to sell copy. Here is the crux of the story "Casey coach Brett Lovett said he had been given the power from Neeld to drop AFL-listed players to the VFL reserves. Most AFL clubs force affiliates to field most of their primary-listed players in the senior VFL side to enhance development, often limiting the team's chances." So basically if you dont play well enough in the VFL seniors you play in the seconds - didnt that happen to Lucas Cook last year ? where's the story ?

Wow.... If I was Cameron I would answer you questions as follows. 1/ Did BP jump before he was pushed.I believe you would have to ask BP that question. Football is a fluid industry with myriads of moves every year. In our football department alone we have had a plethora of new people both from other AFL clubs and outside. To answer your second part of the question - the agenda for recruitment is set by the head coach so it is not a question of whether new coaching panel is unhappy about previous drafting ( which no-one can do anything about now anyway) it is more a case of what the new coaching panel see as their drafting strategy and how it differs from the old coaching panel. 2/ The information and disinformation from that period around the186 point loss and what was reported and misreported could fill enough pages to make a novel. Needless to say that there were some adjustments made and re-focusing on what was important to move the club forward. We needed to be productive and proactive -I think we can see the inroads we are making off the field. The changes we have made are visible for all members to see and I think we should be looking forward and encouraging the same inroads to be made onfield. 3/ Salary packaging and negotiations are kept confidential for obvious reasons. As a generality I will say that there are many various methods of remunerating staff and specifically with senior executives there are various options available to a club outside a monthly pay cheque. (I could have been an AFL CEO)

I work with both of them (staaaaaayyy awaaaaayyyy)

I have a problem with this. Whilst it is difficult due to being so subjective I prefer the judgement to be on the type of contact made rather than the end result. Would Butcher (or a fair person) believe that Butcher's attack on the man result in that type of injury. His spoil was only marginally illegal because of the direction he came in from. The injury caused to Colin was due to his landing. It is like the sling tackles of last year - if the player tackled got up and ran off then no harm done. If the player was carted off then suspension followed. I hate the idea in football in marginal problems being adjudicated on the severity of the injury.

Butcher SHOULD get nothing for the incident however there has been a habit of the MRP of penalising on outcome/injury.

For those sprouting that all other clubs have FOJ sponsorship ( bar PA) and we dont - are you aware of how much each club gets for their FOJand BOJ sponsorship ? How does the compare with what we are getting from EW ? What is the total amount of our sponsorship compared with other clubs ? I think these broader questions are the benchmark for how our commercial division is performing rather than worrying about one name on the front of our jumper.

In summary. We all know that Cols talent could allow him to be a really good footballer - maybe in top 2 or 3 at the club - but the question remains - will his mindset/attitude/intestinal fortitude allow him to be a really good footballer ? The jury is out.

disagree - until Wilsons last season and a half he was very consistent, albeit a bit frustrating because at least once a game Wilson would try to get too cute and get caught.

I'm in ragtrade and understand the limitations in the range and the expensive price tags on what is on offer. With the limited market it is difficult to get volume across a wide expanse of styles.

I couldnt see Buddy Franklin at Gysberts age tackling an oncoming Buddy Franklin now. And the post about techinique is also on the money. Whilst he is bigger bodied than Gys, the best tackler in the game, Kelly of Geelong is by no means a huge man.