nutbean

I'm semi with you with lots of "if's". What I have no idea on is to what extent we enquired on Ross Lyon, if the MFC wanted him at all or if we have someone else in mind who we have landed or hope to land. Having said at all that - I dismiss the gentlemanly strategy of approach his management, ask the question and then walk away. The question Freo obviously threw the rule book away. Therefore I like Freo's balls of steel and I will take a stab at initiating the "Freo approach" to luring Malthouse to the MFC. 1/ Speak to Malthouses management about coming to MFC - if there is no interest there.... 2/ Speak to Malthouse directly and tell him why it is such a wonderful idea to come to the MFC...if there is still no interest 3/ Talk to Mrs Malthouse directly and tell her that she will be on the front cover of Demons WAG's magazine if she can tempt Mick to come across...if still no interest 4/ Approach Spot Malthouse and offer him 10 bones a week to bite Mick on the leg until he agrees to come to the MFC. In short - time to make your own rules, MFC.

So you would call into question Ross Lyons integrity but every club that has the backroom meetings to discuss the coach's future and then fire him before the end of contract is fine ? "the coach has the full support of the board" means pack your bags son, you are done and dusted. Clubs for many a year have been sacking coaches and many on this board called for Baileys sacking last year with one and half years on his contract without batting an eyelid. As soon as coach does the same thing to ensure his long term financial security we call his integrity into question. The question is where you set the bar on integrity for both club and coach as the clubs have been acting without integrity when it comes to coaches for years and it is accepted practice - clubs have been doing what is in the best interests of the club and now Ross Lyon has done what is in the best interests of Ross Lyon.

Mick Malthouse was in print in early 1999 ( please dont ask me to find the article - it was linked on another website earlier this year) saying he would honour his contract expiring in 2000 at WCE. Ex chairman of the WCE - Ian Hamilton said this - Or perhaps Hamilton the mischief maker, having watched a dual premiership coach spirited away by the Magpies, couldn't resist the chance to fire a light- hearted shot back across McGuire's bow. "As people who were on the board at West Coast at the time (1999) would say - it is all very well for Eddie to be talking about the sanctity of contracts now but…" Even an unfinished sentence sends a message sometimes. So in answer to your question - who would want someone as deceitful as a coach that works away from a club with one year to run on a contract for greener pastures - like Malthouse - apparently Collingwood in 1999/2000 and me speaking for the MFC in the year 2012. IF Lyon has success at Freo, like Malthouse at Collingwood, it will all become a hazy memory.

They have orchestrated it to get the man they want. Very very ugly way of doing it - if they go to the finals next year and have success it will be forgotten quicker than you can say nutbean. Ruthless and decisive which ever way you look at it. I am hoping we have been equally as cold blooded and been talking very loudly in a coaches ear who is very much contracted at present. I hope we are whispering in the ears of any or all footballers who are contracted or coming out of contract to see if they want to jump on board. These actions will be quickly forgotten if they are successful. Remember Collingwood poached a contracted coach in Malthouse who still had a year to run at Eagles.

Football clubs scrap heap coaches without a blink of the eye. Malcolm Blight at StKilda ...bang...gone...... Now it may be unsavoury the way it has reportedly gone down with Ross Lyon and StKilda and Harvey and Freo but does anyone see the irony of the situation. Ross - how dare you put your interests before the club and walking out on StKilda - no loyalty ..no integrity Freo - how dare you put the clubs interest before the coach - sacking your coach without any consideration for him - heartless and ruthless. So is the coach wrong at StKilda or the club wrong at Freo ? And before I get yelled down - it could have been handled infinitely better.

wow - we must have listened to different interviews

My incompetenece comment stems from taking at face value Robbo and G Lyons comments that we didnt have talks with him at all. If not, why not ? Waiting to see what StKilda did ? pleassseee..... Would be happy to hear down the track 1/ we talked to him but not interested ( because we were $2.5M trumped by Freo) 2/ We didnt need to talk to him because we already had someone in the pipeline Would be unhappy to hear down the track that we didnt get a top line coach and we didnt talk to Ross Lyon because we didnt get the chance ( as both Robbo and Garry said). you may hate how cold blooded and ruthless both Freo and Lyon have been but we could use a dose of that ruthlessness

Whilst this may be a little too messy for my liking I do like the ruthless nature of what Freo did and would like us to take a few notes.

I tweeted back to Nathan Jones that his tweet re Scully was plain dumb. I understand that to footballers the game is a profession and to varying degrees they must consider monetary gains - for Scully it was a major motivation, for Trenners obviously a secondary motivation. But we supporters actually pay to watch. Therefore our expectations are different, we only think about team, winning and loyalty. If a player is great then he should show loyalty and stay. If we consider him a duf - sack him without a second thought. Nathan Jones tweet ("I fully understand Skulls decision, Good luck") was dumb - 90% of his audience would be supporters and we see his defection as disloyal. Know your audience Jonesy. Text him your thoughts by all means but dont tweet something for all the supporters to read when the great majority are dirty on his actions.

Here you go High Tower. Nutbeans Law - why do you believe all the crap that is written and spoken by journo's and the media at large- there are so many inconsistencies and half truths it is impossible to distinguish fact from fiction. We offered Clarkson 5 years, Clarkson spoke of interest but no offers. We put an offer to Lyon and Robbo tweets we didnt put an offer to him. Who the hell knows what is true and what is false. So in four weeks time or earlier we will have a new coach. If it is not someone special then feel free to moan about 1/ our incompetence at not approaching Lyon or 2/ our ineffectiveness at our attemp to land Lyon if we did approach him I am happy to whine and moan once I find out who our coach is.I will be happy to draw to some conclusions once I see where all this ends up and who our coach is. (Sorry HT - a bit long winded)

Because Eddie believes it is totally immoral for a coach to walk out on a contract. Totally unethical to be poached by another club whilst still in the employ of another club. Remind me if Malthouse still had a year to run at the Eagles before the Pies got into his ear ? If Malthouse wants to coach elsewhere he will coach elsewhere.

Alright - we have had all conspiracy theorists on the Scully situation - so whilst this is not a conspiracy theory ..I think it makes sense Robbo just tweeted that the Dees didnt make an offer to Lyon - didnt get the chance. If that is to be believed... MFC are one of the two things 1/ Incompetent ; or 2/ Already signed a coach of significance ( read grey haired madman currently still coaching but a damn fine coach) I suggest that my theory will be proven one way or the other....

Very close. When it comes to contracts and signings "i'll believe it when I smell ink on paper." Edit: I remember this posters on this very site all congratulating each other on the apparent decision of Judd to come to the Dees to have the official announcement 1 day later that we were no longer in the hunt

Absolutely loved Matthews ( except when he hit my boys). 1/ When he played he dished it out but copped plenty in return and never as much as said boo... ( unlike Greg Williams) 2/ I even like his refreshing honesty now - "what do you think of the assessment that when you played you were a bit of thug" - answered "unfortunate but fair - if I could have my time again there a few actions I would take back". Matthews is honest and open.

Whilst I am in the "nothing decided until the end" camp, I wont dismiss this as at least it explains why the GWS upped their offer by $1M and 1 year at the death knell. If nothing was binding and Scully "wavered" the upping of the offer makes sense. I repeat again for all those who have relied on Journo's and sources and said it has been binding for months - that was the same sources and journo's that said $5m over 5 years. Explain to me why a binding offer had to leap by $1M and 1 year only weeks ago ?

What I found interesting is the same day all the papers are reporting Lyon staying at the Saints is done deal, Adelaide for the first time express interest in him. WTF ?

Actually I agree that we have too many Brighton types - I just looked at Collingwoods board and I know that 3 of them at least live in Toorak and without type casting the others, where exactly would the CEO of the Pies, a surgeon, an Olympic skier and CEO of Starcom live ? For goodsakes Dees wise up and stop having poverty striken Brighton types on the board - we need Toorak !!!!!

Amen Brother

Unless Junior rocked up with the first $2m for next year - zip.

The one thing that has never been adequately explained to me by all those believing that he was signed yonks ago and we should have believed the media is the continual esculating years and dollars on offer. So here's the GWS strategy from last October - they signed Tom back in last years window but did a slow leak to the media - first we'll leak $800K over 4 years ( that was the first reports) - then we'll leak from April to August - $5M over 5 years and we'll have one more little leak in the last 2 weeks of $6M over 6 years. Yup - that makes sense. I can assume from those who want me to believe he was gone from last year is that the offer was always $6M over 6 years from day one and all the dollars and years reported by the media were plain wrong ( including the ox who mentioned the $5M over 5 years.) The only way this makes any sense as being done and dusted long before is if the first offer was always $6M over 6 years. We all want to point to indicators - would you not suggest the upping of the GWS offer from $5M over 5 years to $6M over 6 years indicated that either he hadnt decided or if he had decided he was wavering ? Why would you up the ante again ? MFC was never going to match the reported $5M offer. As I have said elsewhere - goodbye and good luck (Beamer - please put you Brock words into action on field next season) - gone for the money as opposed to Trenners who has stayed for the dream.

Don't get me wrong - I can list Cale's shortcomings in a succinct 3000 words essay. But I could have done the same with Stef Martin last year and the essay is much shorter this year as he is coming into his prime and Brendan Goddards essay from his 21st can now fit on the back of a postage stamp. Every good scribe tells you that you must wait for footballers to mature - then you know what you will get. Wait for body maturity and development to take its course. The common theme is 23/24 of age. We may look back in two years and say - Cale, what a waste. I think Cale has some really huge challenges ahead to make him worthy of a number 4 pick - but everything just may click for the lad. I'm just not prepared to toss him yet.

Agreed and we would be wise to look at Mrs Ward ( Callan's mum) who made it 100% clear why her son was leaving. There were millions of reasons and they were all called money. Even Richitelli was more than frank. In an interview he said he was very upset with the Lions throwing him around as trade bait the year before and when an offer to good to refuse came along from GC it made it easy for him. Even Luke Ball who was pi$$ed off with StKilda made it perfectly clear that he was so unhappy with the Saints that he had to leave for Collingwood and Collingwood only. His strategy was risky but basically clubs rarely pick up players who dont want to be at the club.

Taking the person out of the equation if we could have a player that still has mileage be on the field and also be an assistant coach, it would be of great benefit to the players. You could argue that your good onfield leaders should be directing the younguns anyway - giving them advice and direction - psuedo assitant coaches on the ground. But it is taking that leading and coaching role of players one step further. I could see merit of North Melbourne promoting Brady Rawlings as an assistant coach at the beginning of this year and have him privvy to all coaching meetings and then have him mentor,ooach and direct players in his last year on the field. I wouldnt be advocating this type of coach would be pulling moves but I think a Rawlings type has the discipline to be able to mentor and advise on field. It is almost back to the captain coach role but your head coach will still be pulling moves,the onfield assistant would only be an onfield teacher. The only question mark on this is whether there is actual time in play to do your job as a player and be talking to team-mates at the same time.

Nutbean's law of not potting under 23 year olds Surprised to learn that Cale is only 21 and will be 22 next January Stef Martin - surprise surprise - is 24 - coming into his prime. Whilst unbelievably frustrating and has to make up ground quickly to justify his no 4 selection, Cale is 21 years old - may I direct your attention ( again ) to a 21 year old spud called Brendan Goddard.

You are starting to sound like a journo - selective. Dean Bailey indeed said they stuffed it up - the club stuffed up the handling and timing of the forced retirement - not the decision itself. Dean Bailey said that given their time again they would have told James early of their intention not to renew his contract for another year but Bailey said that the decision not to renew was always correct. At no stage has the MFC said the we "Stuffed up by not giving him another year" To his credit James McDonald has handled it like the gentleman he is.