dee_star

I was under the impression that Rawlings and Royal were both out of contract now but Brown signed a 3 year deal, so he would have one more year left. Hard to know what the quality of the Assistants are even you've got issues with the Senior Coach. Are the leftover Assistants at Port - Rehn, Hocking - suddenly great Assistant Coaches now that they've made a Semi under a new Coach?

Viney is one of the few that will put a block on for a teammate or run hard to be the next option in the chain. The majority of blokes are playing individual footy, including the two Captains.

I'm not usually moved to Demonland during a game but this is just pathetic. The majority of players are showing no urgency but I question their fitness - do we do any sprint or agility work or is it just the slow middle distance running that we did all through the last two pre-seasons?? Not sure I'd want to be Dave Misson right now, he's one of the highest paid fitness blokes in the AFL and our fitness has gone backwards enormously in the last two years

Whoever the new coach is, the majority of training in summer should be decision making and skill execution drills. While it wouldn't solve everything it would help a shitload!

I thought it was interesting to watch Dawes and Watts in the same forward line. Watts is that much smarter as a footballer, he leads to the right spots to get used, he was just let down by disposal up the field at times. Dawes is more a straight line lead up player, which over the next few years with Clark, Hogan, Watts and then Howe pinch hitting down there at times I'm not sure we'll have much use for. Unfortunate a legacy of the Neeld era that can't be undone overnight is the $500k Dawes is on and the 3 year deal for Pederson. Neither are going to help us much in the long term I fear - that said at least Dawes shows some leadership out on the field and as a bigger body he may offer something to take the heat off the other tall forwards. I thought game plan wise there was a clear change both with and without the ball. Less long kicking down the line and more trying to run and create and take the game on, looking to use shorter options. At times the decision making looked as though they'd only been practicing it this week (which is true). Defensively there was a bit more pressure around the ball and a bit more working together, not just blindly locking in to your man and burning your teammate if his man got free. Still a very long way to go but a much improved performance compared to every other game this year

3AW are promoting what he said on twitter and their website but I haven't seen any specific names mentioned. I like Jon Anderson but that's pretty gutless not to name names. If current players have tweeted something then it's fair game to be reported. If he's not willing to name names I'd suggest that means he's "interpreted" the content of a couple of tweets to be in reference to Neeld

I've never understood this argument about Moloney - all players want to play, it's up to the medicos to declare them unfit and rule them out. It obviously wasn't a great post on instagram the other day and it certainly wasn't a good look for Moloney, but I do find it funny how people want to rewrite history about a bloke once he's left the club. It reminds me a lot of the comments Woewodin made when he was sent to Collingwood and the response to them by our supporters - the bloke was obviously hurt by being forced out and didn't want to go. You can certainly make the case that both of them would have been better served by saying nothing at all but when there's high level emotions involved it's easier said than done.

I have heard something similar. Damien Barrett has been peddling an alternate version of history, which I'd suggest had been pushed by Neeld's management group knowing that he was under a lot of heat.

Smart move by Gary - he won't get criticised as harshly by his fellow panellists with Neeld in the room about to join them on air

You have to feel for Neeld personally as being a sacked Coach is about the most public and brutal way to lose your job anyone gets, aside from a politician at the ballot box. That said, the move undoubtedly had to be made. We've gone backwards so dramatically in the last 18 months, and as Senior Coach Neeld has to take the responsibility for that. Craig as interim coach makes sense as it means the Assistant Coaches don't have to change their roles, there's just a different person in charge at the top. I would doubt that Craig is going to be in the running for the job and that when Choco/Rocket/whoever get the job, Craig will leave the club, even though he's got a year left on his contract.

Like others in this thread I appreciate the work Don has done as Vice President and later President of the footy club to eradicate debt, and acknowledge that it must be an enormous commitment to volunteer time on top of every day work and family commitments to put time into being on the Board of a footy club. Good luck to him in the future

Not sure if interviewing only one person for the job is "best practice". Hardly a surprise that you end up with a poor result when you don't go through a proper process. I'm not sure the reasons for it, maybe those on the selection committee thought they were smarter than everyone else, maybe they got dudded by Malthouse's recommendation. Either way, there needs to be accountability for a mistake that has set our club back a number of years. I'm not sure anyone thinks MN is the only problem we've got. There needs to be a number of changes in all areas of the football club. Already the CEO is gone, and at the very least the President but more likely much of the Board will change. While that's being accountable for things that have been done poorly that doesn't mean you don't fix other mistakes that were made - including the hiring of the current coach.

On these points PJ: "Has fixed our FF issue by recruiting Clark and Dawes" We certainly needed to add some size to our forward line, however we have to question the amount spent on both players. Certainly Clark has shown his worth and his versatility, able to play as a Ruck and even as a tall midfielder like Roughead does for the Hawks, but he has had injury problems. Dawes is a different one - he signed a 3 year deal for around 280k at the end of 2011, and Bucks was willing to let him go at the end of his first year as Coach, which given how hard it is to find a quality key forward is worth noting. If Bucks didn't feel that he was worth 280k a year that doesn't say much for us giving him 500+ for four years does it? "Got rid of dead weight off our list" You could certainly argue that Bate had had long enough at our club and make the case that it was time to cut the losses with Morton. I'd can't buy that Martin, Gysberts and Petterd were dead weight. In particularly Martin and Gysberts that were both young and had shown a bit. Lucas Cook's delisting was ridiculous, as key position players take time, and as an U18 All Australian he'd shown plenty as a junior. Given Clark's injury history keeping Cook on the list and continuing to develop him was a no-brainer. The Moloney and Rivers ones have been discussed to death but neither particularly wanted to leave and were pushed out. I'm not sure the mass changes constitute getting "dead weight" off the list. "Recruited premership players from other clubs to offer leadership and direction" Byrnes who spent nearly all of last year in the VFL and Dawes who as discussed above was thrown out the door by the Pies. Add to this the recruiting of Rodan, Pederson and Gillies, none of who played consistent AFL football in 2012. I'd argue that these players were not upgrades on those they replaced, and that while they can provide off-field leadership (although only Byrnes and Dawes would do this), they'll provide very little on-field leadership playing at Casey. "Invested in new future players (Hogan, Barry, Toumpas)" Hard to argue that there has been a strong investment in youth when Byrnes, Dawes, Pederson, Gillies and Rodan were brought in. There hasn't been any "tough" decisions to trade players away for youth the way Bailey had to (McLean, Johnstone) - we traded 3 and 13 for Hogan, Barry and 20, then used 20 to get Dawes. Essentially out of last years draft we had Hogan (3), Toumpas (4), Barry (13). That's investing in the future just by using our picks to draft players, nothing more. "Highlighted fitness as a key and fundamental issue and has Misson (very well regarded) who has implimented a 3 year plan to get us to AFL fitness" While Misson has an excellent reputation, on the surface we have gone backwards in how we run out games compared to under Bailey. That said, Misson's hiring was part of the extra $1.5M in football department spending that Neeld has had compared to the year before he took over. Certainly with that much additional spending you'd expect to see much better results (in both fitness and on-field play). In addition I'd suggest in the last 18 months we've seen a regression in skill level, a substandard game plan, a fracturing of the playing group and the appointment of two Captains way before they were ready. It's hardly a surprise that the on-field results have been as bad as they are. I believe a change has to be made, and in the next few weeks I'm sure it will be.

Lyon is already hiding under a rock, his tune has changed massively over the last six weeks, as he now refers to himself repeatedly as viewing the Club "as a supporter", and not as one of half a dozen people on the sub-committee that appointed this Coach. While there is inevitable pain that comes with appointing a new Coach, I still believe that our job was the best of the ones available at the end of 2011. A list four years into a rebuild that had shown promising signs, stacked with 1st and 2nd round draft picks, most of who had 40-60 games under their belt. The new Coach also was to receive significantly increased funding in the footy department and was going into a club that had wiped a truckload of debt in as quick a time as any club has. Were there issues? Certainly. A need for a more consistent defensive mindset was the most pressing one. But with a young list a teaching Coach could introduce that side and built on an already solid attacking area. Unfortunately the Neeld appointment was the result of a deeply flawed process and has clearly produced a deeply flawed Coach. The biggest issues, most of which have built on each other: - Sacking the Leadership Group before having Coached a game (no doubt on the advice of those who the Leadership Group wanted removed before 186) - Appointing two young Captains way before they were ready - Introducing a robotic game plan not suited to the list that had been recruited - Mixed messaging in public (hardest team to play against vs rebuilding a rebuild) - Mixed messaging in recruiting and list management (Sellar/Pederson/Rodan/Byrnes In for Moloney/Rivers out vs rebuilding a rebuild) - Reduced levels of fitness since the start of 2012 - Reduced levels of skill since the start of 2012 There has been enough evidence to suggest major problems both on and off field when it comes to the Coaching. I've had reservations since last year which were made bigger by what we saw in Round 1 but today was just completely unacceptable. And to hear in a post match press conference that the "body strength" of Gold Coast got us - please. 100 less disposals, 30 less contested possessions, around half as many tackles. Unacceptable. The easy answer is to wait until the end of the year, but a change must be made immediately, our club cannot continue without any accountability for the massive drop in the last 18 months.

I heard Rivers speak on Triple M while sitting in traffic last night, and what struck me were his comments about the pre-season training at Geelong compared to Melbourne. He said that Geelong, despite all the youngsters on their list, don't do any of the straight running that Melbourne do. The Cats get the footballs out from day one of pre-season and get their fitness while doing "football training" rather than running for an hour then doing skills under fatigue, where bad habits get ingrained and the quality of training suffers. When we talk about how unfit we look maybe this is part of the reason, we do too much running in pre-season that isn't "game running". The times I've seen us train in the pre-season we've done lots of lap running in pairs, which is obviously nothing like what happens during a game. Not sure it says much for the "elite training standards" that we've heard so much about

Just on Jackson, the only thing that concerns me is that we keep hearing about how at the Bombers he kept delivering $1M profits and was a real dot the i's and cross the t's CEO which is great, but he also left them with a massively under resourced football department and terrible facilities. In fact the reckless spending to bring Hird/Thompson/Robinson etc in that resulted in this whole Dank affair was an attempt to catch up to being years behind in their football department spend. They're also only now building a new facility to upgrade from Windy Hill. I'm not saying the Dank stuff is indirectly Jackson's fault at all, I just reckon we need to be open to spending the money to get the right people in place. Neeld has had more than $1.5M more in football spending than Bailey had - I'd hate to see that reversed (whether for Neeld or a new Coach coming in) just to ensure we have a fat profit for the CEO to hang his hat on.

The issue of the Fitness Levels is a really interesting one. Just from going to our games I reckon we are far less fit than we were under Bailey, despite the added $1M-$1.5M in resources given to the Football Department, which have primarily been spent on the Development and Fitness areas. It's a simple stat but looking back at our 3rd and 4th Quarters since 2008 shows that under Bailey from R1 08 until R19 11 we averaged 9 points less than our opposition, and in the 25 games under Neeld we've averaged 27 points less, not scoring as much as we did under Bailey and conceded significantly more. I have a feeling the talk of the fitness issues (which only surfaced after a poor start to the 2012 season) have been a Mick Malthouse-esqe distraction technique from the issues we've had with the game plan. In both the 2012 and 2013 Pre-Seasons we've heard about how great the fitness is going and recording personal bests and everything, but once the games come around we can't run out games, we're getting smashed and suddenly the fitness is used as an excuse. I'm not buying it. On a separate note, I'm not sure the references to Geelong and Bomber Thompson are accurate. Under Bomber the Cats played in a Prelim Final in 04, his 5th year in charge. The decision to stick with him at the end of 2006, when they stripped back his responsibilities and brought in Neil Balme to look after the player contracts and run the footy department is completely different from where we are at right now. The Cats had seen improvement under Bomber where they'd invested heavily in recruiting and in the draft, then played the kids and dealt with the hard years before they started to see some results. If there's a link between the Geelong experience and ours it's that we shouldn't have removed Bailey when we were starting to see the results of the hard years of playing the kids all the time and getting beaten. Even Bailey's biggest critics (and I was one of them) would have to acknowledge that while the gap between our best and worst was too big, we at least saw some high quality football in 2010 and 2011, particularly against teams like Richmond that were building at a similar rate to us, and Collingwood and Sydney who were older bigger bodied teams. Whether we made a mistake in removing Bailey or not, we've made it far worse by a poor process to select a new Coach, and then added to it with poor List Management and Recruiting decisions. Neeld isn't the only one who needs to go, it's also those in charge of List Management that need to be held accountable for taking us down this path and destroying the rebuilding that we went through from 2008-11. At the end of 2003 Bomber Thompson's coaching record was 44%, acceptable but hardly world beating. Imagine if that Cats had sacked him and then blown up their rebuild then, where would they be now?

I am on record earlier today as saying this is what had to happened, and think it is a good move for our football club. That said, we all should always keep in mind that people dedicate a lot of time and hard work to doing what they think is best for our footy club. We might think they have gone down the wrong path at times but they are always trying to do what is best. Good luck to Cameron in whatever he does next.

This is a great idea, let's do it, the root of the problem: Under Bailey we didn't invest highly enough in Recruiting and Development. With an additional $1M in the footy department in from 2011 to 2012 you'd argue that we've put more resources in place, more Recruiters, more Development Coaches. Whether these people are the very best people or not in the AFL, at the very least we've got solid competent people in these roles now. In July 2011 the Board decided that the CEO was not the right man for the job and the then Head of Footy had to be shifted out of the footy department, after considerable issues with the Coaching and Playing groups. Re-read this if you want a refresh on what happened around that time: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/date-with-disaster-20120504-1y4ky.html While Garry has denied it, I have no doubt that his intervention came with the knowledge that Schwab was to be sacked, and he in effect saved Schwab and Bailey was sacked. Garry can talk all he likes about coming to the help of his ailing friend, and I'm sure that played a big part in it, but he was also saving Schwab from the guillotine. If the rumours are true, there was a loud cheer from the playing group when told in the days before the Geelong game that Schwab had been sacked, showing the feeling of the playing group towards the CEO. Given that it's been hidden away, I'd suggest the Andrews Reports backs this up. Looking at it from the outside, you've got a playing group that likes the current Senior Coach, under who they've developed from bottom of the ladder to into the top 8 during 2011, and a Leadership group who are that concerned that they are willing to speak to the Board about the issues to do with the CEO and the Head of Footy. With Lyon's intervention the Coach they rated is gone and the two people they had issues with have been saved. When the new Coach is appointed the Leadership group is nearly all removed, and two kids are appointed co-Captain way before they are ready. As the new game plan proves to be a poor one that does not show results it further alienates the playing group, which is then further compounded by list management decisions at the end of the season that allow a number of Senior players to leave, replacing them with players of similar ages but significantly less ability. I don't believe we need AFL intervention at all, we need the Board to show the conviction that they were lacking in July 2011 and as the quoted post says, get to the root of the problem. The CEO must be removed, and then if there is no improvement shown in the coming months then the Coaching position must be looked at as well. Stability is important, but there's no point having stability when the wrong people are in place, that's when there needs to be change.

Choco coached GWS last year and Leon Cameron is coaching them this year. Sheeds hasn't coached since 2007. He's been a voice for the new club and done that marketing role brilliantly as you'd expect from him, but he is not their hands on coach. No thanks.

So the question then is, who is responsible for the overall direction of the list? Five years ago the decision was made to rebuild through the draft and get games into the kids - where does that decision come from? And last year the decision was made to abandon the kids and to use the media's loose term "Moneyball" it - who makes that call? Is that the Head of Footy? The Coach? The List Manager? Ultimately it's probably all three to some extent, but there has to be an overall person responsible for the Recruiting / List Management strategy the club takes doesn't there?

The first part of your quote is exactly what people were saying about Port before Hinkley eventually got the job - the right Coach can make improvements straight away. Look at the difference in the Crows from 2011 to 2012. Even in the most difficult cases (like the Bulldogs right now) it can take 12 months to see improvement, but they are clearly going in the right direction.

Putting aside the personal stuff for a couple of minutes, there's two questions when it comes to the CEO that I believe still need to be answered: 1. What was the content of the Andrews Review when it comes to the CEO? 2. Why did the Board feel it was in the Clubs best interest to tell CS at the end of July 2011 that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 2011? The logical conclusion is that both questions are linked, in which case, if the Board felt Cameron wasn't the right CEO for the footy club in July 2011 and were only persuaded to change after Gary Lyon's intervention to sack the Coach (thinking that a Club without a CEO or a Coach would be in turmoil), why is Cameron now the right person for the job?

Really? In 2010 we had the 8th ranked Defence in the AFL while we used the 3rd most players in the AFL that year, continuing to get games into our draftees. In fact up until 186 we had the 9th ranked Defence in the AFL in 2011 as well. These were vast improvements on the 2008 and 2009 Defensive rankings of 15th and 15th. Yes we got blown out against better teams at times but make no mistake, the sacking of Dean Bailey had much more to do with Cameron Schwab's situation than it had to do with the Coaching performance. I don't want to be an apologist for Bailey but like new Governments that blame everything on their predecessor, it's easy to deflect attention by blaming the past. I haven't seen that from Ross Lyon, Sanderson, Hinckley or McCartney at all. They have all put in new systems and within six months showed or are showing now clear direction on where they are going. On the fitness, it looks to me like we are far more unfit than we were two years ago. I've had the chance to see us train a couple of times over the last two pre-seasons and we do a lot of middle distance type running. I'm not sure how much this actually reflects game running where players have to sprint then be involved in the play then work back to their position then go again. It's no wonder we looked one-paced yesterday when Port were able to burst away from us.

Heard this on radio pre-game while driving to the ground - the defenders have a $50 bet going on who can keep their beard growing the longest. It's one of those things that when you're winning no one cares about but when the side puts in a performance like todays people will use as an example of them being focused on things other than football. Beards are the least of our problems