dee_star

I understand why people keep referring to the players because that's the end result that we see on the field but think about it logically - there are around 800 players in the AFL, they would make up 800 of the best 1000 footballers in the country. Even the youngest or least knowledgable AFL players understand more about the game and how to play it than any of us could imagine. None of them go out there to put it little effort or deliberately miss kicks or drop marks. It has to come back to how they are Coached and instructed. Again I refer to Port and the Bulldogs, even the Crows from last year - clubs that changed Coaches and within the first 6-18 months have shown clear direction to what they are doing and what they are focusing on. Whether Port and the Dogs win 5 games or 20 games this year, their players, their supporters, their members can sit there and see the path that they are on. Can we say the same? I don't think so

Titan I reckon if you asked anyone about Port's list that Ken Hinkley inherited they'd say it was awful, in fact there were a number of media expert who described Port's list as the worst in football when they were searching for a coach late last year. In the same way Brendan McCartney inherited an ageing list that plenty of people thought was in really bad shape too. I bring up those two not because both teams won substantially in Round 1 but because one is 1 game in to a regeneration of a Club and the other is 23 games in, the same amount of time Neeld is. What we can clearly see at Port and at the Dogs is the direction their clubs are taking. They focus on winning contested ball and moving the ball quickly forward. They are holes in their list that are being plugged by young developing players for the most part, but they are both clearly moving in the right direction. Can we say the same about us? Neeld has said our game plan will take "3-4 years" to learn. Those clubs are showing that within 6 months in Port's case and 18 months in the Dogs case, they've clearly picked up significant amounts of what their Coaches are teaching them. I'd argue both inherited significantly worse lists than ours - Neeld inherited a team that was in the Top 8 halfway through the 2011 season, while Port were second bottom of the ladder and the Dogs were at the end of an era and in the bottom 6. So what is so complicated about our game plan? We move the ball around the boundary or we switch the ball to the other side of the ground and do the same. Defensively we play man on man and if a spare opposition player gets out into space then we let him go because our players are being told to stop their man at all costs. It was this attitude that was evident in Brent Moloney's play last year, when he went from being one of the best Clearance players in the AFL to having one of the worst years of his career, spending every stoppage standing next to his man and not trying to win the ball. Time and again today we saw our players stay with their man instead of covering a teammates man when needed. That's not natural instinct, that's clearly coming from instruction. I'm by no means an expert when it comes to footy but these things seem pretty clear cut - and what it means is that we have a very very big problem with our choice of Coach.

So the alleged damning comment from CC was said to a room full of 15 people, but Jon Ralph now says only four people verified it? Surely either a comment was made or it wasn't - it's 15 people or 0 people. It's obvious that a deal was done to keep certain people out of it. From the sounds of it CC takes the heat to save CS and the Board from any culpability, which in turn allows the AFL to find the club Not Guilty but still sanction a couple of individuals in order to maintain its "integrity". The articles saying that high ranking Club officials were "bragging" that the club was able to deliver the priority pick appear to be forgotten about now - either those articles are made up and there should be legal action over them or they were true and we are in more trouble. I don't want to see any of our people get punished but I also want to see those who aren't up to it weeded out and removed. I'd hate to think that CC has taken the fall to preserve others desperate to save their own hide. I'm not a big fan of these "negotiated outcomes" the AFL comes up with. Either you're guilty or you're not. If we are not guilty of tanking, then no one should get punished for anything and we shouldn't be paying the 3rd largest fine in AFL history

Seems to be a lot less leaking of AFL friendly information into the media since a certain high profile individual left a few months ago... wonder if that's a coincidence...

This is an excellent point, and considering the number of games Cornes and Brogan were "rested" for, that Luke Power was being used as the Sub for, and the team changes and positional moves made before and during the GWS game vs Gold Coast, surely this would constitute "not trying their upmost to win a game". The AFL wouldn't want to see the newest golden child brought into it...

I find the questioning of the interchange laughable - if it wasn't a Grand Final but a home and away game late in the season would Ross Lyon have been questioned for leaving Luke Ball on the bench for so long in the 09 Grand Final (a move that arguably cost the Saints the game as he was their best player in conditions that suited him down to the ground)? I don't think Bailey will have any problems defending his Coaching moves.

I always liked Brock, I think he's a pretty genuine straight down the line sort of character. He answered honestly and said what he said OTC, and after being interviewed about it on probably multiple occasions has belatedly realised that his comments have caused issues for people he didn't intend them to cause issues for. By backtracking he takes a fair bit of sting out of the whole case. No doubt the AFL are trying to pressure us into taking a deal the way they have done with other clubs previously (e.g. the Collingwood betting case with Shaw and Maxwell), but I'd like to see us stand strong. If they want to have an ugly tanking debate in public then we can talk all day about Richmond, Carlton, Fremantle, West Coast, Collingwood and the others that have had games where they have rested/experimented/etc.

Caro and that [censored] Greg Denham yesterday had similar information - it's clear the AFL are leaking info out to their favourite journos to justify how long this "investigation" has been going. With that in mind, if Caro is getting info from inside the AFL, and she is writing that CS and CC are the focus of the investigation, then I reckon the Club has to be careful how it defends itself in the media. What the AFL will want is to be able to say that players and coaches try their best in every single game, but in this case "a few rouge administrators" put pressure on the coaches and players to tank. I'm not saying that's exactly what happened because who knows, but that's what the AFL will want to say, as they want to protect the integrity of the game. The issue for us is that if we come out and say that all the staff have changed since then and plead for leniency on our current football department then it hurts our argument that the two people that seem to be the focus of the investigation are still employed by the club. I would hope that in private conversations with the AFL we would be suggesting to them that given the comments of Fevola and Liberatore about the Carlton tanking situation that if they were to come down heavily on us that we'd be expecting our penalty to be the same as what Carlton get. And then we start talking about Hawthorn, West Coast and Collingwood who all did the same... Unfortunately as much as the AFL have created this by having the priority pick rule in place and made it worse by the denials of Demetriou and others connected to the AFL, at the end of the day we are going to be the ones left holding the can. You'd only hope that other clubs that engaged in the same practices are given equal punishment

The issue with the "everyone's fault but CS" line is that he was sacked (or "not renewed") the day before the Geelong game, before the dismissal of Bailey, and much longer before the dismissal of Prendegast, the hiring of Neeld, the greater responsibility of Harrington and Viney in our Recruiting and List Management etc. Clearly on the Friday before the Geelong game the Board had resolved that he had had ample opportunity to "influence the strategic direction" on and off the field, and that his time was up. I'm sure the Board and everyone would accept that he'd done a number of good things for the footy club, but they obviously felt he wasn't the right man to be CEO of the club moving forward. So the same question still applies - how many staff from that period have to be let go - Coaching, Recruiting, Fitness - before responsibility falls onto the two people that were in charge of hiring and firing at that time? And from their decision to remove CS BEFORE all these changes and to later move CC sideways and push Mahoney up, the Board obviously felt that the responsibility fell at his and CC's feet.

My argument on those two specifically is that Gysberts has shown a bit and that Cook hasn't had time to shown anything - and in any case the broader question is whether or not our young players who we drafted as part of a clear club direction to rebuild through the draft have had the appropriate amount of support around them. When the Collingwood, Hawthorn and Geelong's of the world have had 3-4 full time development coaches and we've had one until 2012 I just wonder if we've let some of these guys go at bargain basement prices (or for free in Cook's case) a little too soon. Time will tell on whether or not Gysberts, Martin, Cook and co become solid players at their new clubs. CS and CC are the ones ultimately responsible for the hiring and firing in the footy club - if Prendegast wasn't the right man for the job, if Bailey wasn't, if the welfare guys weren't, if the fitness staff weren't, then how many people have to go before the ones making the hiring and firing decisions have to come under some scrutiny? And again, these two were either fired (CS) or moved sideways (CC) in 2011, so that surely suggests that even our own board has little faith in either.

Player Manager are absolute scum, lowest life form imaginable. Hope Blucher gets a fair whack for his part in this - as we well know he has a history of dodgy deals, particularly involving the player's old man! Wonder if the Swans will get punished - sounds like they tried to push Jesse White's large contract on the Crows under the threat of enforcing the 2nd round pick contract. Can't imagine the AFL would look favourably on this sort of blackmail - even if it is from their golden child team

Interesting arugment: Melbourne Averages Tackling: 2012 - 67 a game, 2011 - 69 a game Blocks: 2012 - 5 a game, 2011 - 6 a game Positive Acts (Tackles, Spoils, Smothers, Blocks, Knock Ons etc): 2012 - 127 a game, 2011 - 134 a game Source: Champion Data I always liked Stef, hope he goes well for the Lions.

8 wins minimum. And as others have said a maximum of two floggings. Need to get back to where we were at the end of 2011 at the very least.

I take a bit of a different tact that those who want to square the blame with Prendegast - with as many high draft as we had, and all of which have shown some good signs at different times (except Cook, who as a KF didn't have enough time), I don't think the selections were all that bad. Every club can make the argument that they could have picked better - e.g. everyone talks about Hawthorn's Roughead/Franklin/Lewis drafting but not about Dowler and Mitch Thorp (where they could have had Joel Selwood, or more to the point Nathan Brown from the Pies or Frawley given their key defensive problems in recent years). We saw at the start of Neeld's time all the announcements about new staff members - we put on three development coaches and brought in Neil Craig - resources that we never had when we'd drafted all these kids and were bringing them through. To tie it into what's happened in the last few weeks, I just wonder whether or not having had more resources around our young guys earlier, or giving some of them another year or two with decent support around them would have resulted in a few becoming solid players (Gysberts, Cook and Martin are the three in particular). I'm a bit with what Ned said earlier - I like the Dawes deal as key forwards are hard to find, the Hogan deal we gave up an enormous amount but hopefully it's worth it, Viney is a free kick at 27 so that's great, and I was happy to see Morton go, but the final 24 hours of Rodan and Pederson and letting Martin and Gysberts go were pretty disappointing. At the end of the day these discussions about responsibility, whether it's Recruiting, Coaching or Development come back to two people - the head of the Footy department and the CEO - for me that means Connolly and Schwab have an enormous amount to answer for. And considering one was sacked last year then reinstated and the other was shifted sideways suggests that the Board don't have a lot of faith in them either.

I'm happy for him - it was sad to see him spending all his time watching his opponent this year instead of winning the ball - at stoppages he's as good as anyone in the AFL. Lions midfield is getting pretty strong again - Beamer will buy them a couple of years to get the young guys strong enough to go through there.

Dawes would be a good get - big bodied key forward, has 6-8 years left. His form suffered from doing the Ruckwork which he wouldn't have to do with us. Still think he might stay at Collingwood but getting him would finally be some good news

Scotland was 23 when he went to Carlton, not 28. Hardly apples and apples.

Dawes struggled all year trying to be that back up Ruck, it's clearly not his strong suit and the primary reason he had such a poor season compared to 2010 - I think if the Pies could land a KF/Ruck in the Brown mould and return to having Cloke and Dawes as genuine KFs they'd jump at it.

Knights is unrestricted so he can take whichever deal he wants. If he was Restricted then he'd have to pick whichever he wanted of the Melbourne and Richmond offers and take it back to Adelaide for them to match or not match. Q Lynch to the Pies - some think that means Dawes is on the table but I'm led to believe they see the Q as an upgrade on Leigh Brown

I would have thought the minimum would be 6-8 wins. 4 wins or less and there might be carnage.

I would have thought Cloke when he was available was worth having a crack at, and without him on the table maybe only Goddard and Caddy. There's nothing else available that I think would add anything to our list. Not a huge Wellingham fan - I think he's a good average player but that's about it, not worth the big dollars to lure over the road.

You're aware Robbie that Moloney was ill in the lead up to the game and was actually out cold in the rooms during the second half of the game? Even from the standing room on the terraces at Kardinia Park you could tell he wasn't right and shouldn't have been out there. I'm not sure how his game was a "wake up to the club"? He did with the B+F. As a point of interest, we actually fielded a younger team that day against Geelong than we did when we smashed the Swans 12 months earlier. I'm amazed that people think there isn't (or wasn't given the delistings/trades) quality on our list - after all the top picks we've had over recent years there simply has to be quality on the list. There's 800 players in the AFL and not a single one makes it anywhere near an AFL list without a decent amount of ability. There were plenty of coaches and commentators ready to anoint MFC as the next big thing in 2010 - Michael Voss was one - so since then we've slipped to a team that essentially won one game in 2012. Even Neeld's comments about being the "hardest team to play against" suggest that he thought there was a bit there to work with. 2012 is going to be a season that will always divide opinion - realistically by mid-season of 2013 there should be a large improvement shown, in what is essentially year 6 of the rebuild. By that point we'll have a better idea of whether Neeld is the right man for the job.

It's an interesting question - my support for the club is completely unconditional. Come 12:40, 1:10, 1:45, 2:10, 2:45, 3:10, 4:40, 5:15, 7:10, 7:40, 7:45, 7:50 or 8:10 (sh*t it was much easier when it was just 2:10...) no matter what the circumstances are I'll always want the Dees to win, and always cheer on whoever is wearing the red and blue. That said, I think there's a difference between support and being a member. Speaking to friends who are also Dees supporters there is a despair about their feelings towards the club that I can't remember being this strong before. Many suggest they are unlikely to or have already decided not to renew their membership for 2013. I can't say that they are giving up their "support" for the club as they are some of the most passionate Dees supporters I know, and have been going week in week out this year when plenty of others have dropped away. I have no doubt they'll still turn up next year - but they feel their response to the current problems is to make a statement by withdrawing their financial commitment to the club. Does that make their support for the club conditional? I would argue it doesn't, but I can see how it could be seen that way.

As some here have highlights, timD the best, the issue of process is a club wide thing, not just to do with selecting a senior coach, and is a representation of the attitude and approach of the entire club to all manner of issues. In terms of process, I am not sure how a CEO can be sacked one week and then be saved by another person losing their job, and then be reappointed for three years 12 months later. If this CEO was deemed by the Board to not be good enough one week, how can the same Board deem him worthy of being in charge of our football club through what will be possibly the leanest period in it's history? Again in terms of process, I have reservations about our selection of a senior coach. I don't have any issue with the Ross Lyon one because it was done by Fremantle and Ross in an underhanded manner and not only would I not want our club to act in that manner, I'm not sure about the motivations of someone who says one thing to his management then deals with someone else behind their back. My issue is more with why there were three other coaching jobs available and ultimately of the three people to get those jobs, not a single one was interviewed by us. It suggests a major flaw in our identification of potential applicants for the job if all three who would go through processes and be successful at other clubs would not even be considered by us. Someone said it before - it's not about whether Neeld is a good coach or not, it's about whether he was the right man for the job, and did we look thoroughly enough before his appointment. To me, not interviewing any of McCartney, Sanderson or Watters is a giant red flag that there is a problem. Now if there are questions about the handling of the appointment of the CEO and the Senior Coach, logically the next step is to wonder about the appointment or review processes to do with other important areas - admin staff, football department staff, assistant coaches, list management etc

Moloney didn't want to leave Geelong Demon SeaMan, and Bomber Thompson was shattered to give him up but they need to recruit a big forward and they thought Ottens was it - in the end he became their Ruck and they never really solved the second big forward problem until Pods, not that it hurt them! It was sad to see Beamer run around this year staring at his opponent and not trying to win the ball, which was his greatest asset. Personally I felt last year he was as good as any other inside clearance midfielder in the AFL. I'm sure another club will pick him up and he'll have a great year next year. Good luck to him - he played every game in red and blue with passion, and more than any other player was the one that seemed to rally the troops and lead by example on the field. I was a fan before he got to us and I'll be a fan wherever he goes next