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I heard Patrick Smith this morning. Patrick Smith then went on to say that Matthew Knights would be a good option as a replacement for Bailey because he is an experienced coach. Patrick Smith stopped being relevant a very long time ago

Couldn't possibly at 35 but has he expressed an interest in being involved at AFL club level? He could be a development coach or assistant coach

That and players apologising for their performance after a bad loss Range!

I think the right decision was made. The club will be called reactionary for the decision but it's more than just the size of the defeat, it's the way it happened. Bailey inherited a difficult job four years is a long time in football and we are a long way past the period where we would have copped a flogging like that. I have said in other threads that I think Todd Viney should take the job for the rest of the year and we should appoint the best available Assistant coach from one of the top clubs. To me it's a choice in two between Sanderson and Neeld.

From the report I heard on radio he was pretty determined to play, which considering it's against his former club is not surprising, but ultimately it would have to be the Coach's decision based on advice from the Club Doctor

Viney would have to be the interim coach but he obviously doesn't have desires to be a Senior Coach or he wouldn't have taken the job doing running Development at Melbourne when he'd been a highly rated Assistant Coach at the Hawks and the Crows. In terms of a replacement I don't think we need an experienced coach as much as we need a coach who is up with modern trends. From day one Bailey has been years behind where the game is at, and this is evident by now with how little we "press" in our forward half compared to the likes of Collingwood, Carlton and West Coast. I would much rather see a Mark Neeld, a Scott Burns or a Brenton Sanderson who have come from a currently successful environment as the next MFC coach

People often forget to add, the McDonald situation was the culmination of a number of senior players being pushed out, and led to Cameron Bruce's decision to leave as well. While in most cases they were correct decisions in terms of the future, they put a gulf between the players and the club when it comes to respect, and particularly at a club that has won so little in the last few years, these problems pile up and snowball down a slippery slope.

I agree. It's the same with any business. Quality people are everything.

It's hard to say there is not a talented list there given all the top draft picks that now have 30-40+ games experience. That talent is the reason we win games against the lesser sides like Richmond or Adelaide, Fremantle and Brisbane when we play them in Melbourne. Clearly the fact that we cannot be competitive against the other 3/4 of the league and the gap between our best and worst is so big suggests there is a real problem with the message that the coaching staff are delivering or trying to deliver. We should have seen considerable improvement over the last four years, but we haven't. If the Board have been watching closely enough then they'll see it the same way.

There's obviously some off field issues, there have been rumblings for months suggesting problems. It may not be that any of the people in place are necessarily bad at their jobs, but maybe the mix is just not right. It's clear from that press conference answer that there are issues in the background.

Moloney was sick according to the post match press conference, battling the flu. Bit surprising he passed a fitness test considering how little he was able to run once the game started.

Is there a set sanction for this sort of breach of the rules? Just seems a bit too perfect that eight weeks takes us to the end of the H+A season. Maybe just a little more of the AFL making up the rules on the run

Surely Sanderson is the best available of all the experienced Assistants out there. He's been with the best club of the last five years, and from all reports the only reason he didn't get the Geelong job was that they wanted to bring in an outside influence to freshen up an older list, which has probably so far been shown to be a good decision. He's coached the defenders for his time at Geelong as well, so he'd bring a defensive influence and hopefully some of Geelong's attacking flair

There's probably influential businessmen at Carlton and Hawthorn and maybe other clubs that are thinking of puting together the funds to lure Malthouse - it's still 90% likely he'll stay at Collingwood

I think he will stay. A lot of journos have been proved wrong already, the ones who said he had already signed with GWS, when it's clear that he hasn't.