Carrot Top

I fall in and out of love with players, coaches and even the whole team, but I'm always true to the club.

I guess that makes you easily impressed. Sheahan is a muckraker and seems to delight in taking aim at us.

Sure. That's why I'm pretty forgiving of Bailey. Not completely, mind you, but I don't lay it all at his feet. There has been a hell of a lot of sooking from so called leaders that felt they were entitled to prepare and play the way they wanted, and not be held to account for it, since the end of the Daniher years. Too much playing favourites and not enough insistence on players earning their spot week in week out. Bailey had a tough job because of our complete lack of leadership in that 23-28 year old group, so the surviving older players of those years were given an armchair ride again purely because we had nobody else. But at the same time the unaccountable footy, the 'games into the kids' before it was earned, and that bloody word competitive (which made everyone feel good as long as we didn't get smacked by ten goals) just passed the baton to the next generation. Now we have to either change that culture or die, and I don't care how hard or long the cure take as long as at the end we have a club that refuses to accept anything but the best. If that means cutting every infected player no matter what their pedigree then I'm backing it. I think we'll see some unexpected players stand up to this demand, and those that don't can go and infect another club.

Aye. Uncoachable kept getting thrown around while he was on our list. I guess Richmond couldn't find the magic button either.

Bailey cut but didn't demand excellence from those that remained. That's not exactly a new thing around this club though, so I can forgive him that. He assumed - like many of us did - that all that was needed was to give the talent games and a couple of years growth, and success would follow. We found out the hard way that that sort of plan did more damage than good, and now Neeld has inherited a list that needs that mind set shaken out of it. I don't know if Neeld's approach will work. Maybe things are too far gone and maybe we won't be able to get the talent we need to become a powerful team again, but it's got to be tried. We won't get anywhere until the whole list is prepared to do whatever it takes every time they run on the field, and I'll back him as long as I think that is the message he is trying to send.

The spuds at our club that think that they can coast while they are here and then just jump to another club when they get hurt feelings by being told they aren't up to it, really want to have a good hard look at where the players of the past five years have ended up.

Neeld can sack anyone he feels like as far as I'm concerned. I'm not backing the players one inch. They lost me against Geelong last year.

Forgot about this place. I've never payed that much attention to Monfries so I'm not really sure what to make of it. I guess that Neeld and co have runs on the board with Clark so I'm assuming they got someone we can use to good effect.

"Angus Monfries to Melbourne. Four year deal. Rival clubs convinced it's happening. Dees need a hard working small forward." Jay Clark's twitter. Not sure what to think of this. We do need one but is he the one we need?

So which method of the last forty eight years would you prefer gets used? That's what's bloody wrong with this club in a nutshell. If the players don't buy in then they can [censored] off. It's an honour (and a very well paid one) to wear the red and blue jumper. If that means working until you spew every training session then so be it because if we don't harden up then we are going to be a memory in five years.

Nope. Show some strength. Make the next [censored] that thinks they can walk out on the club and screw us over think more than twice about it.

I hope he gets 20 years.

And what century will that be? How about we get at least one elite mid first before we even look at Jordie's role or place in the side.

Who's offloading him? Unless he's been told there is no space for him on the list then it'll be his call.

That's about where I am at. We have money and I we can't really blame him for the on field stuff so I guess it's a good thing.

Nice. Very nice. He's one of a limited few that I really wanted to re-sign.

I'm sure we have more important things to worry about.

How is it clear? Have I missed something by avoiding the wrist slitting around here the last week or so?

A half decent team would have beaten us comfortably today. A win is a win, and I'm not handing it back, but I also see it for what it was: a poor team playing a poorer one.

Agree with that (and extra bonus points for working in both theatres of WW2) except for the jumper bit. The jumper is ALWAYS bigger than the man that wears it.

Sure we can. We carried Newton for years. Hell, we've had entire potato farms sitting on the list vegetating. This is well worth risking.

I've seen worse of the field in the 70's and 80's, but by God nothing comes close to how horrible the last twelve months has been for us as a club. From the moment the ball was bounced to start the 186 game we've been smashed from pillar to post with just about every piece of bad luck possible. About the only thing that has gone right was the snaffling of Clark and then he's gone for the season now. I'm just waiting for the season to end where hopefully I will see a whole raft of NQR players given the boot, and where we will draft the best available (not for needs) and maybe trade for a need or two.

To me he will always be remembered as a broken down hack playing for Hawthorn. That's all the time I give him now.

If they don't give him the death penalty I'm going to be [censored] off.

It's not hubris. It's good old fashioned schadenfreude. It will be hubris if we clean up with the compo picks though.