The heart beats true

Say what you want about Adam Goodes' reaction to what was clearly a racist comment, the guy is a genuine star. Take note MFC - when the media world is swirling around you if you show up and play hard nothing else matters.

Pardon my simplification but its wonderful that in a room with Neeld and co everyone feels like they are doing their best, but if you've ever managed anyone you know that some people are great at telling you what they should do, and then failing at doing it. We are failing on field and I am so tired of reading anything that comes out of the footy club when they continually put in the effort they do on the weekend. Everyone can feel all warm about words, but its a joke relative to what we actually pay for as members. And Robbo needs to be very careful about potting former players. We have an obvious cultural issue at the club and creating a climate that is dismissive of former teammates just makes us look petty and often makes former players look wise in their decision making. Not exactly a good message to send.

Just to be clear an article about a former players opinion about the club is not 'the biggest slap in the face of all'. They are just words. I'm tired of words from everybody associated with the club. The biggest slap in the face is the lack of effort being showed week in week out by players that in theory only represent the same club as Ron Barassi, Robbie Flower and Jimmy Stynes did. I'm just fed up with semantics and potential. If they don't try they don't deserve to be there. Enough is enough. Yesterday's effort was not worthy of the passion and support offered by so many of us. End rant.

We Are [censored]

What was going on at the siren with Chip and Trengove? It looked like Chip was not happy and let him know he thought he was being lazy by not pushing back. That about sums up where we are. A former good player yelling at another former good player that's also the captain and now can't get a kick.

They said 30,000 people left at 3/4 time. That's the best thing about the current crop of Melbourne supporters at games. We certainly aren't fickle.

The moonboot is the new blazer.

I really want to see what others see in Nev but I've never seen him play a game where he's had any genuine impact. Admittedly he's been swung around a lot, but I just don't see him getting better and being up to it. Ditto Bail and Nicholson, and Mckenzie tries his heart out but just doesn't have the basic skills to be an AFL player. Not sure where Strauss is going either. Tough times ahead for those guys I suspect.

Dawes is a genuine forward in the modern sense. He'll only get better the more he plays with and understands our players delivery. The Richmond spud of a supporter in front of me got stuck into him in the last quarter (only once they felt comfortable enough that they wouldn't lose). I pointed out to him that unfortunately Dawesy is no gun like Ty Vickery. He didn't like that much. Chris will be good for us. He gives us something to aim at while we wait on Mitch and Jesse.

Sylvia would have made a huge difference this week. (Oh, and Richmond supporters are the softest, whiney fans in the game. I look forward to them just missing the finals. Again.)

Regardless of the outcome I'm bloody glad we didn't get Wellingham. 500k a year and an injury from a trampoline that he can't get over. I thought we were the only club to pull off something that absurd.

It was outrageous. They basically handed them 2 shots at goal. I'd think those umpires will be defended by Jeff Geischen all week, and then not get a game next week.

It's a no for the experience reasons mentioned previously. I do think he should get involved at board level. I think he'd tell a few home truths. For what it's worth I think that the senior coaching role needs to be changed psychologically but a lot of the rest of the positions are really hard to evaluate given that the previous CEO had everyone's balls in his purse. It's hard to judge Josh Mahoney and Craig's roles externally anyways, but even more difficult given our previous management 'structure'.

Joel Macdonald? James Sellar? Jake Spencer? Who am I missing?

Has Pederson ever played down back? Those of you with eyes on the VFL might be able to Illuminate us all. I've only seen him forward and on the ball.

I'd say the concept of this thread is equal to the content of this thread.

Agreed CBF. I get the distinct impression that the board thought everything Jim did was untouchable and so have been in paralysis since his death in the hope that everyone put in place would come good. It seems to be in direct contrast to their actual roles of oversight and governance. Although what impressed me the most about your post was the Rick James reference. There is not enough Super Freak in modern footy.

I think the club should have 2 priorities: 1. Secure Peter Jackson to a 3 year contract. The league love him, whose help we need desperately. 2. Get AFL approval (not publicly, yet) on a priority pick. If we can shop those around we can land a great, experienced coach. Once we get an experienced coach we can use that priority pick to our advantage and start shopping our early picks around for experienced mids. Mids that will want to come to the club and play under a proven coach.

I think some might be missing that we don't need a midfield player. We need a midfield, as in 3-4 players. We shouldn't buy anything but midfielders. Our defence is workable and our forwards are workable (down a crumber admittedly). We won't know what they are capable of until our midfield is functioning at AFL standard.

But, it gives us the opportunity to move the ball quickly and under pressure and still be in with a shot. Look at Carlton last night. All the Saints had to do was put pressure on the kick in and the resting ruckman could get to the contest. He can't be in 3 places at once. The possibility of our forward line is what keeps my heart beating. Don't take it away from me

Thai, your comments about Dawes are way off base. On the weekend Sylvia alone kicked the ball over his head 5 times with a dumb long bomb. It happened too often to be a coincidence. It's obviously part of the game plan and is bloody terrible. Dawes was in front each time and a couple of times sprayed at Col (who thoroughly deserved it). I can't understand the desire to crucify Dawes already from some. So we paid overs? well we did it so we met the salary cap and you can bet the contract is front loaded while we can afford it (from a salary cap perspective). Put Dawes, Clark and Hogan in the same team and we have the potential for a brutally good forward line. You have to think passed last week when we had the worst midfield we've put on the park in 150 years.

While I do think that fresh blood would be constructive for the board of the footy club I also think that's it's important that we all understand the difference between the Board and it's role in corporate governance versus the CEO and his role in management. While I've not supported the tone from the board in regards to communication to members I do think that 80% of our clubs issue are management issues as opposed to governance issues. It's fairly obvious that the board brought too heavily into our previous CEO and as a result must share the blame for his failures. In that regard they should be held accountable. But moving forward I also think we should keep in mind that it's the CEO that is making daily decisions regarding the club. I think thats where my hope for the footy club will come from. A strong President is important but a visible, authoritative CEO can make a huge difference on a day to day basis and thats more likely what the players and footy department will buy into. To put it more bluntly - I doubt Daisy Thomas gives a [censored] about Russell Howcroft, but I reckon he'd like to sit in a meeting with Jackson and talk about his future.

At least he has a dip. As first year players I can handle the occasional skill error as they adapt to the speed of the game. I'd say Terlich is the same category. I don't mind mistakes when they come from players who go and get the footy and are still adjusting to the pace. Both of these blokes are good picks by the MFC (can't believe I just typed that sentence).

All of these things are OK with me. What's the alternative? I don't think Diamond Joe is lurking in the shadows with his cheque book out (Although with the season quickly turning into a soap opera I could actually see that being our final episode cliff hanger).

It's a fairly common problem. Our issues are exacerbated by a genuine lack of on field leadership. We probably have 1 player over the age of 22 who is both consistent in his effort and is on the field often enough to have an impact. Most other teams have 10-15. There isn't a whole lot that any great leader could do with that. It's easy to say that everyone isn't working, but I agree with what Jackson said on the weekend. It's really hard to tell what works when nothing appears to be working. I'm slowly coming around to the idea that he should just challenge everyone to show us what they've got in 2013 in order to keep their job. I would have thought that it should be obvious that a bunch of highly paid professionals should be doing this anyway, but given the obvious management void that had been prevalent at the club then maybe establishing a standard and holding people accountable to it is all we can do.