The heart beats true

I'd like Gary Ablett and Joel Selwood, but unfortunately they are about as likely to come over as Luke given his contract and brand value.

Probably because Jack didn't get close to it last week. It's not your fault LD.

KC, I can't express how helpful it is that you do this for us all on D'Land. Thanks for all you do mate. It's a big help.

And they looked good in the finals last year...oh, wait.

No! Never! What are you insinuating about the club? We are just about to turn the corner on the back of this Coach and Board. How dare you!

But again these rotten foundations are only true if you believe the current perspective. If you tell people that something isn't right with them then they will clearly believe it. He was brought in with a mandate to essentially support the CEO's belief that the players weren't any good and the whole thing needed to be scrapped. Well he's certainly proven that right. I think in hindsight he'll regret going so hard so early. They are now devoid of spirit and confidence and he needs to turn them around really quickly or he'll go at the end of the year. And in regards to those rotten foundations, whether you agree with his predecessors game plan (and for the record I thought it was riddled with holes) Bailey's coaching record is actually statistically better than Neelds currently. If he's not concerned about his career he should be.

I understand your point 3165. I guess my frustration is that if your going to spend your time complaining about the foundations don't buy the house in the first place. Neelds face after Rd 1 2012, and Rd 1 2013 tell me that he has the equivalent in real estate terms of buyers remorse. 'We didn't see that coming' is an entirely valid comment if its followed up by performances that more appropriately represent the endeavour expected. Instead we delivered the biggest loss at the MCG ever. I'm not convinced he has answers, I just think that all he can do is speak about training and building because we are so uncompetitive. That's not really how the game works though. We didn't keep Cale Morton because he talked a good game and was training well. The old adage 'You have to leave everything out there' is true. It's a tough world, but if it was easy they wouldn't be paying him 400k a year to do it.

My knife and fork are well and truly ready. They have 6 years of rust on them so it might be a bit of a sour meal. I want him to succeed, I really genuinely do. It just worries me that on one hand we have to constantly hear about accountability and work rate and on the other hear how the players are so far behind other clubs (with the insinuation that Bailey was a hack). Management is about 2 things - responsibility and performance. The performance is very ordinary as we all know and too often it's because our training wasn't right before. That doesn't sound responsible to me. Unfortunately he doesn't have time to mould the club into exactly what he wants. To do that is to ignore the business realities of the sport. To the original point of the thread he is learning, but we don't have time for too much more learning. If his track record remains after 40 odd games the industry will do what it's always done and cut him, and they'll do it because the performances aren't good enough and ultimately he is responsible for that.

Have to agree with the 'we need mids' mentality. We are going to have to throw series coin at a quality mid and get it done in almost the first day of trading. Last year we went after a few and not one of the mids bit because they know how important it is to have a good midfield team around you. If we get one quality player early to support Jones then others will look and see that their life won't be impossible with Viney and a few others coming through. I dont care if we have to pay well over for that first quality mid. Our player payments have actually been very skilfully handled to allow us to do this and get it right.

Ok. It wasn't 'only GWS', it was a team of predominantly 19 year olds. I liked seeing us kick 12 goals in a quarter but to be honest we REALLY need some quality play put together against a side that forces us to compete. I can't imagine that Neelds defensive coaching style would be built around us having 12 goal quarters. In that regard I find him a fascinating coach. He's been all about defensive pressure yet the only time we've looked like a side this year it's been really attacking. In that regard I still think easily his most impressive victory was against Essendon last year and oddly enough it's a statistical anomaly in terms of our competitiveness.

I reckon if you watch the pregame presser from Rd 1 2012 to the tone of how he speaks now you'll see a marked difference. He's learning. Pity it's taken 21 loses to get there. As Henry Matisse said 'Better late than never is poor consultation for the man that's missed the opportunity of a lifetime'. Neeld is in a tough spot now, as everyone's lining up to kick him.

That's a frightening thought for both of us Stafford!

Great points, but a few things I'd like to have answered... The review by Jackson is obviously critical. Did the club not have an internal review a few years ago and fail to respond to what they heard because they didn't like it? I genuinely believe that this is a large part of the culture issues at the club. You can't ask for honest feedback and then turn your back on it when it comes. It creates enormous disunity. I don't think Neeld should take responsibility for the football department in it's entirety. I think the current structure creates more accountability and allows for greater checks and balances. Couldn't agree with you more on the CEO position. It's obvious our current board relied very heavily on CS's word and although I acknowledge he was part of a great success in wiping the clubs debt they made a huge error in extending his contract given the clubs financial position (wafer thin profit in 2012) and the impending investigation (that well and truly pushed us into the red).

And I reckon it's a valid point. It's too soon to be judging Sugar or Geoff, but I also think 2-3 new faces in the mix would be interpreted as the club looking for the right formula for success. We didn't lose too much sleep over saying good bye to Cale Morton who joined the club in 2008. He had 5 years to get it right and I think it's fair to say that he didn't take the next step. Should we not be judging our administration by the same standards? If we want to foster a culture of accountability and success then it works across all levels of the organization.

Surely you use this only as a theoretical example. No lady could resist that face

Evidently that's far too logical a point for this thread.

Actually I based by research on the Financial Report of the club from 2012. It reads like this... McLardy - 2008 Jalland - 2008 Spargo - 2008 Grimshaw - 2008 Hayes - 2006 Howcroft - 2008 Thurin - 2008 Trotter - 2010 Sugar Healy - 2012 and then Geoff Freeman was added recently (perhaps that should read ominously instead of recently). I'd say 7 out of 10 would constitute 'most'. I don't want to argue with you. I think you do great things for the footy club mate. I just think some more new blood would create a new energy and a little more belief from the members.

Another one of these threads, even I'm getting bored of them and I'm a major contributor to them. Here is my 2 cents: Board hasn't had a good 12-18 months. The appointment of CS was a disaster (which admittedly is easy to see in hindsight, but none the less that fact remains). I am not advocating at all for a board dismissal. I do think we should create an environment around the club that welcomes new ideas and people into the board because I don't think they should be pardoned for where we stand. Most of them have 5 years in their current positions. I said this the other day to someone but I think it's relevant here. Out current board were put in place by the big fella with him as their leader. He had clear roles for them at the time and obviously what's happened since has literally left them without a skipper. I think Don has done his best but the fact remains that recent results speak for themselves. I think the club should appoint a new President but Don should stay on so that the club has unity. Will the egos involved allow this to happen? Who knows. It's a tough one. I do want those that are contemplating a run to know that they will have support should they put their hand up. I think that's at least a start.

Calm down. I never said I've put my faith in anyone. I'm merely trying to ascertain if anyone's genuine about change, and in trying to do it in a positive way that might inspire people to step forward. But don't stress Hardtack. I've got you down as a firm no, and that's ok with me.

Glad I impressed you HT. That was the goal Intriguing point about the use of the forum. I think its a very naive person in this day and age that neglects the power of Social Media to create and inspire change. Yes it can be faceless, but it can also build quickly and efficiently to something that would have been impossible to replicate 20 years ago (look at what a few folks on here created at training 2 weeks ago). It's not just about anointing an individual, it's also about creating support for the idea of change. The new board members may not come from here (or they may), but if we create a climate of acceptance to new people and ideas then I think we will have achieved something. Or we could sit around and complain and not do anything. It's worked so well for us so far.

Would you like a financial report Hardtack? I'll just post it for you mate. (That was sarcasm in case you missed it.) It's not about my company mate. I only mentioned it in passing to say that I have experience with running a business, but that I thought there could be more people on here with even more experience that I would support should they wish to come forward (and some, to their credit have been in touch) I'm now doubting whether D'Land is the best environment to inspire change. In that regard I suspect we've proven the subtext of Sue's original post to be painfully true.

It's pretty infuriating to me as a member of this forum that we can't express a level of disappointment with the board without being accused of treason and told to run for a board seat. If you study the history of our current administration you'll see a lot of them have been put in place by someone perceived to be the spiritual leader of our club at the time. They all have extraordinary creditentials on paper and success in the business world. I'm sure when put in place the perception was that they were the right people for the job. Remember most of this was in 2008. That's 5 years to turn things around. We don't accept that from on field performance, with the only real difference for off field performance being that they've admitted they've failed. By anyone's standards that's damning. Could one of us run for the board? Well, technically yes we could. I think the bigger question is how to convince the supporter base that we'd be a better fit than the current group. I'm not Russell Howcroft in terms of my business accomplishments (I use Russell only as an example). But then again I don't think most of us are Colin Sylvia on the footy field either and I've noticed it stops non of us from having an opinion about our on field competitiveness. I think the question isn't just should we have the right to complain though. Lets turn it into something more positive than that. I put it to D'Landers to tell us what they want from a new board member. If we can find the right people here judged against that standard not only should we put them up, I'd say we have a moral obligation to help them replace an administration that is essentially admitting defeat. So come on folks. What do we want our new board member/s to look like? (I'm going to have a think about it too and post later when I've got some more time)

I'll look at it and ignore the fact that it was Chelsea (who I actually think is magnificent for the game). My issue is that she was in the best position for at least 2 of the 3 decisions. There's no way a camera could see more than she did from her vantage point. It's making a joke of them even needing to be there if this is what happens. The field ump can call it 9 times out of 10, with the 10th going to review regardless. I don't like the system. I think it makes the umpires look less in control, kills the flow of the game, and very rarely gives a definitive decision.

To be brutally honest with you Sue my business likes to be associated with winning and success, so I'll not be sponsoring out current club. But I love that at the first sign of someone putting their hand up you've sniped at them. Go ahead. I'm not going to accuse you of taking a cheap shot from the 'cheap seats'. I'm smart enough not to do that.

What a misguided, entitled opinion to have Don. If this was his actual business he would not tolerate the level of ineptitude that has plagued this club for far too long. The issue is that those on the board at the club see it as their knighthood. They've been successful in business and so they see this as the reward. Well guess what? It's not. On paper we have some extraordinarily talented people on our board. I read all of their profiles last night. But, as our drafting has painfully taught us, success isn't measured on paper. It's measured on the ground and on the financial report. They've failed, they've admitted they've failed and now we are expected to feel sorry for them. They need to accept that Jim may have put them in place but he did so so they could take the club forward. They seem at a complete loss to want to lead, and at a loss to evolve the culture of our club and begin to stand for something. It's not a thankless task. You get to make decisions for, and represent, the greatest football club in the world. If that's not enough for you then please move on. My Internet name is Heart Beats True, but in the real world I run a successful multimillion dollar company with offices in Australia and New York, and it would be an honor to represent the MFC's proud, passionate and wonderfully stubborn members. I think there are people here on this forum that have much better credentials than I do. Lets find those people and put them on our board, and when we put them there lets remind those in power that we'll continue to judge those in charge, and replace them if need be, because that is how our special breed of democracy works. Until then I implore our board to stop asking what everyone can do for them and instead start representing the club with the pride and honor that our club deserves. It starts at the top.