Cranky Franky

15 hours ago, Laughing Goat said:

Cornes is certainly trying to elevate his standing amongst the radio industry but some of what he says has meaning......whether you like him or not!

In my opinion Lever appears to be an outstanding person but currently overpaid, IMO & thus far under-delivered. May the same.....

Harmes good on him getting a an extra 4 years which ties him to the club for another 5 years, but really 3 would have been appropriate I reckon.

Time will tell if Cornes has over-reacted or a good call.....

 

The first intelligent comment on this issue.  Demonlanders seem to have lost their ability to think critically & everything the management does gets greeted with loud applause.  5 years is a ridiculous deal for a good solid player.  Only Gawn & maybe Oliver would be worthy of such a deal.  Over long contracts is how Clubs get themselves into trouble - form & injury can mean a drop off very quickly. 

I reckon a lot of Demonlanders have collectively gone mad & lost their objectivity and logical reasoning in their desperate quest for success.

What happened to the NO Dickhe@ds policy.

Have people forgotten the troubles & dramas this bloke has caused at 2 Clubs !! with regard to drugs and poor discipline.

 And this is before you even begin to look at his injury problems

Absolute disaster.  Has been trouble & a disappointment at 2 Clubs.  You start recruiting di#%heads and you reap the result.

The problem with ANB is that his skills are very shaky under any sort of pressure.  He also needs more aggression and physical pressure in his makeup.

Plus he just has to kick those 50/50 goal opportunities that present to him.

What a load of absolute nonsense - straight out of the Melbourne PR Dpt.  Tomlinson might be able to run 3 marathons in a row but he is still an average plodder.

I was flabbergasted to read that our BT rates Frost behind Josh Wagner & Oscar McD because no other sane person who watches football would agree with them.

Reminds me that we gave away a Kings ransom to get Lever when we effectively gave away Jeremy Howe who has become one of the top intercept defenders in the competition.

And to those who always pipe up that Howe was going to leave anyway - I have never seen evidence of that & recall that we made no effort to keep him & were very happy to trade him away.  

37 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

Whelan was drafted in 1999.

Davey in 2004.

Aussie 2007.

Jurrah 2008.

You've listed 4 players drafted over a 10 year span seemingly as an example of how 'often' we recruited Indigenous players.

We had 5 Indigenous players on our list this year.

 

You are missing the point - which is - that there are a lot of hidden gems among potential Indigenous recruits.

For example we select Johnson & Bedford who at best need years of development whereas Richmond pick up Shai Bolton & Sidney Stack, not to mention Marlion Pickett who are ready to play from day 1.  We used to be very good at this - now we are not.  

Melbourne used to be very good at recruiting talented Aboriginal players - usually a bit more mature & experienced than raw 18 year olds - we had great success with Matt Whelan, Ozzie Woannemirri, Liam Jurrah & Aaron Davey.    In recent years we seemed to have sopped looking. We have picked up Dion Johnstone & Jay Kennedy Harris while Richmond have managed to pick several diamonds out of the rough ie Bolton, Stack & now Pickett. 

Our recruiters need to wake up.

6 hours ago, Demonsone said:

Club needs it’s own VFL side gain complete control of its player development & honestly having our vfl side @ Casey 50klm away I’m just not sure how this works?? Im old school but both senior & reserves should be training together with all your coaches together. Tigers vfl playing in 2 of the 4 last gf 

Are you a dill or just uninformed ?

We have a VFL side - its called the Casey Demons & we completely control every aspect of it including player development.  Get with the program.

On 1/26/2018 at 5:27 PM, dazzledavey36 said:

Dylan Crimes, Mitch Morton, Steven Armstrong, Trent West...

Front seat passengers of a premiership side.

Grimes is a hack. 

Sorry but I'm still bitter about us recruiting Joel MacDonald over Dylan Grimes. Just cannot get over it. Add that to Paul Roos saying that Toby Green & Shaun Higgins were available to us for loose change a few years ago - what might have been !!???

I thought he was finished last year but 9 goals from 7 games means he was on track for a 30 goal season - even with a dodgy shoulder.   He is still a mile ahead of any other small forward we have so I would give him a performance based one year deal.  Lets not throw out the baby with the bathwater.  

Our current coaching group does not seem to be very good at developing young players.  Unless you are an outstanding prospect most young players need to learn the game at VFL level then when they are playing consistent footy at Casey you slowly ease them into first grade.

I despair that we have wrecked any chance Oscar McD & Spargo have of being AFL players by playing them when they were not ready & not giving them time to learn the game & develop - now I worry that we will do the same to Dunkley..  Hope I'm wrong. 

Spargo's biggest problem is that he has been developed poorly.  He should have played 3 or 4 games last year then gone back to Casey to develop & hone his craft not played 15 odd games its really the Club's fault.

Also not sure he has the weapons to be a small fwd - I reckon he should go to the mid field to hone his skills.

Give him a break - I know he looks about 40 but he has only played 13 games of senior footy & he came to AFL fairly late.  It will be another 3 or 4 years before he becomes an effective player.  We probably need a ready made back up while Preuss learns the trade.

All true but a few other facts:

Coaches got ahead of themselves we are not as good as we think.

Poor planning to lose 3 big forwards - Watts, Pedersen, Hogan without adequate replacements

We are slow - other teams have been recruiting fast outside runners & quick small pressure forwards while we have been picking slow plodding mids

Some players not up to it & need to be moved on

We need better specialist coaches - a forward coach needs to have been a top level forward with lots of experience not a half back flanker who has has done a level 4 accreditation

Our injury management has been woeful 

2 hours ago, poita said:

I am not a massive fan of Aaron Vandenberg as a player, but I can certainly accept that some of our best football in 2018 was played when he was in the side late in the season.

By the end of this season AVB will have played just 7 out of 69 AFL games across three seasons, an appalling return for a player who will be 28 before next season starts.

Give that, I am surprised at the radio silence surrounding his continued absence and ongoing injury issues. I would like to know:

1. Is AVB's current injury related to overuse or to a single, unavoidable event? Did we push him too hard to return in 2018, or again through the 2019 preseason?

2. Given AVB's injury history and Sydney's reported interest last year, on what basis did we offer him a three year contract? Was this in any way conditional on his continued fitness?

3. Did giving AVB a long term contract, presumably on decent money, affect our ability to retain either Tyson or Kent?

4. When did it become apparent that AVB would take little or no part in this season, as the initial reports were that he would return sooner rather than later (ie within weeks, not months)? Why have members not been kept better informed on his progress.

5. Has there been any progress made since round 1? Will AVB be able to do a full pre season, or are we still completely in the dark as to what the problem is?

6. Is AVB still in Melbourne doing rehab, or is he off working in his family business?

7. At what point do we consider paying out AVB's contract and freeing up a list position if he can't get back on the training track?

This is called being wise after the event.  Everyone is a genius in hindsight.

Don't forget he was probably our best player over the 3 finals we played.

That said I doubt he will play again - 7 games in 3 seasons & 27 years old.

Really disappointed in this bloke & good to see he got a week for headbutting.  He used to be one of my favourite non MFC players because of his fearless attack on the ball & unselfish play.

Saturday changed that - he was acting up for frees & milking it shamelessly.  He was tackled legitimately but went down like he was shot & got paid a free for over the shoulder, later on he again got tackled fairly by Petty I think & milked it again & sucked the umpire in for another free.  Spectators at the ground picked it up & he was then booed the next few times he went near the pill.  Really poor umpiring. 

Virtually from the goal square no less - shanks nearly all his kicks left & has learnt nothing since costing us the Geelong game last year.

In an era when most aspects of player training & development are monitored & measured to within a millimetre of their life why on earth don't we put some resources into improving players kicking.

Can't we get maybe Brad Green, Yze, Garry Lyon, Neita all of whom were great kicks to spend some time with the likes of Max, Fritsch, Trac, Tim Smith & Hunt to improve their kicking.

Develop a routine, consistent ball drop, where to aim and when passing to a team mate learn to hit him on the chest not a metre above the head.

Is all this too obvious or what ? 

12 minutes ago, deegirl said:

 

In the eyes of the majority Adam Goodes was an 'uppity [censored]' who didn't know his place. That's why he got booed. 

That is a very poor argument.  You have made an assertion without providing any evidence at all.

You may as well say "98% of those booing were racists because that's what i think".

Furthermore you haven't explained why say Michael Long - another "uppity" and outspoken player wasn't booed when he called out  racial abuse. 

People are forgetting that there was no booing until a 13 year old girl called Goodes an ape.  Now I'm not sure if that was a racist comment but I have heard Carl Ditterich, Crackers Keenan & Damian Monkhorst all called apes by opposition supporters. 

The AFL security goons then dragged the 13 year old away & would not let her see her parents for a period of time.

The parents complained about her treatment in the media early on & the crowds unfairly took it out on Goodes by booing him.  The AFL made things worse by prevaricating.    That's really the start & finish of the affair.

Comments by clowns like McGuire & Newman did not help.

As far as I know there has never been any booing of other Indigenous players including outspoken or "uppity" one like Gav Wanganeen, Winmar or Michael Long.

The critics haven't presented a skerrick of actual evidence that the booing was racially motivated.

The public loves a furore about racism - it sells in the media.  No racism angle = no documentary.

He was an ex Melbourne player who had some success in coaching in WA.  He had a pretty crap playing list & he was a pretty crap coach.

15 hours ago, Bobby McKenzie said:

Hope you are not implying that Trevor Barker didn't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame? He was a champion footballer and fine young man.

Look Barker was certainly a very good player & a good person but there was a huge amount of public grief & emotion when he passed away at a fairly young age & I think that played into the HOF decision.  There is a reasonable case that better footballers than Trevor have not yet made the HOF.

4 hours ago, Petraccattack said:

Tough gig for a first gamer, but keen to see Oskar Baker make his debut.   A big bodied mid with serious pace who loves a goal. Just what the doctor ordered.

Have you actually got the right player ???

Oskar is not big bodied (82kg) and he's definitely not a mid.

He is a pacy outside player & maybe a crumbing forward.

1 hour ago, Redlagged said:

Amateur hour all right. A lot of amateur medicos on this site. Wouldn't know a knee from an elbow. Going off half-cocked. Must be the time of day.

Amateur hour is right.   Amateur covering their backsides: 

Misson said “So he’ll probably need to unload that for a couple of weeks, so if we unload it for two or three weeks it’s probably a similar amount of time to reload him and get him ready to play again.

“We’re not putting a time frame on it, he’s feeling a lot better now so he could potentially start loading again at the end of this week, but it’s a little bit open ended.”

Goodwin quizzed ............................at a press conference.

“Joel had acute awareness of his groin,” Goodwin told reporters.

“We certainly respect groin injuries and the load around that so that’s what we’re going to do as a club.”

Anyone ever hear such [censored].

At least say "sorry we stuffed up".

16 hours ago, Stormy Dee said:

He’s not as bad as you.

Look he was actually one of my favourites in his first 2 years but you have to be a bit hard nosed & objective if you want to be a successful Club.  He is ok if he is left on his own but as soon as he has to do anything under any sort of pressure he goes to pieces, falls over, misses his targets & generally panics.

The Box Hill smalls (who are VFL standard) destroyed him in the last half of the GF.