Cranky Franky

People need to remember the mid 90's when we struggled to get 15,000 when we played any Adelaide or Perth teams in Melbourne.

6 Jetta 5 Hibberd 4 Tom McDonald 3 Viney 2 Oliver 1 ANB Gawn & Garlett Unlucky to miss

Well there you go - pretty much everyone disagrees with you including me in fact I think you are the pissant here & not NJ.

The thing that has the biggest long term influence on a Club's performance is the AFL's scheduling. Teams like Collingwood, Essendon, Carlton & the Swans get a huge boost by getting more choice time "free to air " games than Clubs like Melbourne & the Dogs. This leads to more sponsorship $ & more members due to their greater exposure. This means more $$ & better facilities & makes it easier to recruit quality players.

The well reasoned response would be - we stuffed up even though we are paid a lot of $$ a year to get it right. It really pees me off when drunks in the outer can spot the obvious a month before the highly paid coaches can work it out. The use of Frost as a forward last year is a case in point & the idiocy of ignoring Cam Pedersen for several weeks probably cost us a game or 2. The fact that Bernie Vince is not a defender seems to have finally clicked & the penny about JKH will eventually drop.

I'm sure North supporters are glad they had a selection committee that overruled Ron Barassi when he wanted to drop Blight after the drawn GF. Alan Jeans didn't do the Club any favours by trading away Ian Stewart & if St Kilda had of made Ross Lyon more accountable they might not have got rid of Luke Ball & recruited Andrew Lovett & would probably had an extra flag in their cupboard.

There are lots of supporters on this site that always back every decision the coaching staff make. At the moment Jack Trengove can't get a game & while many are scratching their heads plenty are backing Goodwin & saying that Trengove is too slow & can't cut it any more. It was therefore fascinating to see Dunn come into the Collingwood team & play a very good game, keeping Hawkins quiet & making team of the week - he might have been handy when we lost to Geelong a few weeks ago. Many of us are still completely bamboozled as to why a former vice captain went from first 18 to Casey almost overnight & was replaced with Oscar McD despite being our only big bodied defender. That's why I have always been a supporter of an independent Selection Committee because 3 or 5 heads are better than 1 and coaches sometimes make monumental stuff ups. Football history is littered with coaches & Clubs that made the wrong call on players. Its very early days but I hope dumping Dunn is not one of them.

If you can't see his value to the team well you must be blind. For the last 2 years he has been our 2nd best big bodied forward after Hogan. Whatever your views on him are if you are on the list & playing well you should be given an opportunity doesn't matter if you are Joel McDonald, James Magner, Phil Read, Chris Lamb or anyone else. When you have no back up ruckman, key defender or key forward like last week it is suicide to go into the game without some insurance.

I cannot fathom Simon Goodwin’s selections strategies so far. He seems to be picking players because he has decided that they have what it takes and ignoring previous form and Casey form. I reckon it has cost us 1 or maybe 2 games this year. Pedersen is proven at AFL level. He has been very effective in the past AND he is killing it at Casey. He is great as a back up ruck forward or defender plus it allows Watts to play forward full time as the 2nd marking option. Pedersen is a mile ahead of Tim Smith ATM. In any case why bring in Smith, drop him for a week & re select him ? For whatever reason he also kept Weideman & Hannan in 2 weeks too long despite Blind Freddy seeing that they were struggling. It doesn’t make any sense to drop Bugg & Kent as I thought they were far from our worst last week. For example Tyson sucked & Melksham looks like a protected species. JKH has done SFA in all in the pre season games & not much for Casey last week – Ben Kennedy has been the in form small forward down there. Bring back then Selection Panel with an Independent Chairman who can overrule the coach when he makes dumb decisions.

I was wondering if Hogan & Jordan Lewis still get their full $$$ for the year despite missing games for suspension ? Not sure what the contracts say but you'd think there would be a financial penalty for the player if he gets rubbed out Otherwise its pretty unfair that the Club has to keep paying them when the suspension is their own dumb fault.

You need to remember Bernie's bad game comes on the back of a very poor finish to the 2016 season. The experiment of him in defence is kaput.

I'll tell you what played a big role in the demise of Dean Bailey (and also Neeld). Between 2007 & 2010 we had some reasonably high draft picks which should have been used to rebuild the Club. Our selections in that time included Cale Morton, Addam Maric, Sam Blease, James Strauss, Rohan Bail, Jordan Gysberts & Lucas Cook.

What evidence is there that the AFL funded them ? My understanding is that the AFL "strongly suggested" that the Club employ PJ to help clean up the mess but that his & Roos' salary were paid for by the MFC.

What a dork. If the Club had to make decisions based on supporters threatening to sign up or not or resign unless they take a particular course of action we would be a mob of clowns. I'm still upset Stan Alves was dumped in 1976 and that they didn't try harder to keep Scott Thompson but I'm not going to pull my membership over it. Next you'll be demanding that Melksham gets played as a half forward or you won't renew your membership.

Macca notes that they are going to settle Frost in defence. What I can't work out is that 80% of supporters worked out very quickly that Frost was a natural defender yet the highly paid Brains Trust took most of the season to work out that Frost was not a forward !!

Not such a storm in a teacup when you remember players like Junior McD, Robbo, Jamar & Davey were all rookies.

Concussion ???? - I am confused The previous story was a complaint that the Club wouldn't let him play more than 5 games which stopped him triggering a contract extension. Anyone professional who can't play because they are so distressed at someone's death is more Clown Prince than royalty.

Garland's problem is purely between his ears. When he is "on" he attacks the ball, runs forward & takes risks. Lately though he has just gone into his shell, he has become hesitant, won't take risks, goes sideways & backwards & fluffs his disposals. People have probably forgotten that in his early days he did really good jobs on the likes of Buddy Franklin & Eddie Betts.

Among all the information the Club provided this year I could not find what the amount of actual debt was ie how much do we still owe. Can any Demonlanders enlighten me.

Before I die I would like to see just 1 occasion where we actually tag Riewoldt - Just 1 will do.

Fully agree with you GT that he would have been better value than the 2 Freo discards. Clearly the powers that be at Melbourne had a line ruled through Jack early on. If you look at round 16 - in the AFL report they list Grimes in the best players but in the Melbourne Annual Report they do not. I also think that Casey's insipid GF performance had a negative impact on the chances of listed players to get picked up by other Clubs.

Good first season HOWEVER Josh needs to add a bit more aggression & physical edge to his game if he is going to have a long career. This is the only potential down side to his game that I can see.

The whole system is corrupt. If O'Meara is over his injuries Hawthorn have just guaranteed themselves to be a top 4 side for the next 5 years. Sides finishing in the top 4 should not be allowed to trade for elite players during the trade period without paying a heavy penalty.

We were actually pretty competitive for parts of 2011. People in the Football Dpt were clearly working to undermine DB for most of the year. Supporters tend to forget that prior to the Geelong debacle Brad Green & some senior players approached the Board to complain about interference by members of the football Dpt.

No surprises there but I still think they should have tried him as a key defender in a few games - he might have surprised a few people. It worked for Chris Tarrant.