Lucifers Hero

No one is claiming any player to be our saviour! We have been there too many times. Delighted to see that Keilty debuts tomorrow ?

...for Viney and Weidman. Terrible selections! Keilty still just an emergency ?

Sadly, this game has been considerably watered down. Not only is it not at night it is not an FTA time slot, so very little exposure for the cause. Also, the 'pink ladies and men' won't be walking onto the MCG so there is no pre-game recognition of the cause. I have been on the MCG for this cause and it was a moving and surreal experience. It was at night and the lights went down and quite emotional. Very sad that someone at the club isn't investing time in this.

This game last year was a Masterclass by Clarkson. Our coaching panel experimented with lots of new ideas (no wingmen, high zone press, Jones as tagger, roaming forwards/mids etc) and we were taken to the cleaners. We need coaches to be switched on like they were in the 2nd semi last year!

Its a yo-yo type of season so on any given day I reckon any team can win. So my pref is minimum changes giving us a better chance of the team 'clicking'. I really believe we are not far from things 'clicking' for us and getting a couple of wins. ?I can't process the possibility that we won't be a winning team in the second half of the year?. But we won't make finals so then is the time to experiment with kids, next year's list and a changed game plan. We will win a few (about 10) games this year.

I would like to see a team selected that can win. In part to get some optimism back and in part to get the monkey off our back for a while. We can all see the effort is being made. Plenty of time later in the year to 'play the kids' and it will be a lot better for them and their confidence coming into a winning team than one with a string of losses behind it.

Team is announced in a few hours! So its time to switch from all the repetitive, negative comments and threads that have recently saturated this board. New game, new opportunity. Go Dees!

tbh, I and others on DL thought it at the time when no other clubs were in the frame at anywhere near a top 5 pick.

As did GCS. They demanded a top 5 ish pick because they knew they would get it this year as an FA comp pick when he left. Ignoring his fitness and injury issues, without that FA comp pick there is no way he would have been valued a top 5 pick by clubs. No other club could offer anything like it. I reckon it would be more like mid teens pick at best. We fell for it or were desperate or both. Sure we needed a big defender but we surely over compensated GCS.

That is rather cheeky of you, od! ?

Don't worry SWYL there is no smoke. The scrap on here is between two trolls going [censored]-for-tat to stir the pot on stuff that is 6 months old and has no relevance to us today. Just ignore them.

I would say it wasn't the timing, more so that we don't have a Neil Balme type to call Mahoney/Goodwin to account. Mahoney (GM Football) should have ensured a though review happened, not just the prelim but the whole season. Maybe he was caught up with the euphoria of a making a prelim. Maybe, having presided over all the appointments in the football/coaching department, game plan and list management decisions he isn't objective enough to review. While over at Geelong their GM Football went over their final loss with a fine tooth comb with coaches etc and look at the results. They don't take losing well. Explains why they have missed the 8 once in about a dozen years. So I don't think it was PJ's or Pert's job to review the prelim. What did Mahoney do? He has a lot of accountability in where we are now.

I'm not sure Jackson did not want Pert. It was more that he wanted an internal person (whom he had groomed) and wanted to be involved in the process. The hue and cry was mostly about the process, or apparent lack thereof, not about Pert himself or Jackson's opinion of him.

A 3AW interview before the Tigers game, that has escaped Demonland's attention. Pert Interview Questions/discussion (Paraphrased response in itallics) Players fitness on return from preseason holidays? Pert talks about the 14 surgeries and less training sessions for the group. He watches training and sat in player meetings and there is no complacency. Club expected fitness to build in early stages of the season. Role of CEO in challenging a coaching group about systems or who is there to challenge the coaching staff on what they are doing? Its not the CEO role but he sits in a lot of the meetings and talks to Mahoney and Goodwin on what we are doing to turn things around. What you want to know you have the best people, can see an energy and commitment to turn things around. Work rate is pretty good but the system is crap! Its the system and the execution. Poor execution and skills will make the system fail. Role of Brendan McCartney philosophies and relationship with players and coaches? Pert sits in football department meetings. Challenges occur among the coaches which is healthy but their are no issues. Given all the meetings he goes to, is he in the football department! As CEO he is getting a feel for the personalities and dynamic of the group. He is very impressed with Mahoney, Goodwin etal I thought Pert came across really well. Was assured and represented us well. He side stepped some questions which is to be expected. I'm not convinced that all is well. I have said on DL for over a year that our Football and Coaching staff are too inexperienced in their roles. I've lamented that we do not have a Neil Balme type person to oversee football and coaching and to challenge, mentor and support those staffs. Pert's responses to 2 and 5 suggest he is filling that role atm. It is quite appropriate that he does because someone needs to hold them accountable and as he says, to assess the people and the dynamics (which he is happy with). Pert apparently had a penchant at Coll for being too involved in football matters/decisions. Its hard to tell whether his deep involvement in football related meetings is that penchant at work, a new CEO getting the lay of the land or real concern about how we are performing. Probably all 3. I'm pleased Pert is going to meetings etc: something needs to change off-field and he will make that happen. On staffing, imv while it is important to know a new appointee will fit into a team far too many appointments have been made based on relationships and not on a proven track record. A successful team needs a balance of experience, past success and fresh blood. Nearly all our coaches are 'rookies' in their current role or come from friendships forged at Bulldogs, Ess or Port and from what I can see most have little experience let alone successful experience in their jobs. Will Pert be happy in 6 months time? I would be shocked if we don't have personnel changes at years end.

I interpreted the reports as players in general which may or may not include players with injuries/surgeries. We have quite a few players who had neither and are barely average let alone playing at their best. That some players posted pb's and some were unfit at start of preseason are not mutually exclusive.

In an AFL360 interview, when shown clips of our club (eg May, Jones, Goodwin) implying 'our standards' are higher than GCS, Dew replied 'players set their own standards' and named GSC players who had, implying May hadn't. As a co-cap May should have set the standards for himself and his team. It seems he didn't and blaming his old club is very poor. No matter how I look at it May has to take responsibility for himself. You have to wonder about our due diligence into his training, game recovery and post injury rehab behaviours. And the thoroughness of our interviews to determine how committed he was to getting the best out of himself. Right now it looks like a club sooo desperate that we turned a blind eye to what others could see or could easily be known. As an aside, 'our standards' aren't looking too good given the number of players said to have started preseason in less than desirable condition. Pot.Kettle.Black. GCS may well have the last laugh...laughing all the way to the bank.

Quite right -the FD didn't think it was unbalanced during the off season otherwise they wouldn't have chosen Wagner and Lockhart who were duplicates of other like players. They could have taken one of the players on Nudge's list of players of interest to mfc: mainly speedy players (of which we have few) and a tall fwd or two (which we need even if only for depth). Nudge's list suggested a rethink of the type of player our list needs. I'm not sure what to say about your last sentence. There are many threads on this board that judge picks so far (its a favourite sport on DL) and hypothesise on what should/could have been. I rarely comment on specific picks (what do I know about drafting). But to my mind we have too many of one type (contested beast) player, a dearth of skills and more mid-sized players than most teams ie unbalanced. But my view means zilch to anyone else.

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Thanks for bringing some sunshine back onto this board, Ash35. Its good to read positive posts even if of past a champ rather than the critique of current playersm hopefuly tmorrow's champs! Exquisite timing among the doom and gloom.

Doesn't have to write about his own club. Plenty of other football topics to write about.

And, Lewis said, on AFL 360, that it was the way we play... The three leaders give different views makes them and the club look silly...right hand/left hand stuff. Are players getting 3 lots of mixed messages? Players don't seem on the same page during games. Hope our media folk start a process of the getting the football dept to agree a script each week and then they all sing from the same song book. This isn't a time for personal opinions. Leaders giving conflicting messages in the media is a worrying development.

Many posts in this thread are hell bent on potting Roos for our trades/recruits and state of our list. I'm not trying to blame anyone. Simply pointing out that Taylor and Viney are primarily responsible for List Management/Recruiting and it is unfair bias to focus on Roos who left several years ago. As an aside, I happen to think our list is in good shape and that Taylor, Viney, Goodwin and Mahoney all want success and will do whatever they need to do to fix any deficiencies. Happy to wait till the 2020 season shapes up.

Perhaps, but a few players need to be signed this year and the club will want to sign some of next year's OOC players sooner rather than later. So, we may not have the luxury of waiting till we bounce back next year. Some players may just want their fair share of the pie and other attractive clubs might come calling. But I'm just hypothesising. It will be a fine balancing act that Mahoney will walk with trades and contracts in the next year.

I also recall that said but not sure it came from someone at the club or a media commentator. And, I guess it depends where on our pay scale the FA lands. As you say, if Jones' and Lewis contracts were front ended then their won't be much extra coin so with the AFL rules of not banking sal cap I don't see where the money for a highly paid FA will come from. As an aside, if we use our sal cap to bring in another player at the top end of our salary range (ala Lever and May) while our existing talent are kept in the upper middle range, I wouldn't blame their manager's starting to looking elsewhere.