Lucifers Hero

You may need to watch Sunday's first quarter again. A number of those goals came directly from Petracca's kick i50 exactly to the target he intended.

If so Ralph did us a favour. Has not performed at recent Port level. One report was he may be dropped given the number of Pies players to come back. Dodged a bullet!

Thank you. The answer is the same: The politics is not my go.

Would have preferred the 'we' pronoun there. He should watch Simpson on AFL 360 last night and see how coaching contributed to the last minutes confusion/fiasco.

Very good question 'Mono'. Answer: If he has met his KPI's and acted to fix any under performance he stays. If not, he goes. To determine that The Board had to monitor performance vs KPI's and give guidance and feedback during the year. imv recommendations by Shand had to be included in Goodwin's KPI's. Given the article earlier says The Board will: examine whether changes recommended then were properly implemented this year", suggests they weren't included as KPI's or the Board hasn't monitored performance. Otherwise they would already know. It is inexplicable to me that the Board doesn't know how he has performed vs KPi's nor given periodic feedback. So the right reasons are a considered and objective assessment of his performance. Without that, I fear a knee-[censored] decision to quell the noise and dare I say protect their own backsides.

On Sunday, I immediately thought of that comment from Goodwin. Once a team gets used to thinking we are in front 'we don't need to score' its a slippery slope. That mentality isn't ingraining a winning culture to play the game for 120min. The slippery slope landed us at the the bottom on Sunday.

I say knee-[censored] because as recently as a few weeks ago there was no apparent public threat to his position. It is only after Sunday's embarrassing capitualation that the Board suddenly says the FD and his position are to be reviewed, again. That looks like a knee-[censored]/scapegoat reaction rather than a considered one. They should have been monitoring it during the season. I'm not saying he shouldn't go. I just hope it is for the right reasons and not to take the heat off everyone else. Then everyone goes 'Phew' the heat is off but nothing fundamentally changes.

We have a recent history of knee-[censored] changes to quell the public blowtorch. I just hope if they sack Goodwin it is for the right and considered reasons and not another such knee-[censored] reaction. Goodwin is part of a problem. The whole problem? I doubt it! The Board needs to look at itself in what has happened and not just look for a scapegoat to deflect the heat, again. btw, what happened to that Board 2024 review... crickets.

Thanks for the article. A good summary of DL thoughts throughout the year. This in particular caught my eye: "Senior Melbourne sources said the board would analyse the football department and performance again, look at Shand’s review conducted at the end of last year and examine whether changes recommended then were properly implemented this year." imv the bolded part is saying the Board did not follow up during the year. After last year's disastrous performance, the much heralded Shand review and the 0-5 start, a progress report should have been at the top of Board meeting Agendas. Every. Single. Meeting. Many times this year I have asked on DL 1) if Shand is still involved. And 2) why we haven't had an update from Green or the Board. Now we know the answer to 2). On 1). As someone with a management consulting background I would bet my bottom dollar that Shand tried to implement the review but met with great resistance by the FD. It often happens that a department being reviewed doesn't believe in or like it. They give the consultant lip service, appear to be working with them but their resistance undermines the implementation. Given Shand's main task this year was to work on leadership with off field and on field leaders the review implementation has failed. Lack of leadership was evident during the year and the last quarter on Sunday demonstrated the extent of our leadership void or incompetence. I might add, It would be rare that a consultant does not report directly back to the sponsor (ie Green and the Board). My professional opinion is the Board did get feedback but didn't know how to handle it so just kicked the problem down the road. On Sunday those chickens came home to roost! And the paragraph quoted above is just a smokescreen. Whether the Board didn't ask for progress reports, didn't know what was/wasn't happeing or didn't act on them is a dereliction of duty and a complete breakdown in due diligence.

Fair comments. But, clubs will factor in the sal cap implications especially as many have forward committed its growth from recent and future CBA's. Hence the big contracts being thrown around. Can't think of clubs who have or will have sal cap to take their contracts, especially relative to what their existing players get. imv it is realistic for mfc and fans to consider $ and contract length when looking at it from a buyer's pov. Sure we need to negotiate to get the best deal but at the end of the day the market sets the price.

Out of interest, if you were List Manager for any club what would your trade offer be, assuming they are both on $1.5m pa and 4-5 years to run on their contract?

Bit of poetic licence taken there...

Yes being ruthless is to improve the list. And I am not suggesting anyone be traded for 'unders'. Really, there is no such thing as 'under' which by implication means 'under market value'. Selling something/someone not in high demand means meeting the market regardless of what owners/fans think the value is. The Grundy example was about meeting the market price, regardless of the reason for 'selling'. Another example of meeting the market was Freo trade of Hogan to GWS. There are many others. If we want to improve our list by trading players out not in high demand we need to meet the market for them, be it Oliver, Petracca or anyone else. Simples.

It isn't exactly a sellers market for Oliver. We missed our opportunities to get a reasonable trade. As a precedent, Pies traded Grundy for pick 27 which end up in the 30's. They also paid about $400k p.a for four years. Goodwin talks about being ruthless. Ruthlessness starts with our list. Letting Oliver and other players go that he might be attached to but not in the interests of the club to keep, is being ruthless.

Appeal starts at 5pm. Follow it here: Fox SportsLIVE: Dees’ last-ditch bid to free star after polarising...LIVE: Dees’ last-ditch bid to free star after polarising bump in AFL’s most complex case

People have short For all intents and purposes Goodwin is the FD! Unlkely assist coaches will upset the boss. Richardson has had plenty of opportunities to overhaul the list. iirc Taylor and Lamb report to him. I've not seen much evidence of a list overhaul (aside from adding 1st round picks) so am not expecting them to in the future. If Graham Wright was coming in as CEO we might see an overhaul. He overhauled Pies list to win a premiership. He is about to overhaul Carlton's list. Hopefully, they don't win a premiership any time soon. At this stage there is no obvious person in the FD/Club to push back on what Goodwin wants.

Goodwin said in the press conf we had an extra fwd. This morning on MMM Max said he thought it was an extra fwd and tried to bring one into the square when he had a few seconds to do that but in fact it was an extra defender. Not sure who is correct. But it doesn't matter. We messed up for the whole quarter and that was just another blunder.

We should never have been in a situation where the last 8 seconds mattered. But we were! And we failed to manage 'that moment'. The umpire is somewhat responsible for fiasco. There was no need for the same players to come back to the square nor be in the circle. We could have put any 4 players in the centre square, line them up as a wall at the back of the square to block any run. And the two wingman at the defensive ends of the square would give us a wall of 6 players. Marshall would have had to kick over the wall. Even without rules awareness leaving NWM unattended was just so so stupid. But our leaders should have known of the rules, checked the umpire when he called them back and the formation I describe should have been a set play. I bet they don't know the rules and haven't trained that play and that is a coaching issue.

Those doubting North/Clarkson have short memories. He is our Roos. Spent the first 3 years building the core list of mids while getting better use from the already established players. And brought in experienced players to shore up critical roles and support the new kids. It was 5 years after Roos started that we made and won finals with Goodwin at the helm. It was another 3 years before we won a flag. Clarkson probably had a better off-field FD staff at Hawks than now at North but he hasn't forgotten how to coach. Give them time. They might contend before we do again.

If the mfc statement on the website is an indication, I doubt the club will appeal.

Tribunal started at 5pm Follow it here: Fox SportsTribunal LIVE: The ‘key’ reason Dees are ‘convinced’ May...Tribunal LIVE: The ‘key’ reason Dees are ‘convinced’ May will get off big ban

I said it was graded as Careless. I know how the grading works and the rules around MRO and Tribunal referrals. I also noted in an earlier post the May contact was accidental. The post you quoted was about the inconsistent treatment of May vis a vis Pierce and Xerri who were also graded Careless, HIgh and Severe Impact but WERE NOT referred directly to the Tribunal. They went to the Tribunal to challenge the MRO ruling. It is rare for the Tribunal to increase the 3 weeks. But for the same ruling the MRO ALSO referred May directly to the Tribunal which invites a higher than 3 week suspension. This is inconsistent and unfair.

The more I think about this the less I like it. Cases sent directly to the Tribunal are where MRO can't decide or it is so severe the penalty should be more than the Matrix accommodates. And usually there is no MRO ruling. So not many cases are sent directly to the Tribunal. They end up there because their club challenge the MRO ruling. eg Pierce and Xerri whose actions were ruled as May: Careless, High, Severe, 3 weeks. A challenge rarely results in a higher penalty. But fore some reason the MRO is not following that process. He has made a ruling (3 weeks) AND sent May directly to the Tribunal exposing him to a higher penalty. It is like he is saying to the Tribunal: I've given him 3 weeks but I reckon it should be more. When the dust settles the club should complain to the AFL as this seems to be blatantly unfair on May relative to others eg Pierce, Xerri etc.

If that was the case it would help May as we could argue and the Tribunal could rule on a number of factors associated with the cotnact. But the MRO DID make a ruling: Careless, HIgh, Severe Impact. Onus is on the club to prove otherwise. To be fair the MRO should have made no ruling, as you suggest. As it stands May is 'Guilty unless proven innocent'!

They are concurrent. So hopefully we see his 250th game this year🙂