Jara

Yep. Look how they respond to an off-field crisis. I'd kind of been blaming our own off-field crises for our poor performances - not so sure, now. Maybe they're a test of character (one we failed)

The mere fact that Hird has overseen a program like this - not to mention these mysterious injections that he has admitted receiving, without including his club doctor -and, come to think about it, his early involvement with Doctor Ageless - makes me wonder what else he got up to in his career.

Yes. Will be shattered if watts leaves. Sylvia? Who cares?

Well done Wizza and the rest of you. Sorry I have to work that day but I do appreciate your spirit!

Agree with Tricky. That's what surprises me most - complete lack of flexibility from the coaching box. Sign of lack of confidence/experience. Bloke who's served as an assistant to a control freak like Malthouse would have no initiative. Not hard to imagine why the Collingwood mob gave him a strong endorsement.

Bleh - have to be hard up to watch that crap. Mutual ego-stroking contest between The Wig, The Blob, The Statue and Loin Chops (bugger - was trying to work The Lyon, The Witch and The Wardrobe in there somehow, but no room - maybe Lloyd is The Wardrobe, and Blubberguts has disappeared inside him). Can you imagine how much money Lyon pulls in for peddling his cliches? (I read somewhere that Sam 'Botox' New-Man gets a million a year just for The Footy Show. With all his media involvement (eg his brilliant Gonzo analysis of Jared Rivers and his sterling defence of us during the tanking beat-up - oh, hang on, he didn't do that one, did he?) Lyon probably earns twice that. Cheez...

I think he has copped a fair bit of criticism from most of us on this site - no credibility whatsoever. As I said in another post, he lost me when he was completely useless for us during the tanking media beat-up (more concerned about his ego than the club that made him)

FWIW I'm with Wells11 etc who blame the game plan, structure, etc - ie the coaching - rather than Watts the individual. I've seen him do some great stuff in the past. As for subbing him - well, if he was unwell and if that was made clear to him, fair enough. But if he was subbed off because Neeld thought he was playing badly, there were plenty worse (Gillies beard could have done a Better job than it's owner)

I'm in. Will be there next week. No choice.

As long as there's a Melbourne Football Club I'll be a member. Other teams have been down - they all rise up eventually. The other day I was listening to the Kelly song about bradman - what's the line? They say the darkest hour is just before the dawn.

I'm with you, Stuie. Not defending Watts poor performance last week, but yours seems the more accurate interpretation of what he actually said.

Robbie et al I reckon Stuie is right. Watts is saying that he and others need to work on their leadership skills. He isn't just bemoaning the lack of leaders - he's quite rightly recognizing the need to become one himself. I don't see why you're criticizing him for that. He was crap on Sunday but he did some good stuff last year; plenty worse, anyway. Proof will be in the pudding, but I pray that he succeeds.

I thought Viney was better (playing almost a lone hand - Wines had more support)

I'm agreeing with Macca. Watching Geelong, it seems so easy. I mean if you're p aid all that money to play football, why the hell not get in there and play the bloody game as we all know it should be played. Not rocket science: get in front, kick it up the guts, have a bit of faith in your team mates. Try! How radical is that? My god, Neeld has lost me; I've been giving him the benefit of the doubt, but all this farfing around the boundary, tiddly-winking, standing around looking like lost sheep. I reckon guys like Watts et. al. can play, they are just being poorly led by a Malthouse lapdog.

I'd like to think that our next coach is someone who's had a successful career as a player. Somebody here may correct me, I suppose - too busy to look it up - but I believe our pasty three coaches only played about 200 games between them. None of them understood or experienced the effort required to sustain a long career (with apologies to Daniher, I suppose - I know he suffered a lot of injuries) My football knowledge is nowhere near that of some of the other posters here, but my god it was painful to watch that old recycled, Malthouse "cling-to-the-boundary' then-bomb-it-to-the-outnumbered-forward' crap yesterday. One of the things you have to grant Sheedy - he's turned into an egocentric pain in the butt, but he had the nous to develop a fine career with a minimum of natural talent - presumably he brought that nous to his coaching career.

I hope Caro has the humanity to hide those horrible fangs when she's gloating over our mangled corpse on Tuesday night.

He's got a nice turn of phrase, but. Couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo?

Did Christopher Pyne ever play football? Nah, just gammin. I'll put my money on the dog Brock. Soooooooooo stupid. Remember when Tuppence Moran got whacked and Brock was up there in his blue singlet bragging about what a mate he was? And then he runs to the tanking kings and says he left because we were tanking. I could almost handle it when he couldn't get a game, but now that he's been playing ok he makes me want to spew.

Lyon lost me during the tanking debacle. He's got a lot of power and authority in the media; could have come out and defended us at any time. Didn't . Then we were all waiting for him to tear strips of Caro on Footy Confidential. He failed miserably. She ran rings around him. He was simply unprepared. Needed to refute her hysterical arguments in a logical manner, one, two, three. Didn't. Hopeless. What depressed me was that some of us seemed to think he'd done a great job because they had a shouting match. But if you take a closer look, what he was really getting stroppy about was that she criticized his personal integrity. That was it for me. He wasn't being passionate about the club that made him, he was being passionate about himself. Now he writes this fluff-piece about Rivers (which is a subtle criticism of Melbourne, although nowhere near as harsh as it could have been - I'm not saying he dislikes us, I'm saying he's just another self-centred media [censored] - I suppose I can handle him being a [censored], but I wish he was one like Eddy or Brayshaw, who never lose their passion for their clubs.)

At least that might mean he pulls his finger out this year.

Would appreciate somebody enlightening me on this. As far as I can tell, I'm with Bayside Dave. Won't free agency be terrible for the smaller clubs? One more nail... We'll lose our senior players because they'll go somewhere to give themselves a shot at a flag. I wouldn't miss Sylvia but I'm missing Rivers already. Every club needs those aging champions to provide leadership.

Just listened to Mc whatever-his-name-is dismissing the allegations about Freo (think Mark Robinson asked it) - totally missed the point - they weren't resting players in preparation for the finals - they were resting players TO LOSE THE FRIGGIN MATCH and get a home final. AAAAghhh! Screwed again.

Morning all I asked over at Demonology, but nobody answered. Could somebody explain to me how this 'equalization' thing works? If we cop a half a mill fine, will we really get it back through some 'equalization' fund? My god it sucks that one of the poorest teams in the League is apparently going to be slammed for doing something that half a dozen other teams have done. Cheers

They'll be looking at her contracts all right - and probably giving her a raise. Hate to say it, but controversy and hysteria are her tools in trade. She probably wanders on to this thread every so often and gives a little smile of satisfaction when she sees how many pages its got (bad luck for the poor sods who follow the team - she couldn't give a toss about them. Very distant person, I'd imagine - sometimes even the most knuckle-grazing neanderthal ex-players make me smile when you realize that they understand how much the people in the stands love the game )

I am by instinct with the 'line in the sand/take it to the High Court" brigade. My only reservation is that a protracted legal engagement may weaken us even further. If we're having trouble getting a sponsor now, won't this make it even harder for us (ie damage our brand)? I hope somebody can persuade me otherwise - I suppose the counter argument is if we are seen as spineless push-overs, our brand is already damaged. Dunno. Brand - cheez I hate that word, and I hate what it's done to the sport I grew up with. And by the way, Robbie F's argument in favour of the 'everybody's doing it' defence is excellent. This isn't a court of law, it's a sporting code which has enormous flexibility when it wants to. If they shaft us and nobody else, it'll be an outrage.