Strafford

Indeed:) case closed then. When do we bring him in?

We probably would have ruined Dangerfield by playing him too early and Martin would probably be in rehab talking to the fairies and looking at the pretty lights...just saying

Given your very strong views on recent and not so recent events at our club, that surprises me.

Very messy end though for all that as you say his time was up. Bit of a personality clash with Haysman the CEO didn't help. Also a conflict over who should be the footy manager. Lots of conflict. As you say that season was probably irrelevant in isolation, but they were a competitive team from the get go. They didn't really have a spike until year five.

Too true. At least he gives me something to do while I wait to give evidence.

They talk about post 119 like we do about 186. Like us their club went a little crazy.

It is true with Cahill as far as it goes, but under him they did only miss out on the finals by percentage in their first season and although Williams did make finals in his first season they did drop to 14th in his second season. So strangely enough if you compare their first two seasons as head coaches of Port, Cahill actually comes out ahead by half a game, not counting the final under Williams that they lost.

Sorry to have to make another post Ben Hur rather than tacking this onto my reply to you. Ipad troubles I do have a friend who was there at the Best and fairest when his sister made her speech and she actually did make some very good points and some at the club did themselves a total disservice as to how they treated him.

Yep you are right it is the nature of the business and you hope that coaches learn from their experiences. We are just going through the hypotheticals and are considering questions that hopefully those selecting our next coach will get answers to that will enable them to make the right choice in selecting our next coach. I'm not sure 2010 was a long time ago by that logic his 2004 flag was ancient history. A year after he left the AFL stepped in.Port were a mess. Why did the Port board over rule his choice of Captain? Obviously an unhealthy dynamic was going on. Surely if we are doing due diligence we will need to at least have some understanding of the breakdown?

I don't disagree with you. I would prefer Roos who is a bit more level headed than Eade or Williams, but I doubt we will get him. So to me it is down to Williams and Eade who is also not a process driven robot. I actually don't think it would be a good idea to appoint a board member coach either by the way, nor do I give a rats about upsetting the Toorak set lol. Both guys have their faults, we just need to be aware of them.

Although I do think Eade does have a few of the faults that Williams has with being a bit reactive, Rockets well documented antics in the coaching box are hardly conducive to clear thinking on matchday for example, I do think he has a few strengths that he shares with Williams. One of those is connecting with players. After listening to a few of his ex player interviews he seems to have done that and at the Dogs was responsible for a few players staying who otherwise would have left when he first took over. When looking at Eade you have to look at his Sydney days as well where he did take them to a grand final and they certainly weren't doomed to the bottom eight for a long period after he left. I think one of Eade's advantages is that he seems to have molded his gameplans to suit the strengths of his list. A big forward with the Swans, lots of mid to small forward targets at the Dogs.

I don't think there is any doubt he can coach. You don't fluke a flag no matter how many advantages you may have had. You just have to be aware of his cons and make an honest assessment as to whether his pros outway his negatives.

You could be right mate all coaches could be nutcases though some do seem to be nuttier than others lol You are quite right tests can be manipulated, although good ones should have questions designed to pick up any untruthful answering patterns.

In the spirit of facetiousness... unless there is a twenty year old out there who scores highly on our 10 behaviours and is willing to coach our club I would have to say no to this proposal. Not that I really have a vote but hypothetically like.

Hey don't hang it all on the players The coaches and some" admin staff" were also giving their evaluations on those 10 behaviours.

Whether he hired one is not the point. As the coaches sister she was always compromised and it was a very unprofessional appointment. I can't believe the club signed off on it, although it perhaps gives credence to the belief that some at the club were giving him enough rope to hang himself. Towards the end Port seem to have had as many dysfunctional relationships as we have had. It seems she also had a fair bit to say about how they sacked him with a speech at the best and fairest night after the event. She probably had some fair points, but again some of that would have been lost due to the view that she was just defending her brother. Nothing wrong with defending your family by the way, it is just that she had a terrible conflict of interest between her professional role and her loyalty to her family.

Fair points, but I do believe he is a bit too emotionally reactive and a polariser. He could be a spectacular success or a spectacular failure. I doubt there will be any middleground. There is a good chance he will be our next coach so I hope it is the spectacular success, because I am also sick of shite. That is why I have questions. He is very unlikely to be on the same money at Richmond considering the money GWS have been throwing around and the fact that he was senior assistant there.

Leaving aside our clubs disapproval of those who have a dummy spit over not getting what they want, club captain... that sort of thing Do you think that there might be more to it than that. Personality clashes for example. He couldn't wait another year? Wasn't he contracted for another one...not sure? It does seem a bit reactive to leave your job for a lesser role at another club that has to also be a lesser paying one. Strange.

Hmmmm....

I think that with United it is easy to forget just how saddled with debt the club is. A few bad seasons and we are in real trouble... So I will never take our trophies for granted.

I just don't know about Williams. I think he is a good coach, even though I do think he was given a pretty good start to his career due to how Port was set up and he had a lot to work with. He was a key part in the development of a very dominant team although you could argue they should have won more than one flag. He also was able to rebuild his team and they were tracking well until the disaster of the Grand final loss to Geelong. My questions are. Were the seeds of later fractures at Port sown in the aftermath of the 04 flag with Williams settling scores? What was Williams doing in the leadup to the Geelong grand final smashing, because whatever it was it backfired? Why did the Power fall in a heap after that loss? Why would he hire his sister as a club psychologist? That is a professional no no. Why was the club so fractured when he left? A lot of rumours are circulating about his time at GWS, so why did he leave early and has he actually learned from some of the mistakes he made at Port? I do think he can coach, but he also scares the hell out of me

Port were pretty comptetitive from the start though mate. They were knocking on the door of the finals in their first two seasons and yes they didn't get the draft picks that GWS and Gold Coast did, but they certainly were given very generous predraft zone concessions centred on a prime AFL football state and predraft access to uncontracted players. Peter Burgoyne, Stuart Dew, Roger James, Josh Francou, Brendan Lade, Darren Mead, Warren Treadrea, Michael Wilson all 100 game plus players for them from zone selections, plus a few other handy ones. Wanganeen and Primus as predraft uncontracted players. Not a bad start. Port were an example of how starting a club should be done at least list management wise.

To be brutally honest the number of stuffups from the Bengals in regards to admin, drafting, supporter relations, off-field player dramas etc etc over the years actually makes the Dees look good in comparison. Hopefully for the Bengals our improvements in a number of areas fairly recently can overcome this latest setback. Recruiting Adam Jones was pure idiocy given his track record before he came to us and a huge risk regardless of his guilt or innocence in this matter. He may have learned to hide his spots a bit better, but in my view the guy was and still is a psycho.

I'm fine with the concept of him not being the immediate impact player, like as you say a Wines, as the way we play especially for someone who is more an outside player who needs to work on his contested footy by his own admission, would struggle and he has....but If we had doubts, give him a few games in the twos as a number of teams do with players who need a bit more development than others and then play him when you think he has the best chance to succeed. I am a firm believer that confidence and self belief are key ingredients in making a good AFL footballer and I'm just not sure we are doing well enough in giving our guys the best chance to succeed in those areas.

If we didn't get help it would only be a political decision within the AFL context rather than any real considerations of our teams plight, because as you say if we don't who else will ever qualify.