Earl Hood

I am surprised we did not find this sought of role for him but a stint with another club may be the best for his development. Then we bring him back to oversee our indigenous boys down the track.

Our record with indigenous players is patchy unfortunately. If only Wonna had stayed and Liam had stayed injury free we would have been a better forward line at least!

read exactly what you said. Hood is not right in one aspect - there is no "Copping" it unless the moderator has failed in his role. There is a chance of shut down but they wouldnt allow player bashing.

It was interesting that Aker hated the process and when they drilled down to why he started off saying that the group all circled and bashed him about his "outwardness" then after further questioning from the journo he said that it wasnt quite bashing but it was stated that he was flamboyant and perhaps put himself before the team and the rest of the group agreed.

Whoops "the copping a blast" was my hamfisted, lazy summary of his opinion (not mine). He used words more like worrying about players who are often raw kids being intimidated or daunted by having to face their peers in a one on 35 open and honest discussion. No doubt he was old school, a long career in HR with large companies I think. And yes he was more focused on making players accountable for what they did on the field and at training. On field leadership was his gig.

I have had some exposure to this stuff at live in leadership courses at Melbourne Business School. I can see its value but I never really felt comfortable with it. Open and honest conversations one on one between a manager and employee or amongst a small team can be very productive. Throwing an individual out in front of a larger group, not so sure.

I know when I was first involved back in the 90's with the open and honest discussion forums where you had to sit out front of your peers, many of our older managers who I would equate to your Barry Halls and Akers really lost it at the open forum experience. They gave back what they copped but that was very early days of this concept.

well i must have misheard the telly tonight

the recalcitrant states have come to an agreement in principle today and the "missing" shorten $1.2B has been reinstated

did you not hear? was i mistaken?

Well you might be right but I suspect there is plenty of partisan politics involved. When the SOS went out Newman and Bartlett were quick to come on line with their LNP colleagues after spending last year playing the spoilers I am not cutting Pyne any slack as if he is the worlds greatest negotiator. Remember Gonski was unworkable just last week, now everyone is on board and happy! Miraculous.

Even Viney can have a session where he isn't in top form. We've all had days like that! Doens't mean a thing, in my book.

He may be catching the MFC disease! It's been endemic since 65!

i must add though that shorten's policy of having (apparently) a different "deal" for every state never did sit very well with me

if pyne has a achieved a more uniform and unified arrangement with the states then that might be a plus

i hasten to add i'm no gonski expert when it comes to the small print

as i suspect is true of most posters

DC my default position is that Pyne has achieved JS on top of the existing Gonski arrangements. He hasn't met the committee, he hasn't met the recalcitrant states who refused to be involved he has just said we will follow the original recommendations and throw a billion at the other States and they have not said no so far. Anyone know anything else?

But before Robbie jumps on me, this is a good outcome, it is good for kids.

Barry Hall in his interview with Mike Sheahan on Open Mike talked about Leading Teams. He said you have forums where everyone in the team gets up and has the opportunity to criticise whoever they like. He said even a lot of the junior players were getting up and criticising senior players and sometimes just for the sake of it. Some of the comments weren't justified or appropriate and caused problems in the group. Read into that what you like, given some of Hall's behaviour but it gives you some idea of what some of the processes can be and some negative feedback of the process.

I recently attended a dinner party where there was a mature gent talking footy when he heard I followed MFC he stated he would love to help Roosey and the club. I asked how and it turns out he has done a lot of "on field leadership" analysis in the coaching box with the likes of Paul Roos at the Swans and Rodney Eade at the Dogs. I assumed he was from Leading Teams but he was quick to say no way. He was quite scathing of LT and their demands that players sit out in front of the group and cop a blast. For what gain he asked, he would rather confront a player with some game day video where he did not take the game on etc and talk about the lost opportunity.

He was about game day analysis of player leadership on the field. He was frustrated by Rocket who would not allow any negative feedback to his senior players even when they had obviously gone missing in action. Interesting dinner it was. He thought MfC had talent and Roos was a good start but LT was not his first remedy.

Abbott and Pyne the synchronised, double backflip with a pike to execute the full Gonski! That's something special as Bruce would say. I love it. It is good for education. But I must say Pynes ability to hold so many conflicting positions in such a short space of time and still manage to deny the obvious and get on the offensive is a gold medal performance.

These Politicians are a special breed of people.

Don't mind Dean. In a team that was habitually flogged I thought he generally held his own. If truth be known, Bruce Doull would have been found wanting such was the speed the ball entered our back half at times.

Yes it's all about time and space at this level. Terlich had none of that in 2013. If things go to plan in 2014 he hopefully has more time and more space to get the ball and deliver, along with the rest of the back line. If his tendency is naturally to attack, he could be a weapon for us. Maybe!

Always thought Carroll was too soft so was never a fan of his.

Are we talking about the same bloke? Talent issues, yes. Soft I don't think so.

I'm not familiar with this Gonski Report and what the full version contained, but you seem to know a bit about it; did the Labor Party introduce the whole raft of recommendations or just some of them?

Robbie I have a feeling you are familiar with the Gonski recommendations and are about to tell us about them and that Labour did not take on board all the committees ideas.

All I know is the idea was for the federal government to provide a minimum level of funding for every school to match every child under their care based on their level of disadvantage. That is Government schools look after the majority of disadvantaged students and need extra funding to meet their needs. That's my layman's take on the Gonski committees in depth four year battle to build a model acceptable to all the stakeholders involved.

Now we have Mr Pyne stating he will issue a new model in the new year. Based on what grounds we may ask!

My last visual memory of him was wrestling Fraser Gehrig to the ground after he tried to play on around him just before half time? Our last final appearance in 2006. I think Gehrig never reappeared that game. A month later he has had some altercation with Ben Holland and was banished from the club. Last I heard he was playing up north and working in mining!

The Coalition's pre-election promise to match Labor's Gonski schools funding has been misunderstood by some people, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Sunday.

Mr Abbott insisted that Education Minister Christopher Pyne had pledged that 'schools' as a whole would get the same amount of money under the new government.

That was despite being played a clip during the election campaign in which Mr Pyne said: ''You can vote Liberal or Labor and you will get exactly the same amount of funding for your school''.

Mr Abbott told Channel Ten's Andrew Bolt: ''I think Christopher said 'schools would get the same amount of money'. And schools, plural, will get the same amount of money. The quantum will be the same.''

Pressed on the apparent clear-cut promise to individual schools, Mr Abbott suggested there was confusion in the community.

''We are going to keep the promise that we made – not the promise that some people thought that we made, or the promise that some people might have liked us to make. We are going to keep the promise that we actually made,'' he said.

No fair cop I say, it's us that are confused. Unity ticket doesn't mean what we may have thought, that's our fault.

Is this an updated version Howards core and non core promises or Abbotts famous statement not to believe anything he says unless it is written on paper? I suppose it doesn't matter 53% of voters fell for it at the time.

I can sense that this thread will go into some funky places.

Call me a prophet.

I thought the team was already doing meditation. I cite as evidence first 15 minutes round 1 versus Port this year. We didn't get a touch I am sure we were still mentally preparing for battle.

I couldn't give a rat's rrrs what standard you hold the current Prime Minister to, you could have just stopped here.

I have no idea

The answer you provided shows you are more intent on scoring points than serious debate. Personally I think he's handled it well there was little else he could say.

The media have pounced on Andrew Robb for saying we spied on the Indonesians and they've pounced on Abbott for failing to apologise to the Indonesians for spying on them. Can you spot the problem here?

Probably not.

Robbie

It would have been nice to have been able to have a serious debate in the public arena on any number of major issues in the previous three years but I don't think we ever got near any facts, or reasoned argument, just idiotic slogans, fear mongering and personal abuse from ShockJocks, Lobby groups and Tony and the boys amplified by the News Ltd echo chamber. Tony is in charge, the buck stops with him. He needs to deal with all this. If the media is giving him some grief, so what? Welcome to government and accountability. Let us see how he goes.

You get what you deserve; vey little.

Answer my question, how do you think Labor would have handled this, after all they created the diplomatic mess. Would they grovel or would they just tell the Indonesians to [censored]. Which choice would you be in favour of?

Just remind yourself; who created the Diplomatic mess and would they ALP side with the Yanks over the Islands or would they side with China against Japan?

Robbie

To answer your question I have no idea how a Labour Government would handle this but that is not the point. Tony is in the chair and I am merely maintaining the high standards of Government demanded by the former Opposition. That is that the Government of the day must be utterly perfect and anything that goes wrong at the national level must be attributed to the Prime Ministers incompetence. We had this for the last three years, why should I be cutting Abbott any slack? He set the standard. He needs to be judged by his own high standards!

Awesome report MB. The bolded bit about Watts, does it look like we're planning on using him the way Hird played? He was often positioned 10m behind the pack as the designated kicker after their hard men won the contested ball. I could see Watts being really dangerous doing that.

I have to wonder if Green isn't there checking up on Frawley. Carlton are still in need of a good FB and Green would be an ideal person to make a few quiet overtures to him while checking out the group as a whole.

Also very ha[[y to hear that Clark is training with the main group again. It will be an amazing lift if he gets back on the park and plays a full season for us.

I can remember Gary Buckenara playing the same role in 89 for the Hawks. Watching him play us at Waverley he just ran away from contests waiting for their guy to extract the ball and get it out to him in space. And I use the term singular guy because my memory of that thrashing was that one Hawk could go into a pack of Melbourne players around the ball and extract it every time. It was hugely frustrating at the time. But Bucky cut us to pieces that day with his precision delivery. If we could set up Watts similarly it could be a weapon. But you do need mid field dominance for it to work well.

Once he's cleaned up the shyte your mob left things will improve no end. What do you think Labor would have done about Indonesia and China?

Give me a run down on how Bull Shitten would have handled it? Or would the Rudster just whisper a few words of Mandarin to the Chinese to ease their concerns?

Maybe Rudster would prostate himself in from of the Indonesians and beg their forgiveness. Love the way the Left create the Indonesian mess then scream like stuck pigs when the Libs aren't prepared to grovel to clean it up; they and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Just keep on reading the Age and that will help you reinforce your prejudice.

Robbie thanks for the in depth analysis. Very helpful at this stage. You have used Bull Shitten, do you want to send that one through to Mr Pyne, I am sure he could use it to deflect people away from his " shall we say by his own standards a blatant lie to not implement Gonski". Ten weeks in and we have a diplomatic crisis and a broken pre election promise, every week. Going well so far.

Actually, after Shorten copping a few less than flattering reworkings of his name, the opposition has come back rather nicely with Pyneochhio.

Yes what have we had today short change Shorten and shambles Shorten to add to Electricity Bill! I mean when do I start laughing at this puerile rubbish? Have the Libs hired a comedy writer? If so who is paying, the taxpayers or the party?

Prickly Pyne comes to mind. What a joke he is. Going to set up his own system but he has never even understood the Gonski report. He is on record as stating he wants to go back to the Howard model but has since denied he ever said that. I mean the man is an absolute abomination.

Pickett had a very good year in 2006.

But that's despite the point, Pickett wasn't a thug and never took cheap shots, any heavy bumps/hits of his were always in play.

Gee I have a memory of him taking out Neitz with an elbow to the jaw put him in hospital circa 1997 or 98 that would have got him 6 to 8 nowdays. it was cheap as. I also remember the prelim final of 1998 against north and Steven Tingay lining up Pickett on the wing early on to deal out some revenge and Pickett pulling out big time. He was good at giving but not receiving. He came to us in 2006 and played some good footy but then basically stuffed us up the next year. Treated us like Shyte, let's face it but we gave him a send off on his final game!

Oh sorry I forgot to add East Timor as well to our disgruntled neighbours! It is not Tony's fault of course, all these things go back to Howard and Rudd but Tony has to deal with it all. Lets see how he deals with this diplomacy.

He has failed every test so far so let's hope he is learning.

Hey Robbie how is your lot going now? We have upset the Indonesians. Now Julie has upset the Chinese for heavens sake! They are probably just scared of her eyes. Pyne has lied about Gonski and Abbott just flounders about In poorly lit press conferences as if he had a skin problem he hopes the lights won't show up. Oh and where would I start on Scott "it's an operational issue, so I can't say" Morrison!

Robbie its going really well at this stage and using the standards set in the last parliament by Abbott and Pyne can I call them liars? But yes you have three years for your lot to get their act together but of course their act is well and truly together now to meet their masters demands. Rupert is happy, BHP is setting up your climate change policy. What other big capitalists are being looked after? Business Council are they looking at work conditions for the least powerful, i.e. migrant casual cleaners, as they do every few years?

I mean I find the reneging on promises on Gonski quite amazing. The LNP are taking a big political hit for what? The money is the same, it just seems they are obsessed with pushing ever more money to the elite schools at the expense of public schools! For what gain? It just doesn't make any sense but then that is assuming Pyne is logical. I fear he is an ideologue more interested in trashing the previous government ideas than looking to do any good. Going well so far, what eight weeks in!

Turns out he was going to miss this week's game against Southern Districts anyway due to family reasons.

But that would be a big problem for recruiters. If there aren't already big problems.

I know i have "resigned" from this forum, but reflecting on it i think i owe a further explanation since some here think i am a bit thin skinned and why i was so annoyed by this thread.

I confess Ben_Hur, Twas I.

Three weeks ago i had a serious operation at PeterMacClinic (incidentally a world class hospital with fantastic caring people). As a result of the drugs i needed to take pre-op i put on 15kgs. Since the op, which at the moment seems successful, through strict dieting and exercising (yes bike riding mainly) i have taken off half that. I currently am losing about 3 kgs a week and in 3-4 weeks i expect to be down to the correct weight for a 6'3" 60 year old which is 95kg. At the moment i am overweight. I should not have ridden to training in my old lycra gear ( but i did not expect the fashion police at an early season training session for christ sake, and which will fit me again in three weeks), but you understand bike riding is a key part of my physical recovery - seeing the Demons prosper is a key part of my mental recovery.

This is the last time you will hear from me on this subject. I hope those who were so rude about this, might as a result of my explanation be a bit more nuanced in the future, and think some people might not be as bogan as themselves.

To be fair in all this The Master was commenting on some public bystanders at training. I am not sure he suspected that they would all be Demondlanders. He has been caught out and should have guessed that if you are watching us train at this time of year, the chances are you will be a Demonlander. Oh well there you go, no excuse really but he has been a bit stiff.

By the way is the Master a well known time lord? That may explain a lot of this.

Re Gonski as in gawnski! Christopher Pyne a snivelling liar, who would have thought?

Master I'm the guy in the blue t-shirt who recently suffered a stroke and also a busted knee which has resulted in weight gain but please don't let facts get in the way of off hand smart ass comments. Only makes you come across as an up yourself [censored] jockey but thats only one mans view.

Good on you T 34 I am not sure where the Master was coming from. We all show up to support our team, I didn't know we all had to meet some physical aspiration set out by someone who calls himself the Master! For what it is worth I had achillies problems this year that has curtailed my tennis and running and as a result my weight has ballooned. Better not show up to training I suppose, at least until I can get my body back into shape.