I’ll wait to see what Welsh has to say for himself besides “Essendon should be good”. I’m not confident, but that’s more or less how I always felt when Welsh got given the ball anyway.
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Interesting when listening to the media (Hird also). Many say that the proper rebuild is simply not the thing successful clubs do anymore.
Most successful teams look to trade in players. Although we have tried this before, we have not targeted the right players and have had awful luck with injuries also.
The other interesting thing was listening to Max Holmes on the weekend. When asked why Geelong is so good, he said that when players are brought in, the club focuses in utilizing the players strengths and doesn’t focus on the weaknesses too much. I see the same with the Hawks and D’Ambrosio.
I think the main reason they have this opinion about the rebuilds is that you are essentially drafting players that look good in their draft class, but don’t really know if that draft class is good. Then there is the risk that you recruit good players and players want out for go home factor, not getting opportunities or even don’t want to be part of a crap club.
So although I have been all in on the rebuild up until now, I am now on the target the right players train. The issue for Essendon is targeting the right players and attracting them. This is where a more personable coach comes into it. We need to stop selecting robots like Whoosha and Scott and need to target a people person as coach. Tactics can be left to assistants.
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Got to give the man credit. Barham was an agent of change and didn’t shirk from the hard decisions.
He’s not the personality type to govern on-going though.
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Go away from Blitz for 10 minutes and this happens! This club….
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Doesn’t sound like he is going to stop the rebuild.
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Not sure this is really a course-altering development. Looks more like succession and by extension continuity of football department hierarchy\strategy in the medium term I would think.
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How do you know that former players don’t want the club to progress?
Old Essendon might just be some old malcontents and Dodoro.
Would this do anything to stop the impending board challenge?
From what I can see, Welsh and Barham are on the same page.
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Heat check on old mate Dave ‘agent of change’ Barham.
Replaced the President
Replaced the Coach
Replaced the CEO
Replaced the Football Manager
Replaced the List Manager
Board Renewal (Madden, Wellman, Allen, Sheedy, etc.)
Replaced the High Performance Manager
Replaced the President (himself!)
Circle complete. Over and out.
71 Likes
The timing is interesting though - can’t help but think that it’s closely tied to the Merrett situation - I can think of two possibilities:
- Allows the board to backtrack on the stated “we won’t trade position”.
- Provides Merrett and the club something/someone to blame when we don’t trade him. i.e. didn’t like the course under Barham but fully supportive of Welsh’s direction.
I sure hope it is #1.
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I’d say this was the 'board challenge", the media just added the usually generous smear of mayo.
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We have had our best times under the Leadership of old Players.
Some of our worst times have been under those wealthy fanatic Bomber supporters, those business leaders who think a footy club is just like any other business.
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Can’t wait to see who we appoint into Barhams seat for the remaining 2 years of his term.
Depends.
Maybe Welsh bridges enough of the gap between factions that it becomes a reasonable compromise, and they’ll just run candidates for elected directors at the next AGM to sway the board a bit more in their favour?
But, again - Essendon is just an internal politics club who kicks a football on Saturday to pass the time.
How do you think I feel, I arrive in Japan, connect to wifi and this… they can’t even let me go away and relax! I’m sure the football club targets me personally. It’s the only rational explanation.
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Maybe James Hird could be a good choice.
Though he would find it very hard not to tell the Coach what to do. Or perhaps that is a good thing.
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We’ll see.
The one who needs to go for me is Dorothy Hisgrove. I’ve dealt with her professionally and can assure you that she’s not the type of contributor you’d want at board level.
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All part of the plan. Dave’s done his job.
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I second that Motion; all in favour raise your hand.
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I wanted to take a break from footy for a bit and then I see the notification this morning. Dragged back in 
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