Something seriously wrong with the club (Part 3, August 2022)

Ken Fraser

I’ve heard the same thing from a colleague who knows him quite well and worked with him at 10 for many years. Says he has been fed up with the politics at the club for a while and has always wanted the external review. I’ll see what else I can find out.

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Yes please. In Jefferson we trust!

If the Premiership clock is 24 hrs, it’s still before dawn at EFC.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

Oh boy…

According to The Age, there’s a push for James Hird as Rutten’s replacement.

Club sources say there is an expectation that Hird will apply for the position, once it is vacant and the exiled former coach who was the figure head of the club’s doping scandal in 2013 has the support of Kevin Sheedy.

We’ve been around this loop haven’t we? @Bacchusfox is right. That loss last week was so diabolical Truck clearly has lost the players. The cleanest thing would’ve been to sack him straight after that game but away from the players and n front of Mahoney. Ask Cara and Gia to take training and today’s game and then go in front of the players before they’d left Marvel and given them all an almighty spray whilst informing them of Rutten’s dismissal. That’s a CEO job to do back then wasn’t it?

Having a go at getting Clarko was late but an understandable action. But more important to all was to announce the immediate instigation of an external review intent on implementing all recommendations. And thereafter a process to appoint whoever was taken out by the review. Including a new coach and probably a new Football Director.

Will be interesting to see what role they have in mind for Solomon.

The coach hasn’t lost the players, the club has.

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if the players cant even run out and perform the bare minimum of their role, they deserve th be sacked, pull this ■■■■ in a real job and they’ll find out the wonders of being hired through an agency.

This will be frustrating from the lack of info and i am very sorry about that. I have had interesting conversations this morning and feel a lot less stressful knowing this club may actually finally have a chance of turning itself around. Things that i had concerns on looks like will be finally addressed. Proof will be in the results for sure.

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Exactly. In how many workplaces do the employees have a say in who their boss is? Or how their boss is treated. :woman_facepalming:

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I was feeling flat after Barham’s presser yesterday but after rewatching it, and sleeping on it, I’m not so concerned. His initial statement was fine, he just flubbed the questions. He tried to deflect and it sounded like he was ruling some changes out, or saying X was safe, but this isn’t the case.

We all want immediate change and some certainty but the people who run footy clubs are all so interconnected in business and other ways that it’s rarely a bloodbath. They need to save face and appear to move on amicably. The review will give that cover.

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Life is far less upsetting when you simply resign yourself to the obvious truth that Essendon are institutionally incapable of making wise decisions.
Just embrace the on and off field incompetence for the next milenia.

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Do these things start with the third last letter of the alphabet ?

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Being that the main concerns about the club are fairly commonly shared around here, that’s good to here. Thanks for sharing.

not enough xylophones?

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From the media info and ■■■■’s article today, seems like there are two camps

Corner 1

  • Barham
  • Sheeds
  • Dodoro
  • Harvey
  • 4 other board members

Corner 2

  • Brasher
  • Xavier
  • 4 other board members
  • Mahoney
  • Truck

Corner 1 want massive change and external review, but are also in the camp to give Hird another go. This corner seems to be supported by ex players in Lloyd, Watson and Welsh

Corner 2 want to keep the status quo and add some support for Truck.

Sunday is D day it seems

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An absolutely critical component of our list build was going to be getting high end players to the club at the end of 2023 and 2024 to elevate the group we had been building through the draft. To fill the obvious holes on our list.

We just pis$ed that up completely by how we carried ourselves over the last week and what that has projected to the footy world about our lack of proper process and lack of respect for our people. Our name is mud again.

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From the article in the Age

An external review, too, should have come months ago, although it should not take an investigator from Deloitte to explain why Geelong are heading for their eighth preliminary final since 2011 and Essendon are not.

Essendon great Matthew Lloyd in recent days referred to the cultural issues plaguing the club. He might not agree, but the aforementioned messiah complex was never better demonstrated than by this week’s emerging campaign to reinstate James Hird as coach of the club. Barham will have to demonstrate significant resolve to control that push as it unrolls in coming days.

It is a campaign fuelled by a significant section of diehard Bombers but is now being driven by the club’s veteran list manager and recruiter Adrian Dodoro and his cohort, which includes Kevin Sheedy and Mark Harvey. Hird has not spoken publicly.

Dodoro has emerged as a significant player in the in-house schism that has turned toxic in recent months. His fallout with football boss Josh Mahoney reflects just how much more difficult Rutten’s job must have been when two such pivotal figures lost faith in each other.

With Sheedy’s support, Dodoro has made his feelings on Mahoney more than clear. It is not known how Dodoro’s performance fared on paper in Mahoney’s review, which was conducted with oversight from football director Sean Wellman, but the long-time recruiter believes Mahoney has been after him for some time.

Should Xavier Campbell and Mahoney survive Barham’s external review — and that is not certain — then Dodoro definitely will not. Those relationships look irreparable.

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