Craig Cameron. How do you feel ?

[Tigerfan]

Reckon Cameron is really struggling at the moment.

Listening to him being interviewed tonight on SEN it was clear that whilst the Football Department as a whole decided to do the Cousins deal, he preferred to use the 6th pick on a junior. He was asked about the "youth plan" that was spoken about and approved by the board back in November and the subsequent deviation away from that plan today. He responded with something along the lines of sticking to plans is something we probably need to sit down as a club and discuss.

He may have been the fall guy in the media for all of this, but I'm not so sure. Think his comments about not being interested in Cousins and his "highly unlikely" comment last night were Cameron's own genuine beliefs based on what he thought the club was committed to. Seems to me he's been overuled. He's supposed to be head of the Footy Department reviewing all personell but it was Wallace doing all the talking today. That's a bit weird I reckon.

Not impressed with him keeping Pettifer, re signing JON (crazy) and re signing Graham either.

Not off to a great start imo.

This post follows Damien Barret's line of reasoning.

i ask you all:

what the hell is wrong with taking a risk?

What the hell is wrong with changing direction?

 

[Hayfever]

Reckon Cameron is really struggling at the moment.

Listening to him being interviewed tonight on SEN it was clear that whilst the Football Department as a whole decided to do the Cousins deal, he preferred to use the 6th pick on a junior. He was asked about the "youth plan" that was spoken about and approved by the board back in November and the subsequent deviation away from that plan today. He responded with something along the lines of sticking to plans is something we probably need to sit down as a club and discuss.

He may have been the fall guy in the media for all of this, but I'm not so sure. Think his comments about not being interested in Cousins and his "highly unlikely" comment last night were Cameron's own genuine beliefs based on what he thought the club was committed to. Seems to me he's been overuled. He's supposed to be head of the Footy Department reviewing all personell but it was Wallace doing all the talking today. That's a bit weird I reckon.

Not impressed with him keeping Pettifer, re signing JON (crazy) and re signing Graham either.

Not off to a great start imo

"Baptism of fire" perhaps Red. In the process I think the pecking order at RFC finally got sorted out.

When one of our PRE posters reported here on Monday night that he saw Wallace in the Punt Road carpark smiling and confident it was clear the get Cousins button had been pushed. There is some sweet irony behind all this. Remember when March and Wallace had their run-in after Millergate. Wallace got told to stay in his box. Since then March and Cameron have both been put through hoops by the media. Now Wallace comes out and handles the media with ease and looks the hero. Who did Cousins thank?.......... Terry Wallace and RFC.

This whole process will be reviewed by RFC and should enable the bugs to be fixed. I don't see any big dramas from now on. At least until we get to sign GAblett jnr ;D

 

[IanG]

There you go. That's the Richmond way. Continually make excuses for players with massive deficiencies, in this case skill level, and leave them on the list for years too long.

It's no good just being big; you also need to be good.

Thats a nonseniscal reply unless you're saying he wasn't really injured. How could he have played when he was injured? When he played at the end of 2007 he actually didn't look to bad, and playing out the last game of that year with his injured ankle took a lot of guts.

 

[pahoffm]

"Baptism of fire" perhaps Red. In the process I think the pecking order at RFC finally got sorted out.

When one of our PRE posters reported here on Monday night that he saw Wallace in the Punt Road carpark smiling and confident it was clear the get Cousins button had been pushed. There is some sweet irony behind all this. Remember when March and Wallace had their run-in after Millergate. Wallace got told to stay in his box. Since then March and Cameron have both been put through hoops by the media. Now Wallace comes out and handles the media with ease and looks the hero. Who did Cousins thank?.......... Terry Wallace and RFC.

This whole process will be reviewed by RFC and should enable the bugs to be fixed. I don't see any big dramas from now on. At least until we get to sign GAblett jnr ;D

That's a good post.

The things I recount are:
1. Craig was originally employed as List Manager, a role that he'd previously held at Melbourne.
2. He was elevated, as I recall, in the 2nd half of the season, into Football Operations Manager, a role he was new too.

I imagine it will take him time to fully develop into the new role, just like a new recruit takes time to develop with the list.
There are individual internal development factors.
And also team coordination & development factors.
All take time.

For me, the major point is that the Football Dept works as a team, supporting each other and ensuring the progress of our onfield performances.
Whomever taked the lead at particular times is fine, as long as everyone is working towards the same end.

 

[TigerMasochist]

Compromised no doubt.

Compromised..................... Nah!
Shafted most likely.
There's a few things not gelling properly in the backrooms at the moment.
CC was appointed list manager.
March, O'shannasey, Haines I think were the ones who did the big internal review of all things football because we were going nowhere.
Miller went off the board and Freezer went on, then Miller got punted right out the door.
We did a big master headhunt to replace Miller with the best of the best and then allowed,asked? CC to apply for the promotion.
March rated our season poorly and also has made mention that Plough would only be involved in recruiting in a minimal way passing on his prefered requirements to the footy manager.
We've shown no interest in Cuz for months but all of a sudden as soon as we miss out on our prefered pick 70 and decide to review some more kids for the PSD, we start scheming. Trouble is different people are all making different comments through the media and then everyone does backflips when the media and public start singing and dancing.
I'm pretty sure that someone somewhere buckled to pressure and anticipation, and it wasn't CC. Poor old CC looks to have been bent over by the powers that be.
Hopefully he gets his wish from now on and everyone stays on the same page when it come to the way they want to run and grow the club.

 

[BrisTiger24]

Compromised..................... Nah!
Shafted most likely.
There's a few things not gelling properly in the backrooms at the moment.
CC was appointed list manager.
March, O'shannasey, Haines I think were the ones who did the big internal review of all things football because we were going nowhere.
Miller went off the board and Freezer went on, then Miller got punted right out the door.
We did a big master headhunt to replace Miller with the best of the best and then allowed,asked? CC to apply for the promotion.
March rated our season poorly and also has made mention that Plough would only be involved in recruiting in a minimal way passing on his prefered requirements to the footy manager.
We've shown no interest in Cuz for months but all of a sudden as soon as we miss out on our prefered pick 70 and decide to review some more kids for the PSD, we start scheming. Trouble is different people are all making different comments through the media and then everyone does backflips when the media and public start singing and dancing.
I'm pretty sure that someone somewhere buckled to pressure and anticipation, and it wasn't CC. Poor old CC looks to have been bent over by the powers that be.
Hopefully he gets his wish from now on and everyone stays on the same page when it come to the way they want to run and grow the club.

Speaking about Freezer. We've neither seen or heard from him for a while. What's his status??

 

[Baloo]

Gagged

 

[Ridley]

Thats a nonseniscal reply unless you're saying he wasn't really injured. How could he have played when he was injured? When he played at the end of 2007 he actually didn't look to bad, and playing out the last game of that year with his injured ankle took a lot of guts.

The only thing nonsenical is anyone thinking Graham is up to AFL standard. Agree about the injured ankle, that was a gutsy effort. But you need more than just guts to play AFL footy. As for him not looking too bad, fair dinkum he struggled to connect the ball with his boot on the very few ocassions he actually got near it.

 

[Freezer]

Speaking about Freezer. We've neither seen or heard from him for a while. What's his status??

I'm still here.

 

[mb64]

Although it was a massive week for the RFC and we do have a massive wave of momentum pushing us forward, some one was always going to be left carrying the can for the poor press confrence on Monday.

Hopefully the club has learnt that Cameron will do his best work behind the camera and not in front of it. Ever.

Cameron did make some very strange contract moves over his first few months.

Those being Scoop?

 

[tigerinthetank2]

Yep, strange contract moves , ummm Pettifer and JON. very strange

 

[the claw]

Dont' agree with this totally. Cameron is the head of the football department and recruiting manager, but he still has to operate within the direction of the club and the wishes of the coaching staff. After all at the end of the day it is the coach who lives and dies by the decision that are made across the board.

This crap that we deviated from a youth policy is a furfy. We picked one mature age player, and then only with the last pick in the PSD and only after the Polak application was quashed.

That mature age player just happens to be a Brownlow medalist and premiership player so its not as if we were going the Kingsley or Graham route again.

I happily admit I was not in favour of taking Benny Boy, however we got him at a bargain basement price and I will support the decision every step of the way. Now that he is onboard, like everyone else, I sincerely hope that this decision is one day looked back upon as the masterstroke that truly awakened the sleeping Giant. I don't care whose decision it was and I won't care whether the media say it was poorly handled. At the end of the day if this works out no one else will care either. All we will hear from *smile* Barrett is what a master tactician Sheedy was in resurrecting the Tigers of Old.

I'm sure CC will look back on it and say, well that was a small price to pay.

The only thing Im critical off is that they had no unified media strategy. All they had to say after we missed our man at Pick 70 was "We'll look at all our options and make our decision based on whats best for the future of the Richmond Football club. We will look at and assess all our options." End of story. No one looks silly, no change of strategy, no media throwing dirt.

We did what we should have done. We took the best player available, and hopefully it will turn out to be the bargain of the century. Yeah it has some risks, and I have said I was not in favour of picking up Ben, for a number of reason, however I never dreamt that he would still be available at pick 6 in the PSD either. We rolled the dice, and I will not be cutting up my membership because of it. Sometimes you have to take risks and I think the risks here were justified given what we paid.

Now that Ben is a Tiger I wish him every success.

in principal im going to agree. but im coming from not just the cousins deal in isolation. thomson hislop cousins and you could say even post who is top end and should have been drafted last draft but wasnt for obvious reasons.
in effect we took 1 kid from the age pool this draft sheesh even the rookies nahas 21 silvestor 24 were mature.imo we landed on our feet but i dont think there is any ryme reason or propper planning going on. more than ever it seems to me we dont value the draft. this is the worry.

 

[momentai]

I suspect as both March and Wallace said, we really were shocked with the AFL's decision on the Polak application.

If that is true it could only have been because either we spoke to Demetriou or he called us, to 'suggest' we consider taking Cousins with the Polak pick and that should we make the application, that he Demetriou, would recommend it be approved.

However as soon as Healy announced our application on AW the media fired by overwhelming public support, ;D took over and really as far as the Club was concerned 'the genie was out of the bottle'.

When the Commission reached its (imo flawed) decision, there was no turning back.

Sheedy/Wallace didn't win. Cameron didn't lose. All good.

Maybe the only possible loser was Johnson?