Dear Kane

[The_General]

Knight's didn't really have a presence on the field that made you fear him though. I would put him under the classy midfielder, rather than an intimidating one.

 

[Knighter]

You didn't need to fear him, his football smarts made him the player he was.

 

[TigerMasochist]

Incredible, every time something like the Friday night debacle occurs (and plenty have occurred over the years), the majority blame the individuals - whether it be coaches, players or administrators.

Does it ever occur to anybody that if things like this happen repeatedly, and there are just different individuals to blame each time, that there may be underlying reasons that make such events inevitable?

Then again, we are Richmond, we'll just let people vent their spleens and sit back and wait for history to repeat (no doubt to the wails of "How could this be allowed......")

Ok then David, can you please tell us who was responsible for friday nights debacle? Us supporters are doing our bit as usual with 25,000 signed up before this disgrace was put on show. Who's to blame? US?

There's plenty of blame to go around, in a sense the vast majority of members do have some responsibility because a little while ago they were given the choice in an election between some people who saw that our club had fundamental ingrained problems and those that wanted to keep things going they way they were.

It's strange David but from where I sit these fundamental ingrained problems have exsisted for at least the last twenty years, so how would voting in another board with a group of recycleds have any effect, specially if you consider that the current board has had a fairly major overhaul in the last couple of years anyway.

There's no guarantee whatsoever that things like Friday night wouldn't have occurred if the club had decided on a different course back then, but a lot of us were pretty confident that such things would (and still will) occur if fundamental changes were not made.

Who knows David, it's pure speculation, most people obviously didn't agree with you.

The good intentions of people trying to recapture the "Glory Days" are not delivering, the methods and mind-set of trying to work on the fringes of issues whilst remaining in denial of our true situation in the football world are also not serving us well.
Every person involved in any way at a footy club is trying to recapture or invent a glory days David thats what it's all about.
What are these fringe issues that you claim "Nero is fiddling about with whilst Rome is burning all around ?" Sorry David just a bit of poetic licence ;D .

Just keep in mind that a couple of upset wins sometime this season will probably be more than enough for most people (inside and outside the club) to forget some of the basic problems we saw on the field in regard to disposal skills etc., and that will mean these things will still not be adequately addressed.

The same onfield problems have existed through just a couple of playing lists and coaches and football departments and recruiters in recent years David, perhaps you have some magic secret that no one has been able to find to rectify the problem. I know there's been plenty of people trying to find the solution without much success, so I reckon if you've got it you can guarantee yourself a life membership.

Please tell me that the above paragraph is incorrect, as I'd love to be proved wrong but anyone with a skerrick of honesty will admit that is exactly what we have done previously - and most supporters are quite happy with the situation.

I don't blame the individual players for basically falling out of a jerry-built structure once the ground underneath wobbled a bit, I do blame those who convinced the players and themselves that they were actually doing the club a favour by basically installing gold-played dunnies when the foundations were obviously inadequate.

I've got a theory on why the ground wobbles a bit David and you're right it is the foundations but I think we will disagree rather vehemently as to why those foundations are inadequate and it's got nothing to do with gold plated dunnies.
Now where did I put that DDT puffer I think I can see a few termites.

 

[dcstar]

.......
Good questions General, I read earlier some what i thought were interesting comments from Tuby to David without a response. It will be interesting to see if David comes out and replies to your message.

Forgive me for not staying on the Internet 24/7 so I can promptly answer every *smile* reply that appears!

 

[dcstar]

.........
I don't know a lot about you, so please don't take the following questions/comments as cheap shots - they aren't intended to be.

Have you ever served on the board before? I know you've worked at the club in some administrative role, but I don't know anything else (is that even true?)
Either way, the next question would come:

Have we not had several boards at the club, all who have had a shot at changing the culture/success over the past 20 years?

The on field culture can be completely different to the playing culture. I think we could be successful on the field if we have good leaders and a good coach. Good off field will enable us to provide better facilities and find better players to replace the hackers, when we can make decent profits.

Firstly, I haven't been on the board (I tried a couple of years ago, but failed), secondly - up until this year - I had been involved with the club in various volunteer areas continuously since late 1984 (as well as being a member for 10 years before that), so I credit myself with a perspective of the place that isn't that common.

My view of the club is just that, it is a club that cannot be isolated and partitioned off into little segments that do not affect each other. I have my own view as to what the overall "culture" and character that the overall entity that comes under the banner of the Richmond Football Club is.

Every board that is in charge changes the culture of the club, whether they deliberately try to or not. Every player and employee that comes into the club also changes the culture of the club, but I doubt too many of them actually could define what our "culture" actually is and whether it needs more change or not.

We had an obvious recent manifestation of our "culture" that needed to change, and that was the perception that we "sacked" coaches every second year - that was put to rest with the painful decision to keep Frawley on for an extra year just to disprove that perception.

There are many other things that I do not approve of, I won't bore you by regurgitating all of them here but we still behave - in so many ways - as a "Champagne" club taking overly expensive, risky paths that in reality only clubs with a far more successful record and financial base (to afford such risks) should do.

My underlying point is that people still do not recognise or understand - at virtually any level of the club - as to why Richmond does these things, or why so many things we do subsequently will not be as effective as they could be because of this fundamental lack of understanding (some may well have this view, but I haven't heard of it expressed by too many still at the club).

We are not the successful football club of the 1970's any longer, and some people should leave that childhood perception behind as we cannot afford to pursue that particular illusion or use the methods that we perceive to have worked for us back then.

I doubt that simplistic "fix the off-field" or "just get it right on the field" solutions will be enough, in this era there are too many other things that all have to work correctly for a club in our situation to be successful. Those days of doing things like they were done even 10 years ago will simply not be good enough to catch up on our current competitors in Melbourne, let alone surpass them.

If is very difficult to even to begin to address a problem if those with the power to do something about it do not even recognise that it exists.

I don't pretend to know all the answers, or even have what I see as the problem nailed down, but I am pretty sure there is a fundamental underlying problem (at least one...) and I have seen little obvious action been done to address it, so when things like Friday night occur, I'm not surprised, only disappointed.

 

[The_General]

I doubt that simplistic "fix the off-field" or "just get it right on the field" solutions will be enough, in this era there are too many other things that all have to work correctly for a club in our situation to be successful.

I think we both agree then. We both agree on and off field need changing, just differ in our approach.

I don't believe we can just fix things magically on the field (ie recruit the right footballers, and find the right coaching staff) and have some magical off field success. Sure it helps, but if people are overspending on marketing campaigns, or expecting 100 corporate sponsors and we get 40 then we're going to be screwed off field.

I don't believe just because you're executive is highly professional that you're players will be. It helps, but I don't think they are directly linked. You're middle management need to be just as professional, otherwise the messages just don't follow through. Conversely, you can have excellent middle management that get the best out of their staff and achieve levels of excellence, even though the structures supporting them may be poor (I've worked in this type of environment).

The club needs good strong leaders at all levels, because both on and off field aren't in the best shape ever. I think we have some in place (Steven Wright appears to be heading in the right direction for example), Wallace seems strong enough to pull the players into line, and make the hard decisions about who stays. (Some might disagree ;P )

 

[Ian4]

the jist of all this means sugar owes us an apology

 

[gustiger12]

the jist of all this means sugar owes us an apology

Forget the apology, he can show he is sorry with on field leadership and a great personal onfield performance this Friday night and I will forgive him. ;D

 

[Tango]

he can start by cleaning up that little *smile* that belted him last year - cant remember the saints little tagger

 

[Richmond United]

he can start by cleaning up that little sh!t that belted him last year - cant remember the saints little tagger

Baker.....his teammate Ackland may have already softened him up.

 

[Tango]

thats him, first opportunity he should be targeted by sugar

 

[Rosy]

Jools....i don't won't the tail wagging the dog at at the RFC ever again.  Knee-jerk reactions at the RFC are a hopefully a thing of the past.

As for the self-serving comment...perhaps i am wrong but it is relevant to ask yourself whose hand is squeezing the tail?

If Jools, or anybody else for that matter, understands what you're on about I hope an answer is posted.  Until then any clues cos you've got me stumped?

It's very interesting that from approx 2300 posts about the game this is the one you seem most concerned with.  :

I'm sure if you think long and hard you will understand exactly what i am on about and you are also very much mistaken.......i am concerned about all posts emanating from Friday's game!

I've read it and thought about it, but it's too subtle for me. My main concern was why you felt the original post was self serving.

Very poor form refusing to offer an explanation when requested and makes it hard to think the comments were anything other than a continuation of a personal vendetta.

Someone pm'd me that they understood it as RU insinuating that people's actions are influenced by my posts.

Gee might have a name change

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh rosy- Brainwasher of the Orange Yellow and Black brigade :