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Opinion 9/25/2004

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• Pay Andrew Russell whatever he wanted.

• Inform Primus that Tredrea is the premier player in the comp and will remain captain (honestly, this still grates). He and Francou are to come back via Norwood and North, leaving the Lade-Brogan tandem untouched.

• Take Monfries instead of Thomson. I really liked Thomson, but the stories of Angus' kamikaze attack on the pill at junior level were already rife. He was the perfect fit for Port Adelaide.

• Tell Byron that a NAB Cup Showdown isn't a Showdown at all. That hit on Begley and his resultant scapegoating was practically the end of his career. And he'd literally won the Norm Smith Medal in the previous competitive game. Extraordinary.

• The stadium/licence thing is weird. I feel like we should've been agitating from a position of strength and not while we were on our knees later, but as has been said, where does that get us? Chained to a half-arsed Footy Park redevelopment and SANFL governance forever?

There's a common thread running through our AFL era though, and it's that we elevate individuals above the club and invariably make horrid strategic decisions as a result.

Primus. Williams. Koch. Hinkley.

"We wanted to win one for Matty"

Yeah? How about winning 2-3-4-5 for Port Adelaide?
 
Wouldn’t change a thing.

Hindsight is the prophecy of losers. I was going to do this. I wish we had done that.

Winners set about making the changes necessary in the present to affect the future.

I am trading out those who aren’t willing to sacrifice for the team.

I am recruiting those who will do whatever it takes to win a flag.

I am bringing in players with better disposal.

I am making decisions about the future of the club and seeing them through, even though the success of those decisions might not seem apparent in the short term.

In short...I’m doing what Port Adelaide is doing now.
 
(Apologies in advance for the non-standard date notation, but I've pinched the idea from the Stephen King novel so working for authenticity here ;))

Imagine you found a time portal that took you back in time to the day of the 2004 grand final. Knowing what you know now about how history unfolded, what would you try to change the course of Port Adelaide history from that point?

I'd tell Stewart his services are no longer needed the morning of the grand final. Convince Choco to call Scott Thompson and see if he's keen to come home. Tell Carr that he's not going to win a flag at Freo so not to bother about heading back to Perth.

Hopefully that means:
1) We keep Carr
2) We recruit Scott Thompson
3) We don't draft a whole bunch of nuff nuffs who have collectively zero impact on the club.
4) Potentially a second premiership
 
Wouldn’t change a thing.

Hindsight is the prophecy of losers. I was going to do this. I wish we had done that.

Winners set about making the changes necessary in the present to affect the future.

I am trading out those who aren’t willing to sacrifice for the team.

I am recruiting those who will do whatever it takes to win a flag.

I am bringing in players with better disposal.

I am making decisions about the future of the club and seeing them through, even though the success of those decisions might not seem apparent in the short term.

In short...I’m doing what Port Adelaide is doing now.

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Convince Choco to call Scott Thompson and see if he's keen to come home.

By Grand Final day that ship had sailed though hadnt it? Thompson's successful tapping-up and handshake agreement was long since in the bag.
 
Wouldn’t change a thing.

Hindsight is the prophecy of losers. I was going to do this. I wish we had done that.

Winners set about making the changes necessary in the present to affect the future.

I am trading out those who aren’t willing to sacrifice for the team.

I am recruiting those who will do whatever it takes to win a flag.

I am bringing in players with better disposal.

I am making decisions about the future of the club and seeing them through, even though the success of those decisions might not seem apparent in the short term.

In short...I’m doing what Port Adelaide is doing now.
But you wouldn't want to have done it then?
 
• Pay Andrew Russell whatever he wanted.

• Inform Primus that Tredrea is the premier player in the comp and will remain captain (honestly, this still grates). He and Francou are to come back via Norwood and North, leaving the Lade-Brogan tandem untouched.

• Take Monfries instead of Thomson. I really liked Thomson, but the stories of Angus' kamikaze attack on the pill at junior level were already rife. He was the perfect fit for Port Adelaide.

• Tell Byron that a NAB Cup Showdown isn't a Showdown at all. That hit on Begley and his resultant scapegoating was practically the end of his career. And he'd literally won the Norm Smith Medal in the previous competitive game. Extraordinary.

• The stadium/licence thing is weird. I feel like we should've been agitating from a position of strength and not while we were on our knees later, but as has been said, where does that get us? Chained to a half-arsed Footy Park redevelopment and SANFL governance forever?

There's a common thread running through our AFL era though, and it's that we elevate individuals above the club and invariably make horrid strategic decisions as a result.

Primus. Williams. Koch. Hinkley.

"We wanted to win one for Matty"

Yeah? How about winning 2-3-4-5 for Port Adelaide?
That 2005 season had so many things go wrong and bad decisions, and right from the start when Josh Carr requested a trade. It's like we tried everything we could to not go back to back. Yet despite all that we made a semi final showdown and seemingly had an opportunity to snatch a flag despite all that had gone wrong. But Pickett hits Biglands, the Crows fire up and we raised the white flag. The second half of that game was pretty much a carbon copy of the 2007 GF for mine. It was embarrassing, and we've been ripe for the picking ever since.

I still feel like that season got away from us as much as 2002 and 2003.
 
Not sold off the Pumping Fist Float to the Mardi Gras or Christmas Pageant or whatever the f@%k...
 
2004 trade period.
 

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Everything that smacked of "Mission Accomplished". That includes, letting Bucky go, drinking Choco's Kool Aid, letting Carr go, backing Primus, not organising a succession plan for Clarkson to take over, letting Andrew Russell go. I'm sure there is more.

The problem is that we had been conditioned by our time in the SANFL to think that this was a beginning of an era of dominance. And bathwater was drunk.
 
Everything that smacked of "Mission Accomplished". That includes, letting Bucky go, drinking Choco's Kool Aid, letting Carr go, backing Primus, not organising a succession plan for Clarkson to take over, letting Andrew Russell go. I'm sure there is more.

The problem is that we had been conditioned by our time in the SANFL to think that this was a beginning of an era of dominance. And bathwater was drunk.

Even though we are talking fantasy, this was never happening. Clarkson left to coach his own side weeks before Choco won the flag. We were at Peak Choco and there would have been zero chance and pretty much inconceivable anybody would have believed he was going to be replaced any time in the next 3 years at least.
 
Even though we are talking fantasy, this was never happening. Clarkson left to coach his own side weeks before Choco won the flag. We were at Peak Choco and there would have been zero chance and pretty much inconceivable anybody would have believed he was going to be replaced any time in the next 3 years at least.

Okay, kneecap Choco in the lead-up to the finals to facilitate Clarkson's takeover.
 

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(Apologies in advance for the non-standard date notation, but I've pinched the idea from the Stephen King novel so working for authenticity here ;))

Imagine you found a time portal that took you back in time to the day of the 2004 grand final. Knowing what you know now about how history unfolded, what would you try to change the course of Port Adelaide history from that point?
We cant stop Clarko he got the job after we beat Geelong QF and before St Kilda PF.

1. Pay Andrew Russell an extra $400,000 a year for him to stay
2. Go talk to David Rath and if Clarko hadn't signed him - go get him
3. Tell Hardwick we have an assistant coaching job for him. Offer him $150,000 more than Clarko to keep him happy to stay in SA and not return to Victoria
4. Somehow keep Bucky for 2 more years
5. Talk to Koch to come on the board and bring his eastern seaboard experts idea up and running and tell him to start finding corporates in Sydney and Melbourne.
6. Don't shut the Melbourne office and keep Chris Pelchen
7. Tell Carr on Monday morning, you have 2 hours to work out if you stay or go, if he cant give us an answer, say we will trade you then.
8. Go get Scott Thompson, dont fart arse around with Carr.
9. Use the draft picks we had, ie the ones we didnt use on Thomo, a lot better than we did. Dont trade away for Shattock.

I'm sure I have forgotten some but these are the ones that hit me in the face straight away. Well the other one is to tell Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to go and blow up the SANFL and we will give him a bonus.
 
We got extremely relaxed after the premiership, not sure there is any single thing that matters until we extend Mark Williams and hit financial ruin.

Primus over Chris Scott?

Having a ****ing snake oil salesman as our fitness?

Our drafting strategy was completely hopeless until recently, and letting Mark Williams get a huge head was another obvious disaster.

I also wouldn’t have pushed for a reserves team in the SANFL in hindsight. I think it’s massively harmed our player development, and we would have been much better off playing in the VFL instead.
 

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