Roast A reflection of where Pie fans think their club is really at. It's not positive.

Are you happy with we're the club is at?

  • Yes

    Votes: 17 13.1%
  • No

    Votes: 104 80.0%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 9 6.9%

  • Total voters
    130

Markfs

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i must have seen about a hundred takes on the malthouse buckley transition...and i dont read threads a lot of the time.... and it doesnt matter who gets it right or wrong, it has zero impact on what happens next.
 
Ok then let's look at the last 11 years vs the competition, let's see how good you can make that look then. Don't forget to include the whole comp in that time.

Doesn't look pretty does it.

The last 11 years has been a roller coaster, that’s for sure.

2011 was the most dominant I’ve seen Collingwood in my lifetime. Or probably most dominant I’ve seen of any team. We finished the H&A on 20 wins and 167%. Only one team could beat us that season. During that 2011 season nobody was complaining about our list, or our fitness, or our coach, or the Bootstudder. There were no EGM threats or pending Supreme Court cases. Sure, there was a bit of curiosity over Mick’s interview and his uncertainty about his future, but it was more watercooler discussion than the angst that people later came to express in hindsight. The only thing some people seemed to be complaining about here on BF was that footy was getting a bit boring and they were losing interest because we were so predictably winning all the time (I kid you not). Not too many Collingwood supporters went home from the footy unhappy that season … until the GF of course. As for myself, I was walking across a desert under searing heat on the other side of world, with every inch of my body having been mauled the night before by bedbugs. I was hot and itching like a maniac. I was trying to follow the GF scoreline on the worlds worst internet connection. That was a s**t day.

For any Collingwood supporter going through the 2011 season at the time there was 99% satisfaction followed by 1% despair. Obviously when that season ended and we look back, that 1% bit has become an important focal point. But nobody can deny the 99% bit that people experienced in the moment, it just makes the 1% bit all the more galling.

2012 at the time was curious. Seeing Peter Yagmoor and Jackson Paine on the round 1 teamsheet that year (I kid you not) showed that we certainly weren’t in Kansas anymore. It ended up being a fairly decent H&A season, not as dominant as 2011, but we were still up there. The prevailing view was that Mick was a silly old codger and he should just STFU and stop white anting Buckley and Collingwood from the sidelines, but nobody really got too upset about that during the season … until the week of the Prelim final. Oh do I remember that well. That Monday was my first full day as a BF mod. And all hell broke loose on BF that day when news came through that former Collingwood player John McCarthy had died in an accident in Vegas. The following Saturday morning we saw video footage of a bus pulling over on the side of the road on the Mornington Peninsula so players could get off and change out of their mourning suits having just come from John’s funeral. The bus then continued onto the airport and the players flew up here to Sydney to play the Swans. The game was at the Olympic stadium, a hulking soulless stadium that sucks all joy out of even the most entertaining game of footy. That night was particularly miserable, our players were clearly trying to throw themselves into the game, but emotionally they were spent, flat as a tack. That was a s**t evening. History shows we lost that PF to the eventual Premiers. We weren’t good enough. I doubt any team under those circumstances could have gotten themselves up for that game. But in the minds of many a Mick led team would have, and so it began …

2013 - 2017 The injury years. Our players were falling like flies. Early on it was structural injuries like ACL’s (we averaged 4 a season there for a few years) and shoulder reco’s (there were a bunch of those) but then it gradually morphed into soft tissue problems. I remember a club members’ forum one year where Buckley presented the number of games that Collingwood players had to sit out due to injury compared with the rest of the competition. It was staggering. We were the worst in the comp by a substantial margin. Forget winning or losing Premierships, or even winning or losing games of footy, we didn’t get that far when exciting young prospects, or reliable veterans got struck down by shredded hamstrings if they’re lucky, or an ACL or blown ankle if they were not. The reality is that we will never know how good our list was or wasn’t during that period because we just couldn’t reliably get players on the park. There was no continuity. It wasn’t all on Davoren either, the injuries began during the end of Butterfant’s tenure. We had multiple medical reviews before we finally seemed to rein it in after this period. In amongst all that we became a revolving door of footy bosses. Walsh, Eade, Balme, Allen, Wagner and back to Walsh again during that period. It was a mess. History shows that we went downhill during that period, making an EF in 2013 and finishing 13th in 2017, but what’s really amazing is that we held it together as well as we did. Gee, the teams below us must have been really crap. That period was also dominated by many Collingwood supporters arguing over how many more Premierships we would or wouldn’t have won if we hadn’t ‘sacked’ Mick … it got very tiresome. In 2017 Peter Murphy, a name previously unknown to Pies fans was engaged to do a review into the club. Chris Thomas and Geoff Walsh were seconded to do their part of the review, and it was revealed that we were under salary cap pressure …

2018 was one of the few seasons in my lifetime where results exceeded all realistic expectations of the average Collingwood supporter. Buckley hadn’t been sacked as a result of the review, but could we really expect things to change much? Our senior coach morphed from being a cold hard driven perfectionist, to being more of a warm cuddly touchy feely type. We had a decent H&A season without being dominant. We sailed through the finals series, including a stirring PF win over reigning premiers Richmond. At the GF I remember chatting to my fellow Collingwood supporters before the game and we were pinching ourselves, was this for real? And then it became real enough. The 2011 and 2018 GF losses were disappointing for very different reasons. 2011 was a disappointment that expectations hadn’t been met. 2018 was a disappointment that fairy tales don’t always come with a happy ending.

2019 - 2020 was trying to repeat the magic of 2018 and go one better, but we couldn’t quite manage it. 2019 we were doing OK, but fluffed the PF. 2020 became a stress test about how well clubs and teams could adapt to the uncertain world of Covid. For me that provided as revealing an insight as any about how well we were being run behind the scenes and I sensed that we didn’t too well in that test. The 2020 EF was a game for the ages. In that joyous moment after that win you wouldn’t have found a Collingwood supporter in the land who (1) was unhappy or (2) seriously thought we were any chance of the Premiership.

2021 - onwards The winds of change are blowing through the club. Who knows where those winds will take us?

Unlike some other clubs, Collingwood has never been about mediocrity. So I’m totally cool with us falling off the ladder in order for us to pull ourselves together and get ourselves back up again. In the mid 70’s, the mid 80’s, the end of the 90’s, and the mid 2000’s, during each of those periods we were rubbish. We even had a couple of wooden spoons amongst them. But those periods either led to a Premiership, or multiple Grand Finals, or both.

Meanwhile, we ain’t going to be competing for Premierships anytime soon, let alone win them. That just doesn’t happen with this much change. This period will be all about enjoying the small victories along the journey back to success: the promising young player having a breakout game, the tight win against the more fancied opponent, the hanger, the goal of the year nomination, the Premiership win by one of our other teams. It’ll be a rocky journey and we will ride every bump in the road along the way …

… and when it comes time to look back we’ll all have our own revisionist history about what should and shouldn’t have been done differently …

… until the time comes when we do celebrate our next Premiership …

… and then we’ll do it all over again. And again. And again. Good old Collingwood forever.
 
Last edited:

Markfs

Brownlow Medallist
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This reminds me of Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians. Paul had just left town and had found out that all the converts were having second thoughts about their faith. He decided to write them a long letter as a pep talk to get them back on the straight and narrow. Of course, some years later Paul was beheaded in Rome.
 
First off, I’m not interested in a point by point analysis of everything I mention in this post …

Yeah, sometimes we don’t want to think about things too much and we just want to go and smash the punching bag out of frustration.

And so it’ll be inside the club too. There’ll be hard celebrations after a joyous win, and there’ll be table thumping and harsh words after a tough loss. Or a smashing of the punching bag out of frustration.

But at some stage they’ll move on from that and analytically, strategically and tactically plan our team’s next win.

For you and I as fans we normally have the freedom of experiencing the footy however we damn well please, and with the decadent luxury of there being no consequences at all to how we do that …

… but these times are a bit different. In a few months time the s**t will get real, and you and I and others will be called upon at the AGM to decide who we want to direct the future of this club. Yeah, people always say that the board doesn’t really matter, the board don’t kick the footy, the board don’t coach the team …

… but all throughout our club’s history a membership decision on the board has represented a significant fork in the road in the destiny of our club. This AGM will be no different. One path of that fork will represent a shorter route to our next Premiership. Choose wisely.

Is that a decision we want to make whilst smashing the punching bag, a visceral reaction to some ancient Insta post of a board candidate wearing the wrong guernsey, or despair at remembering some decision over the senior coach made many years earlier by the club when they were operating under a very different board composition?

Or is it a decision that we want to be a bit analytical about?
 
Last edited:

NMBB

Norm Smith Medallist
May 3, 2021
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The last 11 years has been a roller coaster, that’s for sure.

2011 was the most dominant I’ve seen Collingwood in my lifetime. Or probably most dominant I’ve seen of any team. We finished the H&A on 20 wins and 167%. Only one team could beat us that season. During that 2011 season nobody was complaining about our list, or our fitness, or our coach, or the Bootstudder. There were no EGM threats or pending Supreme Court cases. Sure, there was a bit of curiosity over Mick’s interview and his uncertainty about his future, but it was more watercooler discussion than the angst that people later came to express in hindsight. The only thing some people seemed to be complaining about here on BF was that footy was getting a bit boring and they were losing interest because we were so predictably winning all the time (I kid you not). Not too many Collingwood supporters went home from the footy unhappy that season … until the GF of course. As for myself, I was walking across a desert under searing heat on the other side of world, with every inch of my body having been mauled the night before by bedbugs. I was hot and itching like a maniac. I was trying to follow the GF scoreline on the worlds worst internet connection. That was a sh*t day.

For any Collingwood supporter going through the 2011 season at the time there was 99% satisfaction followed by 1% despair. Obviously when that season ended and we look back, that 1% bit has become an important focal point, but nobody can deny the 99% that people experienced in the moment during the season. It just makes that 1% bit all the more galling.

2012 at the time was curious. Seeing Peter Yagmoor and Jackson Paine on the round 1 teamsheet that year (I kid you not) showed that we certainly weren’t in Kansas anymore. It ended up being a fairly decent H&A season, not as dominant as 2011, but we were still up there. The prevailing view was that Mick was a silly old codger and he should just STFU and stop white anting Buckley and Collingwood from the sidelines, but nobody really got too upset about that during the season … until the week of the Prelim final. Oh do I remember that well. That Monday was my first full day as a BF mod. And all hell broke loose on BF that day when news came through that former Collingwood player John McCarthy had died in an accident in Vegas. The following Saturday morning we saw video footage of a bus pulling over on the side of the road on the Mornington Peninsula so players could get off and change out of their mourning suits having just come from John’s funeral. The bus then continued onto the airport and the players flew up here to Sydney to play the Swans. The game was at the Olympic stadium, a hulking soulless stadium that sucks all joy out of even the most entertaining game of footy. That night was particularly miserable, our players were clearly trying to throw themselves into the game, but emotionally they were spent, flat as a tack. That was a sh*t evening. History shows we lost that PF to the eventual Premiers. We weren’t good enough. I doubt any team under those circumstances could have gotten themselves up for that game. But in the minds of many a Mick led team would have, and so it began …

2013 - 2017 The injury years. Our players were falling like flies. Early on it was structural injuries like ACL’s (we averaged 4 a season there for a few years) and shoulder reco’s (there were a bunch of those) but then it gradually morphed into soft tissue problems. I remember a club members’ forum one year where Buckley presented the number of games that Collingwood players had to sit out due to injury compared with the rest of the competition. It was staggering. We were the worst in the comp by a substantial margin. Forget winning or losing Premierships, or even winning or losing games of footy, we didn’t get that far when exciting young prospects, or reliable veterans got struck down by shredded hamstrings if they’re lucky, or an ACL or blown ankle if they were not. The reality is that we will never know how good our list was or wasn’t during that period because we just couldn’t reliably get players on the park. There was no continuity. It wasn’t all on Davoren either, the injuries began during the end of Butterfant’s tenure. We had multiple medical reviews before we finally seemed to rein it in after this period. In amongst all that we became a revolving door of footy bosses. Walsh, Eade, Balme, Allen, Wagner and back to Walsh again during that period. It was a mess. History shows that we went downhill during that period, making an EF in 2013 and finishing 13th in 2017, but what’s really amazing is that we held it together as well as we did. Gee, the teams below us must have been really crap. That period was also dominated by many Collingwood supporters arguing over how many more Premierships we would or wouldn’t have won if we hadn’t ‘sacked’ Mick … it got very tiresome. In 2017 Peter Murphy, a name previously unknown to Pies fans was engaged to do a review into the club. Chris Thomas and Geoff Walsh were seconded to do their part of the review, and it was revealed that we were under salary cap pressure …

2018 was one of the few seasons in my lifetime where results exceeded all realistic expectations of the average Collingwood supporter. Buckley hadn’t been sacked as a result of the review, but could we really expect things to change much? Our senior coach morphed from being a cold hard driven perfectionist, to being more of a warm cuddly touchy feely type. We had a decent H&A season without being dominant. We sailed through the finals series, including a stirring PF win over reigning premiers Richmond. At the GF I remember chatting to my fellow Collingwood supporters and we were pinching ourselves, was this for real? The 2011 and 2018 GF losses were disappointing for very different reasons. 2011 was a disappointment that expectations hadn’t been met. 2018 was a disappointment that fairy tales don’t always come with a happy ending.

2019 - 2020 was trying to repeat the magic of 2018 and go one better, but we couldn’t quite manage it. 2019 we were doing OK, but fluffed the PF. 2020 became a stress test about how well clubs and teams could adapt to the uncertain world of Covid. For me that provided as revealing an insight as any about how well we were being run behind the scenes and I sensed that we didn’t too well in that test. The 2020 EF was a game for the ages. In that joyous moment after that win you wouldn’t have found a Collingwood supporter in the land who (1) was unhappy or (2) seriously thought we were any chance of the Premiership.

2021 - the winds of change are blowing through the club. Who knows where those winds will take us?

Unlike some other clubs, Collingwood has never been about mediocrity. So I’m totally cool with us falling off the ladder in order for us to pull ourselves together and get ourselves back up again, just like ‘76, or the mid 80’s, or the end of the 90’s, or the mid 2000’s. During each of those periods we were rubbish - there are a couple of wooden spoons in there - but those periods either led to a Premiership, or multiple Grand Finals, or both.

Meanwhile, we ain’t going to be competing for Premierships anytime soon, let alone win them. That just doesn’t happen with this much change. This period will be all about enjoying the small victories along the journey back to success: the promising young player having a breakout game, the tight win against the odds, the hanger, the goal of the year nomination, the Premiership win by one of our other teams. It’ll be a rocky journey and we will ride every bump in the road along the way …

… and when it comes time to look back we’ll all have our own revisionist history about what should and shouldn’t have been done differently …

… until the time comes when we do celebrate our next Premiership …

… and then we’ll do it all over again. And again. And again. Good old Collingwood forever.
Is there a summary on Amazon (Kindle version)?
 

peter9789

Club Legend
Aug 25, 2009
2,672
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First off, I’m not interested in a point by point analysis of everything I mention in this post which it seems certain people want to do to everyone who comments in this thread, so don’t bother, these are my opinions and fair enough if you disagree in fact I’m sure many will but I don’t need a point by point Analysis of everything I said.

No it’s not positive where the club is at and I see a lot of pain in our future. As in long term pain like Carlton and Essendon have been in. Premierships is how I judge the club after all that’s our core business. Let’s be honest the last 60 odd years has been very bad. Finals and grand finals are fine but it’s like NASA at the moment, they went to the moon but now they don’t even orbit the earth, resting on past glories.

The rebuild of the whole club is going to take a long time, it’s not just the playing list but the whole club. We all know the issues even though some want to ignore them or put lipstick on the pig, it’s still a pig.

Eddie screwed us with the Buckley/Malthouse hand over. Bucks couldn’t handle our top players and was too pig headed to help the kids. Those dead years after 2011 should have been our dynasty years but bucks wanted it done his way despite what success Mick had and the players he had to work with but I won’t make this about that as that’s old news and both Ed and Bucks are gone.

I’m smelling the 1990’s all over again, average side, no finals and one or two players carrying the load, Daicos and Moore. Finances up sh*t creek, public persona as low as you can get, not a destination club for free agents and basically a basket case. Maybe five or so years at the bottom will be good as long as the recruiters do their job. (not Hine) Five or more top 10 picks in the next 6-8 years then maybe things will be different but it all depends on decisions made now with the coach, salary cap problems, list management/ recruiting staff and a stable board who are there to win flags not create an empire or make themselves look good. I would love in 5 years time for people to not even know who’s on our board because like any great organisation it’s not about them it’s about the club being a success and the supporters finally being proud to admit they follow the pies.

I’m ashamed of our year this season, one or two good wins on field but let’s be honest it’s 17th on the ladder, no all Australians, no rising star nominations despite 9 debutants, no key forwards coming through the VFL that are making people excited for a debut, just a bunch of good ordinary players who will do their best. There’s no spark except for ND and he’s just one person like Bucks in the 90’s.

Anyway that’s my opinion. Again I don’t need an Analysis of what I said just because you disagree because you may be right and I’m full of sh*t 😂 which is probably right.

I’m very happy for this to be quoted next season if we are flying and killing it, in fact I encourage it.

So now let’s dust off the whites and prepare for the Ashes and a season of listening to Shane Warne talk through his arse.

Thanks ⚫⚪

Good post. I think you are pretty close to the mark.

Like you I am bitterly disappointed with how quickly we have fallen off the cliff. We can point to the various reasons as to why, but that's not really going to help us.

I'm a forward looking person, so forget about what happened over the past decade, and ensure we have the right people, and structure to bring some order back into the club.

Small steps - Graham Wright as head of footy; Next get the right coach and then surround him with whatever he needs (development coaches); Double down our investment in scouting and recruitment - there are plenty of great players out there; Prudent management of the list and no more mega contracts for role players; No more salary cap bungling; Trade players and extract maximum currency if they dont want to be at the PIES

Work hard to re-enage the fans - so may disenchanted at the moment.

Only if we get this right over a sustained period of time can we expect to be back in contention. It's a long road back but I've been there before.
 

Markfs

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book report : 76's epistle to the magpie army.

i would love to do a point by point critique of the epistle above, but i just dont have the skills. The rewriting of history where mick is a codger in the post buckley era, is an interesting interpretation. The blame dumped on injuries and changes to footy directors has certainly challenged my memory. If I remember correctly, the forum was treated to a mega conga-line of a thread blaming buckley for everything including his disloyalty for not knocking back the job in the first place. The rest of the epistle is a feast of positive thoughts and romance....something you might get from a mills and boon novel.

At the very least, this an example where history has been written by the losers...now all we need now is a publisher and the vic ed dept to put it on the curriculum. Maybe the chinese will make it compulsory reading when they take over..

All in all, probably the best piece of fiction this year 8/10
 
book report : 76's epistle to the magpie army.

i would love to do a point by point critique of the epistle above, but i just dont have the skills. The rewriting of history where mick is a codger in the post buckley era, is an interesting interpretation. The blame dumped on injuries and changes to footy directors has certainly challenged my memory. If I remember correctly, the forum was treated to a mega conga-line of a thread blaming buckley for everything including his disloyalty for not knocking back the job in the first place.

Yeah, I’ll cop that.

FWIW I certainly didn’t intend Buckley to escape blame. Buckley was the core person responsible for our results during that period.

I also put the cause of our injury woes on Buckley’s shoulders (our injury problems began when Buckley took over despite retaining the same fitness boss - you don’t go from an ACL every 2 to 3 years, to 4 ACL’s a year for a few years just because of bad luck)

All in all, probably the best piece of fiction this year 8/10

Thanks for the kind review …

… but what facts did I get wrong?
 
Last edited:

Markfs

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Yeah, I’ll cop that.

FWIW I certainly didn’t intend Buckley to escape blame. Buckley was core person responsible for our results during that period.

I also put the cause of our injury woes on Buckley’s shoulders (our injury problems began when Buckley took over despite retaining the same fitness boss - you don’t go from an ACL every 2 to 3 years, to 4 ACL’s a year for a few years just because of bad luck)



Thanks for the kind review …

… but what facts did I get wrong?

lack of referencing.... harvard method next time. As for the facts themselves, I'm too scared to say anything lest i get a cutnpaste..

i've had brekky too. Keep up the good work
 
Jun 6, 2016
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The last 11 years has been a roller coaster, that’s for sure.

2011 was the most dominant I’ve seen Collingwood in my lifetime. Or probably most dominant I’ve seen of any team. We finished the H&A on 20 wins and 167%. Only one team could beat us that season. During that 2011 season nobody was complaining about our list, or our fitness, or our coach, or the Bootstudder. There were no EGM threats or pending Supreme Court cases. Sure, there was a bit of curiosity over Mick’s interview and his uncertainty about his future, but it was more watercooler discussion than the angst that people later came to express in hindsight. The only thing some people seemed to be complaining about here on BF was that footy was getting a bit boring and they were losing interest because we were so predictably winning all the time (I kid you not). Not too many Collingwood supporters went home from the footy unhappy that season … until the GF of course. As for myself, I was walking across a desert under searing heat on the other side of world, with every inch of my body having been mauled the night before by bedbugs. I was hot and itching like a maniac. I was trying to follow the GF scoreline on the worlds worst internet connection. That was a sh*t day.

For any Collingwood supporter going through the 2011 season at the time there was 99% satisfaction followed by 1% despair. Obviously when that season ended and we look back, that 1% bit has become an important focal point. But nobody can deny the 99% bit that people experienced in the moment, it just makes the 1% bit all the more galling.

2012 at the time was curious. Seeing Peter Yagmoor and Jackson Paine on the round 1 teamsheet that year (I kid you not) showed that we certainly weren’t in Kansas anymore. It ended up being a fairly decent H&A season, not as dominant as 2011, but we were still up there. The prevailing view was that Mick was a silly old codger and he should just STFU and stop white anting Buckley and Collingwood from the sidelines, but nobody really got too upset about that during the season … until the week of the Prelim final. Oh do I remember that well. That Monday was my first full day as a BF mod. And all hell broke loose on BF that day when news came through that former Collingwood player John McCarthy had died in an accident in Vegas. The following Saturday morning we saw video footage of a bus pulling over on the side of the road on the Mornington Peninsula so players could get off and change out of their mourning suits having just come from John’s funeral. The bus then continued onto the airport and the players flew up here to Sydney to play the Swans. The game was at the Olympic stadium, a hulking soulless stadium that sucks all joy out of even the most entertaining game of footy. That night was particularly miserable, our players were clearly trying to throw themselves into the game, but emotionally they were spent, flat as a tack. That was a sh*t evening. History shows we lost that PF to the eventual Premiers. We weren’t good enough. I doubt any team under those circumstances could have gotten themselves up for that game. But in the minds of many a Mick led team would have, and so it began …

2013 - 2017 The injury years. Our players were falling like flies. Early on it was structural injuries like ACL’s (we averaged 4 a season there for a few years) and shoulder reco’s (there were a bunch of those) but then it gradually morphed into soft tissue problems. I remember a club members’ forum one year where Buckley presented the number of games that Collingwood players had to sit out due to injury compared with the rest of the competition. It was staggering. We were the worst in the comp by a substantial margin. Forget winning or losing Premierships, or even winning or losing games of footy, we didn’t get that far when exciting young prospects, or reliable veterans got struck down by shredded hamstrings if they’re lucky, or an ACL or blown ankle if they were not. The reality is that we will never know how good our list was or wasn’t during that period because we just couldn’t reliably get players on the park. There was no continuity. It wasn’t all on Davoren either, the injuries began during the end of Butterfant’s tenure. We had multiple medical reviews before we finally seemed to rein it in after this period. In amongst all that we became a revolving door of footy bosses. Walsh, Eade, Balme, Allen, Wagner and back to Walsh again during that period. It was a mess. History shows that we went downhill during that period, making an EF in 2013 and finishing 13th in 2017, but what’s really amazing is that we held it together as well as we did. Gee, the teams below us must have been really crap. That period was also dominated by many Collingwood supporters arguing over how many more Premierships we would or wouldn’t have won if we hadn’t ‘sacked’ Mick … it got very tiresome. In 2017 Peter Murphy, a name previously unknown to Pies fans was engaged to do a review into the club. Chris Thomas and Geoff Walsh were seconded to do their part of the review, and it was revealed that we were under salary cap pressure …

2018 was one of the few seasons in my lifetime where results exceeded all realistic expectations of the average Collingwood supporter. Buckley hadn’t been sacked as a result of the review, but could we really expect things to change much? Our senior coach morphed from being a cold hard driven perfectionist, to being more of a warm cuddly touchy feely type. We had a decent H&A season without being dominant. We sailed through the finals series, including a stirring PF win over reigning premiers Richmond. At the GF I remember chatting to my fellow Collingwood supporters before the game and we were pinching ourselves, was this for real? And then it be some real enough. The 2011 and 2018 GF losses were disappointing for very different reasons. 2011 was a disappointment that expectations hadn’t been met. 2018 was a disappointment that fairy tales don’t always come with a happy ending.

2019 - 2020 was trying to repeat the magic of 2018 and go one better, but we couldn’t quite manage it. 2019 we were doing OK, but fluffed the PF. 2020 became a stress test about how well clubs and teams could adapt to the uncertain world of Covid. For me that provided as revealing an insight as any about how well we were being run behind the scenes and I sensed that we didn’t too well in that test. The 2020 EF was a game for the ages. In that joyous moment after that win you wouldn’t have found a Collingwood supporter in the land who (1) was unhappy or (2) seriously thought we were any chance of the Premiership.

2021 - onwards The winds of change are blowing through the club. Who knows where those winds will take us?

Unlike some other clubs, Collingwood has never been about mediocrity. So I’m totally cool with us falling off the ladder in order for us to pull ourselves together and get ourselves back up again. In the mid 70’s, the mid 80’s, the end of the 90’s, and the mid 2000’s, during each of those periods we were rubbish. We even had a couple of wooden spoons amongst them. But those periods either led to a Premiership, or multiple Grand Finals, or both.

Meanwhile, we ain’t going to be competing for Premierships anytime soon, let alone win them. That just doesn’t happen with this much change. This period will be all about enjoying the small victories along the journey back to success: the promising young player having a breakout game, the tight win against the more fancied opponent, the hanger, the goal of the year nomination, the Premiership win by one of our other teams. It’ll be a rocky journey and we will ride every bump in the road along the way …

… and when it comes time to look back we’ll all have our own revisionist history about what should and shouldn’t have been done differently …

… until the time comes when we do celebrate our next Premiership …

… and then we’ll do it all over again. And again. And again. Good old Collingwood forever.

TLDR, from what I can gather you've put in that history of our club and haven't compared it to the competition. Which was the idea, compare ourselves to the competition. Why? Coz the idea of the competition is to you know....... be better than your competition, that's the whole idea of competition.

So if you could put up a summary of us vs them, then I'll rebut it.
 
lack of referencing.... harvard method next time.

Fair enough.

As for the facts themselves, I'm too scared to say anything lest i get a cutnpaste..

Oh go on, you’ve had your wheatbix now, you’re up for it!

i've had brekky too. Keep up the good work

As you’ve said yourself, we experience these things in our own way. That’s my reflection on the last decade. In a way it was a bit cathartic 🤣
 

Markfs

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Fair enough.



Oh go on, you’ve had your wheatbix now, you’re up for it!



As you’ve said yourself, we experience these things in our own way. That’s my reflection on the last decade. In a way it was a bit cathartic 🤣

no it's a sunny day in the west. i'm going down the park to fly a kite or equivalent. I recommend everyone out there to get their daily dose.
 
So if you could put up a summary of us vs them, then I'll rebut it.

Isn’t part of what being a Collingwood supporter is all about, it’s all about us?

But as you wish …

… Hawthorn and Richmond are the best performing clubs of the last decade (obviously).

West Coast clearly next - a Premiership, a brand new stadium, The richest club in the AFL by a long way. The only club in the AFL with a membership waiting list, and they’ve got a long one at that. This club is well set up for the next few decades

Geelong and Sydney probably equal next - both with a Premiership, both always up there, both with strong identity and engagement with their very stable and loyal supporter bases.

Bulldogs next with their Premiership and strong performance in the latter part of the decade. Their supporters are up and about like never before. Even an AFLW Premiership in the cabinet.

Next is probably Adelaide. Played in a GF, they had Eddie Betts who lit up their stadium for a while. They got themselves back after rotten adversity. Added two AFLW Premierships to the cabinet. Major redevelopment of their home ground. Been down the last few seasons but were otherwise quite competitive.

Next is us with 2 GF, 2 PF, an SF and an EF appearances. Apart from that we were a bit ordinary. Built the New glasshouse training centre, but most other teams in the league have had new training facilities built over the last decade. Proud foundational member of AFLW and SNL, but both those teams have largely underperformed. Our VFLW team have been dominant though and adding to the trophy cabinet. Only lost 6 games in their four season history.

Next I have Port Adelaide - what Kochie and Co have done to turn that club around over the last decade is nothing short of remarkable. Great spectator turnout, great membership engagement, generally been quite competitive under Ken Hinkley. Sure, they haven’t had some of the finals successes that teams below them have had, but they have had the consistency of being thereabouts.

Next I have GWS - who have had a slow built up to relevance and onfield performance. They’re now really starting to become part of the fabric of society up here in Sydney.

Next is probably Freo. GF appearance but otherwise been largely making up the numbers. Nice new stadium. Nice new training facilities.

Then Brisbane … been rubbish for most of the decade but turned it around over the last few seasons. Added a AFLW premiership to their trophy cabinet, and always competitive in the AFLW.

Then St Kilda and North Melbourne … for just being plain ordinary.

Then Melbourne who were utterly utterly pitiful at the start of the period. Got busted for tanking, but the AFL had mercy on them because they couldn’t even do that properly. Now starting to come good.

Then Suns for mostly making up the numbers and being a feeder team for the rest of the league plus providing a retirement fund for has-beens that other clubs need to shift out. GAJ was a rare highlight.

Then Carlton for being much the same as Melbourne minus the “Now starting to come good” bit. I put them below Suns because they don’t have expansion team status as an excuse for their wooden spoons during this period. Even their VFL and women’s teams have performed terribly during the period. At one stage Carlton were the proud holders of the wooden spoon for both the AFL and AFLW competitions.

Then Essendon. They would have been on the same level as St Kilda and North, but the supplements scandal during the period places them firmly at rock bottom. They’re the only club to be ever kicked out of finals. Needed to add players from the VFL to field a team for a while there. Massive distraction for the club. Realistically this proud club is still yet to fully recover from that period.

How’d I do?
 
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no it's a sunny day in the west. i'm going down the park to fly a kite or equivalent. I recommend everyone out there to get their daily dose.

Some of us in this great big land are in Covid lockdown on a miserable winter’s day :(
 
Jun 6, 2016
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Isn’t part of what being a Collingwood supporter is all about, it’s all about us?

But as you wish …

… Hawthorn and Richmond are the best performing clubs of the last decade (obviously).

West Coast clearly next - a Premiership, a brand new stadium, The richest club in the AFL by a long way. The only club in the AFL with a membership waiting list, and they’ve got a long one at that. This club is well set up for the next few decades

Geelong and Sydney probably equal next - both with a Premiership, both always up there, both with strong identity and engagement with their very stable and loyal supporter bases.

Bulldogs next with their Premiership and strong performance in the latter part of the decade. Their supporters are up and about like never before. Even an AFLW Premiership in the cabinet.

Next is probably Adelaide. Played in a GF, they had Eddie Betts who lit up their stadium for a while. They got themselves back after rotten adversity. Added two AFLW Premierships to the cabinet. Major redevelopment of their home ground. Been down the last few seasons but were otherwise quite competitive.

Next is us with 2 GF, 2 PF, an SF and an EF appearances. Apart from that we were a bit ordinary. Built the New glasshouse training centre, but most other teams in the league have had new training facilities built over the last decade. Proud foundational member of AFLW and SNL, but both those teams have largely underperformed. Our VFLW team have been dominant though and adding to the trophy cabinet. Only lost 6 games in their four season history.

Next I have Port Adelaide - what Kochie and Co have done to turn that club around over the last decade is nothing short of remarkable. Great spectator turnout, great membership engagement, generally been quite competitive under Ken Hinkley. Sure, they haven’t had some of the finals successes that teams below them have had, but they have had is consistency of being thereabouts.

Next I have GWS - who have had a slow built up to relevance and onfield performance. They’re now really starting to become part of the fabric of society up here in Sydney.

Next is probably Freo. GF appearance but otherwise been largely making up the numbers. Nice new stadium. Nice new training facilities.

Then Brisbane … been rubbish for most of the decade but turned it around over the last few seasons. Added a AFLW premiership to their trophy cabinet, and always competitive in the AFLW.

Then St Kilda and North Melbourne … for just being plain ordinary.

Then Melbourne who were utterly utterly pitiful at the start of the period. Got busted for tanking, but the AFL had mercy on them because they couldn’t even do that properly. Now starting to come good.

Then Suns for mostly making up the numbers and being a feeder team for the rest of the league plus providing a retirement fund for has-beens that other clubs need to shift out.

Then Carlton for being much the same as Melbourne minus getting busted for tanking and without the “Now starting to come good bit”. I put them below Suns because they don’t have expansion team status as an excuse for their wooden spoons during this period. Even their VFL and women’s teams have performed terribly during the period. At one stage Carlton were the proud holders of the wooden spoon for both their AFL and AFLW teams.

Then Essendon. They would have been on the same level as St Kilda and North, but the supplements scandal during the period places them firmly at rock bottom. They’re the only club to be ever kicked out of finals. Needed to add players from the VFL to field a team for a while there. Massive distraction for the club. Realistically this proud club is still yet to recover from that period.

How’d I do?

Well I guess we agree, we've been poor and nowhere near potential. I'd have us at about mid table too, from an on field perspective.

I only skimmed over it, but enough to get a gauge.

I get the external stuff you mention for clubs like the glass house, womens, and needlegate at the bomb outs, they all contribute to how the club is going overall.

In saying that I'd imagine the majority of fans are only interested in how the mens senior team is performing on field, everything else is 2nd priority. Yes it is narrow focused by said fans, but that'd be irrelevant because without those narrow focused fans then there is no club is there.

So at the end of the day, the club will eventually have to deliver what those narrow focused fans want, if it never comes then eventually those fans leave. In short our club cannot rely on history forever or our enemies to fail, has to do the work itself.
 
Jun 6, 2016
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Isn’t part of what being a Collingwood supporter is all about, it’s all about us?

Forgot this bit, yes it's all about us being better than everyone else.

What is the point otherwise? Fans going down to the Holden centre watching kick to kick? No competition?

The old line 'I don't care about how other clubs are going', well you should, coz you measure your club against its competition. Every week there is an opposition and they are the competition.
 

johncitizen

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Richmond was just a well balanced team. Not a team of stars. With a good gameplan.

We are not that far away from finals footy if we get things right. 2023-24

I'm happy the way things will progress after
Clarko or McRae are appointed. Needing half a dozen more good draftees and a couple of free agents.
 

Robroy22

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Forgot this bit, yes it's all about us being better than everyone else.

What is the point otherwise? Fans going down to the Holden centre watching kick to kick? No competition?

The old line 'I don't care about how other clubs are going', well you should, coz you measure your club against its competition. Every week there is an opposition and they are the competition.



Can you just explain to me how WE compete again? As supporters?
 
In saying that I'd imagine the majority of fans are only interested in how the mens senior team is performing on field, everything else is 2nd priority. Yes it is narrow focused by said fans, but that'd be irrelevant because without those narrow focused fans then there is no club is there.

IMO, even for fans of just the AFL mens, the other teams can provide an interesting datapoint.

AFL do well, VFL do well (Bulldogs 2016, Richmond 2017 - 2020) … fair evidence of good men’s list and strong footy dept culture

AFL, VFL, AFLW, VFLW all doing poorly (Carlton 2018) … forget blaming the Senior Coach (Bolton in this example). The whole club culture and leadership is cactus. Nobody should be surprised that Teague is doing no better than the previous 5 senior coaches.

AFL, 2nds, AFLW all doing well (Brisbane 2019) … Club behind the scenes is in decent hands, no surprise Brisbane have stayed relevant.

What do our whole-of-club results say about us? Probably not much, our results are all over the dart board.
 

Countrypie

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Well I guess we agree, we've been poor and nowhere near potential. I'd have us at about mid table too, from an on field perspective.

I only skimmed over it, but enough to get a gauge.

I get the external stuff you mention for clubs like the glass house, womens, and needlegate at the bomb outs, they all contribute to how the club is going overall.

In saying that I'd imagine the majority of fans are only interested in how the mens senior team is performing on field, everything else is 2nd priority. Yes it is narrow focused by said fans, but that'd be irrelevant because without those narrow focused fans then there is no club is there.

So at the end of the day, the club will eventually have to deliver what those narrow focused fans want, if it never comes then eventually those fans leave. In short our club cannot rely on history forever or our enemies to fail, has to do the work itself.
Yes we have been poor.....for a club that should be a powerhouse.
But if we use the equalisation model that this world is so fond of -we're running at par. That's nowhere near good enough. On field performance given all the hurdles the AFL put in front of us should be cyclical. When the window is open you've got to make every post a winner. I'd argue that mini dynasties are easier to achieve now, if you can steal a march on the opposition - the salary cap/draft and soft cap make it just as hard to make up ground as it is to establish an edge. If you have a core group of elite players/coaching staff the prospect of winning 2 or 3 is very real.
The question becomes do you A) do your time and build properly for areal shot at a dynasty or B) do you try to remain thereabouts ala Geelomg and to a lesser extent, Sydney and hope upon hope that you pinch one every 10 years or so? I think we've never committed to either option - we've been reactive and had no more than a 12 month view. I get the feeling that we've now through necessity embraced option A. It isn't before time.
 
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