Club Mgmt. Board of Directors as led by President Dave Barham

[Lore]

Tom Morris, 9 News via Fox Sports:

“A major board challenge is imminent at Essendon. In the wake of an off-season of turmoil, key powerbrokers - including at least one former player - are preparing a movement which would oust David Barham as president, and other directors too,” he said on Nine News.

“I’ve spoken to one of the key powerbrokers tonight, who says this is not coterie-driven, and it’s just a manner of when and not if the challenge takes place.

“There’s a view the club has been left rudderless and the Barham era has left a legacy of division, instability, player drainage and lost opportunity from this group of people.”

‘Rudderless’ Bombers facing more off-field chaos as club boss set to be challenged

‘Rudderless’ Bombers facing more off-field chaos as club boss set to be challenged

www.foxsports.com.au

 

[Lore]

On the other hand, the Richmond ‘Focus on Football’ shenanigans didn’t stop the Tigers getting in Prestia, Caddy and Nankervis, so not sure how impactful it will be on player acquisition

Still putting their best effort into tanking the off-season (as if the season proper wasn’t bad enough)

 

[Lore]

We aren’t allowed to be happy, not even after the season is done

 

[dank420_]

 

[faible]

We aren’t allowed to be happy, not even after the season is done

Remember that weekend where both Hawthorne and Collingwoode had their Premiership hopes ended for the year?

 

[ghostdog]

Need Logan Roy to storm into the next AGM and tell them all theyre not serious people

**** OFF, KEVIN!

 

[Lore]

Remember that weekend where both Hawthorne and Collingwoode had their Premiership hopes ended for the year?

 

[JayJ20]

Scott never had a good list and that's my biggest issue with these stupid board spills. If this is really about on field performance, then I'm even more against it.

We didn't have a good list in 2023 though we were playing off for a finals spot vs GWS in the second last round. We proceeded to lose that by over 120 points and clearly over performed given our record vs top 8 teams and percentage.

We didn't have a good list when we were sitting in the top 4 halfway through last year with a percentage of under 100. Again, terrible percentage and record vs top 8 sides.

We didn't have a good list when we beat some bottom sides and sat 10th half way through this year with a percentage of 85. Again, terrible percentage and record vs top 8 sides.

This idea that we're above finishing bottom 4 and drafting the best talent is why we've been terrible for 20 years. There is not a single team in the competition that melts at a 15th placed finish like we do as if we're somehow above it without doing the work of drafting the high-end talent.

 

[joey_jo_jo]

**** OFF, KEVIN!

Sheeds is like Connor Roy, kept busy with silly side projects to placate his ego and keep him out of the way.

 

[yodellinhank]

Anyone liking the idea of a board spill must love the idea of starting again and again and again and again. IMO, this is just power hungry individuals and factions capitalising on the injury crisis.

Just think of it as a board reset/rebuild. It's a work in progress.

 

[yodellinhank]

We have gone backwards because the side was not good enough to go forward and the likes of Cox and Perkins and Hobbs who were supposed to be the future are not.

Like we said at the time, what took Brad so long?

They have strengthened the recruiting department. Moved on Dodoro. Put in place a new fitness team.
Now they just have to continue the build.
The previous two years showed we were short of being a genuine finals side.
If you don’t see that then you have missed the actual problem.

Remains to be seen. The amount of times we've turned it around in the last two years probably outweighs the amount of resets we've had by one.

 

[brutus76]

Absolutely Essendon podcast yesterday said it's Welshy to challenge

 

[CBombers17]

The board is vulnerabile to this because of the injury list and management IMO. There would be plenty of grass roots supporters that couldn't care less who the president is, or where we come on the ladder as long as we are doing our best. Coming down the bottom for a few years is par for the course (personally im in that group). The club still being a mess in terms of any player or injury management (or strength and conditioning or governance in general) - or, anything that impacts our actual football performances is totally unacceptable. And they should expect the scrutiny and pressure that comes with it.

 

[BrunoV]

Scott never had a good list and that's my biggest issue with these stupid board spills. If this is really about on field performance, then I'm even more against it.

We didn't have a good list in 2023 though we were playing off for a finals spot vs GWS in the second last round. We proceeded to lose that by over 120 points and clearly over performed given our record vs top 8 teams and percentage.

We didn't have a good list when we were sitting in the top 4 halfway through last year with a percentage of under 100. Again, terrible percentage and record vs top 8 sides.

We didn't have a good list when we beat some bottom sides and sat 10th half way through this year with a percentage of 85. Again, terrible percentage and record vs top 8 sides.

This idea that we're above finishing bottom 4 and drafting the best talent is why we've been terrible for 20 years. There is not a single team in the competition that melts at a 15th placed finish like we do as if we're somehow above it without doing the work of drafting the high-end talent.

Maybe another way to look at it is that this is exactly what Essendon should expect when it refuses to be honest about where it is at and what it is doing.

We're rebuilding at the end 2023 but shedding quality young players (who just finsihed finals campaigns for other clubs) to add free agents. That's a strange version of rebuilding.

We're also rebuilding at the end of 2024, having overcommitted to the list with new contracts, but wait until the eve of the 2025 season to announce an additional year for the coach who has presided over the shite produced in 2023 and 2024. This was Essendon's version of a public acknowledgement that it doesn't think it will be very good. There is no other reason to award that extension and, in fact, we shouldn't even assume that it's a sign of rebuilding. That is a projection, which is more likely than not to be accurate, but it's not a fact. It would be a fact if there was a public aknowledged plan which accepted that there was going to be pain in the next few years. What does it mean to bring Scott's tenure in line with the talent accumulation? What is the goal? How good will Essendon be in 2027? It's safe to say that none of Merrett, Draper and Ridley are convinved. Brendan Gale publicly stated the most ambitious goals and he was mocked for it.

After a season that looks like a rebuild, I say 'looks like' because you can't disentangle the number of debuts and games given to kids from the injury list, the captain says he wants out, along with 2 of the top 5 players at the club, and, instead of acknowledging where we're actually act, the club would prefer to pretened that Merrett is untradeable (with 2 years on a contract spanning a period of time the club wont even say it expects to be good). So now were a rebuilding club holding an unwilling of signficant trade value to a contract so that we can finish, what, 14th instead of 15th or 16th? That's not rebuilding either.

Barham and the board will get my understanding when they start being open and honest. But Barham would prefer to get in shouting matches with veteran players...

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Like we said at the time, what took Brad so long?

He wasn't in control of the list. Dodoro was.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Scott never had a good list and that's my biggest issue with these stupid board spills. If this is really about on field performance, then I'm even more against it.

We didn't have a good list in 2023 though we were playing off for a finals spot vs GWS in the second last round. We proceeded to lose that by over 120 points and clearly over performed given our record vs top 8 teams and percentage.

We didn't have a good list when we were sitting in the top 4 halfway through last year with a percentage of under 100. Again, terrible percentage and record vs top 8 sides.

We didn't have a good list when we beat some bottom sides and sat 10th half way through this year with a percentage of 85. Again, terrible percentage and record vs top 8 sides.

This idea that we're above finishing bottom 4 and drafting the best talent is why we've been terrible for 20 years. There is not a single team in the competition that melts at a 15th placed finish like we do as if we're somehow above it without doing the work of drafting the high-end talent.

The current state of our list is due almost entirely to one of the most catastrophic runs at the top of the draft ever.

2017: No picks
2018: No picks
2019: Bryan
2020: Cox, Perkins, Reid, Eyre
2021: Hobbs
2022: Tsatas, Hayes

Zero elite talent through the doors over six year period is coming home to roost.

Dodoro completely and utterly ****ed the list over this period with bad trades and terrible drafting.

 

[ant555]

Like we said at the time, what took Brad so long?

Remains to be seen. The amount of times we've turned it around in the last two years probably outweighs the amount of resets we've had by one.

Pretty easy to work out what took so long. When they signed him they chased him on the basis the list just needed a bit more development and a few players to push it to the next level.
Scott did not really do a deep dive to get the job.

Who has said we turned it around? Certainly not the list manager and he is the one now driving the rebuild.

 

[Corleone]

The current state of our list is due almost entirely to one of the most catastrophic runs at the top of the draft ever.

2017: No picks
2018: No picks
2019: Bryan
2020: Cox, Perkins, Reid, Eyre
2021: Hobbs
2022: Tsatas, Hayes

Zero elite talent through the doors over six year period is coming home to roost.

Dodoro completely and utterly ****ed the list over this period with bad trades and terrible drafting.

It’s this that we are trying to recover from. Absolute best case scenario from the above is somehow three of those eight names manage to become best 22 players.

 

[MPMonkeys]

The current state of our list is due almost entirely to one of the most catastrophic runs at the top of the draft ever.

2017: No picks
2018: No picks
2019: Bryan
2020: Cox, Perkins, Reid, Eyre
2021: Hobbs
2022: Tsatas, Hayes

Zero elite talent through the doors over six year period is coming home to roost.

Dodoro completely and utterly ****ed the list over this period with bad trades and terrible drafting.

He did select Nic Martin, Sam Durham outside of the National Draft.
Bryan is overachieving for a pick #38 ruckman at his age.
Traded pick #29 for Jye Caldwell.

Lots of revisionist and selective history when it comes to Dodoro. Sure, he made some errors but which recruiter hasn't. Its not an exact science.

 

[Squeaky]

He did select Nic Martin, Sam Durham outside of the National Draft.
Bryan is overachieving for a pick #38 ruckman at his age.
Traded pick #29 for Jye Caldwell.

Lots of revisionist and selective history when it comes to Dodoro. Sure, he made some errors but which recruiter hasn't. Its not an exact science.

You generally get your stars out of those early draft picks - we drafted nil during that time.
One year was 3 x top 10 picks.
We are paying for that... dearly.
Not only on the field - but off it too! Double whammy!

 

[jmoo wan]

He did select Nic Martin, Sam Durham outside of the National Draft.
Bryan is overachieving for a pick #38 ruckman at his age.
Traded pick #29 for Jye Caldwell.

Lots of revisionist and selective history when it comes to Dodoro. Sure, he made some errors but which recruiter hasn't. Its not an exact science.

If you love Adrian Dodoro so much why don’t you marry him?

 

[Lore]

You generally get your stars out of those early draft picks - we drafted nil during that time.
One year was 3 x top 10 picks.
We are paying for that... dearly.
Not only on the field - but off it too! Double whammy!

Surprisingly less often than you would think.

 

[windyhill]

It’s simple and has nothing to do with Scott or coming to any conclusions.

It was impossible to take proper control of list management and planning with Sheedy and Dodoro in place.

If players are disgruntled and want out then okay, but it’s not as if everybody just realised things needed to change. Nothing could happen until Sheedy and Dodoro were gone. It’s why the cheap shots at Scott for “wasting” early years are off the mark. It took two years just to get proper control and punt the incumbents.

I think it’s vastly underestimated and not yet told just what a cancer Sheedy was and the ongoing disaster he has set on this club. We sacked him in 2007 because he was clearly past it and he’s spent a good part of the next 20 years as a “powerbroker”, using his sycophants in the coteries to wield power and disrupt needed change. He’s an egomaniac - always has been - and a wrecker. They tried to relieve and control it by bringing him inside the tent (onto the board) but that only made it worse.

What he did in his first 20 years at the club was remarkable. Consistent finals, 7 GFs, 4 flags. It’s incredible to think that after that he could actually turn out to be a net negative influence historically on the club overall… but I tell you what, he’s getting close.

If the old prick would retire quietly and never come anywhere near the club again, it’d be an enormous win.

Absolutely spot on. Sheedy gave me the time of my supporting life. Not just the premierships, the whole show. I started questioning him in 1996, it really became all about Kevin his ego knew/knows no bounds. No doubt the coteries kept him in the job. Bullfrog McMahon kept in the job. Dodoro learnt at the feet of his master. Become mates with the right people at Essendon and you will survive. From being sheedys lap dog to head of recruiting. Political manouvering at its best..
This post from Bunk sums my feelings up. Sheedy has ****ed us from the inside out. I'd also throw Tim watson in there as well. His fingers were all over the hird appointment, I have no doubt he is " going there" again.
Brilliant post Bunk. M.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Absolutely spot on. Sheedy gave me the time of my supporting life. Not just the premierships, the whole show. I started questioning him in 1996, it really became all about Kevin his ego knew/knows no bounds. No doubt the coteries kept him in the job. Bullfrog McMahon kept in the job. Dodoro learnt at the feet of his master. Become mates with the right people at Essendon and you will survive. From being sheedys lap dog to head of recruiting. Political manouvering at its best..
This post from Bunk sums my feelings up. Sheedy has ****ed us from the inside out. I'd also throw Tim watson in there as well. His fingers were all over the hird appointment, I have no doubt he is " going there" again.
Brilliant post Bunk. M.

You'll find almost all of my posts are brilliant.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

He did select Nic Martin, Sam Durham outside of the National Draft.
Bryan is overachieving for a pick #38 ruckman at his age.
Traded pick #29 for Jye Caldwell.

Lots of revisionist and selective history when it comes to Dodoro. Sure, he made some errors but which recruiter hasn't. Its not an exact science.

I actually agree with you - Dodoro did some good stuff with late picks and rookie picks. That was clearly his wheelhouse.

But his use of high picks - particularly during this period - was abysmal.

No club has ever succeeded without a bunch of high quality players coming from the only place you can get them cheap - the top end of the draft. You simply have to nail it to have any chance... you can get a few gems with late picks and rookies, and older guys with free agency, but you need that base from the top of the draft.

We simply don't have it and our list is ****ed as a result.

The last bloke who thought he could sidestep the top of the draft was Clarkson after his premierships at Hawthorn. Similarly, he left their list is a disastrous state.