My fear.....

[The Boy From Brasil]

Feel free to join everyone else out of the stone age, there is a good reason why EVERY club in the AFL builds on a model around a strong leadership group with core values and empowerment to make decisions which affect the entire team.

True. IMO there is no coincidence that the stronger clubs have the stronger leadership groups.

Many people are knocking the bulldogs for this decision. But IMO St Kilda, Collingwood, Geelong etc would have all done exactly the same thing. There is no way they would have put up with the situation until the end of the season.

 

[Bulldog Brent]

Aker said somewhere this morning that he doesn't like or doesn't understand the Cats and Hawks leadership groups and models - well f*** me who won the last three premierships!?

 

[lachy]

Really the only thing now is for the leadership group to lead, particularly in a close big game. Aker or no Aker really was never going to determine if we win this years flag. Time for the playing group to stand up when it counts. If they don't we simply are not good enough, not that there are troubles inside the club. If that was the case St.Kilda and Geelong would not be where they are with the outside influences they have had to put up with.

 

[pabart]

I would think that most supporters of the dogs would work on a shop floor,enginerering ,refineries,construction etc where you all work as a team to get the job done The last thing you'd want to see is your workmate sacked because of outside interests when they performed their work adequately.As workmates we would fight very hard for his re-instatment so it is very sad that it was his teammates that got him sacked Not a very good bunch of blokes and this will effect unity

I'd suggest we've moved past the stereotype of working class people being Dog's supporters ... why hell there is probably women, children and even gay people who support the team - not forgetting the amount of work the club does in the multi-cultural communities that are the western suburbs.
Just as stereotypical; that workmates would fight hard to get a fellow re-instated - nonsense. If the bloke was valuable, there might be some impetus, but if they were a trouble-maker / rabble-rouser who disrupted the work place, the chances are very few would line up.
I think you'll see Aker more as a trouble-maker / rabble-rouser than a svengali and the current players won't line up behind him, not because they don't care, but because he isn't worth it.

 

[Knackers]

Really the only thing now is for the leadership group to lead, particularly in a close big game. Aker or no Aker really was never going to determine if we win this years flag. Time for the playing group to stand up when it counts. If they don't we simply are not good enough, not that there are troubles inside the club. If that was the case St.Kilda and Geelong would not be where they are with the outside influences they have had to put up with.

Absolutely spot on!

Now that the decision has been made, and Aker gone, the emphasis should shift to how the playing group, and especially the leadership group responds. Footballers first and foremost should perform on the field, not just talk in team meetings and behind closed doors.

It's time we knocked off our the main contenders, not just the also rans, starting with Freo. Our only real leaders to date that have shown any consistency have been Boyd, Morris & Cross, assisted by Lake. It's about time "leaders" like Giansiracusa, Murphy and Cooney perform consistently week-in week-out and stand the tallest against tough opposition in clutch situations. That's exactly where we have gone to water in the past.

We have a real chance at a flag over the next two months, the club has "drawn a line in the sand", now the talking and posturing stops, now is the time to play out of your skins with no inhibitions and bring us the bloody premiership... THIS YEAR.

I'm sick of all this non-football, political, media driven trailer-trash bullshit, just get on with it and do the one thing that ONLY matters..win a grand final.

 

[HighFlyer]

Kind of like Geelong with Steve Johnson?　　We gave Aker chance after chance and he refused to just give up his media career for 10 lousy weeks. He let us know where his priorities were and it`s sad that he didn`t put AFL first.

Thats the guts of it really isn't it. The part thats a little sticky is this (and it's not just a bulldogs thing)

Were the leadership groups involved in his contract negotiations ?

If he took the pay cut to stay on board and supplemented his income through his media committements and they validated that at contract signing stage.

Do the leadership group actually have the rite to ask him to to forego his media money ?