News Port Adelaide announces co-captains - Ollie Wines and Tom Jonas

[RangaInTeal]

All I can say is I'm happy I didn't renew my membership.

I could let the onfield stuff slide but Doc Feel has reminded me about the attitude to the fans and that has really hardened my resolve to not throw my support behind such an administration, as much as I love the club and the idea of 'Port Adelaide'.

+ 1!

 

[edgie]

No worries each to there own i just assumed bye your posting you were a die hard supporter but you've cleared that up for me.
I understand it is quite a big financial cost to be a member season ticket holder and the crazy prices at the ground thats cool if people cant afford it.
But to just jump on and off depending how we are going is another story in my opinion. But as i said each to there own.

My membership is purely for the club, I very rarely get to games. One every year if I'm lucky.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[It Just Is]

Shame Houston is only 21.

 

[It Just Is]

This still makes me angry. Sorry I pay my membership each year and ruin your life Skip.

 

[Ljc_86]

My membership is purely for the club, I very rarely get to games. One every year if I'm lucky.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Same here. Dad and I were buying two memberships when the club was at rock bottom and we were both living interstate at the time.

We’ve stopped this year as it feels like the club doesn’t listen to the supporters so we’ve given it a rest.

It wasn’t an easy decision and we both have had moments when one of us cracks it and says we’ve done the wrong thing but we aren’t happy with the club.

We still spend money on merch. It’s more about letting the club know hey you’re not listening so here’s the only option you’ve left us with.

If the club was on struggle street we’d be first in line to give them money and do what we could to help.

 

[PA88]

This still makes me angry. Sorry I pay my membership each year and ruin your life Skip.

It is comments like these from Jonas that sets a tone of member versus player/captain. Just like Koch and Hinkley at the members night.

 

[edgie]

I wonder if the 'instead of sitting on the couch' was a dig at certain personalities that have more indoors based recreational preferences.

It's pretty ******* bogan and old fashioned, derp go outside and live life! Some people get plenty of enjoyment from their home media systems they spend thousands of their hard earned on.

We are Port Adelaide, and if you don't go outside and live life there's something wrong with you.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Doctor Feel]

Lol the next AGM will be a ******* circus

 

[Schulzenfest]

Geez that tweet from Richardson is a shocker. If he was being sarcastic then it's incredibly dismissive of the members, and if it was a genuine question then he must've had his head in the sand over the past 6 months which is in itself incredibly dismissive of the members. Surely anybody even remotely connected to the club wouldn't be so out of touch that they'd genuinely have to ask what they've done this offseason to upset us?

 

[Carnegie Oval]

Is that a reference to the former oval in Royal Park, SA?? Apologies for taking something of a space-time detour off the topic

Sure is. Used to be ‘our’ backyard.

 

[Enviable Tradition]

Lol the next AGM will be a ******* circus

Does anyone have a question that's not about the captaincy or the buses?

On SM-G960F using
BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[OneGreatClub]

Geez that tweet from Richardson is a shocker. If he was being sarcastic then it's incredibly dismissive of the members, and if it was a genuine question then he must've had his head in the sand over the past 6 months which is in itself incredibly dismissive of the members. Surely anybody even remotely connected to the club wouldn't be so out of touch that they'd genuinely have to ask what they've done this offseason to upset us?

I am a different dude I know but the only thing they have done and are doing to put me off are either losing games or playing crap style of footy or both. Other stuff is peripheral to me. Fix how we play, and we have shown some glimpses, and I will be all in again.

 

[Harlott]

I am a different dude I know but the only thing they have done and are doing to put me off are either losing games or playing crap style of footy or both. Other stuff is peripheral to me. Fix how we play, and we have shown some glimpses, and I will be all in again.

I think we have a lot of supporters who've lost patience or are losing patience quickly. We've been trying to fix how we play for a while now and we keep coming back to performances like last Sat which on it's own isn't the end of the world but losing in a similar way repeatedly over 4-5years isn't going to cut it. Throw in the fact that a lot of Port supporters have grown up supporting a club with not a lot of patience when it comes to not making Grand Finals then the other stuff that you call peripheral is going to trigger people, especially when it doesn't seem in line with what this club has been all about for a long, long time.

 

[Schulzenfest]

Just sent this email to Matthew Richardson, since he was asking for members to tell him exactly why we're so dissatisfied. It's a long one.

"Hi Matthew,
I saw your tweet from the other day and to be honest I was a bit disappointed with it. I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was a genuine question, but even if it was a genuine question I find it pretty unbelievable that anybody remotely associated with the club even needs to ask that question.

First and foremost, the co-captaincy decision. The decision itself, coupled with the appalling way the decision was handled, has been an absolute disaster. We're a passionate supporter base and we'll quite often disagree amongst ourselves, but I've never seen such a unanimous agreement from the base that we wanted to retain the tradition of one captain wearing #1. I saw polls on Facebook with thousands of responses and over 90% approval of keeping one captain. But the club went ahead and spat in the face of all those years of tradition by doing it anyway.

David Koch, Keith Thomas and Ken Hinkley smugly and disingenuously attempted to frame the debate as 'would you rather have this old tradition or would you rather win premierships?' But that's not at all the choice we were offered. None of the three offered one skerrick of evidence as to how co-captains was going to help us win premierships, they just said that it would. Right now we look further away from a premiership than we have since 2012, and since both co-captains have been in the side we haven't won a game. I'm not silly enough to suggest that the reason we won in Rounds 1 and 2 were because we had one captain and the reason we lost in Rounds 2 and 3 was because we had two, but the opposite certainly isn't true either. And you don't change a centuries old tradition just because 'oh well, won't make us any worse'. You change it only if it's going to make us tangibly better. And it hasn't. And it won't.

The lack of public support from the club for the hugely popular #bringbackthebars campaign has been disappointing as well. Last I saw there was something like 7,500 signatures on there, including the signatures of some former and current greats of the club. There hasn't been a single word about it in public from the club. All we want to know is that you're fighting for what the members want, even if we may not win. It's one thing to fight for what's important to the members and lose, but it's entirely another to not bother to fight for them at all.

By the way I'm not a traditionalist myself. I'm 26 years old. I don't even remember the glory days of the Port Adelaide Magpies, let alone cherish them. But even I'm perceptive enough to know the dissatisfaction that the co-captaincy decision was going to cause among the members. Quite frankly it's incredible that people who are paid handsomely as employees of the PAFC didn't see it coming.

Ollie Wines and Tom Jonas themselves haven't helped matters either. Ollie was handed the captaincy just a couple of weeks after hurting the club he now represents as captain by getting himself injured in a waterskiing accident. He hasn't showed a skerrick of remorse for it. Tom Jonas was only too eager to defend him. Ollie's brother even went on Twitter to personally abuse a guy who's won 4 B&F's and a premiership for this club for daring to criticise Ollie's lack of commitment. I haven't always been Kane Cornes' biggest fan but if our current captains showed the level of commitment and professionalism that Cornes did throughout his career then we'd probably be in better shape than they are now. If we were going to go down the co-captaincy path, then the least the new co-captains could've done is shown absolute commitment to getting this club back to winning premierships again. Ollie and Tom haven't shown anything of the sort so far.

And then there's Chad Wingard. If Chad Wingard isn't the most talented footballer we've ever drafted then he's #2 behind Robbie Gray. Chad Wingard loved this club from the moment he got here. Chad Wingard should have been an absolute legend of this club. He should've been spoken about in 20 years' time the way we speak about names like Gavin Wanganeen now. Chad isn't blameless for what happened to him. But this regime let things spiral out of control to the point that Chad Wingard isn't at our club anymore. Makes me think back to a few years' ago when Richmond nearly traded Dustin Martin when he was having some off field issues. Imagine how silly they'd look if they had.

Then there's Ken Hinkley. Given the keys to the club for four years after 2017. At the time we hadn't won a final for three years, right now we haven't won one for four and don't look like winning one any time soon. Russell Ebert is the greatest player the PAFC has ever seen, but as a coach even he was run out of town for less.

And it's not just that we're losing, it's that we're losing the same way over and over again. Every single year since 2014 we've started Round 1 with an extra key forward. Schulz and Butcher in 2014, Schulz and Butcher in 2015, Dixon and Schulz in 2016, Dixon and Eddy in 2017, Dixon and Marshall in 2018, Ryder and Marshall in 2019. Every year as soon as the second key forward gets injured or has an off game, they get dropped and replaced with a small. Every year we have three or four games at Adelaide Oval where we go into Q4 a goal or two down, we absolutely dominate the midfield and pepper the inside 50 with forward entries, the opposition repels them time and time again with intercept marks because we don't have a forward line that can deal with the high balls coming in, and then they seal the game with one counterattack. Last week was the first of what I'm sure will be a few such games this year. Last weekend it was Dylan Grimes who did it to us, in the past it's been Jeremy McGovern, or Alex Rance, or Cale Hooker, or any number of other key defenders who have an absolute day out against Ken Hinkley's forward line. I remember all of these games vividly. Even as a random punter in the crowd I'm clever enough to learn the lessons from those games. It's amazing that Ken Hinkley doesn't seem to be.

Interesting fact about our tall versus small forward lines. Since Todd Marshall debuted, we've won 83% of games that he's played in and won 35% of games that he's missed. Over our last 14 games (including JLT), we're 5-1 without Sam Gray in the side and 0-8 with him in it. And that's not Sam Gray's fault, I don't blame him for it. On an individual level he actually played quite well last weekend. I blame the coach who thinks we can drop a tall forward and stick Sam Gray in the forward line in his spot without the team balance suffering for it.

I can handle losing games. We're not in the SANFL anymore, it's a cyclical competition and we're not a 'big club' comparative to West Coast or to the big Victorian sides. What I can't handle is losing games the same way over and over again for 5 years, not learning our lessons from those losses, and giving a three year contract extension to the one guy who has been the common denominator in all of them. I've been a member since I turned 18. I'm still currently a member in 2019, and I'm still attending games week in and week out. I desperately want the club to give me something to cling to so that I can justify spending hundreds of dollars on a membership in 2020. It doesn't even need to be wins, it just needs to be something to give me hope for the future. There's two things that will do that.

1. Ken Hinkley FINALLY learning his lesson after 5 long years and giving Todd Marshall the full season of football that he and every other key forward in the history of football has needed to develop their game, which is exactly what we never did for Butcher, Shaw and Eddy and is the reason why we're now so desperately reliant on Marshall coming good because all the other options are already gone; or
2. If Ken Hinkley fails to do the above, he gets sacked and replaced with someone who will do it in 2020.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Kind regards,
*Schulzenfest*

 

[JUSTWORK]

Just sent this email to Matthew Richardson, since he was asking for members to tell him exactly why we're so dissatisfied. It's a long one.

"Hi Matthew,
I saw your tweet from the other day and to be honest I was a bit disappointed with it. I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was a genuine question, but even if it was a genuine question I find it pretty unbelievable that anybody remotely associated with the club even needs to ask that question.

First and foremost, the co-captaincy decision. The decision itself, coupled with the appalling way the decision was handled, has been an absolute disaster. We're a passionate supporter base and we'll quite often disagree amongst ourselves, but I've never seen such a unanimous agreement from the base that we wanted to retain the tradition of one captain wearing #1. I saw polls on Facebook with thousands of responses and over 90% approval of keeping one captain. But the club went ahead and spat in the face of all those years of tradition by doing it anyway.

David Koch, Keith Thomas and Ken Hinkley smugly and disingenuously attempted to frame the debate as 'would you rather have this old tradition or would you rather win premierships?' But that's not at all the choice we were offered. None of the three offered one skerrick of evidence as to how co-captains was going to help us win premierships, they just said that it would. Right now we look further away from a premiership than we have since 2012, and since both co-captains have been in the side we haven't won a game. I'm not silly enough to suggest that the reason we won in Rounds 1 and 2 were because we had one captain and the reason we lost in Rounds 2 and 3 was because we had two, but the opposite certainly isn't true either. And you don't change a centuries old tradition just because 'oh well, won't make us any worse'. You change it only if it's going to make us tangibly better. And it hasn't. And it won't.

The lack of public support from the club for the hugely popular #bringbackthebars campaign has been disappointing as well. Last I saw there was something like 7,500 signatures on there, including the signatures of some former and current greats of the club. There hasn't been a single word about it in public from the club. All we want to know is that you're fighting for what the members want, even if we may not win. It's one thing to fight for what's important to the members and lose, but it's entirely another to not bother to fight for them at all.

By the way I'm not a traditionalist myself. I'm 26 years old. I don't even remember the glory days of the Port Adelaide Magpies, let alone cherish them. But even I'm perceptive enough to know the dissatisfaction that the co-captaincy decision was going to cause among the members. Quite frankly it's incredible that people who are paid handsomely as employees of the PAFC didn't see it coming.

Ollie Wines and Tom Jonas themselves haven't helped matters either. Ollie was handed the captaincy just a couple of weeks after hurting the club he now represents as captain by getting himself injured in a waterskiing accident. He hasn't showed a skerrick of remorse for it. Tom Jonas was only too eager to defend him. Ollie's brother even went on Twitter to personally abuse a guy who's won 4 B&F's and a premiership for this club for daring to criticise Ollie's lack of commitment. I haven't always been Kane Cornes' biggest fan but if our current captains showed the level of commitment and professionalism that Cornes did throughout his career then we'd probably be in better shape than they are now. If we were going to go down the co-captaincy path, then the least the new co-captains could've done is shown absolute commitment to getting this club back to winning premierships again. Ollie and Tom haven't shown anything of the sort so far.

And then there's Chad Wingard. If Chad Wingard isn't the most talented footballer we've ever drafted then he's #2 behind Robbie Gray. Chad Wingard loved this club from the moment he got here. Chad Wingard should have been an absolute legend of this club. He should've been spoken about in 20 years' time the way we speak about names like Gavin Wanganeen now. Chad isn't blameless for what happened to him. But this regime let things spiral out of control to the point that Chad Wingard isn't at our club anymore. Makes me think back to a few years' ago when Richmond nearly traded Dustin Martin when he was having some off field issues. Imagine how silly they'd look if they had.

Then there's Ken Hinkley. Given the keys to the club for four years after 2017. At the time we hadn't won a final for three years, right now we haven't won one for four and don't look like winning one any time soon. Russell Ebert is the greatest player the PAFC has ever seen, but as a coach even he was run out of town for less.

And it's not just that we're losing, it's that we're losing the same way over and over again. Every single year since 2014 we've started Round 1 with an extra key forward. Schulz and Butcher in 2014, Schulz and Butcher in 2015, Dixon and Schulz in 2016, Dixon and Eddy in 2017, Dixon and Marshall in 2018, Ryder and Marshall in 2019. Every year as soon as the second key forward gets injured or has an off game, they get dropped and replaced with a small. Every year we have three or four games at Adelaide Oval where we go into Q4 a goal or two down, we absolutely dominate the midfield and pepper the inside 50 with forward entries, the opposition repels them time and time again with intercept marks because we don't have a forward line that can deal with the high balls coming in, and then they seal the game with one counterattack. Last week was the first of what I'm sure will be a few such games this year. Last weekend it was Dylan Grimes who did it to us, in the past it's been Jeremy McGovern, or Alex Rance, or Cale Hooker, or any number of other key defenders who have an absolute day out against Ken Hinkley's forward line. I remember all of these games vividly. Even as a random punter in the crowd I'm clever enough to learn the lessons from those games. It's amazing that Ken Hinkley doesn't seem to be.

Interesting fact about our tall versus small forward lines. Since Todd Marshall debuted, we've won 83% of games that he's played in and won 35% of games that he's missed. Over our last 14 games (including JLT), we're 5-1 without Sam Gray in the side and 0-8 with him in it. And that's not Sam Gray's fault, I don't blame him for it. On an individual level he actually played quite well last weekend. I blame the coach who thinks we can drop a tall forward and stick Sam Gray in the forward line in his spot without the team balance suffering for it.

I can handle losing games. We're not in the SANFL anymore, it's a cyclical competition and we're not a 'big club' comparative to West Coast or to the big Victorian sides. What I can't handle is losing games the same way over and over again for 5 years, not learning our lessons from those losses, and giving a three year contract extension to the one guy who has been the common denominator in all of them. I've been a member since I turned 18. I'm still currently a member in 2019, and I'm still attending games week in and week out. I desperately want the club to give me something to cling to so that I can justify spending hundreds of dollars on a membership in 2020. It doesn't even need to be wins, it just needs to be something to give me hope for the future. There's two things that will do that.

1. Ken Hinkley FINALLY learning his lesson after 5 long years and giving Todd Marshall the full season of football that he and every other key forward in the history of football has needed to develop their game, which is exactly what we never did for Butcher, Shaw and Eddy and is the reason why we're now so desperately reliant on Marshall coming good because all the other options are already gone; or
2. If Ken Hinkley fails to do the above, he gets sacked and replaced with someone who will do it in 2020.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Kind regards,
*Schulzenfest*

Let us know if he replies, although I can just imagine the self serving overly defensive reply he comes up with to dismiss what you’re said and justify everything have done

 

[Schulzenfest]

Let us know if he replies, although I can just imagine the self serving overly defensive reply he comes up with to dismiss what you’re said and justify everything have done

To his credit he did respond quite quickly. Didn't go into my complaints about Ken or the tactics (which is fair enough, that's not his role) but confirmed that the club is working on the Prison Bars behind the scenes, and he admitted that the communication from the club re the co-captaincy was poor and the whole thing should have been handled better.

Nice to see someone at the club owning up to a mistake for a change. That response makes me feel a lot better than 'hE wAs a SuPeRhErO wHeN wE wErE 11-4' did.

 

[rumoursofwinter]

Great email Schulzenfest. Interested in any response. (being pedantic, we lost round 3 and 4 not 2 and 3!)

 

[OneGreatClub]

Just sent this email to Matthew Richardson, since he was asking for members to tell him exactly why we're so dissatisfied. It's a long one.

"Hi Matthew,
I saw your tweet from the other day and to be honest I was a bit disappointed with it. I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was a genuine question, but even if it was a genuine question I find it pretty unbelievable that anybody remotely associated with the club even needs to ask that question.

First and foremost, the co-captaincy decision. The decision itself, coupled with the appalling way the decision was handled, has been an absolute disaster. We're a passionate supporter base and we'll quite often disagree amongst ourselves, but I've never seen such a unanimous agreement from the base that we wanted to retain the tradition of one captain wearing #1. I saw polls on Facebook with thousands of responses and over 90% approval of keeping one captain. But the club went ahead and spat in the face of all those years of tradition by doing it anyway.

David Koch, Keith Thomas and Ken Hinkley smugly and disingenuously attempted to frame the debate as 'would you rather have this old tradition or would you rather win premierships?' But that's not at all the choice we were offered. None of the three offered one skerrick of evidence as to how co-captains was going to help us win premierships, they just said that it would. Right now we look further away from a premiership than we have since 2012, and since both co-captains have been in the side we haven't won a game. I'm not silly enough to suggest that the reason we won in Rounds 1 and 2 were because we had one captain and the reason we lost in Rounds 2 and 3 was because we had two, but the opposite certainly isn't true either. And you don't change a centuries old tradition just because 'oh well, won't make us any worse'. You change it only if it's going to make us tangibly better. And it hasn't. And it won't.

The lack of public support from the club for the hugely popular #bringbackthebars campaign has been disappointing as well. Last I saw there was something like 7,500 signatures on there, including the signatures of some former and current greats of the club. There hasn't been a single word about it in public from the club. All we want to know is that you're fighting for what the members want, even if we may not win. It's one thing to fight for what's important to the members and lose, but it's entirely another to not bother to fight for them at all.

By the way I'm not a traditionalist myself. I'm 26 years old. I don't even remember the glory days of the Port Adelaide Magpies, let alone cherish them. But even I'm perceptive enough to know the dissatisfaction that the co-captaincy decision was going to cause among the members. Quite frankly it's incredible that people who are paid handsomely as employees of the PAFC didn't see it coming.

Ollie Wines and Tom Jonas themselves haven't helped matters either. Ollie was handed the captaincy just a couple of weeks after hurting the club he now represents as captain by getting himself injured in a waterskiing accident. He hasn't showed a skerrick of remorse for it. Tom Jonas was only too eager to defend him. Ollie's brother even went on Twitter to personally abuse a guy who's won 4 B&F's and a premiership for this club for daring to criticise Ollie's lack of commitment. I haven't always been Kane Cornes' biggest fan but if our current captains showed the level of commitment and professionalism that Cornes did throughout his career then we'd probably be in better shape than they are now. If we were going to go down the co-captaincy path, then the least the new co-captains could've done is shown absolute commitment to getting this club back to winning premierships again. Ollie and Tom haven't shown anything of the sort so far.

And then there's Chad Wingard. If Chad Wingard isn't the most talented footballer we've ever drafted then he's #2 behind Robbie Gray. Chad Wingard loved this club from the moment he got here. Chad Wingard should have been an absolute legend of this club. He should've been spoken about in 20 years' time the way we speak about names like Gavin Wanganeen now. Chad isn't blameless for what happened to him. But this regime let things spiral out of control to the point that Chad Wingard isn't at our club anymore. Makes me think back to a few years' ago when Richmond nearly traded Dustin Martin when he was having some off field issues. Imagine how silly they'd look if they had.

Then there's Ken Hinkley. Given the keys to the club for four years after 2017. At the time we hadn't won a final for three years, right now we haven't won one for four and don't look like winning one any time soon. Russell Ebert is the greatest player the PAFC has ever seen, but as a coach even he was run out of town for less.

And it's not just that we're losing, it's that we're losing the same way over and over again. Every single year since 2014 we've started Round 1 with an extra key forward. Schulz and Butcher in 2014, Schulz and Butcher in 2015, Dixon and Schulz in 2016, Dixon and Eddy in 2017, Dixon and Marshall in 2018, Ryder and Marshall in 2019. Every year as soon as the second key forward gets injured or has an off game, they get dropped and replaced with a small. Every year we have three or four games at Adelaide Oval where we go into Q4 a goal or two down, we absolutely dominate the midfield and pepper the inside 50 with forward entries, the opposition repels them time and time again with intercept marks because we don't have a forward line that can deal with the high balls coming in, and then they seal the game with one counterattack. Last week was the first of what I'm sure will be a few such games this year. Last weekend it was Dylan Grimes who did it to us, in the past it's been Jeremy McGovern, or Alex Rance, or Cale Hooker, or any number of other key defenders who have an absolute day out against Ken Hinkley's forward line. I remember all of these games vividly. Even as a random punter in the crowd I'm clever enough to learn the lessons from those games. It's amazing that Ken Hinkley doesn't seem to be.

Interesting fact about our tall versus small forward lines. Since Todd Marshall debuted, we've won 83% of games that he's played in and won 35% of games that he's missed. Over our last 14 games (including JLT), we're 5-1 without Sam Gray in the side and 0-8 with him in it. And that's not Sam Gray's fault, I don't blame him for it. On an individual level he actually played quite well last weekend. I blame the coach who thinks we can drop a tall forward and stick Sam Gray in the forward line in his spot without the team balance suffering for it.

I can handle losing games. We're not in the SANFL anymore, it's a cyclical competition and we're not a 'big club' comparative to West Coast or to the big Victorian sides. What I can't handle is losing games the same way over and over again for 5 years, not learning our lessons from those losses, and giving a three year contract extension to the one guy who has been the common denominator in all of them. I've been a member since I turned 18. I'm still currently a member in 2019, and I'm still attending games week in and week out. I desperately want the club to give me something to cling to so that I can justify spending hundreds of dollars on a membership in 2020. It doesn't even need to be wins, it just needs to be something to give me hope for the future. There's two things that will do that.

1. Ken Hinkley FINALLY learning his lesson after 5 long years and giving Todd Marshall the full season of football that he and every other key forward in the history of football has needed to develop their game, which is exactly what we never did for Butcher, Shaw and Eddy and is the reason why we're now so desperately reliant on Marshall coming good because all the other options are already gone; or
2. If Ken Hinkley fails to do the above, he gets sacked and replaced with someone who will do it in 2020.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Kind regards,
*Schulzenfest*

Lol I read that as. #bringbackthetarps campaign.

 

[El_Scorcho]

To his credit he did respond quite quickly. Didn't go into my complaints about Ken or the tactics (which is fair enough, that's not his role) but confirmed that the club is working on the Prison Bars behind the scenes, and he admitted that the communication from the club re the co-captaincy was poor and the whole thing should have been handled better.

Nice to see someone at the club owning up to a mistake for a change. That response makes me feel a lot better than 'hE wAs a SuPeRhErO wHeN wE wErE 11-4' did.

Great email, much better than mine. I did get the same sort of response as well. He obviously can't get into tactics, but clearly from his reply he'd read my email in full and was listening.

 

[Chachi]

Just sent this email to Matthew Richardson, since he was asking for members to tell him exactly why we're so dissatisfied. It's a long one.

"Hi Matthew,
I saw your tweet from the other day and to be honest I was a bit disappointed with it. I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was a genuine question, but even if it was a genuine question I find it pretty unbelievable that anybody remotely associated with the club even needs to ask that question.

First and foremost, the co-captaincy decision. The decision itself, coupled with the appalling way the decision was handled, has been an absolute disaster. We're a passionate supporter base and we'll quite often disagree amongst ourselves, but I've never seen such a unanimous agreement from the base that we wanted to retain the tradition of one captain wearing #1. I saw polls on Facebook with thousands of responses and over 90% approval of keeping one captain. But the club went ahead and spat in the face of all those years of tradition by doing it anyway.

David Koch, Keith Thomas and Ken Hinkley smugly and disingenuously attempted to frame the debate as 'would you rather have this old tradition or would you rather win premierships?' But that's not at all the choice we were offered. None of the three offered one skerrick of evidence as to how co-captains was going to help us win premierships, they just said that it would. Right now we look further away from a premiership than we have since 2012, and since both co-captains have been in the side we haven't won a game. I'm not silly enough to suggest that the reason we won in Rounds 1 and 2 were because we had one captain and the reason we lost in Rounds 2 and 3 was because we had two, but the opposite certainly isn't true either. And you don't change a centuries old tradition just because 'oh well, won't make us any worse'. You change it only if it's going to make us tangibly better. And it hasn't. And it won't.

The lack of public support from the club for the hugely popular #bringbackthebars campaign has been disappointing as well. Last I saw there was something like 7,500 signatures on there, including the signatures of some former and current greats of the club. There hasn't been a single word about it in public from the club. All we want to know is that you're fighting for what the members want, even if we may not win. It's one thing to fight for what's important to the members and lose, but it's entirely another to not bother to fight for them at all.

By the way I'm not a traditionalist myself. I'm 26 years old. I don't even remember the glory days of the Port Adelaide Magpies, let alone cherish them. But even I'm perceptive enough to know the dissatisfaction that the co-captaincy decision was going to cause among the members. Quite frankly it's incredible that people who are paid handsomely as employees of the PAFC didn't see it coming.

Ollie Wines and Tom Jonas themselves haven't helped matters either. Ollie was handed the captaincy just a couple of weeks after hurting the club he now represents as captain by getting himself injured in a waterskiing accident. He hasn't showed a skerrick of remorse for it. Tom Jonas was only too eager to defend him. Ollie's brother even went on Twitter to personally abuse a guy who's won 4 B&F's and a premiership for this club for daring to criticise Ollie's lack of commitment. I haven't always been Kane Cornes' biggest fan but if our current captains showed the level of commitment and professionalism that Cornes did throughout his career then we'd probably be in better shape than they are now. If we were going to go down the co-captaincy path, then the least the new co-captains could've done is shown absolute commitment to getting this club back to winning premierships again. Ollie and Tom haven't shown anything of the sort so far.

And then there's Chad Wingard. If Chad Wingard isn't the most talented footballer we've ever drafted then he's #2 behind Robbie Gray. Chad Wingard loved this club from the moment he got here. Chad Wingard should have been an absolute legend of this club. He should've been spoken about in 20 years' time the way we speak about names like Gavin Wanganeen now. Chad isn't blameless for what happened to him. But this regime let things spiral out of control to the point that Chad Wingard isn't at our club anymore. Makes me think back to a few years' ago when Richmond nearly traded Dustin Martin when he was having some off field issues. Imagine how silly they'd look if they had.

Then there's Ken Hinkley. Given the keys to the club for four years after 2017. At the time we hadn't won a final for three years, right now we haven't won one for four and don't look like winning one any time soon. Russell Ebert is the greatest player the PAFC has ever seen, but as a coach even he was run out of town for less.

And it's not just that we're losing, it's that we're losing the same way over and over again. Every single year since 2014 we've started Round 1 with an extra key forward. Schulz and Butcher in 2014, Schulz and Butcher in 2015, Dixon and Schulz in 2016, Dixon and Eddy in 2017, Dixon and Marshall in 2018, Ryder and Marshall in 2019. Every year as soon as the second key forward gets injured or has an off game, they get dropped and replaced with a small. Every year we have three or four games at Adelaide Oval where we go into Q4 a goal or two down, we absolutely dominate the midfield and pepper the inside 50 with forward entries, the opposition repels them time and time again with intercept marks because we don't have a forward line that can deal with the high balls coming in, and then they seal the game with one counterattack. Last week was the first of what I'm sure will be a few such games this year. Last weekend it was Dylan Grimes who did it to us, in the past it's been Jeremy McGovern, or Alex Rance, or Cale Hooker, or any number of other key defenders who have an absolute day out against Ken Hinkley's forward line. I remember all of these games vividly. Even as a random punter in the crowd I'm clever enough to learn the lessons from those games. It's amazing that Ken Hinkley doesn't seem to be.

Interesting fact about our tall versus small forward lines. Since Todd Marshall debuted, we've won 83% of games that he's played in and won 35% of games that he's missed. Over our last 14 games (including JLT), we're 5-1 without Sam Gray in the side and 0-8 with him in it. And that's not Sam Gray's fault, I don't blame him for it. On an individual level he actually played quite well last weekend. I blame the coach who thinks we can drop a tall forward and stick Sam Gray in the forward line in his spot without the team balance suffering for it.

I can handle losing games. We're not in the SANFL anymore, it's a cyclical competition and we're not a 'big club' comparative to West Coast or to the big Victorian sides. What I can't handle is losing games the same way over and over again for 5 years, not learning our lessons from those losses, and giving a three year contract extension to the one guy who has been the common denominator in all of them. I've been a member since I turned 18. I'm still currently a member in 2019, and I'm still attending games week in and week out. I desperately want the club to give me something to cling to so that I can justify spending hundreds of dollars on a membership in 2020. It doesn't even need to be wins, it just needs to be something to give me hope for the future. There's two things that will do that.

1. Ken Hinkley FINALLY learning his lesson after 5 long years and giving Todd Marshall the full season of football that he and every other key forward in the history of football has needed to develop their game, which is exactly what we never did for Butcher, Shaw and Eddy and is the reason why we're now so desperately reliant on Marshall coming good because all the other options are already gone; or
2. If Ken Hinkley fails to do the above, he gets sacked and replaced with someone who will do it in 2020.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Kind regards,
*Schulzenfest*

For some reason I always assumed you were older than me, instead I'm old enough to be your dad!

Your email sums up the way I feel to a tee.

 

[Ljc_86]

Just sent this email to Matthew Richardson, since he was asking for members to tell him exactly why we're so dissatisfied. It's a long one.

"Hi Matthew,
I saw your tweet from the other day and to be honest I was a bit disappointed with it. I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was a genuine question, but even if it was a genuine question I find it pretty unbelievable that anybody remotely associated with the club even needs to ask that question.

First and foremost, the co-captaincy decision. The decision itself, coupled with the appalling way the decision was handled, has been an absolute disaster. We're a passionate supporter base and we'll quite often disagree amongst ourselves, but I've never seen such a unanimous agreement from the base that we wanted to retain the tradition of one captain wearing #1. I saw polls on Facebook with thousands of responses and over 90% approval of keeping one captain. But the club went ahead and spat in the face of all those years of tradition by doing it anyway.

David Koch, Keith Thomas and Ken Hinkley smugly and disingenuously attempted to frame the debate as 'would you rather have this old tradition or would you rather win premierships?' But that's not at all the choice we were offered. None of the three offered one skerrick of evidence as to how co-captains was going to help us win premierships, they just said that it would. Right now we look further away from a premiership than we have since 2012, and since both co-captains have been in the side we haven't won a game. I'm not silly enough to suggest that the reason we won in Rounds 1 and 2 were because we had one captain and the reason we lost in Rounds 2 and 3 was because we had two, but the opposite certainly isn't true either. And you don't change a centuries old tradition just because 'oh well, won't make us any worse'. You change it only if it's going to make us tangibly better. And it hasn't. And it won't.

The lack of public support from the club for the hugely popular #bringbackthebars campaign has been disappointing as well. Last I saw there was something like 7,500 signatures on there, including the signatures of some former and current greats of the club. There hasn't been a single word about it in public from the club. All we want to know is that you're fighting for what the members want, even if we may not win. It's one thing to fight for what's important to the members and lose, but it's entirely another to not bother to fight for them at all.

By the way I'm not a traditionalist myself. I'm 26 years old. I don't even remember the glory days of the Port Adelaide Magpies, let alone cherish them. But even I'm perceptive enough to know the dissatisfaction that the co-captaincy decision was going to cause among the members. Quite frankly it's incredible that people who are paid handsomely as employees of the PAFC didn't see it coming.

Ollie Wines and Tom Jonas themselves haven't helped matters either. Ollie was handed the captaincy just a couple of weeks after hurting the club he now represents as captain by getting himself injured in a waterskiing accident. He hasn't showed a skerrick of remorse for it. Tom Jonas was only too eager to defend him. Ollie's brother even went on Twitter to personally abuse a guy who's won 4 B&F's and a premiership for this club for daring to criticise Ollie's lack of commitment. I haven't always been Kane Cornes' biggest fan but if our current captains showed the level of commitment and professionalism that Cornes did throughout his career then we'd probably be in better shape than they are now. If we were going to go down the co-captaincy path, then the least the new co-captains could've done is shown absolute commitment to getting this club back to winning premierships again. Ollie and Tom haven't shown anything of the sort so far.

And then there's Chad Wingard. If Chad Wingard isn't the most talented footballer we've ever drafted then he's #2 behind Robbie Gray. Chad Wingard loved this club from the moment he got here. Chad Wingard should have been an absolute legend of this club. He should've been spoken about in 20 years' time the way we speak about names like Gavin Wanganeen now. Chad isn't blameless for what happened to him. But this regime let things spiral out of control to the point that Chad Wingard isn't at our club anymore. Makes me think back to a few years' ago when Richmond nearly traded Dustin Martin when he was having some off field issues. Imagine how silly they'd look if they had.

Then there's Ken Hinkley. Given the keys to the club for four years after 2017. At the time we hadn't won a final for three years, right now we haven't won one for four and don't look like winning one any time soon. Russell Ebert is the greatest player the PAFC has ever seen, but as a coach even he was run out of town for less.

And it's not just that we're losing, it's that we're losing the same way over and over again. Every single year since 2014 we've started Round 1 with an extra key forward. Schulz and Butcher in 2014, Schulz and Butcher in 2015, Dixon and Schulz in 2016, Dixon and Eddy in 2017, Dixon and Marshall in 2018, Ryder and Marshall in 2019. Every year as soon as the second key forward gets injured or has an off game, they get dropped and replaced with a small. Every year we have three or four games at Adelaide Oval where we go into Q4 a goal or two down, we absolutely dominate the midfield and pepper the inside 50 with forward entries, the opposition repels them time and time again with intercept marks because we don't have a forward line that can deal with the high balls coming in, and then they seal the game with one counterattack. Last week was the first of what I'm sure will be a few such games this year. Last weekend it was Dylan Grimes who did it to us, in the past it's been Jeremy McGovern, or Alex Rance, or Cale Hooker, or any number of other key defenders who have an absolute day out against Ken Hinkley's forward line. I remember all of these games vividly. Even as a random punter in the crowd I'm clever enough to learn the lessons from those games. It's amazing that Ken Hinkley doesn't seem to be.

Interesting fact about our tall versus small forward lines. Since Todd Marshall debuted, we've won 83% of games that he's played in and won 35% of games that he's missed. Over our last 14 games (including JLT), we're 5-1 without Sam Gray in the side and 0-8 with him in it. And that's not Sam Gray's fault, I don't blame him for it. On an individual level he actually played quite well last weekend. I blame the coach who thinks we can drop a tall forward and stick Sam Gray in the forward line in his spot without the team balance suffering for it.

I can handle losing games. We're not in the SANFL anymore, it's a cyclical competition and we're not a 'big club' comparative to West Coast or to the big Victorian sides. What I can't handle is losing games the same way over and over again for 5 years, not learning our lessons from those losses, and giving a three year contract extension to the one guy who has been the common denominator in all of them. I've been a member since I turned 18. I'm still currently a member in 2019, and I'm still attending games week in and week out. I desperately want the club to give me something to cling to so that I can justify spending hundreds of dollars on a membership in 2020. It doesn't even need to be wins, it just needs to be something to give me hope for the future. There's two things that will do that.

1. Ken Hinkley FINALLY learning his lesson after 5 long years and giving Todd Marshall the full season of football that he and every other key forward in the history of football has needed to develop their game, which is exactly what we never did for Butcher, Shaw and Eddy and is the reason why we're now so desperately reliant on Marshall coming good because all the other options are already gone; or
2. If Ken Hinkley fails to do the above, he gets sacked and replaced with someone who will do it in 2020.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Kind regards,
*Schulzenfest*

I want to buy you a beer. You’ve nailed it on the head.

I agree with Chachi always assumed you were older. Wise beyond your years.

Fantastic email mate.

 

[Duck Farmer]

To his credit he did respond quite quickly. Didn't go into my complaints about Ken or the tactics (which is fair enough, that's not his role) but confirmed that the club is working on the Prison Bars behind the scenes, and he admitted that the communication from the club re the co-captaincy was poor and the whole thing should have been handled better.

Nice to see someone at the club owning up to a mistake for a change. That response makes me feel a lot better than 'hE wAs a SuPeRhErO wHeN wE wErE 11-4' did.

I liked your e-mail a lot but don't be too swayed by his reply. I read it more as "we should've spun the co-captains thing to the punters better" rather than the "KT should've thrown Hinkley out of his office when he suggested pissing on tradition without a skerrick of justification" response it should have been.

 

[VineValerian]

Couldn't fathom Jonas' role Sat nite.

So often he was parked on a half bank flank near the boundary, hands on hips, not involved, no burst of activity, standing staring vacantly around, contributing sfa, pointing at others to get to positions to cover for him being in no man's land.
Think he needs to be a bit more engaged as captain. Like the pressure is all too much for him.
FMD, Edwards fitted into the skipper's role like hand in a glove, no problems. We need two guys to do one job and it's still too overwhelming for them.
Did someone make a comment about lack of leadership at the Club?

 

[Andre]

I liked your e-mail a lot but don't be too swayed by his reply. I read it more as "we should've spun the co-captains thing to the punters better" rather than the "KT should've thrown Hinkley out of his office when he suggested pissing on tradition without a skerrick of justification" response it should have been.

Yes, that bit read likes the non-apology apology of 'I'm sorry your offended', rather than an actual apology. They could have explained it with Professors or by interpretive dance, a s**t decision is a s**t decision.

 

[edgie]

What is his email? I'm gonna do a short one up now.