INS AND OUTS

Not sure we can blame the board for our lack of recruitment.

brodlach wrote:Not sure we can blame the board for our lack of recruitment.

I'm not blaming the board for our lack of recruitment. I am critical of their poor communication, sometimes a lack of information, sometimes misleading information.

God knows what Colville thinks of the club in general.  I think he is a good coach who will only get better,but he needs quality 1st grade players to work with. We as a club have given him nothing. In fact I reckon his list is worse than Weed had in his time. Can't see us winning a game this year and in fact can see some 20 goal thumping's coming up. Would not blame the coach one bit if he walked away, though I hope he doesn't.
Who's responsibility is it to turn things around? Ultimately it is the board's. They oversee and control everything and all sections of the club and are responsible to see it works well. Sure they can/do delegate certain areas to others be it paid employees or certain board members to run/oversee recruiting, kitchen, bar staff, finance etc ,but in the end they are responsible.
I know this first hand as I am on a board and a Director of a flying group (small beer compared to a League club I know) but am well aware of the duties and responsibilities of such a position. In fact soon as you become one ASIC send you pages of guidelines and laws that outline your duties and responsibilities.
So from an outsider looking in I believe the members were sold a pup when asked to vote for an "Appointed Board" to run things. I can sleep at night because I voted and spoke up against it but that is another story.
Now there is still time for the new regime to come good though time is rapidly running out. But so far pretty well every area of the club is going backwards!
When exactly are we going to see a reversal of our fortunes as promised? Or is this SANFL influenced board deliberately running things down to get us to merge or shut down?
And you know the real killer? No matter how bad we go or things get, your not going to be able to get rid of them.

brodlach wrote:Not sure we can blame the board for our lack of recruitment.

Well the Football Director (a Board member) oversees the Football Department.

TAAARS wrote:God knows what Colville thinks of the club in general.  I think he is a good coach who will only get better,but he needs quality 1st grade players to work with. We as a club have given him nothing. In fact I reckon his list is worse than Weed had in his time. Can't see us winning a game this year and in fact can see some 20 goal thumping's coming up. Would not blame the coach one bit if he walked away, though I hope he doesn't.
Who's responsibility is it to turn things around? Ultimately it is the board's. They oversee and control everything and all sections of the club and are responsible to see it works well. Sure they can/do delegate certain areas to others be it paid employees or certain board members to run/oversee recruiting, kitchen, bar staff, finance etc ,but in the end they are responsible.
I know this first hand as I am on a board and a Director of a flying group (small beer compared to a League club I know) but am well aware of the duties and responsibilities of such a position. In fact soon as you become one ASIC send you pages of guidelines and laws that outline your duties and responsibilities.
So from an outsider looking in I believe the members were sold a pup when asked to vote for an "Appointed Board" to run things. I can sleep at night because I voted and spoke up against it but that is another story.
Now there is still time for the new regime to come good though time is rapidly running out. But so far pretty well every area of the club is going backwards!
When exactly are we going to see a reversal of our fortunes as promised? Or is this SANFL influenced board deliberately running things down to get us to merge or shut down?
And you know the real killer? No matter how bad we go or things get, your not going to be able to get rid of them.

TAARS, I agree with you 100%. Your comment about the club being allowed to run down is interesting. I have had the same thoughts and raised this with Murray. He assured me that the SANFL is committed to ensuring that the WAFC survives. Logically, I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't, however I have a very uneasy feeling about this. Why are we failing in so many areas?

I have been reading this thread regularly & resisting posting a comment but have been annoyed & frustrated at some of the club destroying, negative comments.

The only thing I can agree with is the lack of regular updates from the club.

The comments made by TAARS regarding recruiting & our coach demands a response. Gavin has been front & centre with our recruiting for the past 6 months so he knows first hand of the difficulties in landing new recruits. I know for a fact that we have put several very good contract offers to many of the players who have been recruited to other clubs. Most of the time their decision has not been based on money but other factors. The highest profile examples of this are Abe Davis & Richard Douglas.

To suggest that “we as a club have given him nothing” & “the coach may  walk away” is just ridiculous, unfair & damaging comments.  It has definitely not been through a lack of effort by both Gav & the club I can assure you. Why would they be sitting on their hands & not trying their hardest to bolster our playing list? Just ridiculous comment.

To also suggest that the board is “deliberately running things down to get us to merge or shut down” is totally scandalous comment, insulting & beyond belief. The board has just appointed a new & very impressive CEO. They have finally got the opportunity to revamp the football department with a new Football Mgr (yet to be appointed) I don’t wish to offer my personal comment on the effectiveness of the previous person but this happened at a critical time during the recruiting phase so it hasn’t been easy sailing.

We are all passionate Bloods people but PLEASE think before your fingers hit the keyboard.

I support the post by Mypaspective

I agree with all posters that communication has been poor.  Interestingly, MyPaspective seems to have had more access to information than we have.

All I see is members asking reasonable questions, or does the Club's elite want to shut down the last rights members have to express their frustration.

After all, we were promised that business people knew how to run our club better than West Adelaide football people.

What a joke, but we'e the ones who suffer.

MP, in the light of our recruiting woes, I suspect that those talking about Gavin not being supported, may be referring to the reluctance of the Board to forego funding at the cost of a full salary cap.

That frustrated me at the time, but was a Board decision. It was certainly putting football last, so I think posters have some basis for their criticism on that point.

My view was always that we would lose far more in revenue & morale and I told the SANFL so.

As always, they knew better.

We should have been talking to potential recruits for this year 12 months ago. Why because as a bottom club we need to be ahead of any other club given the way we played for the past 3 years. It seems to me we weren’t doing that. The Football Director definitely needs to be overseeing this.
In any business when you are at the bottom you need to do things better than your competitors and we obviously haven’t done that.

I agree about the past but I reiterate Lee, that our lack of success has not been surrounding funds during this current recruiting campaign. The posters are referring to now, not previous years recruiting unless I am reading it wrong.

Mypaspective.....I did not say the coach may walk away. I said I would not blame him if he did. So don't twist my words to suit your own argument. As for giving him nothing, well just who have we given him as in good 1st grade recruits?
My SANFL comment merely asks the question? I hope I'm wrong too but so far ( and I said there is still time but running out) we as a club appear to be going backwards. Prove me wrong please. We all need some good news.

Lachlan wrote:We should have been talking to potential recruits for this year 12 months ago. Why because as a bottom club we need to be ahead of any other club given the way we played for the past 3 years. It seems to me we weren’t doing that. The Football Director definitely needs to be overseeing this.
In any business when you are at the bottom you need to do things better than your competitors and we obviously haven’t done that.

And by mid season we knew our deficiencies and at least 6 players who would not be with us in 2020. Getting the jump on competing clubs is important. Getting in early would have also given the club time to meet player demands if it came down to more than just the money.

There is no doubting the work done by all involved in recruiting.

Unfortunately, it seems we are not seen as a favoured destination for recruits right now.

I have got some good news that I don’t think has been previously shared.

I have been informed from a reliable source within SANFL that after many months of lobbying they have convinced the AFL to compensate SANFL clubs for players drafted Mid season. Hallelujah!!!!!

I can’t disclose the amount per player or whether it is retrospective.

Spot on Lee

You don’t seem to understand TAARS. Due to difficult circumstances Gavin has had to be our main recruiter. So far with little joy so don’t blame the club alone for giving him nothing. Who else was responsible?? Work that out for yourself.

Mypaspective wrote:I have got some good news that I don’t think has been previously shared.

I have been informed from a reliable source within SANFL that after many months of lobbying they have convinced the AFL to compensate SANFL clubs for players drafted Mid season. Hallelujah!!!!!

I can’t disclose the amount per player or whether it is retrospective.

Good news, assuming it's accurate. Let's hope the compensation paid is adequate. Not an ideal solution, but certainly the best we could have dared hope for. The AFL reward their clubs for mediocre performances, at the very least SANFL clubs should be rewarded for developing quality players. If the SANFL was responsible for this, then well done. Hopefully, it is retrospective.

There's the mechanics of recruiting & there's the responsibility for recruiting and there's who is in charge of recruiting at the highest level.

It needs a whole of club approach to get better, not just disingenuous scapegoating.

Members and supporters don’t want to hear excuses.
We want to go into the new season with some optimism and hope that our team can climb the ladder.
I think most would agree that our team is significantly weaker and has a very thin core of A grade players compared to this time 12 months ago.
At present I don’t think we have a player capable of kicking 30 goals.
Keough will probably have to play forward which leaves us thin down back.
Given it’s now well into December, I doubt there will be any new signings which is very disappointing.
The facts are that all of our opponents were able to bolster their squads and we haven’t!

MP, we recruited well last year with the same people doing it. We had won 8 games, were profitable and were seen as on the rise.

As for communication, perhaps members are finding out more on this forum, given your welcome news, than from the club or the SANFL.

I note that Bruce Cameron said the Board now only needed to fine tune the previous Board strategy. It had already been done and the new Board hasn't had to reinvent the wheel.

The past is very relevant to our current position,MP. I recently posted my note to the Board from some time ago about what would happen with a reduced cap

My biggest concern is that if you have a Board where most have never heard of Richard Hamilton, you've got a problem.

MP I think the fact that we put offers to a handful of the players signed by other clubs is not any sort of defence, it just identifies our failings. We have, for reasons the club must discover, been unable to get these players over the line. I would also suggest that there are several other players signed by other SANFL clubs that we should have approached but didn't.

exactly aldo

I would also have thought since we appear to be one of the leading suppliers of AFL players this should be a reason players want to come to us.

Very good businesses don’t make excuses.

We haven’t been able to sign any quality players and we need to understand why and make sure it doesn’t happen next year.