AFAIC, Mick wanted Wiley to come in and be the man, it has nothing to do with money.
Lets face it, if money was the issue, we wouldnt have paid out the highly rated assistants we had under contract.
We need a contemporary midfield/stoppage coach who recently played as a stoppage/midfield player.

By all means retain Wiley as Micks off sider but lets rate the role with the respect it deserves. Getting a bloke in who's been selling electricity for the past few years isnt doing that.
The midfield is the most important line in the game. We should be putting decent resources into it. I liked the idea of McKay being football manager but if he doesnt show some balls here, its time to get someone who will.

You have missed my point completely. Not sure what you are getting at.

Never mentioned anything about perfection and if you read my statement closely, I am not sure why you would mention a round 1 clash between GWS and Sydney in 2013.

Simply referring to crucial and basic errors like giving up 50 metre penalty goals and coughing up the ball too easily like Duigan and Tuohy seem to do on a regular basis. And I wasn't just referring to Thursday night.

Mick can't flick a switch and nor can the players. I'm not worried yet, but if we're not seeing signs of improvement/adaptation in a month from now I might be concerned.

For the doomsayers, that's three losses in a row under Mick now.

I think we could be 0-4 and while people will be absolutely feral it's still not time to panic.

Panic if we aren't at least 5-5 by Round 10 because then you know we've lost to some teams who should be well beneath us.

With Adelaide round 5, potential there to be 0-5. To get to 5-5 after 10 will require 5 in a row. St Kilda, Brisbane, Port, Melbourne, GWS. All winnable but a couple aren't gimme's like the Saints, Brisbane who towed us up two weeks ago and a reinvigorated Port who smashed us last year.

An upset or two in the first five rounds would be nice.

AFAIC, Mick wanted Wiley to come in and be the man, it has nothing to do with money.
Lets face it, if money was the issue, we wouldnt have paid out the highly rated assistants we had under contract.
We need a contemporary midfield/stoppage coach who recently played as a stoppage/midfield player.

By all means retain Wiley as Micks off sider but lets rate the role with the respect it deserves. Getting a bloke in who's been selling electricity for the past few years isnt doing that.
The midfield is the most important line in the game. We should be putting decent resources into it. I liked the idea of McKay being football manager but if he doesnt show some balls here, its time to get someone who will.

In the "here and now" of senior League football there's very little time to for navel gazing. Quite rightly, the planning for Round Two takes precedence over anything else.

Round One has come and gone, and while the events of last Thursday night at the MCG are consigned to history's pages, I wanted to briefly take the opportunity to talk about how the players dealt with this experience both individually and collectively.

For a late period of the first quarter and through the second we simply weren't competitive enough. Basically we failed to react as quickly as we should have to put an end to our opponents' run and capacity to score - and despite the "should have" and "could have" scenarios invariably thrown up by the closeness of the scores at the finish, not one of our players will be "babied".

True, some had more time to compose themselves when they kicked, either to score or to set someone else up, but they were also told there'd be no witch hunt.

Really, the message to the group was more about what worked and what didn't work, and of why we were able to find a way back into the game and have a real crack after a fairly ordinary first half.

Admittedly the interchange bench wasn't utilised anywhere near to capacity or the way I wanted it to be, and I'm not altogether convinced that the ultra-offensive "Russian Roulette" shoot-out game is necessarily the way to go.

But we will all learn from this as we move forward in the weeks and months ahead. As I've said before, this is a marathon, not a sprint.

Kind regards

Mick Malthouse

Mick has been backed in as the boss of the FD. It's his clean canvas now to produce something.
McKay is hardly about to overrule him after the first 5 minutes

Overrule him? Give me a break. No coach should have carte blanche to make those appointments.
Its not as if people were knocking down his door. The bloke was removed from his last coaching role and spent a year in the media.
We didnt have to sell the farm to get him.

The club needs to retain some control in these matters. Its why football managers are implemented. Carlton was happy to override Pagan and Ratten on football matters yet they cant with Mick?
Even at Collingwood, Malthouse had Geoff Walsh overseeing the football department decisions.

IMO, Mick can suggest his preferred football staff but when he suggests a midfield coach that's been out of elite football for a decade, the answer should have been no.
By all means have him as Micks confidante and off sider but midfield coach? Please. Its the hub of the game and deserves the best.
He may well get the hang of it at some stage and turn it around but this shouldnt be a learning program for the coaches, its an elite level sporting franchise in a highly competitive environment.
We've gone from being an elite stoppage team to terrible in a pre-season. If they havent found out the reason why, they better quickly before the season is gone.

We havent been an elite stoppage team for 18 months

4th in the AFL for clearances last year with our top 3 clearances winners, Murphy missing 6 games, Carrazzo missing 8, Judd missing 5
3rd in the AFL in 2011. 2nd in 2010. 4th in 2009.
4 consecutive years top 4 in the AFL for clearances. I'd say thats elite.

Compared to 15th in the AFL at the moment. Sadly, I dont think we can pin this one on Ratts, Mark Riley or Alan Richardson, no matter how hard we try.

15th after 1 round, compelling!