We should change our name to the "Navy Beiges"

I've never heard so many people scared of change or so unwilling to be proactive and take a risk.

"Lets play safe with Smorgo, lets play safe with Roos, lets not chance an inexperienced coach"!
For Gods sake, every successful, experienced coach or player was given an initial opportunity by someone.
As long as we are thorough and professional in a search for a senior coach, lets interview and invite as many people as possible.

This joint has become paralysed by fear and bias.
Spread your wings and give us the best opportunity to snare the best person. That can only be done by a proper process of elimination.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Sounds like the Howard government.

Agree with the sentiment BV, the decisions we make as a club over the next couple of years are critical and must be made with some consideration. No knee or 'fashionable' decisions, sensible ones thanks.

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A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" -Winston Churchill

L.M 35-06

Seems that some sensible thinking about the pros and cons of the different options could hardly be disparaged.

I only hope that those who make the decisions at the club are doing the same.

Surely, those decision-makers are too smart to be manoevred by rhetoric suggesting that they're unimaginative, cowardly or indecisive.

Just about every coach improves with experience. You'd hope so at least. Beginner's luck tends not to apply to coaches.

But the notion is that we just dump one in the senior post and cross our fingers. Maybe that coach will remember CFC fondly after he succeeds elsewhere in about 2015. No doubt the mistakes he'll make with us will teach him a lot about the game. But the experience may not be so beneficial for us.

Appointing Buckley, Voss, or Hird would be reckless. You wouldn't leave your money to be administered by a Funds manager who took such chances, so you shouldn't be calling for such a decision when it so dramatically influences the health of our club.

We aren't in the same position as Hawthorn was when Clarkson took over. They were entering into a rebuilding phase, and a new coach could remould the list according to his ideas. We are already well into our rebuild. The list has been developed with a view to producing tall and athletic players who can dominate the game in the air. No doubt the next phase of it is to introduce some good young mids this year. The last thing I want is for a new coach to be appointed who wants to go in a different direction and ends up scrapping the development work we've already put in for questionable rewards.

If Pratt can't identify a candidate who is clearly much better than Pagan, then leave Pagan in place for next year.

No gambler's hunches. Make decisions that are carefully and intellectually weighed. Err on the side of prudence rather than flashy risk-taking. And if the decision is to make no change, that will be no less proactive and courageous than a change for the sake of change.

That won't be hard, almost anyway is better than Pagan. I'm sure there's no-one else around, including my mother, who could've done a worse job. Just hope they go through a decent process. We've suffered enough for the last 5 years under this bloke. To me, the first part should be to dump Pagan as soon as practial and give Ratten the job for the rest of the season. Nothing at all to lose. Pagan will take us no-where and if Ratten does well, bonus. If it's successful, great, then he has the job full-time (like the Swans did with Paul Roos). If not, we know to look elsewhere. Only thing is that we cannot have another wasted year under Pagan.

You shock me Jim

"A new broom sweeps clean"

Pagan lost me years ago.

4 Games Stick in my memory..

North 124 points - 2003

Melbourne 105 points - 2005

Sydney 92 points -2006

Practice match against Port at Princes Park - over 100 points 2006

Daniher gets belted last night and Paul Gardner says he is just about GONE!

What I can't understand is why the media don't give it to Pagan. He is untouchable probably because he has 2 Flags under his belt.

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Cheats never prosper (except in the AFL)

I've always been one to give credit to Denis; and things temporarily improved in a cameo of a couple of games this year, but......I now believe that we need a new, fresh look at our list and our playing style.

I don't know why; but the thought of someone like Michael Voss coming in fills me with a sense of young thinking and excitement and optimism.

I was around when Barassi was appointed as an unproven Coach but......he was a superstar.....a proven leader.....and respected; and had Captained Premiership Sides........and that appointment turned the whole Club around.......it could happen again.....why not?

You realise that Barassi came to us as Captain-Coach and played for 50 games, Warby? I suppose we could get Voss in a trade in the hope that lightning will strike twice.

But captain-coaches aren't a good guide to the chances of success for coaches without any coaching experience in today's AFL. The most recent example of that is Timmy Watson. Strangely enough, he ticks most of the boxes in your list of desirable qualities.

But I suppose every 10 years or so, someone should ignore the lessons of the past and hope that they don't apply now.

Partly, but there are also other factors which have been covered a million times here (penalties, quality of list, off-field turmoil, etc) that have happened at the same time as Pagan's tenure and whether you like it or not they have most likely played a factor as well in Pagan not being put under the blowtorch by the media.

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Hear f*&%^ing hear chubbyruss. You have hit the nail on the head more sweetly than any of Fevs goals outside 50. The media have given DP an armchair ride

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If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you!

Gee, its so simple. Cull the Fossil now. His 23% strike rate speaks for itself. No more excuses anymore. If we sack him now, and go with Ratts or Voss, we can be playing the Dawks for the 2010 premiership. There is no way that Pratt will put up with his sh#% anymore anyway.

Ciao Dennis.

Don't forget that guy that played for Richmond in premiership teams and then coached the team he supported as a kid in Essendon* and won premierships and turned the whole club around. One Kevin Sheedy.
Michael Voss captained Brisbane to 3 flags and wouldn't it be fitting to coach the team he loved growing up to future premierships. As much as I liked Denis Pagan in the past I feel that Voss is the man that will turn this club around and make it great once again.

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WE ARE CARLTON, WE ARE ARROGANT AND WE LOVE IT!

It's funny you know, but as much as the game is becoming more scientific it has also always been a 'romantic' game as well. The story of Sheedy, a Richmond thug who ended up coaching the team he barracked for as a kid to 4 premierships is one of just many romantic VFL/AFL stories.

There is no basic scientific logic, but a feeling in me bones that Voss might be another one of those stories.

Born in 75, would have remembered 81 and 82, and 87 would have been a highlight, even 95 may have just been a flicker despite playing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Voss
'In 2006, the problems he suffered with knee tendonitis affected his ability and caught up with him, in what Voss described as his "wonky knees". Voss bowed out in what turned out to be his last game, at the Gabba in Round 22 against St Kilda, gathering 34 possessions and 2 Brownlow Medal votes as a badly struggling Brisbane finally fell at home to St Kilda. The Lions received a long standing ovation after the game.'

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Because most of the media are lazy.

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There's so much I could say...

And there's softer targets ATM.

A sensible man............no guts,no glory !
The great George Harris wasnt blinkered by conventional thinking.A dashing devil may care,never say die sort of guy who went out on a limb.Conservative thinking is for the faint hearted.Gotta be cavalier kids.

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All my dangerous friends

dannyboys mate King Whitney Jr.'s got it all sussed...

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There's so much I could say...

Perhaps, but does Richmond's decision to appoint the experienced Wallace seem such a brillant move at the moment?

I'm not entirely convinced that some of the arguments being mustered against the next generation of coaches is entirely valid.

The way I see it, our new coach will need four things

1) He will need the club to be well resourced and financially stable so that it can provide him with the support structures he needs. Whether that is the right assistant coaches, additional recruiters or a high altitude training room (nah just kidding, we don't need that crap).

We are well on the way to ticking that box.

2) He will need the right "cattle".

Tick - compared to what Pagan inherited, our new coach will receive an embarressment of riches. We will add at least another top 5 draft pick to that this season.

3) He will need to be a natural leader so the players respect him.

Buckley, Hird and Voss all tick that box, All brownlow medallists, all captains, two of them premiership captains.

4) He will need to be tactically astute, and a good communicator.

Beyond those four things, I am slightly dubious about how much value an assistant coaching apprenticeship adds. Guys like Buckley, Voss, and Hird have all spent large sections of their careers injured and sitting in the coaches box anyway. They know how that game works.

More importantly, and I'm sure Jarusa can pull the actual stats on this, but from memory in the last 30 years or so no new AFL coach has won a flag in less than 4 years (I think Roos might be the only exception, and it still took him 3 and half). So in other words, before our flag tilt year, statistically our new coach will need 3 years in the top job finding his feet, irrespective of whether he has been an assistant coach or not.

My own view is that as far that crucial 4th criteria goes, Buckley has shown the most. I don't care that he is a Pies player, as soon as he stepped through the door at PP he would be a Blue just like Scotland and Cloke before him. If I was Sticks, I would be telling Pratt to throw the kitchen sink at Buckley. I don't know if we could get him, but then, that doesn't really matter since I would never have thought he could have got Swann either.

If that failed, I would be perfectly happy with Voss as well.

Nightcrawler, I reckon you might be underestimating the complexity of the modern senior coaching role.

Grant Thomas wrote an article earlier this year in which he set out all of the aspects which a modern coach has to control. I'm not a big wrap for GT, and I don't agree with some of what he wrote, but he does at least paint a broad picture.

He has to deal with the media, the coterie groups, the Board, the supporters, the assistants, the conditioning staff, recruiting staff, video reviews, match committee meetings, meet-and-greets with sponsors etc. etc.

Your 4 criteria just scratch the surface.

Assistants are much better placed to understand the demands of the role, but even they find the transition hard.