WESTAWAY & BURKE ANSWERS - DISCUSSION THREAD

[n1ck]

All discussion from the following thread should be put in here.

NEW THREAD - WESTAWAY & BURKE ANSWERS: PART 1
http://www.saintsational.com/forum/view ... hp?t=36802

[n1ck]

I know its been a busy afternoon, but I would have thought that this latest development would have promoted more discussion...

[SENsei]

Your excellent interview has been overtaken somewhat by continual developments in the AFL today.

The St Kilda board
Judd decision

It's all happening in a short space of time.

[Sam23]

Your excellent interview has been overtaken somewhat by continual developments in the AFL today.

The St Kilda board
Judd decision

It's all happening in a short space of time.

Spot on.

[Oh When the Saints]

[quote]NB: “When I was at the club, we couldn’t buy new footballs until Peter Maddern had sold our old ones to a local club,â€

[Oh When the Saints]

Although it's all kind of history now ...

[skeptic]

i quite enjoyed the read, got assignments and a hot date to think about atm... will analyze later

my early impression is that they are quite clearly playing cards close to their chest but they explain why this is so...

good to see Westaway is a big saints fan and that they acknowledge Butters contribution to the club

they seem to have read Saintrisings I want it to feel more like a club again thread"... I always thought NB was one of the major influences towards bringing the club closer to the fans and would expect significant improvement in that area

no funny business with Gdanski, reading between the lines AF will stay (sigh) and no GT involvement is good...

they make a very good point about instability RE the CEOs and the loss of David Friend.

I'm a little skeptical RE not buying footballs until the old ones were sold... comments like that draw comparisons with suburban teams... very damning if true.

They got some good basic plan RE doing up the social club etc but we all know that things like this will depend on the extra revenue brought up by SFF so we shall wait and see

Disappointed RE comments on Moorabbin, sounds like we're going to pissfart around for a while yet... we need to leave and go somewhere that will embrace us NOW

[casey scorp]

Great read, thanks.

GW: "Ross Lyon is the senior coach. He will remain the senior coach. He has our full support."

Usually the precursor to the coach getting the chop. An unwelcome comment in footy circles usually although not in the current context I think.

Two of my questions - many thanks for the answers:-

Question: We know that you’ve stated the preference to stay at Moorabbin. Will you be looking at alternatives while communicating with Kingston Council?

GW: Definitely. We believe it is in our best interests to have ongoing discussions with the council in regards to Moorabbin, but we keep our options open. It is necessary to do what is best for the Club and so our options remain open.

Need to get on with looking at those alternatives now - roll on Casey Fields!!


Question: Is Archie Fraser secure in his position? Will it be a total cleanout of the club or just at board level?

GW: Archie has only been in the job for a year, and its been a difficult one. We feel he has done a pretty good job under pressure but we don’t know as of yet. Positions will be evaluated at an appropriate time.

Good result - I think he has done a very good job in very difficult circumstances.

[battye]

[quote]“Grant and I also approached the board on the eve of the 2004 finals series because we thought it would be a good idea to get all the players together and take them out to a hotel for dinner, as sort of a team bonding exercise before the finals, to get the group together and have a chat.
The club wouldn’t pay for it, so Grant ended up paying for that out of his own pocket."
"And in that same season when we famously went to the movies, which ‘doomed our season apparently’ (joking), the club also refused to pay for that, so Grant funded that trip himself as well.â€

[Teflon]

[quote="battye"][quote]“Grant and I also approached the board on the eve of the 2004 finals series because we thought it would be a good idea to get all the players together and take them out to a hotel for dinner, as sort of a team bonding exercise before the finals, to get the group together and have a chat.
The club wouldn’t pay for it, so Grant ended up paying for that out of his own pocket."
"And in that same season when we famously went to the movies, which ‘doomed our season apparently’ (joking), the club also refused to pay for that, so Grant funded that trip himself as well.â€

[Ghost Like]

Thanks for the information, a very interesting read, looking forward to more.

Will be very interested to hear more information in relation to sponsors, past and future...sounds like a bit of a minefield that needs to be stepped through.

I hope we can negotiate a deal with Moorabbin, we may need to take a small hit there re: pokies but hopefully satellite ourselves a couple of pubs with pokies in the south and south eastern areas. We have enough of a foothold as the only club in the south and should capitalise on that with branding, clinics, player sponsorships etc etc. I can just see us relinquishing Moorabbin and other clubs slowly seeping through those southern suburbs while we retreat like gypsies.

I hope their plans for Moorabbin are more than taping up the carpet and plugging the telly back in...we need this state of the art training facility commenced and built ASAP.

[n1ck]

Part 2 is now also up, in the same stickied thread.

http://www.saintsational.com/forum/view ... 772#468772

[saint patrick]

Thanks Nick and HD

...very interesting reading and just reinforces why the change was necessary IMO...

hopefully a united and reinvigerated club moving forward onto to big and better thingsin 08.

[SaintBot]

they both appear very honest. where most would just say, yeh we plan to pay back all those players who took 22cents a dollar, greg had the balls to say that they dont intend to do that however they would like to get the old players more involved

great interview btw!

[Saint Mik]

Some of it sounds pretty petty IMO i mean they are carrying on about the club not paying to go and see the movies what the F*** has this got to do with the club,if GT and Co. wanted to do something different surley they should fund it temselves, how much do they all want to suck out of the club you cant say that the players should not pay there own way when it comes to doing something social together stop complaining and pay your way

Another mention about the footballs ect is all good for an argument BUT the club was doing things like this because other boards before them went the BIG SPEND without the right managament in place which led us to a loss of millions so its no wonder the club took those actions what choice did they have you CANNOT just keep spending money and expect the debt to be cleared on its own.

Alot of it was good and i do like the way they are going to give a bit back to the members but at the same time I can understand why some of the things that are missing at the club were because of debt reduction as they say you need to learn how to crawl before you can walk and i really do hope that this mob dont just go for a quick sprint and put us back ten years only time will tell so for now it is good luck to them and dont F*** things up.

[saintspremiers]

Some of it sounds pretty petty IMO i mean they are carrying on about the club not paying to go and see the movies what the F*** has this got to do with the club,if GT and Co. wanted to do something different surley they should fund it temselves, how much do they all want to suck out of the club you cant say that the players should not pay there own way when it comes to doing something social together stop complaining and pay your way

Saint Mik, in the corporate world, team building DOES occur, and companies DO pay for their staff sometimes to go to the movies/ten pin bowling/go karting etc etc, in the hope it will build morale and help the employees work better together........why is it so stupid to think it can't work also with footy players???

Sure, the movies INSTEAD of training seemed a bit odd.....perhaps going to the movies AFTER training would've been fine in the public's mind so to speak.

For our club to cough up 15 bucks per player for a movie and some popcorn once in a season is not too big a deal IMO.

[Beej]

[quote]NB: “When I was at the club, we couldn’t buy new footballs until Peter Maddern had sold our old ones to a local club,â€

[bob__71]

whats really sad is that they were selling the old ones instead of giving them to a junior club or something.....it really is pretty crappy.

[saintsRrising]

Some of it sounds pretty petty IMO i mean they are carrying on about the club not paying to go and see the movies what the F*** has this got to do with the club,if GT and Co. wanted to do something different surley they should fund it temselves, how much do they all want to suck out of the club you cant say that the players should not pay there own way when it comes to doing something social together stop complaining and pay your way

Saint Mik, in the corporate world, team building DOES occur, and companies DO pay for their staff sometimes to go to the movies/ten pin bowling/go karting etc etc, in the hope it will build morale and help the employees work better together........why is it so stupid to think it can't work also with footy players???

Sure, the movies INSTEAD of training seemed a bit odd.....perhaps going to the movies AFTER training would've been fine in the public's mind so to speak.

For our club to cough up 15 bucks per player for a movie and some popcorn once in a season is not too big a deal IMO.

Well maybe the former Board was right to say no.....as this "teambuilding" exercise was the start of the clubs decline.....

The Day After Tomorrow indeed!!!






There is a lot of moralising in this thread that the Board did not do enough........

What about the 3000 odd supporters that did not renew this year????? That $200/300,000 extra would have bought a lot of extra footballs......more admin staff etc etc....


While a lot of crap is thrown at the former Board, at least they put in over along period of time....and they left the club in a much better state than they found it.

Maybe they could have done better...but remember that they actually did much better than most St Kilda Boards.

Lets hope that the FF team can say the same thing in 7 years time.

[bob__71]

what the two to three thou members who didnt resign after Rod decided to sack the coach. and after they dismissed friend and said they could now do the job just as well without him. Belive or Burn...what a load of crap

[Saint Mik]

Fair enough saintsRpremiers but i cant see the point of bringing it up as a resonse to why we need to spend more money.

Just seems like a petty argument so what if the club said no to this they probably did not agree to it at the time who knows, but said to GT if you want to do it then do it but we wll not fund it.

This would not be the first time that a coach has done something for his players and paid for it out of his own pocket and i'm sure that GT never had a problem with shouting the players to the movies if it was his idea, but please dont throw it at RB and Co. and say they should of paid for it just so you can prove that they needed to spend more money to get better results.

Like i said it seems petty and a bit silly not something you want to hear about really, tackle the bigger issues Burkey.

[Mr Magic]

what the two to three thou members who didnt resign after Rod decided to sack the coach. and after they dismissed friend and said they could now do the job just as well without him. Belive or Burn...what a load of crap

How many members from Tasmania did not renew this year because we stopped playing down there?
I would think that is a much greater proportion of non-renewing members than those who didn't renew because GT was sacked.

David Friend was not sacked/dismissed. He left with Brian Waldron to start his own membership consultancy business, which he offered to the Saints. The Board chose not to appoint that Business and instead elevated Ben Hall to the Membership Manager role, thereby keeping the role 'in-house'.

Friend's consultancy business handles the membership for the Melbourne Storm.

[n1ck]

MM:

Would you look at bringing the likes of David Friend, Georgie Fidge and Brian Waldron back to the club?

NB: Well, good employees are in high demand! They are all doing their own thing, but I’m sure every possible option will be looked at. David Friend actually left the club because he was doing his job too well! He increased our membership levels so markedly that the club was paying him regular bonuses for reaching his targets. Finally they refused to pay his rewards. They told him he had done a good job and had made a great start but they could handle the job from there. Thanks and goodbye.

[Saint Mik]

Did Waldron also take a sponsor with him or was that completley out of his control. (Mortgage house)

[n1ck]

Im led to believe that there might have been \ is some sort of litigation between the club and MH relating to breach of contract.

Cant go into any more detail as I dont know anything else. This is only what I have heard.