B&F function reports here

[gokangas]

Couldn't go last night - anyone who did please let us know what the night was like.

 

[Zondor]

Yeah thanks for the feedback guys. Much appreciated.

 

[Star]

Yeah thanks for the feedback guys. Much appreciated.

LOL

- Was at the Melbourne Convention Centre, setting was quite nice and the room was clearly made smaller to accomodate for perhaps a smaller than expected number. I'm guessing around 500 attended. Nice venue which had a bit of warmth as opposed to Jeff's Shed or some other open hall venues.

- Players sat behind tables facing guests as they arrived with black texta's in tow ready to sign autographs. Many of them weren't required which I found a bit odd, people preferring to chat amongst themselves than say hello to the players. I took the opportunity to have a brief chat with a few of them.

Turtle: Has not had his operation yet which shocked me a little. Going in today so good luck to him. Looked very apprehensive and nervous about the whole thing.

Harro: Like a kid in a candy shop. In the nicest possible way, still a big kid that smiles and has plenty of time for everyone.

Jade: What a champion bloke this guy is. Very positive and genuinely appreciative of the opportunity given to him by the club which he reiterated in his farewekk speech.

We sat down to the usual plastic food that one gets at these functions. Drink service was exceptional.

A number of the minor awards were quickly presented. A life membership presentation, then a tribute to the retiring Rawlings, who spoke very very well and Sav, who pre-recorded a speech. Then onto the Syd Barker which was presented in blocks of Rounds 1-8 (with video highlights), then 9-15, then the final votes.

Ok, I'm out of whack here but Duff spoke at the start and intimated that we (the members) will soon be able to vote 3 people onto the board as was discussed on this board a while ago.

Laidley spoke, relatively well, but I wanted him to give me something - anything - to get thru the summer. He warned the players about the tough pre-season to come and when the room laughed, he looked down the barrel and said 'I am not joking' Anyway, that 'something' was provided by Rawling whom we really need to get on our panel asap

Ummm, what else

The band had 236 members, Big Horny something or other, and they were quite entertaining. The fairer sex all looked magnificant on the night as you would expect from our fine club and a few players wandered over to Crown as my mate and I were looking for a Cab.


Happy for others to step in now...

 

[Vertical Stripes]

The night started off late by about 20 minutes.
The food was very cheap and ordinary:
Entree- pork belly with a very strong bloody sauce.
Main- Quail (Or dehydrated Chicken) carrot tooth picks, and spinach gnocci parcels.
Dessert- apple/raspberry crumble with vanilla cream sauce.

The drinks service was excellent, to the point where the waiting staff would bring out more bottles of beer before they were empty.

The silent auction ended during the last round of voting, when we had been informed to sit down and listen (politely I might add). The club could have made a few more dollars if they had of ended this during the break in segments.

The best & fairest results were announced up till 4th place, then Laidley announced the winner, then 2nd & 3rd. IMO i thought it would have been better to announce 3rd, 2nd and then 1st. One thing that did surprise myself and I lot of other people was that nobody toasted the winner. The winner was announced just after 11pm, and it just felt flat.

The players were very approachable as always, even though quite a few were missing due to surgery & North Ballarat. Those that weren't there included Sav Rocca, Ed Lower, Whyman, Swallow, Trotter, Sansbury. Cam Thurley was there as was Jonathan Hay.

Crowd was dissapointing in numbers, this could be due to our poor season and also the club changing the date of the function. Not sure why they would want to bring the function forward by a month, considering that North Ballarat would be playing in the finals.

One thing Laidley did say was "Does anybody know what hell is like? Because that is what/where the players are going thru in the pre-season."

 

[Fitzy #1]

Corey Jones was there he was on the table next to mine

 

[sput1956]

One thing Laidley did say was "Does anybody know what hell is like? Because that is what/where the players are going thru in the pre-season."

One day he will surprise us all and blame HIMSELF for something. A career in politics awaits him.

 

[scottywiper]

One day he will surprise us all and blame HIMSELF for something. A career in politics awaits him.

Mick Malthouse does not accept blame and therefore neither does Dean.

 

[Constipated Duck]

Anyway, that 'something' was provided by Rawling whom we really need to get on our panel asap

What did he say?

 

[Melly017]

To add.

Ken Franklin was made a life member.

Dean singled out Sav during his speech.

Brady did a great talk on Jade, Jade spoke very well and IMHO it was an importent 3 games. He like Colby will be a roo for life. Very proud of wearing the jumper. Was shaking when he spoke of being player 928. Also pointed out a few times he was very thankful of the chance to speak after only playing 3 games.
Shagga on Sav. Spoke well, sav had a video message. Not got a future in the media sav.

The Syd.

Leader after 8 rounds.

Wells 16
Thomo/Pratt 14
Jones/Green/Brown13
Rawlings/Harro/Simo 12
Boomer/Harding 11

Leaders after 16
Thommo 1st
Wells 2nd
Brady 3rd
Harro/Simo 5th
Boomer 6th

They didn't leave the votes up long enuff to write them all down.

It's a funny system when you get a vote for playing. And some games had 5 blokes getting 3 votes, then the next game 0ne or two.

Like other have said the night was flat. The worst part for me was apart from current players, they was only one other Syd winner there. The pres AA.

 

[gokangas]

Mick Malthouse does not accept blame and therefore neither does Dean.

Terry Wallace is the master.

 

[Groucho]

Terry Wallace is the master.

Damn right. Three 100 point losses and an 80+ point flogging in the last round and he'd have you think they were on the verge of premiership success!

 

[GoNorth]

To add.

Ken Franklin was made a life member.

Dean singled out Sav during his speech.

Brady did a great talk on Jade, Jade spoke very well and IMHO it was an importent 3 games. He like Colby will be a roo for life. Very proud of wearing the jumper. Was shaking when he spoke of being player 928. Also pointed out a few times he was very thankful of the chance to speak after only playing 3 games.
Shagga on Sav. Spoke well, sav had a video message. Not got a future in the media sav.

They didn't leave the votes up long enuff to write them all down.

It's a funny system when you get a vote for playing. And some games had 5 blokes getting 3 votes, then the next game 0ne or two.

Like other have said the night was flat. The worst part for me was apart from current players, they was only one other Syd winner there. The pres AA.

Agree the night was flat. It was disappointing that Sav wasn't there. I understand that he had other commitments but it would have been so much better if he had been there. A couple of weeks before the B & F was on, the club sent out a leaflet with a picture of Sav on it promoting the night . I can't remember what it actually said but the advertising on it was all geared around saying goodbye to Sav at the Syd Barker night. Maybe at the time of having them printed they didn't know that Sav wouldn't be there but in the end it turned out to be a little bit misleading as we were expecting him to be there.

We were also disappointed that quite a few of the players weren't there due to North Ballarat commitments, especially Swallow and Mc Connell who were not there to accept awards.

We were also hoping for a Thommo win which added to our disappointment.

Also thought the MC (Rob Gaylard) was just average. I would much prefer to see a North Melbourne person hosting the night. Maybe Digby Morrell could have done it (he does some MC work at Testra Dome). I wonder why Schwass wasn't there this year. Maybe he had other commitments.

Positives were that the venue was quite good and easy to get to. There seemed to be plenty of polite waiters with drinks etc. Jade obviously loves the North Melbourne Football Club and he appeared to speak with a genuine passion for the club. Sav saying (on the video) that coming to North was the highlight of his career was also a nice moment.

Overall, though, the night lacked excitement.

 

[Vertical Stripes]

The downlow of the night was the highlights package at the start. I thought I must have missed a few games because it looked like they were highlights from a previous season. Yes realised I was not to intoxicated when Lance Picioane appeared in the highlights tape. Gee I know we didn't win that many games, but I thought that the marketing department could have put some of our goals together. Obviously they haven't taken any advice from David King.

 

[gokangas]

The downlow of the night was the highlights package at the start. I thought I must have missed a few games because it looked like they were highlights from a previous season. Yes realised I was not to intoxicated when Lance Picioane appeared in the highlights tape. Gee I know we didn't win that many games, but I thought that the marketing department could have put some of our goals together. Obviously they haven't taken any advice from David King.

Are you serious that the highlights package wasn't of this years games?

 

[countryroo]

Brady did a great talk on Jade, Jade spoke very well and IMHO it was an importent 3 games. He like Colby will be a roo for life. Very proud of wearing the jumper. Was shaking when he spoke of being player 928. Also pointed out a few times he was very thankful of the chance to speak after only playing 3 games.

Isn't it an absolute shame Jade couldn't get to NMFC when he was hijacked by the Dogs

 

[RoyalBlue]

Isn't it an absolute shame Jade couldn't get to NMFC when he was hijacked by the Dogs

No, it's not.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, Bulldogs coaching policy or not, he never delivered on that year with the Hawks.

We were giving up the bank to get him from memory, we dodged a bullet.

 

[HaRrO4]

Are you serious that the highlights package wasn't of this years games?

i was there aswel! and yess it is true that highlights pacakge at the start was of last years game! and what made it worse was the MC said something along the lines of how good it was to start the evenning with highlights of the year.

 

[Vertical Stripes]

Are you serious that the highlights package wasn't of this years games?

Unfortunately yes the highlights shown were from last year, Lance was only with us for one year. They were shown prior to the start of the actual Award Presentations started. I was quite mystified! At least the highlights for each game during the year were shown during the Syd Barker count.

 

[sross]

We were also disappointed that quite a few of the players weren't there due to North Ballarat commitments, especially Swallow and Mc Connell who were not there to accept awards.

What awards did they win? I can understand it if Swallow won best first year player but what could McConnell win ?

 

[windsock]

What awards did they win? I can understand it if Swallow won best first year player but what could McConnell win ?

It was the coach's award, renamed this year to suit the occasion. I think it was named the "Thank Christ for D-Mac Cos it Means I Didn't Stuff Up Every Trade in 2006" Award.

 

[gokangas]

Unfortunately yes the highlights shown were from last year, Lance was only with us for one year. They were shown prior to the start of the actual Award Presentations started. I was quite mystified! At least the highlights for each game during the year were shown during the Syd Barker count.

That is pathetic.

 

[CR7]

That is pathetic.

No different to last year then

 

[Twinkletoes]

Originally Posted by Vertical Stripes
Unfortunately yes the highlights shown were from last year

Geez, that shows you how r00ted this year was then

Poor form from the organizers...............

Not surprised people like Schwatter weren't available, considering that it was actually a finals game night (which struck me as an odd date to hold it as well).

Thanks for the reports folks.............much appreciated (couldn't get there myself).

I agree on Jade.............lock the bloke in and get him amongst the coaching panel. Smart bloke, good communicator and a class act with a zest for our club = not to be lost IMO.

T'toes

 

[palisades]

I agree on Jade.............lock the bloke in and get him amongst the coaching panel. Smart bloke, good communicator and a class act with a zest for our club = not to be lost IMO.

We have to be careful that we don't give jobs to good blokes. At the end of the day he was an average player, played with clubs that had little success, with no success in finals etc, and no coaching experience.

We'd be better off going for someone with some serious finals experience and from a winning culture.

 

[Twinkletoes]

Originally Posted by palisades
We have to be careful that we don't give jobs to good blokes. At the end of the day he was an average player, played with clubs that had little success, with no success in finals etc, and no coaching experience.

We'd be better off going for someone with some serious finals experience and from a winning culture.

Sure, if he was being locked in for the fact he was a good bloke ONLY! I agree with the general requirement for more hard ar$ed experience amongst the coaching panel going forward, especially from a winning background. Locking Jade in may involve him having much more to do with Tassie or NB, to gain that experience. IMHO I reckon this bloke is smarter than the rest of the coaching panel put together. If you doubt this then have a chat to him. At the very least he could sit Laid's on his knee at press conferences, as a ventriloquist's dummy, and we'd understand WTF is being said!

T'toes