Meet Up Meet Matthew Richardson at the club

[bomberclifford]

No one is bigger than the team.

That’s good advice.

Yeah I actually think that's something we do well and could go a long way to explaining some of the surprising trades/delistings we've made over the years.

 

[tribey]

The fact we were 11-4 and then fell in a massive hole and missed the finals caused a big shift in our thinking.

“A premiership in 2018! 2025!”, apparently.

And Port Nation rejoiced because what’s another 7 years of abject dross.

 

[Enviable Tradition]

If anyone would like to attend after hearing the views of the first and feel they would like to share their concerns please contact me and I’ll arrange another

Well done for organising this Rick.

Even though I couldn't make it I feel likemy thoughts were heard face to face at the club level.

That alone is enough for me to have just updated my card details and paid the first installment on 4 memberships.

Well done to the club for making themselves accessible and for listening. Talk is cheap but it's a start.

I dont have anything extra in particular to share beyond what has already been shared but if you do arrange another one and if the times work I would still be keen.

On SM-G960F using
BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Power Plus]

TALKING FOOTY | THURSDAY 31st OCTOBER 2019
Want to know what is happening at the Club? Barry will cover the latest draft with Football General Manager Chris Davies (pictured right) and all the off-field happenings with Executive General Manager Matthew Richardson. Book now for this informative event on 8477 9902. Talking Footy starts at 6:30pm.

 

[agmsy]

What does "the culture collapsed" actually mean?

My (entirely uninformed) guess: the players, having a decent understanding of what does and what doesn't work in football, quickly became disillusioned when a gameplan they instinctively felt didn't work began yielding results in line with their expectations.

 

[tribey]

Yeah I actually think that's something we do well and could go a long way to explaining some of the surprising trades/delistings we've made over the years.

It’s a fine ethos if you’re getting rid of the people who should go, instead of clinging to them while scapegoating others.

History proved Choco right for binning the likes of Heuskes and Stevens in short order. The jury will be out on Polec/Wingard/Howard for some time.

 

[EternalOptimist]

Was the club surprised by any of the feedback/discussion?

I'm not sure surprised is the right word. Certainly the staff seemed uncomfortable at times (I would be too!) as the feedback while respectful, was quite direct. I think they were taken aback a little also as we were able to articulate multiple specific examples for the feedback we were giving. In particular they seemed unaware of our co-captains white noise comment.

 

[Steve Dore]

What does "the culture collapsed" actually mean?

It's what happened to the Mayans.

 

[jac147]

Ah the infamous North Melbourne game. Walking around the perimeter of Marvel to get to the after match function I was getting angrier and angrier. Who was going to turn up to represent the club - Kenny, no, not on your Nellie as he was well and truly bunkered down with his “brains trust”
Ben from Member Services for Christ sakes drew the short straw. No one wanted to give poor old Benny a hard time, except for this little black duck. I was sort of shouting out my frustrations during the function. Of the players I can only remember one part of the co-captain train wreck being there - Tommy Jonas, giving us his spin from the night.
I was shouting out questions like “where’s my refund”, etc and the “fans” in front of me were obviously from the hand clapper brigade as they were turning around and giving me the dirtiest of looks.
Here was a night that had we won we could have at least locked in 7th or 8th position. But no, an effort that was a disgrace to the name of the Port Adelaide Football Club.
Big Bob and Fos would have been turning in their graves.
An earlier comment in this thread noted that a head or heads should have rolled on Sunday morning - still waiting for that announcement.

 

[portly]

My (entirely uninformed) guess: the players, having a decent understanding of what does and what doesn't work in football, quickly became disillusioned when a gameplan they instinctively felt didn't work began yielding results in line with their expectations.

My thoughts absolutely.

And, if you do lose then playing to not lose by much, rather than playing to win, is so boring. Hmmm, wrong thread for this.

 

[OneGreatClub]

This is no-where near LHR level of narrative, but I HTH posters... no proofing reading (as per usual).

It’s 5:54pm, Rick is nowhere to be seen, as singular cars pull into spaces at regular intervals. People, no supporters, appear and I scan the face… non a familiar to me… wait! Who is that longish hair, Italian, hippy-like, guy in front of me? Oh it’s RHB, “Heya <RHB>, how you been… yadda yadda yadda”. A few brief introductions and another familiar face, PowerKat, arrives. Our motley crew starts assembling like Marvel universe hero montage and the reception door flings open: Louise Broadbridge (?) and Mr Richardson greet us and see us up into the Boardroom. We’re instantly greeted by a wide-eyed Keith Thomas, newly arrived at PAFC Stephen Shirley and an external consultant Darren Bonner (?) who is ready to scribe. Drinks are offered, 8 of us (2 females and 6 males IIRC minus Rick) settle into positions around the round board table over-looking the hallowed turf. Pizza arrives and precisely afterwards Chris Davies enters the room [jokes are made!], so we self-serve, reseat and eagerly kick off the session.

IMPORTANT: establish the NDAs, some topics delved a bit deeper into the detail, and when required, these were indicated as NDA items beyond the room. Mostly due to the personal/sensitive content. Please don’t push for names/details and respect the justification for the NDA.

[This is all paraphrasing, implied by me, my perception and my good/poor short term memory… it is what it is, but allow for variations without taking this as gospel]

* We start by individually introducing ourselves and a comment or 2. I stated my name, that I am one of the lapsed members and felt it was important to be there. Others shared comments about their member linage, occupations, consumption of all things PAFC and existing relationships with those within the club etc. [~10 minutes discussion]

* MR then takes up a marker, wheels the whiteboard around into view and takes up the scriber’s position. We’re asked to start contributing issues, feelings, topics relating to our thoughts and feelings towards the club. AND AWAY WE GO… here follows a breakdown of topics discussed in rough order, there was quite a bit of jumping around between topics and level detail, as you can imagine with 12-14 contributing to the discussion from both sides:

• Language and messaging from the club is poor: examples of Tom Jonas: “white noise” (i.e. member complaints about the co-Captaincy), David Koch: “Lil ole battling Port Adelaide”, Ken Hinkley: “Someone has to lose”… etc. **This is a repeated topic through the meeting, as other events and messaging around them come back to this.** Social media posts after losing to Fremantle, the Broady announcement and others that escape me.

• Club over promising and under delivering: we state that the Member Conventions have been great, but what is said during those events: game style, strategy, sponsor news, etc doesn’t materialise later that year as stated. **This ties into trusting what the club says.** PAFC stated: they want to be the source of “truth” (opposed to the media: journos or social). We replied: hard to trust that truth based on over-promising, language and messaging in recent years.

• [ScottKaysee] mentioned example of “playing the youth” as a 2019 strategy… stated that I doubted PTY was a strategy in pre-season, as we had no idea how the 3 draftees were going to perform until they showed something in preseason games. That when opportunities opened up during the year other youth wasn’t given the chance to develop, but other older players were instead. (I also forgot to mention injuries to Wines, Ebert and Watts allowed more games for youth… so PTY wasn’t a planned strategy for 2019, but a convenient explanation). KT: “When we said ‘playing the youth’ we meant the U23s [DBJ, Houston etc], not just the draftees, which PAFC think they have the best U23s in the AFL”. (I also forgot to mention that those players were already starting 22 in 2018).

• Player trading… (this topic just started as CD had to leave the room. He had already announced he would have to leave, so he wasn’t bailing)… discussion about trading out Wingard and then shifted to Howard. Quite a bit was spent on the Howard matter from various angles: the trade, the development, the messaging etc. Basically, he played well in defence in 2018 under that defensive coach. In 2019, Montgomery arrived and changed the defensive approach to be more attacking, which Howard struggled and was exposed to. They switched him forward with mixed success before spending the final month in the SANFL. End of year discussions: the coaches wanted to continue to use him as a forward, but he wanted to play in defence. At the same time (or very shortly after), Saints presented his manager with a lucrative offer and draft upgrade for Port from #50s to #18. Port thought that opportunity was too good to pass up (along with freeing up cap space), so made the trade. MR: mentioned that our list managers are planning our list 5 years into the future (using data science <buzz word alert>).

• [ScottKaysee] as data science is in my field of work, I responded with: forecasting a playing list 5 years into the future is a long throw given the rate at which playing lists, the AFL and the game can change. If we were to apply that retrospectively (i.e. we can’t measure forward, but we can reliably backwards), go back 5 years to when we were planning our list then: does our currently list align with what we planned 5 years ago? (That was left as a question for them to take away and think about).

• RHB… went into some detailed examples of doing/winning the little things. Using multiple games as examples where we’ve been in winning positions, but managed to lose the close games while not winning the close games. Results that could have made real material impact to our season results.

• We then came back to a round-the-table declaration of what PA means to us, what drew us to PA to begin with or what do we relate PA to… answers ranged from supported since birth, through various decades, their game-style/effort was reliable irrespective of the result (i.e. no yo-yo performances… even when we’re winning), success, confidence/arrogance.

• Question back to KT about how he thought we’ve performed in recent years. IIRC thought that in 2016 we were building, 2017 we were 1 win off of top position and in 2018 we were off to a great start at 11 & 4. We then had 2 bad losses, our culture collapsed and we struggled from there. Some side-tracking conversations, I wasn’t truly listening as I was preparing my next question/topic to touch on several points above (and on the whiteboard by now).

• [ScottKaysee] to KT: you mentioned the culture collapsing earlier. Having being trained in in culture in several corporations: the culture and behaviour starts is driven by the leaders. When you say “the culture collapsed after 2 losses” how do the leaders allow this to happen? This ties back to leadership and culture throughout the club that allow things like: poor messaging/language to occur, the standards to drop etc. That in 2013/2014 those standards and culture was there, Hinkley’s 100 100s, we focused on getting the details right… but that [culture/leadership] has been lost in recent years. KT: was nodding in agreeance (that culture starts with the leaders).

• Less memory on these, but other topics covered: co-Captaincy, membership (current signs aren’t good, on the slide from 2015, while other clubs are increasing)… AO experience (good, but “don’t tell us what to do and how to support”… KT: mentioned how that was a high focus in early move to AO, but they need to tidy that up)… game-style (play our nominated style and back us in win/lose, so we know what to expect… less yo-yoing from quarter to quarter/game to game: the North game 2019, the Ess 2017 game)… the China benefits ($300k profit this year from the game alone, $5m uplift into the club from China related activities… and at a time when China v AU/World relations are at their worst. We’re in for the long haul, there is current profit and more to come in when relations improve) and other topics like feeling more disconnected from the club/players… the current AFL/Player Unions wanting player movement, questioning enforcing a contract (ie Howard) to be honoured v risk… board make-up (8 AFL nominated isn’t quiet true, but didn’t go into detail), RHB questioning how member voted candidates can share wider views beyond 250 word flyer (ie link to webpage like FFA).

• RHB got something wrong (stat about goals kicked on Howard)!!! … room erupts into laughter, PAFC staff are all shocked, lols are had. All good RHB mate.

• Hinkley and coaches… not too much was spoken about Hinkley directly. Although plenty about things in his area. IIRC once it was mentioned that the board extended his contract too early, but we didn’t linger on it. What was mentioned by KT: that we bought in new assistances last year, who have all bought new ideas/styles from across the AFL. Like any new grouping being formed they’ve had issues trying to initially work those ideas in together, but they should settle/gel more with more experience. Also, Hinkley (and 2 others, I forget who) were sent off to the US this off-season for coaching development.

It really wound down from that as we had been going to 90mins. Good byes and thanks at 7:30pm.

SUMMARY

• MR was engaging and attempting to direct conversations, which at times got quite emotional and detailed (due to passion for the club).
• SS is new (4 months in) to the club, from Melbourne, as GM Marketing and was eager throughout… I expect/hopeful that many of the elements from above that fall into his area will be address in some way moving forward.
• DB (? the consultant/scribe), been working with the club for about 1 year, reminded me of Jeremy Irons lol… was quite interested in the cultural, narrative, language and feelings being discussed. Often pulling up the conversation to tease more detail out of comments made (no issues with this methodology, as he is trying to get to the heart of matters/topics etc).
• KT was for the most part extremely interested and engaging throughout. Caught a few moments were he looked (understandably) weary, but he was keen to listen to the end and well over the allotted time.

• Most immediately I would expect our messaging to improve. It is the area they have the most direct control over.
• I suspect that the Captaincy issue will also revert, even though we didn’t spend much time discussing it directly, that is something else they can address immediately.
• Harder to address will be any culture, leadership, behaviours throughout the club or game style elements.

Many topics didn’t get raised, and the above might seem light on, but it is difficult with 12-14 people all chiming in for 30-60 seconds each throughout the conversations… it only leaves time for about 7-8 topics to be covered in 60-90 minutes.

Everyone appreciated the forum and hinted at the potential for more in the future.

Wow such details. Thanks!

 

[Lockhart Road]

Congrats FishingRick04

This sounds and feels like a success as well as a highly beneficial breakthrough.

Perhaps the start of the Club’s trust developing in BigFooty as being much more than, at best thus far, a lobby and/or supporter group.

Communications. My pet hobby. A two-way street.

 

[Lockhart Road]

This is no-where near LHR level of narrative, but I HTH posters... no proofing reading (as per usual).

It’s 5:54pm, Rick is nowhere to be seen, as singular cars pull into spaces at regular intervals. People, no supporters, appear and I scan the face… non a familiar to me… wait! Who is that longish hair, Italian, hippy-like, guy in front of me? Oh it’s RHB, “Heya <RHB>, how you been… yadda yadda yadda”. A few brief introductions and another familiar face, PowerKat, arrives. Our motley crew starts assembling like Marvel universe hero montage and the reception door flings open: Louise Broadbridge (?) and Mr Richardson greet us and see us up into the Boardroom. We’re instantly greeted by a wide-eyed Keith Thomas, newly arrived at PAFC Stephen Shirley and an external consultant Darren Bonner (?) who is ready to scribe. Drinks are offered, 8 of us (2 females and 6 males IIRC minus Rick) settle into positions around the round board table over-looking the hallowed turf. Pizza arrives and precisely afterwards Chris Davies enters the room [jokes are made!], so we self-serve, reseat and eagerly kick off the session.

IMPORTANT: establish the NDAs, some topics delved a bit deeper into the detail, and when required, these were indicated as NDA items beyond the room. Mostly due to the personal/sensitive content. Please don’t push for names/details and respect the justification for the NDA.

[This is all paraphrasing, implied by me, my perception and my good/poor short term memory… it is what it is, but allow for variations without taking this as gospel]

* We start by individually introducing ourselves and a comment or 2. I stated my name, that I am one of the lapsed members and felt it was important to be there. Others shared comments about their member linage, occupations, consumption of all things PAFC and existing relationships with those within the club etc. [~10 minutes discussion]

* MR then takes up a marker, wheels the whiteboard around into view and takes up the scriber’s position. We’re asked to start contributing issues, feelings, topics relating to our thoughts and feelings towards the club. AND AWAY WE GO… here follows a breakdown of topics discussed in rough order, there was quite a bit of jumping around between topics and level detail, as you can imagine with 12-14 contributing to the discussion from both sides:

• Language and messaging from the club is poor: examples of Tom Jonas: “white noise” (i.e. member complaints about the co-Captaincy), David Koch: “Lil ole battling Port Adelaide”, Ken Hinkley: “Someone has to lose”… etc. **This is a repeated topic through the meeting, as other events and messaging around them come back to this.** Social media posts after losing to Fremantle, the Broady announcement and others that escape me.

• Club over promising and under delivering: we state that the Member Conventions have been great, but what is said during those events: game style, strategy, sponsor news, etc doesn’t materialise later that year as stated. **This ties into trusting what the club says.** PAFC stated: they want to be the source of “truth” (opposed to the media: journos or social). We replied: hard to trust that truth based on over-promising, language and messaging in recent years.

• [ScottKaysee] mentioned example of “playing the youth” as a 2019 strategy… stated that I doubted PTY was a strategy in pre-season, as we had no idea how the 3 draftees were going to perform until they showed something in preseason games. That when opportunities opened up during the year other youth wasn’t given the chance to develop, but other older players were instead. (I also forgot to mention injuries to Wines, Ebert and Watts allowed more games for youth… so PTY wasn’t a planned strategy for 2019, but a convenient explanation). KT: “When we said ‘playing the youth’ we meant the U23s [DBJ, Houston etc], not just the draftees, which PAFC think they have the best U23s in the AFL”. (I also forgot to mention that those players were already starting 22 in 2018).

• Player trading… (this topic just started as CD had to leave the room. He had already announced he would have to leave, so he wasn’t bailing)… discussion about trading out Wingard and then shifted to Howard. Quite a bit was spent on the Howard matter from various angles: the trade, the development, the messaging etc. Basically, he played well in defence in 2018 under that defensive coach. In 2019, Montgomery arrived and changed the defensive approach to be more attacking, which Howard struggled and was exposed to. They switched him forward with mixed success before spending the final month in the SANFL. End of year discussions: the coaches wanted to continue to use him as a forward, but he wanted to play in defence. At the same time (or very shortly after), Saints presented his manager with a lucrative offer and draft upgrade for Port from #50s to #18. Port thought that opportunity was too good to pass up (along with freeing up cap space), so made the trade. MR: mentioned that our list managers are planning our list 5 years into the future (using data science <buzz word alert>).

• [ScottKaysee] as data science is in my field of work, I responded with: forecasting a playing list 5 years into the future is a long throw given the rate at which playing lists, the AFL and the game can change. If we were to apply that retrospectively (i.e. we can’t measure forward, but we can reliably backwards), go back 5 years to when we were planning our list then: does our currently list align with what we planned 5 years ago? (That was left as a question for them to take away and think about).

• RHB… went into some detailed examples of doing/winning the little things. Using multiple games as examples where we’ve been in winning positions, but managed to lose the close games while not winning the close games. Results that could have made real material impact to our season results.

• We then came back to a round-the-table declaration of what PA means to us, what drew us to PA to begin with or what do we relate PA to… answers ranged from supported since birth, through various decades, their game-style/effort was reliable irrespective of the result (i.e. no yo-yo performances… even when we’re winning), success, confidence/arrogance.

• Question back to KT about how he thought we’ve performed in recent years. IIRC thought that in 2016 we were building, 2017 we were 1 win off of top position and in 2018 we were off to a great start at 11 & 4. We then had 2 bad losses, our culture collapsed and we struggled from there. Some side-tracking conversations, I wasn’t truly listening as I was preparing my next question/topic to touch on several points above (and on the whiteboard by now).

• [ScottKaysee] to KT: you mentioned the culture collapsing earlier. Having being trained in in culture in several corporations: the culture and behaviour starts is driven by the leaders. When you say “the culture collapsed after 2 losses” how do the leaders allow this to happen? This ties back to leadership and culture throughout the club that allow things like: poor messaging/language to occur, the standards to drop etc. That in 2013/2014 those standards and culture was there, Hinkley’s 100 100s, we focused on getting the details right… but that [culture/leadership] has been lost in recent years. KT: was nodding in agreeance (that culture starts with the leaders).

• Less memory on these, but other topics covered: co-Captaincy, membership (current signs aren’t good, on the slide from 2015, while other clubs are increasing)… AO experience (good, but “don’t tell us what to do and how to support”… KT: mentioned how that was a high focus in early move to AO, but they need to tidy that up)… game-style (play our nominated style and back us in win/lose, so we know what to expect… less yo-yoing from quarter to quarter/game to game: the North game 2019, the Ess 2017 game)… the China benefits ($300k profit this year from the game alone, $5m uplift into the club from China related activities… and at a time when China v AU/World relations are at their worst. We’re in for the long haul, there is current profit and more to come in when relations improve) and other topics like feeling more disconnected from the club/players… the current AFL/Player Unions wanting player movement, questioning enforcing a contract (ie Howard) to be honoured v risk… board make-up (8 AFL nominated isn’t quiet true, but didn’t go into detail), RHB questioning how member voted candidates can share wider views beyond 250 word flyer (ie link to webpage like FFA).

• RHB got something wrong (stat about goals kicked on Howard)!!! … room erupts into laughter, PAFC staff are all shocked, lols are had. All good RHB mate.

• Hinkley and coaches… not too much was spoken about Hinkley directly. Although plenty about things in his area. IIRC once it was mentioned that the board extended his contract too early, but we didn’t linger on it. What was mentioned by KT: that we bought in new assistances last year, who have all bought new ideas/styles from across the AFL. Like any new grouping being formed they’ve had issues trying to initially work those ideas in together, but they should settle/gel more with more experience. Also, Hinkley (and 2 others, I forget who) were sent off to the US this off-season for coaching development.

It really wound down from that as we had been going to 90mins. Good byes and thanks at 7:30pm.

SUMMARY

• MR was engaging and attempting to direct conversations, which at times got quite emotional and detailed (due to passion for the club).
• SS is new (4 months in) to the club, from Melbourne, as GM Marketing and was eager throughout… I expect/hopeful that many of the elements from above that fall into his area will be address in some way moving forward.
• DB (? the consultant/scribe), been working with the club for about 1 year, reminded me of Jeremy Irons lol… was quite interested in the cultural, narrative, language and feelings being discussed. Often pulling up the conversation to tease more detail out of comments made (no issues with this methodology, as he is trying to get to the heart of matters/topics etc).
• KT was for the most part extremely interested and engaging throughout. Caught a few moments were he looked (understandably) weary, but he was keen to listen to the end and well over the allotted time.

• Most immediately I would expect our messaging to improve. It is the area they have the most direct control over.
• I suspect that the Captaincy issue will also revert, even though we didn’t spend much time discussing it directly, that is something else they can address immediately.
• Harder to address will be any culture, leadership, behaviours throughout the club or game style elements.

Many topics didn’t get raised, and the above might seem light on, but it is difficult with 12-14 people all chiming in for 30-60 seconds each throughout the conversations… it only leaves time for about 7-8 topics to be covered in 60-90 minutes.

Everyone appreciated the forum and hinted at the potential for more in the future.

Terrific report, Scott. Great to have you back and contributing like this.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

For those interested in reading about culture and high performance, this is an excellent article.

Business lessons from the All Blacks

The All Blacks have been an exemplary team for many years, and this does not look like changing any time soon. Amidst the 2019 Rugby World Cup, it’s interesting to reflect on this extraordinary period of sustained success.

www.mybusiness.com.au

The bolded parts are areas I suspect we are not doing.

That's why the All Blacks are the team of the Century, maybe the team of the last 140 years.

Sam Walker, a deputy editor at the Wall Street Journal, spent 11 years researching over 1,200 sporting teams across 37 sports in 24 countries dating back to the 1880's. He went looking for great teams that dominated for at least 4 years and from 122 dynasties to just 16 teams that whatever they did, had to be better than any team in the history of their sport. He wrote a book in 2017 called Captain Class because the only common trait between these 16 teams was the Captain and their 7 habits. Those 7 traits end up becoming the basic tenant for most All Blacks its appears.

In his 16 teams from around the world, he names the All Blacks team twice, 1986-90 (1 world cup) and 2011-15 (2 world cup's) and might adjust that to 2011-19 as they are on a 43-6-2(draw) record since the last WC. He almost named a 3rd All Blacks team the 1961-69 team, but as there was no World Cup back then, their benchmark was harder to judge, so he left them out.

 

[Magus]

Saints presented his manager with a lucrative offer and draft upgrade for Port from #50s to #18. Port thought that opportunity was too good to pass up (along with freeing up cap space), so made the trade.

For what purpose are we freeing up cap space? We haven't targeted any big name players and by all reports are spending as little as possible.

 

[FishingRick04]

Congrats FishingRick04

This sounds and feels like a success as well as a highly beneficial breakthrough.

Perhaps the start of the Club’s trust developing in BigFooty as being much more than, at best thus far, a lobby and/or supporter group.

Communications. My pet hobby. A two-way street.

The key is instead of being closed minded and full of despair, we need to see these initiatives as an opportunity before making assumptions. The attendees contributed greatly and made an impact IMO well done to them for attending and the club senior staff for making time to listen and hopefully use this to make change

 

[Janus]

For what purpose are we freeing up cap space? We haven't targeted any big name players and by all reports are spending as little as possible.

Jack Lukosius.

The dream is real.

 

[Papa G]

This is no-where near LHR level of narrative, but I HTH posters... no proofing reading (as per usual).

It’s 5:54pm, Rick is nowhere to be seen, as singular cars pull into spaces at regular intervals. People, no supporters, appear and I scan the face… non a familiar to me… wait! Who is that longish hair, Italian, hippy-like, guy in front of me? Oh it’s RHB, “Heya <RHB>, how you been… yadda yadda yadda”. A few brief introductions and another familiar face, PowerKat, arrives. Our motley crew starts assembling like Marvel universe hero montage and the reception door flings open: Louise Broadbridge (?) and Mr Richardson greet us and see us up into the Boardroom. We’re instantly greeted by a wide-eyed Keith Thomas, newly arrived at PAFC Stephen Shirley and an external consultant Darren Bonner (?) who is ready to scribe. Drinks are offered, 8 of us (2 females and 6 males IIRC minus Rick) settle into positions around the round board table over-looking the hallowed turf. Pizza arrives and precisely afterwards Chris Davies enters the room [jokes are made!], so we self-serve, reseat and eagerly kick off the session.

IMPORTANT: establish the NDAs, some topics delved a bit deeper into the detail, and when required, these were indicated as NDA items beyond the room. Mostly due to the personal/sensitive content. Please don’t push for names/details and respect the justification for the NDA.

[This is all paraphrasing, implied by me, my perception and my good/poor short term memory… it is what it is, but allow for variations without taking this as gospel]

* We start by individually introducing ourselves and a comment or 2. I stated my name, that I am one of the lapsed members and felt it was important to be there. Others shared comments about their member linage, occupations, consumption of all things PAFC and existing relationships with those within the club etc. [~10 minutes discussion]

* MR then takes up a marker, wheels the whiteboard around into view and takes up the scriber’s position. We’re asked to start contributing issues, feelings, topics relating to our thoughts and feelings towards the club. AND AWAY WE GO… here follows a breakdown of topics discussed in rough order, there was quite a bit of jumping around between topics and level detail, as you can imagine with 12-14 contributing to the discussion from both sides:

• Language and messaging from the club is poor: examples of Tom Jonas: “white noise” (i.e. member complaints about the co-Captaincy), David Koch: “Lil ole battling Port Adelaide”, Ken Hinkley: “Someone has to lose”… etc. **This is a repeated topic through the meeting, as other events and messaging around them come back to this.** Social media posts after losing to Fremantle, the Broady announcement and others that escape me.

This is no-where near LHR level of narrative, but I HTH posters... no proofing reading (as per usual).

It’s 5:54pm, Rick is nowhere to be seen, as singular cars pull into spaces at regular intervals. People, no supporters, appear and I scan the face… non a familiar to me… wait! Who is that longish hair, Italian, hippy-like, guy in front of me? Oh it’s RHB, “Heya <RHB>, how you been… yadda yadda yadda”. A few brief introductions and another familiar face, PowerKat, arrives. Our motley crew starts assembling like Marvel universe hero montage and the reception door flings open: Louise Broadbridge (?) and Mr Richardson greet us and see us up into the Boardroom. We’re instantly greeted by a wide-eyed Keith Thomas, newly arrived at PAFC Stephen Shirley and an external consultant Darren Bonner (?) who is ready to scribe. Drinks are offered, 8 of us (2 females and 6 males IIRC minus Rick) settle into positions around the round board table over-looking the hallowed turf. Pizza arrives and precisely afterwards Chris Davies enters the room [jokes are made!], so we self-serve, reseat and eagerly kick off the session.

IMPORTANT: establish the NDAs, some topics delved a bit deeper into the detail, and when required, these were indicated as NDA items beyond the room. Mostly due to the personal/sensitive content. Please don’t push for names/details and respect the justification for the NDA.

[This is all paraphrasing, implied by me, my perception and my good/poor short term memory… it is what it is, but allow for variations without taking this as gospel]

* We start by individually introducing ourselves and a comment or 2. I stated my name, that I am one of the lapsed members and felt it was important to be there. Others shared comments about their member linage, occupations, consumption of all things PAFC and existing relationships with those within the club etc. [~10 minutes discussion]

* MR then takes up a marker, wheels the whiteboard around into view and takes up the scriber’s position. We’re asked to start contributing issues, feelings, topics relating to our thoughts and feelings towards the club. AND AWAY WE GO… here follows a breakdown of topics discussed in rough order, there was quite a bit of jumping around between topics and level detail, as you can imagine with 12-14 contributing to the discussion from both sides:

• Language and messaging from the club is poor: examples of Tom Jonas: “white noise” (i.e. member complaints about the co-Captaincy), David Koch: “Lil ole battling Port Adelaide”, Ken Hinkley: “Someone has to lose”… etc. **This is a repeated topic through the meeting, as other events and messaging around them come back to this.** Social media posts after losing to Fremantle, the Broady announcement and others that escape me.

• Club over promising and under delivering: we state that the Member Conventions have been great, but what is said during those events: game style, strategy, sponsor news, etc doesn’t materialise later that year as stated. **This ties into trusting what the club says.** PAFC stated: they want to be the source of “truth” (opposed to the media: journos or social). We replied: hard to trust that truth based on over-promising, language and messaging in recent years.

• [ScottKaysee] mentioned example of “playing the youth” as a 2019 strategy… stated that I doubted PTY was a strategy in pre-season, as we had no idea how the 3 draftees were going to perform until they showed something in preseason games. That when opportunities opened up during the year other youth wasn’t given the chance to develop, but other older players were instead. (I also forgot to mention injuries to Wines, Ebert and Watts allowed more games for youth… so PTY wasn’t a planned strategy for 2019, but a convenient explanation). KT: “When we said ‘playing the youth’ we meant the U23s [DBJ, Houston etc], not just the draftees, which PAFC think they have the best U23s in the AFL”. (I also forgot to mention that those players were already starting 22 in 2018).

• Player trading… (this topic just started as CD had to leave the room. He had already announced he would have to leave, so he wasn’t bailing)… discussion about trading out Wingard and then shifted to Howard. Quite a bit was spent on the Howard matter from various angles: the trade, the development, the messaging etc. Basically, he played well in defence in 2018 under that defensive coach. In 2019, Montgomery arrived and changed the defensive approach to be more attacking, which Howard struggled and was exposed to. They switched him forward with mixed success before spending the final month in the SANFL. End of year discussions: the coaches wanted to continue to use him as a forward, but he wanted to play in defence. At the same time (or very shortly after), Saints presented his manager with a lucrative offer and draft upgrade for Port from #50s to #18. Port thought that opportunity was too good to pass up (along with freeing up cap space), so made the trade. MR: mentioned that our list managers are planning our list 5 years into the future (using data science <buzz word alert>).

• [ScottKaysee] as data science is in my field of work, I responded with: forecasting a playing list 5 years into the future is a long throw given the rate at which playing lists, the AFL and the game can change. If we were to apply that retrospectively (i.e. we can’t measure forward, but we can reliably backwards), go back 5 years to when we were planning our list then: does our currently list align with what we planned 5 years ago? (That was left as a question for them to take away and think about).

• RHB… went into some detailed examples of doing/winning the little things. Using multiple games as examples where we’ve been in winning positions, but managed to lose the close games while not winning the close games. Results that could have made real material impact to our season results.

• We then came back to a round-the-table declaration of what PA means to us, what drew us to PA to begin with or what do we relate PA to… answers ranged from supported since birth, through various decades, their game-style/effort was reliable irrespective of the result (i.e. no yo-yo performances… even when we’re winning), success, confidence/arrogance.

• Question back to KT about how he thought we’ve performed in recent years. IIRC thought that in 2016 we were building, 2017 we were 1 win off of top position and in 2018 we were off to a great start at 11 & 4. We then had 2 bad losses, our culture collapsed and we struggled from there. Some side-tracking conversations, I wasn’t truly listening as I was preparing my next question/topic to touch on several points above (and on the whiteboard by now).

• [ScottKaysee] to KT: you mentioned the culture collapsing earlier. Having being trained in in culture in several corporations: the culture and behaviour starts is driven by the leaders. When you say “the culture collapsed after 2 losses” how do the leaders allow this to happen? This ties back to leadership and culture throughout the club that allow things like: poor messaging/language to occur, the standards to drop etc. That in 2013/2014 those standards and culture was there, Hinkley’s 100 100s, we focused on getting the details right… but that [culture/leadership] has been lost in recent years. KT: was nodding in agreeance (that culture starts with the leaders).

• Less memory on these, but other topics covered: co-Captaincy, membership (current signs aren’t good, on the slide from 2015, while other clubs are increasing)… AO experience (good, but “don’t tell us what to do and how to support”… KT: mentioned how that was a high focus in early move to AO, but they need to tidy that up)… game-style (play our nominated style and back us in win/lose, so we know what to expect… less yo-yoing from quarter to quarter/game to game: the North game 2019, the Ess 2017 game)… the China benefits ($300k profit this year from the game alone, $5m uplift into the club from China related activities… and at a time when China v AU/World relations are at their worst. We’re in for the long haul, there is current profit and more to come in when relations improve) and other topics like feeling more disconnected from the club/players… the current AFL/Player Unions wanting player movement, questioning enforcing a contract (ie Howard) to be honoured v risk… board make-up (8 AFL nominated isn’t quiet true, but didn’t go into detail), RHB questioning how member voted candidates can share wider views beyond 250 word flyer (ie link to webpage like FFA).

• RHB got something wrong (stat about goals kicked on Howard)!!! … room erupts into laughter, PAFC staff are all shocked, lols are had. All good RHB mate.

• Hinkley and coaches… not too much was spoken about Hinkley directly. Although plenty about things in his area. IIRC once it was mentioned that the board extended his contract too early, but we didn’t linger on it. What was mentioned by KT: that we bought in new assistances last year, who have all bought new ideas/styles from across the AFL. Like any new grouping being formed they’ve had issues trying to initially work those ideas in together, but they should settle/gel more with more experience. Also, Hinkley (and 2 others, I forget who) were sent off to the US this off-season for coaching development.

It really wound down from that as we had been going to 90mins. Good byes and thanks at 7:30pm.

SUMMARY

• MR was engaging and attempting to direct conversations, which at times got quite emotional and detailed (due to passion for the club).
• SS is new (4 months in) to the club, from Melbourne, as GM Marketing and was eager throughout… I expect/hopeful that many of the elements from above that fall into his area will be address in some way moving forward.
• DB (? the consultant/scribe), been working with the club for about 1 year, reminded me of Jeremy Irons lol… was quite interested in the cultural, narrative, language and feelings being discussed. Often pulling up the conversation to tease more detail out of comments made (no issues with this methodology, as he is trying to get to the heart of matters/topics etc).
• KT was for the most part extremely interested and engaging throughout. Caught a few moments were he looked (understandably) weary, but he was keen to listen to the end and well over the allotted time.

• Most immediately I would expect our messaging to improve. It is the area they have the most direct control over.
• I suspect that the Captaincy issue will also revert, even though we didn’t spend much time discussing it directly, that is something else they can address immediately.
• Harder to address will be any culture, leadership, behaviours throughout the club or game style elements.

Many topics didn’t get raised, and the above might seem light on, but it is difficult with 12-14 people all chiming in for 30-60 seconds each throughout the conversations… it only leaves time for about 7-8 topics to be covered in 60-90 minutes.

Everyone appreciated the forum and hinted at the potential for more in the future.

Thanks for that mate. Seems like there was a lot of listening, but did they actually give you much back? Was there agreement from Richardson/KT about Koch's "Little Blue collar Club" and telling him to STFU for example?

Did they give you the impression they understood why members are jumping off in droves? Did you get that impression? And if you did, did you feel they were trying to rectify it?

 

[Jonts]

For what purpose are we freeing up cap space? We haven't targeted any big name players and by all reports are spending as little as possible.

So we can win the likes of Adam Tomlinson next time

 

[JimmyBeerCans]

Jack Lukosius.

The dream is real.

I'd like to see him actually perform or at least show a hint of greatness next season that warrants big coin & splooging.

 

[Magus]

I'd like to see him actually perform or at least show a hint of greatness next season that warrants big coin & splooging.

Precisely and I don't see how throwing all the money in the world on an unproven outsider is going to improve culture .

 

[ozph1870]

I have sort of wiped the North game from my memory banks.

What I said, was that Howard not playing against North is probably another reason for the angst about him leaving. KT said, he did play and Ben Brown kicked 6 on him. I thought there you go, I completely forgot about that.

If you didn't post this I wouldn't have look it up.

KT you were wrong! Howard didn't play. So Brown couldn't have kicked anything on him. Hmmmmmmmmm.

AFL Tables - North Melbourne v Port Adelaide - Sat, 17-Aug-2019 7:25 PM - Match Stats

afltables.com

Ben brown kicked 6 on him.. Wtf... These are the idiots making decisions on players at our club...

 

[El_Scorcho]

Really impressed with the fact that the club appeared to have taken this really seriously. I'd certainly love to be involved in a future session, time permitting.

Thanks to those who attended for asking difficult questions and pressing the club on these important issues.

The proof will ultimately be in the pudding as to whether this leads to genuine change.

(Nobody seems to have mentioned the bars... NDA?)

 

[Zakk Wylde]

Thanks for that mate. Seems like there was a lot of listening, but did they actually give you much back? Was there agreement from Richardson/KT about Koch's "Little Blue collar Club" and telling him to STFU for example?

Did they give you the impression they understood why members are jumping off in droves? Did you get that impression? And if you did, did you feel they were trying to rectify it?

I didn't attend, but just on this topic, I have had dialogue with MR regarding Koch's language used and he frustratingly responded that he is repeatedly told at board meetings to quit it.

 

[Lockhart Road]

I didn't attend, but just on this topic, I have had dialogue with MR regarding Koch's language used and he frustratingly responded that he is repeatedly told at board meetings to quit it.

Yep. Corroborates what I was told a few months ago. So, what does this tell you about Koch and his basic motive for being chairman of the little blue-collar club from the swamp that is no such thing?