Not our best night

Dear Justin,

Well, that was a bad afternoon / evening (twilight?) at the football. Hard to recall many worse performances in the past decade. Was thinking I should not write tonight, given how negative I feel - but then again, I feel negative because it was so bad.

Thank Christ for the following: Adam Simpson, Harro, Spud and of course Wellsy, although he faded. Boomer tried hard, and I thought Pratty was ok, although had his usual quota of brain explosions along the way. Campbell showed something. But there were many negatives - of our players who are senior quality, Shagga and CJ were terrible. And in the "not up to senior football" category: Sansbury, and Brown spring to mind.

I'm increasingly convinced that Laidley is at the heart of the problem with North, and that he should go sooner rather than later. If he's going to coach next year, he shouldn't stay for the rest of this year. There is a certain feel, much like at the end of Schimma's reign of error, to the club at the moment.

Now I don't want to harp on it, but look at his post match comments this evening: “That’s probably been the fallout from the three games – we didn’t take our opportunities ... It’s my job to keep the boys up. It’s been disappointing for everyone for the last three games because we’ve either been in it or had our chances … But there’s no good in patting us on the back for solid performances.”

Patting us on the back for solid performances? The only explanation for this is that Dean was watching the little league, who did indeed put in a solid performance. But otherwise... well it wasn't so much the loss, as the inexplicable game plan, and the incompetence, that was the problem. And I've never booed North before the way we did when they did that weird chipping the ball around thing, when ten points up before half time.

I could go on (is the club in a better position than when Laidley took over? why don't we appear to have a strategy to rebuild the list? why is everything, including our game plan, so reactive? why is there no feeling of excitement around the younger players? why are so many players, from Well down, not developing as we'd hope?). But I don't think I will tonight.

Speak soon,

Dan