If patience is a virtue, too much patience is...

I write from afar. From very afar. Despite distance, the fortunes of my club resonate deep inside me, huge waves of pain maintaining momentum flowing recklessly across oceans. I know nothing of inner sanctums, post match reviews, warm downs, leadership groups or premiership windows. I don’t really want to. I watch from afar, disconnected, reveling in the purity of our relationship. I give faith, you give me hope. And occasional victory. On these terms we proceed, asking no more. I judge in simplistic terms. In the most simplistic terms. In concrete terms. I am patient because the alternative is burning fury and self loathing. I tolerated and came to terms with deliberate match losing and I am somehow comfortable, if not content, pinning my future happiness in the performance of a group of facial hair-less boys 10 years my junior. In most ways I am a reasonable, idiotically faithful supporter.

So, with credentials of reason and rationality in hand, with membership paid pre March and with no other expectations of my club, I ask a question: Why?

Coming from oblivion, answering a newspaper ad, beating a field of excellent candidates to get the job, there was a sense of the refreshing when Dean (who!?!?) Bailey was appointed to the Melbourne coaching position. He inherited an on and off field mess (no offence Rev, I yearn for your even years finals appearances), rolled up his sleeves, drafted a group of kids and by all reports is in the midst of a beautiful re generation of our sad old club which will one day achieve ludicrous, unimaginable success. Midst being the operative word. Because Bailey is in the midst, far from his objective. For his 22 brave faces, his reasoning of all wrongs, for the method behind each barely honourable loss, for his thousand bright sides and hundred new days, Dean Bailey has achieved, in my simple judgment, absolutely no success. Unless failure is success like last years game against Richmond. He may have a long term plan, and that long term plan may involve on field success, but until that plan is reality, he is still the obscure and crap coach of the worst team in the league. Might be the best bloke in the country but still...The team has finished last twice, has been destroyed regularly by many teams, has rarely shown the skill or aptitude to compete in the AFL and for that Mr Bailey has been given a contract extension.

So why should this coach be given an extension on his contract before the team has even played a real game? (they played a fake game and got duly flogged by powerhouse fremantle) Is he in demand in the marketplace? He was given three years as a show of patience at the very beginning. Is that not faith enough? It is highly possible that Melbourne will finish last again this year. If that happens, how can a club justify allowing the same coach to coach 3 wooden spoons and let him, no ask him, to coach a fourth season? How can they justify it to supporters whose expectations are so pathetically low that many of them would be happy to finish 14th? The simple answer is they can’t. I will stick by Dean Bailey for 11 rounds of this season, but until the team starts winning regular games his ‘achievements’ of player development are rubbish and a poor excuse for these poor times. Give me victory or tell your story walking... In no other way shall you be assessed.