How good Tom Harley?

[barry]

The General Manager of Football has 2 important functions:

1. He decides which injured players' names will not appear on the club's injury list.
2. If the team is playing on the road and the Head Coach is incapacitated, the General Manager of Football decides who will be the Traveling Emergency.

and I assume the Director of Football is there to provide guidance and ensure the general manager of football's responsibilities are discharged in a timely and professional manner. With the added responsibility of sending the reminder email to the cheer-squad to make the banner for the upcoming games.

[grarmy]

You brighten my days. I get a genuine laugh out of your more irreverent moments. The "Y" comment in particular is still making me chuckle. Pity that Tom D. is no longer with us as he proved a wonderful source of material. Truely, things were better when Tom was at the club.

[bloodspirit]

Sterling work, Ludwig.

[Ludwig]

Can anyone explain what a "general manager of football" actually is?

The General Manager of Football has 2 important functions:

1. He decides which injured players' names will not appear on the club's injury list.
2. If the team is playing on the road and the Head Coach is incapacitated, the General Manager of Football decides who will be the Traveling Emergency.

[bloodspirit]

Can anyone explain what a "general manager of football" actually is? Assistant coach roles are easy. They're subordinate to the senior coach and often have a sub-specialty e.g. backs or development or whatever. But these 'football' positions that are relatively senior but not the senior coach confuse me. Another is 'director of football' - I assume this is pretty much the same thing as the 'general manager' but who knows? Please explain.

I presume they are involved in high level decisions about list management, recruitment of coaching staff?, perhaps sit on match committee?, general coaching strategy, and, of course, diligently (actually not that diligently) keeping club supporters up to speed with Kizza's hip, AJ's knee and Pap's leg.

[707]

Good that we have former captain's involved at the club regardless of where they came from. Impressed with Tom Harley.

[Panttz]

Nothing special or out of the ordinary! I was just watching the weekly injury update that he does and thought it was on my mind is all.

[bloodspirit]

What's brought all this on? I agree he seems to have played the part well but I guess I expected as much given his pedigree and reputation. Why the conversation now? Did he recently do or say something impressive that I've missed??

p.s. Love the idea of him as a candidate for future CEO!

[Melbournehammer]

I met him during the pre-season when my sons and i were having breakfast in balmain before the match at drummoyne oval. he came over to us and asked whether we were going to the game (my son had on a swans top and the other one had a fitzroy juniors top on). Then he chatted to us for about 15 minutes about the team, junior football in victoria, going back into the club environment rather than being a tv commentator and the geelong side.

I couldn't have been more impressed given that he approached us rather than the other way around. Just seemed a genuine person, not at all full of himself. I came away thinking it must be great having such a level headed person around a football club.

[Doctor]

I agree that he speaks and presents well and is obviously very intelligent and appears to suit our culture, and corporate image. I don't know enough about his ability in the area in which he is actually employed to comment on it however, but I hope he's doing a good job.

[Pmcc2911]

I remember seeing him interviewed on Fox Footy (when he was still Geelong captain) and thinking wow what an inspirational guy.

[Mug Punter]

I'll reserve judgement on Harley until I see how the trade ban has been resolved

[mcsquirta]

Tom is the Buddy of footy Admin (if you squint!). Andrew Ireland extended his contract till the end of 2016. If we can drag another couple of years out of Andrew then Harley would make a great hands-on CEO in 2018 (or later if we can keep Andrew).

[stevoswan]

Personally, I suspect that he may have been the major reason behind Geelong's recent premierships. If you go back to 2007; Geelong were in trouble early, rumours were flying that Mark Thompson was about to be sacked and then they had that well known crisis meeting. The result of which, apparently, was a change in power structure away from Thompson and towards the player group, of which Harley was the most prominent member. It was after that, that Geelong's form saw a dramatic turn around.
Of course, their great luck with the father/son rule also came in handy: Ablett at pick forty something, was it? Scarlett even lower? The other Ablett, Hawkins, Blake.

But no Newman! Seeing Geelong are similar to us, in that they have a "No Dickhead" policy (I believe), they would probably be breathing a sigh of relief!

[dejavoodoo44]

No doubt in my mind he has been one of the recruits of the season for our club.

Always professional, incredible speaker and just really represents our team tremendously well.
No wonder the Geelong team did so well in the time he was captain there.

Well played Tom


Also, does anyone know if coaching is something that he will eventually look into?

Personally, I suspect that he may have been the major reason behind Geelong's recent premierships. If you go back to 2007; Geelong were in trouble early, rumours were flying that Mark Thompson was about to be sacked and then they had that well known crisis meeting. The result of which, apparently, was a change in power structure away from Thompson and towards the player group, of which Harley was the most prominent member. It was after that, that Geelong's form saw a dramatic turn around.
Of course, their great luck with the father/son rule also came in handy: Ablett at pick forty something, was it? Scarlett even lower? The other Ablett, Hawkins, Blake.