You raise and interesting (almost) philosophical point. If a list manager doesn't deliver a premiership, should they be sacked? As they say, football is a tough industry (btw, I hate the word industry applied to football), so it's not an uncommon thought.
Freo had a plan to win a premiership, but it didn't work. Does that mean it was a bad plan? Does that mean that those who formulated the plan should be fired? It's pretty simplistic to say, categorically, yes.
Freo's stars were clustered at two ends - the old greats (Pav, McPharlin, Mundy and Sandi for example), and the next greats (Fyfe, Walters, Hill). As yeti points out, everyone knew our time was running out with the old guys, and we didn't have anyone to replace them. Also, as yeti points out, developing KPP's takes time, and you need to get games into them.
Yeti's view - and I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm verballing him - seems to be that we should have drafted talls to address our glaring future shortfall (putting aside we did draft players like Apeness and A Pearce). But drafting game-changing talls in the high teens is really, really difficult. I'm not sure which one slipped through the cracks, though names like Kersten are thrown around. He'd probably be handy, but he's hardly an All-Australian, and wasn't at the time when our old guys could still contribute.
Bond and co's strategy was no secret. Draft best available, and try use the fact our best players were on veterans salaries (i.e., not all counted against the cap) to get a marquee free agent or two. That way, they could contribute while we still had the rest of our veterans. For Bond, it was actually a big swing.
To me, that is a cogent plan, with eyes towards a premiership. We just didn't execute. We threw bags of money at people (reportedly), and we didn't land a Cloke (thankfully) or a Rance, or a J Rewoldt. Fair enough if you think it's a bad plan, but given how hard it is to win a premiership, I think it gave us a better chance than trying to pluck a premiership KPP teenager from relative obscurity.
So, it didn't work. But, presumably the admin and the coach signed off on the plan. If you held the view that was the best course, do you sack Bond because it didn't work out? Some would say yes - it was his job to execute it. But landing a big free agent always had elements outside of Freo's control, the way drafting does. No-one could foresee, for example, Pitt's heart condition, or Morabito's knees. If the admin's view was that Bond's work in executing the plan was good, but the results didn't fall our way, then sacking him seems pretty reactionary. Perhaps keeping him would be accepting mediocrity, but there are pitfalls in being too reactionary as well.
As for his trades, we have no idea what he explored, and what he offered. As a general rule, football managers don't tell the media which Freo player was offered up. It tends to be bad for morale to tell a player he was shopped all around town, but please, if you wouldn't mind sacrificing for the team on / off the field, that would be great. As someone who negotiates for a living, unless you are in the room, you have little idea which side is responsible for not getting a deal done.
One thing we can agree on is the MRP stuff. I'm pretty sure a chocolate wheel could outperform Bond on that one.
