Neita had a fantastic career but I always expected him to become a great at the club. This is because I first came across him as a tall, young 15 year old from Parkmoor trying out for a schoolboy squad of which a neighbour's son was also became a member. He was in Melbourne's then metropolitan zone so I followed his fortunes up through the ranks. Even then, he had the makings of a potentially dominant key position player of the absolute highest order, whether forward or down back.

At just 18 years of age, he made his debut for MFC in round 1, 1993 and six games into his career, David booted six goals at FF in a Friday night game against Richmond (note his age compared to the developing talls at the club today).

 

If that was the benchmark for David Neitz and one's expectations of him, I would have to say that, at the very best, he only equalled those that I had of him when he was 18 years old although he did go on to be AA twice, the first time as a magnificent CHB who had great duels with a young Wayne Carey. 

My theory as to why he never made it to the absolute superstar status that I expected was that he had enormous responsibility thrust on his shoulders as, one by one, many of his contemporaries at the club who held down key positions (or were capable of doing so) were hit by injuries or left for other reasons. In the mid 90s we lost the likes of Lyon (back). Schwarz (knees x 3, yes I know he only had 2 knees), Jakovich (back), Prymke (back) and Pyke (off field indiscipline). Suddenly, Neita was our only fit KP (and even he was out for a short while with a broken jaw).

He was shunted around the ground like a pinball to cover various deficiencies and, though there was a fairly strong case for him as a CHB, he ended up as a FF where he did make AA again. There was a long debate about whether Neita should play forward or back with the former winning out and in the end he became physically better suited as a forward. However, in the absence of those injuries that curtailed the careers of those mentioned above, he might well have achieved far more greatness on an individual and a team level and would have been a far better leader at the club.

So, for those reasons I can't really say that IMO he fits into this category.

I think you sum up Neita's career very well. He was shunted around as the KP option to cover for other team deficiencies, to his own detriment in part.

Because of that I believe he did live up to expectations. Not of a superstar, if we were marking on superstar status this thread would be fairly short, from what I've seen in 35 yrs anyway.

You say 'but' when mentioning your expectations of him becoming a great of the club, do you think he is not?

I think you sum up Neita's career very well. He was shunted around as the KP option to cover for other team deficiencies, to his own detriment in part.

Because of that I believe he did live up to expectations. Not of a superstar, if we were marking on superstar status this thread would be fairly short, from what I've seen in 35 yrs anyway.

You say 'but' when mentioning your expectations of him becoming a great of the club, do you think he is not?

The "but" was meant only to qualify the fact that I thought he could have achieved even higher status than he did because of those issues mentioned above that were beyond his control. I still rate him high in the top ten at the MFC since 1964.

TBH, Bail. When I went to Casey in March to watch the practice match vs West Coast he looked terrible. I saw nothing then that suggested that he'd end being such an important player.