Awful opinion piece.

Why would the players care about not having Naitinui? We already have players who can jump on their shoulders, and those guys are more likely to clunk a mark.

Mitch Clark is one of the few shining lights for this team at the moment. Surely if they were miffed at him being paid so much, they'd be doing their best to show he was overpaid, not fully justifying the decision by letting him be the clear standout?

I think the players would be more angry if HWMNBN had stayed, especially at the $1m he's getting paid to be a link player (albeit, one who is on his way to becoming an elite one.)

The Neil Craig thing? Non-issue. Just because THE PUBLIC aren't exposed to him doesn't mean the players aren't.

Cheap shot to include Jimma. Of course the players are still feeling it.

Although I will say this for him, it's definitely achieved what it's set out to do, get attention.

Always be wary of a 'journalist' that just lists bullet points to fill up half an article. I mean what was the point of that? He clearly has to hit a certain word count.

The rest of the article was a bit of revisionist history. I didn't hear anyone defending Bailey's 'slow build' of our defensive capabilities when we were belted last year.

And what more does Mitch Clark have to do for Walls to cut him a break? He's kicked more than a quarter of our score in the games he's played, been voted into the leadership group before he played a game, and throws his body around with little regard for his own welfare.

The MFC sacked it's good culture & instated a politically correct politeness which dogged the club Before Checker Hughes,,, & since Norm Smith.

This - had a family member at the Club at the time...

See you all tonight - Go Dees

Awful piece, poorly written, with a contention supported by flimsy dot points. That's what they call a 'filler' in the industry...friday night game + demons = 'we need a piece about the underdog'

"Slowly, Bailey was building the required defensive strengths."

Any supporter could see we were getting much worse defensively and had no guts when the chips were down.

Just wrong, wrong and wrong.

I agree. Yeah it looked great when we won last year and running thorugh the centre. But when we got beaten we got thrashed. Bailey wasnt building the defensive strengths. This is the 1st thing Neeld has decided to fix. Our defensive side of the game. Walls is so wrong about this.

I disagree with Walls’ assessment of Mitch Clark and a number of his other questions/comments are off the mark. (i.e. IMO our ‘improvement’ last year was just a mirage.) But I think many Demonlanders are way too sensitive and not objective enough when assessing where we are headed.

I think he is right in asking questions on the following:

• Are our players confused by the game plan? (We have obviously been adapting better in recent weeks, but we still lack any real flow with our ball use.)
  
• Is Neeld’s game plan is the best plan for our current list?
  
• Will such a defensive game plan be successful in the future?
  
• Has the treatment of our veterans been destabilising?
  
• Was starting BOTH our captains on the bench a good idea given it was obviously going to draw more attention to the club?
  
• Should our setups at stoppages be more offensive given we have Jamar?
  

I also don't think that criticism of MFC about Energy Watch is totally unfair given that the ACCC instituted proceedings against the company in August 2011.

The guy has to write an article, whats true and not true changes each week for these guys. Put the article aside and see what he writes in a year or two.

Walls comments are just a summation of all the perceived faults and problems with out club. Some are based in fact and others are pure fiction and speculation. He has certainly got it wrong with Clark's playing ability and form. He started out reasonably well this season and last week he started to hold his marks and is doing the job he was hired to do. Unlike a swarm of experienced present and recently past players he actually is earning his money. One point though, there does not seem to be the appropriate level of team mate jubilation and celebration every time he makes an unlikely goal out of nothing which he has done on more than several times this year. Some appear impervious to inspiration.

Every team Walls whacked this year has performed really well in their game that week, so hopefully we will do ourselves proud tonight. I must say terrible article se;ective memory as other have said re bruise free footy and using 2010 results againt the Pies to say how well we were doing.

IMO what is being done now re playing style and increased fitness levels is needed. We can't see it now but it will benefit us in the long run. I think slowly the players are also starting to realise how far off the mark re accountability and fitness we were and it is even starting to filter out in some media stories recently namely ones from Jones & Morton.

This to me is fuel I will use later like any West Aussie based Dee who listened to Timmy Gossage this morning saying we are worse off now than under Bailey and we are that far behind the other 17 Teams. He forgets how bad West Coast were in 2010, when Woosha midway through the season was concentrating on working on the press and getting his players ready for 2011.

We are an easy target at the moment but I recall 2010 HARDWICK being 0-9 and the worse than Fitzroy comments. Sometimes those outside the club don't know what is being done looking toward the future. NEELD said on SEN the other day "people talk about the new trends in footy I can tell you right now there will be a club currently working on the next trend in footy that in the future we will be talking about but it's actually being put into practice now on training grounds and developed"

Walls comments are just a summation of all the perceived faults and problems with out club. Some are based in fact and others are pure fiction and speculation. He has certainly got it wrong with Clark's playing ability and form. He started out reasonably well this season and last week he started to hold his marks and is doing the job he was hired to do. Unlike a swarm of experienced present and recently past players he actually is earning his money. One point though, there does not seem to be the appropriate level of team mate jubilation and celebration every time he makes an unlikely goal out of nothing which he has done on more than several times this year. Some appear impervious to inspiration.

I wouldn't read too much into the lack of wild celebration of goals. Celebrations are most enthusiastic when the goal looks like it might mean a team can (or certainly) will win the game. Has Clark kicked any when we were in such a position this year, either on the scoreboard or in the mindset? If so, then a lack of jubilation would be odd.

I wouldn't read too much into the lack of wild celebration of goals. Celebrations are most enthusiastic when the goal looks like it might mean a team can (or certainly) will win the game. Has Clark kicked any when we were in such a position this year, either on the scoreboard or in the mindset? If so, then a lack of jubilation would be odd.

See if you can catch the replay of his goal from the boundary against the cats in the first quarter

I agree with Walls re: Dean Bailey. Things were improving and Mr.Schwab says that under the 'Premiership model' our years for contention were to be 12/13, with 11 being competitive which we were for the most part. It's old news now but I believe Neeld's recruitment, put in the simplest possible way, has pushed us back 3 years.

- Are our players confused by the game plan? (We have obviously been adapting better in recent weeks, but we still lack any real flow with our ball use.)

I think such a drastic change in game plans was always going to be messy in the beginning, but I think Walls is overlooking the fact that we have been adapting to it much better in the last 3 games.

- Is Neeld's game plan is the best plan for our current list?

For me this is one of few valid points Walls makes in this diatribe. Jury is out, but he has brought in a lot of players that are suited to the style, so he is building onto the list.

- Will such a defensive game plan be successful in the future?

Again, a rare valid point. The game is changing so much, so quickly. Who knows what the "in" style will be in 3 years time. What I do know is that he, along with Craig, is considered one of the best thinkers in the game.

- Has the treatment of our veterans been destabilising?

A done to death point, it's easy to look at Green, who has only played a couple of games before his finger injury as an example of senior player revolt. Moloney hasn't been great but has only been back two weeks. But what about Flash? He allegedly had issues with Neeled Pre-season, but guess what? He's back getting into the play, kicking clever goals, and wanting the ball.

Much like Denham the other week, he gets paid to write, he had nothing to write about so he rehashed 90% of the issues that we have come across this year and slapped his name at the top of the articles. He asks questions, offers no answers. He uses pathetic stats from last year to highlight his points, but fails to put forth stats that showed last year we were defensively inept against good team, not even great teams.

I recognize we are doing crap at the moment, and there isn't much positive to write but when your using old issues to just simply write an article to make it like seem your a competent journalist I can't cop that.

"Mark Jamar will dominate the hitouts, so use that to advantage. Have Brent Moloney, Nathan Jones and Trengove be on the fly at stoppages to create effective breaks."

Walls you are a genius. Why didn't we think of having our midfielders rove to our ruckman at stoppages.

This is modern journalism guys. Emotive writing to get a response, with little to no research, just opinion.

I think it's a great article...... of sorts.

Walls has admitted on SEN that he writes these kinds of articles to fire teams up, so who cares if he's right or not, let's just hope it has the desired effect.

It really is amazing the lack of facts journo's articles entail these days, content above evidence.

I agree with Walls re: Dean Bailey. Things were improving and Mr.Schwab says that under the 'Premiership model' our years for contention were to be 12/13, with 11 being competitive which we were for the most part. It's old news now but I believe Neeld's recruitment, put in the simplest possible way, has pushed us back 3 years.

Is 186 competitive ?

What about a couple of other earlier dices with death before that fateful day?

It was becoming quite obvious before 186 we were not on plan.

And so what if things have now been pushed out a couple of years?

There is no easy road to the flag any more.

What we did in the 50s-60s was partly as a result of our "privileged" place in the world.

Then we took a long, long time to realize the new train had left the station without us. Moreover, teams like Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Richmond and Carlton had taken our 1st Class seats .

Since then we nearly got there with Northey after 4-5 years of a rebuild started by RDB.

Then somehow under Danahier - but we weren't ready.

I support what we are doing now.

I will not be surprised if I feel an awful pain later today when the final siren sounds against the Hawks.

But, if you watch the Leigh Brown interview on the MFC site and follow Robbo's weekly "love-in" with Mark Neeld, it might help you understand where we are at with the re-build.

Don't give up on what is happening.

Go Dees!

I agree with Walls re: Dean Bailey. Things were improving and Mr.Schwab says that under the 'Premiership model' our years for contention were to be 12/13, with 11 being competitive which we were for the most part. It's old news now but I believe Neeld's recruitment, put in the simplest possible way, has pushed us back 3 years.

I take great exception to that.

Especially considering I had a KPI thread which explicitly showed how we regressed in 2011 from a promising 2010.

We shat on the bad sides last year to skew the stats on how bad we actually were against the middling and better teams.

People have to get over the Sydney game and the two Collingwood 'near-misses' in 2010 - they were long dead when Bailey got his marching orders after 186.

I dimly recall Bairstow and Couch starting on the bench against us in a final...another stroke of genius from Blight according to the press back then

The bench thing is all about the days when Walls played and they had a 19th and 20th man. In reality these days there is no interchange bench, apart for the sub it is a rotation bench.

I initially thought it would have been better to start one of them , probably a bit of me still does (a bit of my older playing day thinking) but really it's hardly a show stopper.

All this angst comes from the fact that he helped pick Bailey for us and he doesn't like to face facts.

Nutshell. Sour grapes is Wallsy's M.O.

The one point he does make that might have some validity from a critic's point of view ... "Neeld has to be careful he doesn't insist on a brand of football the Demons can't deliver" ... is not fleshed out in any great detail when in actuality it should have formed the whole basis of his 'article'.

"Slowly, Bailey was building the required defensive strengths." lol

Grimes & Trengove sat on the bench for no more than 2 minutes in last weeks game.

Walls is old school....absolute storm in the teacup that one.

Match Ups.

"Mark Jamar will dominate the hitouts, so use that to advantage. Have Brent Moloney, Nathan Jones and Trengove be on the fly at stoppages to create effective breaks."

Walls you are a genius. Why didn't we think of having our midfielders rove to our ruckman at stoppages.

Inspirational Wallsy!

"Mark Jamar will dominate the hitouts, so use that to advantage. Have Brent Moloney, Nathan Jones and Trengove be on the fly at stoppages to create effective breaks."

Walls you are a genius. Why didn't we think of having our midfielders rove to our ruckman at stoppages.

maybe because the russian has a bad habit of just dropping it to his feet

Strongly disagree with Walls comments on Clark and Natanui (and by implication Watts). However, the rest is fair enough. Look at the scoreboard - currently we are shite.