Mark Neeld's Spray on Morton.

[MyFavouriteMartian 572]

3 hours ago, chook fowler said:

Morton = Grgic =Gysberts. FMD.

Geo Pell  types.

butter wouldn't melt

[Jack Russell 80]

6 hours ago, MyFavouriteMartian said:

Green was a very ordinary leader.

Morton was a failure under Bailey's time.  non contact was a big mistake in Morton's development,  just as it was with Bennell and Gysberts etc. Morton needed sorting out.  It must have been  'fireup', or  'F'  off. 

His moving on was a bonus for us.  As was Bennell and so many others recruited under Schwab's time.

 

Scully,  no loss in real terms.  I'm glad now he did go.

Rivers ageing,

Sylvia another adding to weak culture,

Moloney again

James McDonald was let go by the administration of Cuddles Schwab, etc.  Not Neeld's doing.

 

So Neeld is guilty of one thing,,,  trying to get the layers to show some fight,  like Watts Morton, Green, etc,  and the likes of Moloney to show less fight and more leadership and healthy culture leadership.

Neeld came into a basket-case club culture,  and ripped it a new one...  which set the door open for Roosy to enter,  to start the real club rebuild.

 

Neeld did us a huge favour,  pulling the network of rotten and soft culture apart...   

 

Roos would not have come onboard  if he had to do the dirty work.  It would have reflected badly on Roos's CV,   IF he had to do all that dirty work.

 

# edit:  Jnr Mac was the blunder and we pushed the best leader of our club out.

He was the guy to lead the recovery,  with young kids in Grimes and Trengove learning from his leadership.

The footy dep't,  F'd-up,  big time.

.

You are right about Neeld so bad CEO Pres Board all got cleaned out and cleaning up culture starts at the top that’s why Bartlett and Jackson got Roos and cultural change in footy started to suggest anything else is rewriting history and delusional.  What you are saying about Roosy is ill informed and not very nice - yes he was well paid but walked into a mess I.e the culture was one of losing bad decisions tanking and pointing the finger

[Sir Why You Little 36,918]

All this talk about Jnr McDonald and other Senior Players of the day being treated badly makes me laugh. 
They were all part of the problem, all of them had their opportunities to lead and failed. Jnr. had long term hamstring injuries by the time he was asked to move on. People forget he had a year off before Sheedy spoke to him about GW$. 
 

all the other leaders were part of 186

See ya. 
 

The one (Big) mistake Neeld made, and it was unforgivable was making Trengove and Grimes Joint Captains. 
Only a fool would do that, and he did it

Edited May 12, 2020 by Sir Why You Little

[Davos 836]

26 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

All this talk about Jnr McDonald and other Senior Players of the day being treated badly makes me laugh. 
They were all part of the problem, all of them had their opportunities to lead and failed. Jnr. had long term hamstring injuries by the time he was asked to move on. People forget he had a year off before Sheedy spoke to him about GW$. 
 

all the other leaders were part of 186

See ya. 
 

The one (Big) mistake Neeld made, and it was unforgivable was making Trengove and Grimes Joint Captains. 
Only a fool would do that, and he did it

Wrong. Delisting senior players is one thing, doing it in the fashion we did is another. Absolutely appalling way to treat guys who'd given their all to the club for the bulk of their careers. 

[Sir Why You Little 36,918]

2 minutes ago, Davos said:

Wrong. Delisting senior players is one thing, doing it in the fashion we did is another. Absolutely appalling way to treat guys who'd given their all to the club for the bulk of their careers. 

But how do you do it?

I question whether they had given “their all” or given just enough to get a game. 
186 was a total disgrace, only Lynden Dunn put in that day. The players got paid, whilst Bailey was thrown into the trash...

Echoes of that same attitude still exist (2019)

[TeamPlayedFine39 8,461]

On 5/11/2020 at 10:27 AM, MyFavouriteMartian said:

Green was a very ordinary leader.

Morton was a failure under Bailey's time.  non contact was a big mistake in Morton's development,  just as it was with Bennell and Gysberts etc. Morton needed sorting out.  It must have been  'fireup', or  'F'  off. 

His moving on was a bonus for us.  As was Bennell and so many others recruited under Schwab's time.

 

Scully,  no loss in real terms.  I'm glad now he did go.

Rivers ageing,

Sylvia another adding to weak culture,

Moloney again

James McDonald was let go by the administration of Cuddles Schwab, etc.  Not Neeld's doing.

 

So Neeld is guilty of one thing,,,  trying to get the layers to show some fight,  like Watts Morton, Green, etc,  and the likes of Moloney to show less fight and more leadership and healthy culture leadership.

Neeld came into a basket-case club culture,  and ripped it a new one...  which set the door open for Roosy to enter,  to start the real club rebuild.

 

Neeld did us a huge favour,  pulling the network of rotten and soft culture apart...   

 

Roos would not have come onboard  if he had to do the dirty work.  It would have reflected badly on Roos's CV,   IF he had to do all that dirty work.

 

# edit:  Jnr Mac was the blunder and we pushed the best leader of our club out.

He was the guy to lead the recovery,  with young kids in Grimes and Trengove learning from his leadership.

The footy dep't,  F'd-up,  big time.

.

That's very generous to Neeld and his approach to development, communication and people management.

Each to their own, but tactical footballing nous is just a small element of coaching and you don't 'toughen up' young people by neglecting to nurture and support them.  If a player has a positive relationship with their coach, they will run through brick walls for them.  You don't hear many stories of Sheedy, Matthews and Malthouse being cold to their players - they were more akin to father-figures.

The club was at its lowest point in its long history when Neeld left. 

He, and the regime that he was working under, completely gutted the club.

[Accepting Mediocrity 1,418]

53 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

All this talk about Jnr McDonald and other Senior Players of the day being treated badly makes me laugh. 
They were all part of the problem, all of them had their opportunities to lead and failed. Jnr. had long term hamstring injuries by the time he was asked to move on. People forget he had a year off before Sheedy spoke to him about GW$. 

Nah, that's a bit revisionist I reckon - the club let down Jnr Mac big time and paid the price. He missed a whopping total of 6 games through injury in his final year with us and, statistically, was performing as strongly as ever. He still had 2 good years left when we showed him the door - 2 years that would have been spent showing Scully, Trengove, Tapscott, Gysberts, Morton etc the ropes of AFL footy. Not saying he single-handedly would have turned around the careers of our many wasted draft picks, but our lack of senior leadership at the time was undoubtedly a massive problem. There's a reason one of the first things Paul Roos did when he arrived at the club was recruit a 31 year-old Daniel Cross. 

[Sir Why You Little 36,918]

Just now, Accepting Mediocrity said:

Nah, that's a bit revisionist I reckon - the club let down Jnr Mac big time and paid the price. He missed a whopping total of 6 games through injury in his final year with us and, statistically, was performing as strongly as ever. He still had 2 good years left when we showed him the door - 2 years that would have been spent showing Scully, Trengove, Tapscott, Gysberts, Morton etc the ropes of AFL footy. Not saying he single-handedly would have turned around the careers of our many wasted draft picks, but our lack of senior leadership at the time was undoubtedly a massive problem. There's a reason one of the first things Paul Roos did when he arrived at the club was recruit a 31 year-old Daniel Cross. 

I disagree. Jnr was a good Capain but his hammies let him down. He was taking 6-8 weeks to recover what should have been 3-4

But as i said before anyone involved in 186 deserved to go. We had zero leadership back then

[Rod Grinter Riot Squad 5,654]

1 hour ago, Sir Why You Little said:

I disagree. Jnr was a good Capain but his hammies let him down. He was taking 6-8 weeks to recover what should have been 3-4

But as i said before anyone involved in 186 deserved to go. We had zero leadership back then

Making things up?

 

he had one bad hamstring injury that he took 6 weeks to recover from, as opposed to being an ongoing problem

[picket fence 16,999]

On 5/10/2020 at 10:55 PM, spirit of norm smith said:

Neeld killed us.

Sacked Green and installed Grimes and Trengove as a massive mistake. 
 

Youth went backwards.  Morton gone. Scully jumped.
 

Saw senior players leave including Rivers, Sylvia, Moloney and James McDonald.  
 

Brought in Clark and Dawes in massive $$$$ deals  

 

 

 

IMO The worst coach we ever had. EVER! Cale Morton was a pretty limited footballer also IMO!

[Accepting Mediocrity 1,418]

1 hour ago, Sir Why You Little said:

He was taking 6-8 weeks to recover what should have been 3-4

He missed 6 matches in his final year and finished top 10 in our B & F. Barring an ACL-type injury, we almost certainly would have got 12-15 games per season out of him for the next couple of years, and he was still playing good footy at the Giants in 2012. 

1 hour ago, Sir Why You Little said:

But as i said before anyone involved in 186 deserved to go. We had zero leadership back then

In part, because we prematurely axed our best leader.

IMO forcing Junior Mac into retirement was one of the biggest mistakes we made during that era, which is saying something.

[rolling fog 1,207]

4 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

The one (Big) mistake Neeld made, and it was unforgivable was making Trengove and Grimes Joint Captains. 
Only a fool would do that, and he did it

And there was no one in the administrative hierarchy (which the coach is not at the top btw) willing or able to stop it from occurring. 

Unless they too were equally blind to the mistakes being made. I have little idea about the current make up of the admin and FD staff but gosh I hope there's none left from 2010 - 2013!

[Sir Why You Little 36,918]

3 hours ago, Rod Grinter Riot Squad said:

Making things up?

 

he had one bad hamstring injury that he took 6 weeks to recover from, as opposed to being an ongoing problem

Yes it was a bad one, and then he had a year off. Club made a very tough call, but it was the right one. 
was the only right one they made at that time, granted. 
Who is making anything up?

The whole Club stunk. Including the playing list. 

[BAMF 4,286]

2 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Yes it was a bad one, and then he had a year off. Club made a very tough call, but it was the right one. 
was the only right one they made at that time, granted. 
Who is making anything up?

The whole Club stunk. Including the playing list. 

I think letting him go was a mistake in hindsight. But I also remember having discussions on here about whether we should keep him or not at the time and there were a lot of people in both camps.

It really is blown out of proportion though. Keeping Jnr wouldn't have changed things even a tiny bit in the long run.

[Sir Why You Little 36,918]

3 hours ago, Accepting Mediocrity said:

He missed 6 matches in his final year and finished top 10 in our B & F. Barring an ACL-type injury, we almost certainly would have got 12-15 games per season out of him for the next couple of years, and he was still playing good footy at the Giants in 2012. 

In part, because we prematurely axed our best leader.

IMO forcing Junior Mac into retirement was one of the biggest mistakes we made during that era, which is saying something.

Jnr didn’t play in 2011. He had a year off before going North 

Edited May 12, 2020 by Sir Why You Little

[Sir Why You Little 36,918]

17 minutes ago, BAMF said:

I think letting him go was a mistake in hindsight. But I also remember having discussions on here about whether we should keep him or not at the time and there were a lot of people in both camps.

It really is blown out of proportion though. Keeping Jnr wouldn't have changed things even a tiny bit in the long run.

Agree. I am not putting it all on him. 
the entire list should have been accountable

[BAMF 4,286]

14 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Agree. I am not putting it all on him. 
the entire list should have been accountable

I remember those times. Many thought letting him go was the right choice (I can't remember my opinion).

We had all bought into the rebuild. All we needed to do was draft a heap of good kids with high draft picks, insert 100games into all of them and we would be a great team and win many premierships.

We didn't need Junior as he wasn't going to be there for the glory years.

In hindsight it was all wrong. It was wrong for the supporters for believing it, but it was a shocking administration that delivered it without doing the development we thought was occuring at the same time.

[Sir Why You Little 36,918]

31 minutes ago, BAMF said:

I remember those times. Many thought letting him go was the right choice (I can't remember my opinion).

We had all bought into the rebuild. All we needed to do was draft a heap of good kids with high draft picks, insert 100games into all of them and we would be a great team and win many premierships.

We didn't need Junior as he wasn't going to be there for the glory years.

In hindsight it was all wrong. It was wrong for the supporters for believing it, but it was a shocking administration that delivered it without doing the development we thought was occuring at the same time.

Yes. Everything went wrong that needed to be right. 
we are still recovering from it....

[Lord John 26]

Need was a disaster but Denis Jones would have given him a run for his money as one of our worst coaches.

[Mazer Rackham 14,971]

4 hours ago, rolling fog said:

And there was no one in the administrative hierarchy (which the coach is not at the top btw) willing or able to stop it from occurring. 

What did they know? Everyone was numb after the calamity of 186. That was not the performance of an AFL standard club. Everyone's heads were spinning and they barely knew what day it was, let alone what was a good or bad decision for a footy club.

Getting in Malthouse's right hand man seemed a master stroke. Except he was the wrong man at the wrong time. If Neeld had gone to a club like Hawks or Swans, with a good list & good culture, who knows what might have happened. Some of his instincts were spot on. It was the way he acted on them that backfired.

But at the shell shocked Demons, all he managed was to inflict more trauma and nearly finished the club completely.

[MyFavouriteMartian 572]

8 hours ago, TeamPlayedFine39 said:

That's very generous to Neeld and his approach to development, communication and people management.

Each to their own, but tactical footballing nous is just a small element of coaching and you don't 'toughen up' young people by neglecting to nurture and support them.  If a player has a positive relationship with their coach, they will run through brick walls for them.  You don't hear many stories of Sheedy, Matthews and Malthouse being cold to their players - they were more akin to father-figures.

The club was at its lowest point in its long history when Neeld left. 

He, and the regime that he was working under, completely gutted the club.

Development.  I don't think he got to the point of development.

 

Before you can get to be able to be successful in developing kids,  then first step is to ensure the culture is a strong one...   so the first point of business is to learn about what culture is there,  and then do what needs to be done to straighten up any areas needing work.

This is the head coaches area,  and the first issue to be looked at,  by that head coach.

 

The kids are coached and developed by assistant coaches and line coaches,  and anything the head coach notices,  he discusses with those assistants to seek thoughts and confirmation.?

The Head coach will give some instant feedback, but the assistants will be working closer with the kids and they will know how to treat each individual. the coach receives feed back from his assistants about the young players and their progress.

The development of youngster is not the head coaches main role.  His is the senior payers , 1st 25 players to focus on,  team ethos, discipline,  and that all important culture.

 

Its nigh on impossible to successfully develop young players, in a club with weak cultures.

You'll notice how much Barassi struggled with the Mfc in his first 3 seasons.  Until the good junior kids were maturing and coming through and some mature recruits were stabilising the senior team prior to Barass's finishing.

...  and handover to Northey,  who topped up on interstate recruits and some inter-club recruits like Koop, rJackson and others.   A large influx of mature recruits into the side.  but even that side was too light on class.  Which showed in the crunch,  times failing to go all the way.

 

summary.  The culture, if sick,  has to be addressed strongly,  right from the start.  The coach has to assert is authority at the beginning.   Not dictatorial.

But an outside coach coming into an established self protectionist culture,  is up against it from the start.

Neeld was not accepted at the demons by many past and senior figures around the club,  and much derision and backstabbing was going on off the training track,  virtually from the start.

He was not afforded the due support from around the club,  and this quickly established itself amongst the playing group.  Literally thrown to the wolf pack as if a sacrifice.  That was MfcSSSSSS full blown.

 

But what he did manage,  was to remove many troubling issues,  before he was taken down.

This alone,  helped us to move forward under Roosy,  who could come in as Mr nice guy,  whipering sweet overtures to other troublesomes....  Who would end up gone anyway.  but gone in a more distant way, from the coach.   Gone in a quieter way let say.    Roosy is not so,  "in your face".

[MyFavouriteMartian 572]

9 hours ago, TeamPlayedFine39 said:

You don't hear many stories of Sheedy, Matthews and Malthouse being cold to their players - they were more akin to father-figures.

Do you really think we hired Neeld to be the father figure... or to cut deep into the clubs ills.

We had the chance to hire Sheedy (a proven Super Coach),  ahead of Bailey,  and the club called the media to be there,  to film Sheedy leaving that house after the meeting. The club wasn't serious about hiring Sheedy,  because the club had other ideas of what was necessary for that list.  They collected Sheedy's thoughts,  and said thanks.  Another huge mistake.

 

Then under the Bailey era,  it got even worse,  the players were running their own race.  And that is what we witnessed,  in the infamous 196 game.

It takes special sort of players and culture,  to do that and throw a game on-field, like that.

[MyFavouriteMartian 572]

8 hours ago, Rod Grinter Riot Squad said:

he had one bad hamstring injury that he took 6 weeks to recover from, as opposed to being an ongoing problem

Your right.  Thats spot on.

The worst player/club decision at Mfc,  that I can remember.

[Skuit 10,028]

8 hours ago, picket fence said:

IMO The worst coach we ever had. EVER! Cale Morton was a pretty limited footballer also IMO!

When you agree with Picket for providing the most balanced post of the lot. This is like the Demonland equivalent of the great nurture vs nature debate. Even with some ideal world variations, I think it's pretty fair to conclude that Neeld was ultimately a [censored] coach and Cale wouldn't have amounted to much at another club either. 

[Accepting Mediocrity 1,418]

16 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Jnr didn’t play in 2011. He had a year off before going North 

Yeah I realize that, but I interpret it differently. IMO, the fact that he was still able to come back and play well at AFL level after a year out of the system really highlights how much he had left in the tank when he 'retired'.  

I'm not suggesting Junior wouldn't have made much difference to our playing list in 2011-12. Would 186 have happened if he was on the list? Who knows. But the fact is that we lacked leaders, and he was our best.

The decision to axe him had nothing to do with form. It was based on a flawed coaching philosophy that overvalued youth and undervalued senior leadership.