I saw more that gives promise than not.

You can either believe that we are heading in the right direction or we are doomed, that is your choice.

We are still playing some bad, over possession low confidence football. But there are indeed glimmers of hope. In a group of players with such low levels of experience, and especially playing together so rarely as a core group, I took a lot from what I saw.

Are we there yet? No. Are we on the path? I really think so.

Yawn. Even your comebacks are lame.

When you cant think of anything new a simple "you are"still holds a juvenile type of kudos that I ike .

I saw more that gives promise than not.

You can either believe that we are heading in the right direction or we are doomed, that is your choice.

We are still playing some bad, over possession low confidence football. But there are indeed glimmers of hope. In a group of players with such low levels of experience, and especially playing together so rarely as a core group, I took a lot from what I saw.

Are we there yet? No. Are we on the path? I really think so.

Theres a lot of errors out there by players who probably wouldnt quite be expected to be on the game day lists yet. Theyre fumbling at times and making some inexperienced decisions that often prove costly. Yet despite this there are glimpses of a team starting to "get it". The 'it' of course being a new way of doing things, the Neeld way.

Watched "Money Ball" last night after all the talk about it's influence on footy and I hope we have a team at the MFC working full time on the coming trade and draft period.

That and the emergence of the new gen players, the latest of which is Blease, and I am not depressed about season 2013, which is a start.

Edited August 12, 201213 yr by PaulRB

Watched "Money Ball" last night

That's fine.

But we have instituted a No Moneyball Reference Policy here on Demonland.

So just be careful...

Forget Moneyball. I'd love our recruiters to just watch Collingwood v Sydney from last night over and over again before they draft players and think to themselves "could player A who we are looking to draft find himself a spot in one of those teams playing that type of footy". From there you have a start.

I'm seeing players working harder. I'm seeing more discipline. I'm seeing more scrapping.

I'm seeing some fight.

Not from everyone, no. The usual suspects can't or won't put in. But there's enough spirit and commitment to the cause there to suggest that Neeld is getting through to a critical mass of the players.

He's getting 'buy in'.

Get Clark and a Cloke type down there, add a sprinkling of class in the middle and some dog-hungry Moneyballers to the side ... and we will claim some real scalps next year.

Don't doubt it. This club will climb up off the canvas.

A new Melbourne is going to emerge that we can all be proud of.

I'm usually right with you RR, but our midfield requires a lot more than a sprinkling of class.

Jones, Gysberts (if we keep him), Blease (if we keep him) and Grimes are pretty much the only players I'd hope as best 22 in two years time.

Sylvia should be traded. Moloney, Magner and McKenzie are all one paced and very limited footballers.

We're gonna need Viney, another young gun (preferably with pace to burn) and one or two older guys (Sewell/Mitchell types).

I'm not sure how much we can actually put down to fighting spirit yesterday and what was St Kilda simply taking the foot off in the last stanza.

He doesn't have much to play with Neeld, but there's very little to take away from this season. We've started to get more goals from midfield in recent weeks, but our heads drop way too early and I've seen little resilience apart from a handful of players.

I'm usually right with you RR, but our midfield requires a lot more than a sprinkling of class.

Jones, Gysberts (if we keep him), Blease (if we keep him) and Grimes are pretty much the only players I'd hope as best 22 in two years time.

Sylvia should be traded. Moloney, Magner and McKenzie are all one paced and very limited footballers.

We're gonna need Viney, another young gun (preferably with pace to burn) and one or two older guys (Sewell/Mitchell types).

I'm not sure how much we can actually put down to fighting spirit yesterday and what was St Kilda simply taking the foot off in the last stanza.

He doesn't have much to play with Neeld, but there's very little to take away from this season. We've started to get more goals from midfield in recent weeks, but our heads drop way too early and I've seen little resilience apart from a handful of players.

Agree with a lot of your assessments AdamF. Sprinkling was probably not the right word to use. 'Heavy dose' would be more apt. Aren't we lucky we'll have the opportunity to do that in a couple of months time. Will be the biggest draft and trading period in the club's history.

If we can land a couple of quality 22 - 24yo midfielders and 2 bluechip young draftees to your midfield, we can go a long way to solving these issues.

Do disagree though that it was only St Kilda taking their foot off the pedal that allowed us that solid last quarter effort, though. We had a seriously B-grade team out there yesterday and they responded well when Neeld asked for more commitment. A really positive sign.

Forget Moneyball. I'd love our recruiters to just watch Collingwood v Sydney from last night over and over again before they draft players and think to themselves "could player A who we are looking to draft find himself a spot in one of those teams playing that type of footy". From there you have a start.

has it ever occurred to you that Sydney and Collingwood MADE their players like that? I mean seriously do you think their recruiters have some magic crystal ball that ours don't? What do they do take their draft profiles to a fortune teller?

has it ever occurred to you that Sydney and Collingwood MADE their players like that? I mean seriously do you think their recruiters have some magic crystal ball that ours don't? What do they do take their draft profiles to a fortune teller?

Didnt read it like that at all

Yes they did make them like that

tm was merely saying that is the type of skill style and attitude that the next generation of recruit needs as ingredients to be made into the package???

Its sure not a bad place to start

I Think???

has it ever occurred to you that Sydney and Collingwood MADE their players like that? I mean seriously do you think their recruiters have some magic crystal ball that ours don't? What do they do take their draft profiles to a fortune teller?

Well, you can't make yoghurt without the right culture, so why don't we take some of that culture, put it into our club and let it spread through the rest of the group... in other words, get Cloke and a couple of strong (and hopefully, pacey) etsablished midfielders.

They say behind every dark cloud is another tempest the likes of which will destroy the earth for good .

You learn that when you barrack for Melbourne .

The silver lining actually is lead from which you get poisoned

I haven't posted for a few weeks because Demonland has become so heavy, whingy and depressing but I had to add my 20c worth. For the first time in a long time I saw some signs of new life.

Endeavour and ticker were not an issue for most of the game

Nev Jetta was ferocious at times.

Blease played four quarters,

Grimes leadership - a really good leader emerging here..

Players actually the game on and spreading - yes, I actually saw both defensive andattacking spread!!!

Don't get me wrong, we are still horrible at times, but what I saw gave me the best hope I have had since the Bombers win. The forward line was non-existent for most of the game but we have some good players injured.

I saw potential there and so did Neeld. Neeld pointed out that the Saints have an average of 116 games per player whereas we had 50. Grimes has played his first season with the Dees in the midfield and is up to 50 games I think. Jetta showed courage. Tapscott, Blease and Strauss are good kicks. Spencer battled hard. TMac and Howe.

I also thought it wasn't a bad game from us. In the first we were up in contested possessions and inside 50's. Our lack of option in outr forward line was the killer - and so frustrating to watch.

Very difficult for a team that keeps throwing the ball into their forward half only to watch it rebound time and time again not to begin to struggle. The Saints third quarter was predictable in that sense. That's one of the biggest problems of having no forward line to speak off - the rebound so often becomes a scoring threat and puts huge pressure on the back line.

But our field kicking was ok and is getting better. A couple of howlers but less that earlier in the year. Jetta showed with that one act of bravery why Neeld rates him. I bet that vision will be on high rotation in the review. Our back half held up well until that third quarter. We showed terrific application not to get blown away.

The other thing i really liked was that through out the game, as some have noted, we were taking some risks with ball movement and doing quite a lot of switching. Quite aggressive really. To me this is a glimpse of what we can expect next year and shows that Neeld is slowly revealing his plan. He has been adamant all along that before adding flair the defensive aspect needs to become second nature. In his robbo interviews over last 5-6 weeks he has noted he has been pretty happy with our pressure and contested possession; so i think we are getting there.

Even if Saints dropped off in intensity we still managed to kick 8 goals in that last quarter, which by any measure is impressive - particularly with a forward line missing most of its key players. It shows that we are not simply developing a defensive mind set. This subltle change is something the Neeld knockers should take note of before they start banging on about no development and a boring limited game plan.

Edited August 13, 201213 yr by binman

I'm getting the feeling that Neeld is not going to chop anywhere near the number of players i though he would.

Given our list of injured or out of form players we appear alot closer to a team fighting to get into the eight than we may have thought previously.

Add these players back into our 22 and we'd give the Saints a run...

So perhaps the worst is over.

I reckon the Saints have yet to bottom out, as their talented older players retire.

has it ever occurred to you that Sydney and Collingwood MADE their players like that? I mean seriously do you think their recruiters have some magic crystal ball that ours don't? What do they do take their draft profiles to a fortune teller?

I think there's definitely something in that argument, especially in the case of Sydney, but I do think shrewd recuiting is just as important.

There's an article in the Herald Sun today about Dayne Beams. Although he was a Queenslander, playing in the 2nd division under-18 championship, Collingwood recuiters were so keen on him that they considered taking him with their pick 10 instead of Steele Sidebottom. As it happens, they got both.