On 04/09/2012 at 06:30, DemonWA said:

I’m trying to come to terms with what the loss of Moloney & Jurrah and the retirement of Green means for our list and our chances of an improved season in 2013. Between these 3 players we have 2 B&F winners, and the majority of our goals from the 2010 - 2011.

Over the last handful of weeks, Neeld has spoken about a number of stats in various interviews and press conferences. The one spoken about more than all has been “average number of games per player in the selected team” or “total number of games per side”. Each time he points out that we are a young side - only in 3 games this season did we have more games of experience than our opposition on the park (against GWS and GCS). Often I’d ask myself, if experience is the answer then why is he refusing to play Bate, Morton or Moloney? - Obviously he isn’t sold on them, the effort they put in and the style of football they play, and rates getting games into other guys as more of a priority. Fair enough I guess.

We have also heard guys like Green, Howe and other players talk about the need for players to ‘buy in’ to Neelds game plan and style. We still haven’t really seen a game plan to date, but as a starting point I guess Neeld requires that his players push themselves to their limits on game day and at training in order to get the most out of themselves. This is fair enough, but is a terrible indictment on previous FD’s and coaching groups if this isn’t part and parcel of playing professional sport.

So what to make of all this? IMO we end up with only a few players who fit into Neeld’s ideal category – experience at AFL level, and being prepared to work hard and do ‘whatever it takes’ to get the best out of themselves. I guess this is why he is culling off some of the playing group!

I’ve never really heard Skill come into the discussion. I’m assuming Neeld is content enough with the general skill level of the playing list. It also seems to me that the most highly skilled players on our list are amongst those with the poorest attitudes - those that think that they can sit on their hands and become good afl players.

My worry is that Neeld is reluctant to ‘manage’ the players he has on the list to become the type that he wants. Either these guys are so set in their ways that they cant be managed or Neeld has no time for developing players. In my line of work I value being able to adjust my communication style in order to effectively communicate and foster relationships with people from a wide range of backgrounds and personality types. It staggers me that Neeld could not, or chose not to manage a guy like Moloney, who is approaching 150 games of AFL football and was our B&F in 2010 in a way that would help both the team, the club and through win loss record, Neeld himself. Neeld is burning the list to the ground and building from scratch as he has a 3 year contract -he has time. But is the culture of our list really so bad that there was no other way to approach this?

I hope that we won’t be discussing Green or Moloney leaving in the same way that we do Jnr.

I hope that we won’t be speaking about Neeld as a coach in the same way that we do Bailey.

But most of all I hope that we are able to replace the experienced players that we are losing in Green & Moloney with other seasoned players, because if we don’t, we really are back to square one - It may as well be Dean Bailey in 08 holding the press conferences in 2013, talking about being competitive and how our young players have what it takes to become AFL stars.

I dont know why u are worried, Moloney and Jurrah had no impact on this year and Green retired, cause he knew he couldnt be the player he was on a weekly basis.

I feel although we have a long way to go as a team, i liked seeing improvement from McDonald, Blease, Watts, Jones, Howe, Grimes and i felt that once Sylvia got consistent game time was playing great footy also. I also thought Trengrove worked hard.

I expect a good solid preseason all of these guys alone will continue to step up. Then if we get Jamar, Davey, Frawely to there best, Get Clark back in the side and hopefully recruit some more players, we can get the improvement we are craving.

I must admit that I will be increasingly frustrated if Neeld pulls out the amount of experience excuse.

I too am very apprehensive about Neeld. It is based on 'gut feel', and I have been wrong before, but these are my concerns.

• Neeld presents as a 'put down' artist. You can see this in his exchanges with Robbo in his interviews and in some of his pressers. He appears to be very egotistic but this may be masking a brittle ego. He may well be different when dealing with players behind the scenes but he is very quick to resort to one-upmanship.
  

• His 'my way or the highway' approach to team ethos and game plan my seem refreshing to all of us who are sick of seeing the softness and mental fragility of our club but it must be handled with great skill and intelligence. Neeld is not filling me with confidence. The players who have not performed this year, such as Petterd, Moloney and Davey (injury has played a big part), are too skilled to be written off as soft, slack or just plain disobedient. Good people management gets the best out the largest number of people. It appears that Neeld is antagonistic. From all reports, Malthouse is a very different person with players. Yes, football is a tough game and requires resilient characters but resilience can be built by careful management.
  

• I don't remember Neeld as a player but a good friend of mine who is a diehard Tiger supporter remembers him as a reasonably clever but not particularly hard at it player, who had a bad run with injuries. This seems at odds with what he is demanding from the players. The great hard-arsed coaches of the modern era - Sheedy, Matthews, Malthouse and more recently Williams, Worsfold, Clarkson, and the Scotts, were all hard-arsed players. In other words, they were not asking something of their players they they had not done time and time again themselves. If Voss and Hird become great coaches the same will be said of them.
  

• His game plan appears very much based on the successful Collingwood model of 2010. Conditions have changed. Hopefully he has the creativity and intelligence to be a innovator rather than a rigidly adhere to his own master plan. Admittedly he has not had the skill levels at his disposal to create anything yet.
  

I have other misgivings as well but have to go to work. I desperately hope that I am wrong about him and that this is the dawn of a new team.

I think that the 2013 wooden spoon is very much guaranteed. I am not saying that out of anger or frustration, I just think that 2012 is essentially 2007 all over again, and we need to crash further before we can rise. We are considerably further off than people think we are. I think people need to prepare themselves for another bad few seasons. We have some great young players, but absolutely no culture and poor development, and that doesn't change over night.

Just prepare yourselves. It's really only the beginning. The club is still trying to drain out Daniher duds, and the cancer that was Bailey's cultural issues.

  On 04/09/2012 at 22:28, btdemon said:

I too am very apprehensive about Neeld. It is based on 'gut feel', and I have been wrong before, but these are my concerns.

• Neeld presents as a 'put down' artist. You can see this in his exchanges with Robbo in his interviews and in some of his pressers. He appears to be very egotistic but this may be masking a brittle ego. He may well be different when dealing with players behind the scenes but he is very quick to resort to one-upmanship.
  

• His 'my way or the highway' approach to team ethos and game plan my seem refreshing to all of us who are sick of seeing the softness and mental fragility of our club but it must be handled with great skill and intelligence. Neeld is not filling me with confidence. The players who have not performed this year, such as Petterd, Moloney and Davey (injury has played a big part), are too skilled to be written off as soft, slack or just plain disobedient. Good people management gets the best out the largest number of people. It appears that Neeld is antagonistic. From all reports, Malthouse is a very different person with players. Yes, football is a tough game and requires resilient characters but resilience can be built by careful management.
  

• I don't remember Neeld as a player but a good friend of mine who is a diehard Tiger supporter remembers him as a reasonably clever but not particularly hard at it player, who had a bad run with injuries. This seems at odds with what he is demanding from the players. The great hard-arsed coaches of the modern era - Sheedy, Matthews, Malthouse and more recently Williams, Worsfold, Clarkson, and the Scotts, were all hard-arsed players. In other words, they were not asking something of their players they they had not done time and time again themselves. If Voss and Hird become great coaches the same will be said of them.
  

• His game plan appears very much based on the successful Collingwood model of 2010. Conditions have changed. Hopefully he has the creativity and intelligence to be a innovator rather than a rigidly adhere to his own master plan. Admittedly he has not had the skill levels at his disposal to create anything yet.
  

I have other misgivings as well but have to go to work. I desperately hope that I am wrong about him and that this is the dawn of a new team.

1. Yes, because a big ego and arrogance hasn't worked for Collingwood, Eagles, Geelong. This is the big league. Nice guys can be shown the door. See: Daniher, Bailey.

2. Michael Jordan once said that only one sort of player made him angry: it wasn't the crappy player that tried hard, but rather the skilled player that made too many mistakes. Players like Moloney, Davey, Petterd simply don't work hard enough. The club has kept players like those three on for too long over decades.

3. I don't disagree with this. Time will tell.

4. Gameplan? What gameplan?

I am willing to give him 2-3 years before judging him, and this year was essentially the culling opportunity. The club missed on Sheeds AND Malthouse, so now much make do with some who has a very clear agenda. Either you support that, or you end up in the same circle, time and time again.

  On 04/09/2012 at 11:35, Deano74 said:

I dont know why u are worried, Moloney and Jurrah had no impact on this year and Green retired, cause he knew he couldnt be the player he was on a weekly basis.

This is why I am worried! - Neeld didnt / couldntnt get anything out of 3 of our more credentialed and proven performers