As a regular training watcher I can assure the OP that we won't be going backwards.

Ben, I'd assess you as being in a position to judge. And thanks for the training reports.

This year we started with great expectations to find we were about as bad as we could be. Again I eagerly look forward to the 2013 season. But tonight I watched our win over Essendon this season and, noticing that Morton played reasonably well, I started wondering if without players like Green, Moloney, Morton & Rivers, could we actually go backwards? We've pinned a lot of hope on Viney, Toumpas, Dawes and others but is it reasonable to expect them to make a big difference?

Just what we need - another negative thread. Of course we could go backwards. Anything is possible after all, But really, what's the point of asking people to comment on this? Before you know it we'll have 70 or 80 pages of tripe from all the negative Nellies out there.

Did you really mean that without Cale Morton we might go backwards? Hard to replace this...

i dont think we could go backwards, but i definitely think that we could stay at the incredibly low level we are at now,.

in my opinion we only won one game for the year, as i find the games against the franchise teams insignificant.

Hopefully and i am very confident next year, it will be a completely new Melbourne

I'm finding elements to this thread to border on the hilarious. The negativity , the pessimism and the seemingly blind indifference to change.

it also reminds me of the old adage about a Broom.. Yeah, its still 'original" ...yeah the handle been replaced 5 times and the head 4 , but its still "original" !!!

Weve gone from a 1999 model base model clapped out one tonner to a recent model 3 tonner with more than a few handy options !!

What we would have struggled with last year we will make a decent fist of in 13. Yes other teams will have changed also but dont expect too much out of the giants as they are still predominantly a bunch of kids and we all know how well that goes. A lot of "potential " there for sure. A team of seasoned MEN will maul them !! simple as. Look for the Giants to trade out and up to more seasoned players over the next few years to address that very shortcoming. Have no doubt they are 'banking ' players to do just that. The Suns will light up the bottom of the ladder again, just watch.

For us to go backwards we would have had to remained the same whilst others improved their lists. That simply hasnt been the case.

To the nay-sayers show me 1...yep just ONE area we havent addressed and are worse in !! go on.. I'm waiting.

Dont give me that crap either about losing Green . Rivers Barty and Moroney ( intentional ). As WJ has already well addressed this in reality wasnt a huge loss and more than ably compensated ( x3 ) by recent additions

We wont be flying til about 14/15 but we will be dead set seriously competitive in 13. The list now comprises footy players ( and not namby pamby wannabes and look at me traffic cops ) who WANT to be there, WANT to play Neeldy's game and WANT to win.

Could we go backwards...... Only if Hell ices up !!

I agree BB59.

Some people use the rearview mirror to see where they are going, others decide where they want to end up an set off down that path.

With Neeld, Craig and co they have confirmed their destination as "the hardest team to play" and are moving aggressively to arrive there.

2013 should be fascinating and an improvement on the past five years.

Edited December 2, 201212 yr by PaulRB

More genuine targets, more ready made players, more competent kickers of the footy, a second pre-season to close the gap (as well as recruits coming from high fitness bases) and a playing group which has had time to acclimatise to the new coaching regime.

Can we go backwards? - it's possible.

Will we go backwards (by our standards)? - no.

Will we go backwards relative to the rest of the league (even if we improve our own standards/structure) - quite unlikely.

I really don't think we will or even can go backwards next year. I just don't see how this list has been anything but improved.

If we do end up managing to go backwards...I don't even want to begin to think about what this site is going to do.

I doubt it.

-> Neeld noted that in many midfield KPIs in the second half of the year we were on par or even better than our opposition. The problem here was a total lack of a forward line. Mitch went down, and we had noone behind him, hence Judy and Riv playing at CHF and FF - total joke. Assuming we keep pace with the KPIs, the return of Mitch as well as the addition of Dawes and Pederson will simply give the midfield a target.

-> In addition, you have to look at the reasons for departure. Dawes was forced into that 2nd ruck/forward role - a role which he himself said didn't suit him, and which Neeld has stated he will not use him in. Pederson was trying to break into a forward line which had Petrie as the lynchpin. Byrnes was shut out due to Scott going to a 'play-the-kids-where-possible' philosophy - and I don't necessarily think he just came in for onfield impact anyway. Same with Rodan.

-> If you straight-swap Viney for Moloney, Terlich for Rivers and Morton for Toumpas, are we REALLY any worse? Terlich probably, but he'll offer rebound off half-back that Rivers didn't. Furthermore, Sellar can slot into that stop-the-gorilla role that he did well at times this year.

The reality is, 2013 is Neeld's true *first* year. He took 2012 to evaluate where the list was at and was found wanting. So he culled heavily, brought in tools he could trust in and is seeking to push from there.

Could we go backwards? Absolutely not.

Last year the Club took a ruthless approach to changing the philosophy that had been in place for 4 or 5 years. The 100% youth policy has been replace by a desire to recruit mature players to support young bodies, players perceived to have poor attitudes and limited physical abilities have been replaced and we have recruited 2 top 5 players. IMO list management has been exceptional in terms of achieving the goals the FD desired.

Watts, Strauss, Blease, McKenzie, Trengove, Tapscott and Howe are all players who will start to mature significantly and become competitive AFL players.

We were taken back to ground zero last year, we couldn't perform worse. Nothing but significant improvement in 2013 would be acceptable.

I dont believe we will win many more games in the coming season.

While part of me is sick of false hope at this time of the year, another reason is disappointment we didnt land a rumoured Big Fish midfielder.

Im really happy for us in the coming years with Viney Toumpas and Hogan, but That is Then, This is Now.

I dont believe our own Mitch Clark will be 100% this year at all. At all.

We may very well win 8 games (I dont think we will) but if you look at our draw that may not mean we have improved much.

To show real improvment we would need to beat at least 3 Victorian sides.

he culled heavily, brought in tools he could trust

Agree with the analysis, Striker. Hopefully improvement will partly come from the net exit of "tools" from our playing group.

To show real improvment we would need to beat at least 3 Victorian sides.

What if we beat West Coast , Adelaide and Freo.

i'd count that as improvement.

Whilst it was still hard to watch, our second half of the season was significantly better than the first. Didn't show up in wins but we were far more competitive for longer periods of matches and controlled bigger slabs of quarters without having the firepower up forward to hurt the opposition on the scoreboard.

We will be significantly fitter than last season and be far more able to run and spread. The list has obviously been turned over with more ready to go players available straight away. A further 12 months getting used to the game plan.

Only downside is I don't think Mitch is going to show up for the best part of half a season and then will take a while to hit his straps.

I look forward to the improvement in all the above areas even if it doesn't mean 8 to 10 wins.

Could we go backwards? Absolutely not.

Last year the Club took a ruthless approach to changing the philosophy that had been in place for 4 or 5 years. The 100% youth policy has been replace by a desire to recruit mature players to support young bodies, players perceived to have poor attitudes and limited physical abilities have been replaced and we have recruited 2 top 5 players. IMO list management has been exceptional in terms of achieving the goals the FD desired.

Watts, Strauss, Blease, McKenzie, Trengove, Tapscott and Howe are all players who will start to mature significantly and become competitive AFL players.

We were taken back to ground zero last year, we couldn't perform worse. Nothing but significant improvement in 2013 would be acceptable.

Yep and even without the new inclusions this is where a lot of the improvement will come from, also add Silvia, Grimes, McDonald and Frawley to that list.

We can't get any worse than last year if we are I will struggle to be getting myself to games week in week out Neeld needed to make make changes and I'm glad we have a coach with the balls to. Weather he can coach or not like some suggest well u can't do much when u have guys running around that don't want to play for the jumper anymore ( beamer just coz u cracked the shits at not being in the leadership group) dissappointed about losing rivers but he wants to play finals and where 3-5 years off doing that.

Who knows how the 2013 will pan out.

We will only surely know after the first few rounds next year.

The only comparisons we have at this stage is on the training track.

The signs there are all good.

The skills being shown this early in the season are better than during the season last year.

The enthusiasm at training is far better, players are encouraging each other, even in the running drills.

When skills drills go wrong the drill is stopped & the players talked through what went wrong(no more waving arms, shouting & finger pointing).

If we can reproduce this same enthusiasm & improved skills in game time, I can see a much improved side in 2013..

I dont believe our own Mitch Clark will be 100% this year at all.

In round 4, 2000 Matthew Richardson suffered exactly the same injury. The following year (2001) he played every game and kicked 59 goals. Richmond finished 4th for one of their few finals appearances over the last 30 years.

You may well be right about Clark, but please expand upon your opinion.

Nothing is impossible

at the start of 2012 the majority though playing finals was not out of the question.

If we win more that eight games in 2013 I will be very pleasantly surprised.

I find it difficulty to believe we could win less than 4.

However stranger things have happened ( remember 186)

We are going to kill it in 2013, hard and tough football.

I reckon we will gain a lot of respect from opposition supporters

and become everyones second side as we shock the AFL and push to make the 8.

We need Davey to find his best, Sylvia to further up him game and break into the elite bracket.

Jones to have another solid year, Jamar to recapture his best form.

Tapscott and Blease to arrive as stars.

Trengove to prove that he isn't a spud.

And hopefully Jack Watts has an AA year.

If a few of those things come together, then we should go pretty well.

Hopefully Clark, Dawes, Brynes and Rodan can really add to the side, I think they will.

This whole tread started on the notion that we can go backwards, because morton played well in one game, so the troll is saying that we will win three games, because morton played well in the only one game he did, anyway, one of the biggest reasons we beat essdon,is because garland played a blinder at chf, and watts beat the brownlow winner, one on one in the last qtr, they both are still on the list.

Injuries = Down

List = Up

Fixture = Up

Gameplan = Up

Fitness = Up

Confidence = Up

Results = Up

Injuries, injuries, injuries, they have killed us since 2006. Surely we are due for a break from the footy Gods. This will make a huge difference even if nothing else does. Key players in each line were missing for most or all of the season. If any of the teams in the 8 had the injuries we had they also would have struggled. Eg Blues, Bombers.

When the 2012 fixture came out I thought Neeld was going to have a huge job on his hands holding the confidence of the group together. I thought we'd get one or two wins, we got one. That alone must have had a huge impact on confidence for the list under a new coach and regime. Lack of confidence has a huge impact on everything from skills to game plan execution.

Next year we have a much more rounded fixture throughout the season. It should result in a more even spread of wins which will maintain confidence and see an improvement dripping down to everything else.

Hopefully these two factors will have a strong impact without even going into all the others. Surely they are going to know the game plan and be able to execute it better than this year. Surely the structure is going to be much stronger with multiple forward targets, a better midfield and a settled backline. Don't forget Rivers didn't play down there for a lot of last season and he was not a great forward so we have already seen the team performing without him.

Rock on 2013!!

In round 4, 2000 Matthew Richardson suffered exactly the same injury. The following year (2001) he played every game and kicked 59 goals. Richmond finished 4th for one of their few finals appearances over the last 30 years.

You may well be right about Clark, but please expand upon your opinion.

When I read the title of this thread I thought it was a quote from a group of hopefuls trying to get selected in the 2012 NAB national umpires draft. ( and the answer is yes....yes you must)

Hard to go backwards from rock bottom

Hard to go backwards from rock bottom

There were two spots under us Weedster but I do agree it beggars belief we could win less than 4.