22 minutes ago, chook fowler said:

Most pointless thread ever

Do pre match speeches mean much anyway

I played for 30 yrs and remember only a few

As a coach I remember even less 

One  on one is more value

I always thought Neeld saw what the supporters saw, half assed efforts from the players and he thought a hard edge approach would teach them that if they don't take it seriously they were gone, 

he was in way over his head and i feel sorry for him, by all reports a great bloke.

 

3 hours ago, praha said:

Neeld's time at Melbourne was underrated.

He came in when Schwab and Connolly were still running rampant. 

He wanted to go the hardline and this was at odds with some players and management. He clearly didn't have support.

He made tough list decisions and brought in experience, albeit low-tier talent.

He landed us Hogan. 

His approach was no different to Roos': bring in experienced footballers, improve training standards, focus on defense and onfield accountability.

He may have been a tough game-day coach but dare I say he set the team and club up for Roos to come in. Not much, but a little. 

I do think that with today's squad he'd have done a lot better. He had a shocking list and did what he could. Tried a quick turnaround but obviously didn't have the support.

He also had the balls to hold guys like Moloney, Sylvia, Davey to their account for their lacking leadership and defensive accountability.

People say Bailey was a scapegoat. He got out before it really went to [censored]. Neeld was the ultimate scapegoat for what was at the time a shocking professional environment.

Might have landed us Hogan, but the same year we wasted another high pick in Jimmy Toumpas, gave away another first round pick for Dawes, and brought in the experienced David Rodan. Didn't old Todd have to come out and warn the club not to overlook his son too?

True though, we stuffed up big time with recruiting and developing our players.

Teams like Hawthorn and Geelong don't seem to have many high draft picks. We, on the other hand, seem to waste one high draft pick after another.

4 hours ago, praha said:

Neeld's time at Melbourne was underrated.

He came in when Schwab and Connolly were still running rampant. 

He wanted to go the hardline and this was at odds with some players and management. He clearly didn't have support.

He made tough list decisions and brought in experience, albeit low-tier talent.

He landed us Hogan. 

His approach was no different to Roos': bring in experienced footballers, improve training standards, focus on defense and onfield accountability.

He may have been a tough game-day coach but dare I say he set the team and club up for Roos to come in. Not much, but a little. 

I do think that with today's squad he'd have done a lot better. He had a shocking list and did what he could. Tried a quick turnaround but obviously didn't have the support.

He also had the balls to hold guys like Moloney, Sylvia, Davey to their account for their lacking leadership and defensive accountability.

People say Bailey was a scapegoat. He got out before it really went to [censored]. Neeld was the ultimate scapegoat for what was at the time a shocking professional environment.

I don't really want to go down the rabbit hole that is Mark Neeld, but, while you make some decent points, you're overlooking plenty.

In terms of man management, he was horrible.  He totally mis-read the list and totally mis-read the situation he was in.  It's true that our club as a whole was a mile behind, but instead of going slowly and trying to repair things in a calm and collected manner, he went in all guns blazing and put himself offside with many players.  Sure, they should have toughened up, but if he went in looking to build relationships and THEN turning the screws instead of being stubborn and sticking to his ways, then things might have been different.

You mention Hogan.  Yep, he did bring him.  Great move.  He was also the mastermind behind taking Jimmy Toumpas, bringing in players like Tom Gillies, Shannan Byrnes and David Rodan, who gave us very little in terms of on field ability or off field experience, and he handed over a rather large deal for Dawes.  He couldn't, or wouldn't, make the necessary changes to the development department and it meant that many players struggled at AFL level.  

He was also a terrible match day coach who was way, way, way out of his depth.  

I think it's easy to look back extremely harshly on Neeld, which I think is unfair, but let's not try and suggest anything other than the fact that his tenure was a large failure, and much of that lay at his feet.  

Oh, and I don't think he would have done much better at all with today's squad.  We need to remember that he was part of a side that won 2 games for an entire year.  He put us along way back (as did Schwab and CC off field as well).

It's just horrible watching that.

Truly cringe worthy stuff.

 

3 hours ago, worldwideweb_demon said:

Might have landed us Hogan, but the same year we wasted another high pick in Jimmy Toumpas, gave away another first round pick for Dawes, and brought in the experienced David Rodan. Didn't old Todd have to come out and warn the club not to overlook his son too?

True though, we stuffed up big time with recruiting and developing our players.

Teams like Hawthorn and Geelong don't seem to have many high draft picks. We, on the other hand, seem to waste one high draft pick after another.

Rodan was probably one of the better of his picks (I remember Viney speaking highly of his influence), Pederson has turned into a handy(ish) pick up, though why we gave him a 4 year deal I'll never know.

Praha has some points though, Neeld was the first to try to instil professional training standards and player self responsibility at Melbourne. No doubt the players had been coddled for a long time under previous coaches. That said, Roos's biggest point of difference that sets him aside from many many others is he understands you can't have the exact same styles for the individuals. Each person has their own personalities and idiosyncrasies, he has been able to use those to better the individual. 

From the sounds of it, Neeld was an attempt at being the classic coach of "I don't care if you hate me, but you will respect me" sort of stuff. I think Neeld came to the club at it's worst time and made things worse with misfired attempts to force-feed experience into young players and moneyballing tactics of with player who were well past it.

As for his speech, no doubt an attempt from the likes of Schwab to promote us, I don't think anyone could have predicted how badly it would turn out.