NEALE DANIHER - SEN INTERVIEW

Thanks to Alpha33 for providing this transcript of the Neale Daniher Interview on SEN as part of the Melbourne Football Club membership day on Friday 23 March 2007. Neale was interviewed by Liam Pickering and David Schwarz.

THE REVEREND AND THE OX GET ON BEAUTIFULLY

Liam Pickering: It's a good afternoon to the coach of the Melbourne Football Club, Neale Daniher. How are you Neale?

Neale Daniher: Pickers! It's good to be back in here mate. Ox, how are you?

David Schwarz: Hello Neale. How's things?

Liam Pickering: Now can we get straight into it. Do you two get along well, you and Ox, Neale?

Neale Daniher: We get on beautifully.

David Schwarz: We have no problems at all.

Neale Daniher: He's an old married man with two kids. He's really mellowed, he's matured.

THE PRE SEASON'S OVER

Liam Pickering: well, you've got about forty kids on your list that you're looking after. How are they all progressing the Demons? How have you found the pre season so far?

Neale Daniher: The pre season's come to an and. Bring on next Friday night against the Saints. It's a slog and the good thing out of it is that we're fit and we haven't got too many injury worries. That's the important thing and we look forward to bouncing out. It's great t to have the first game really, Friday night, Ox, Channel Seven.

David Schwarz: It'll be big, the first challenge for the team...

Neale Daniher: We look forward to starting off the season.

David Schwarz: I remember from when I was playing under you Neale that you loved the big occasion. You loved playing Friday night footy because it was a chance to put the side on show, being the first game of the year on the Friday night against St. Kilda who - it was their last game last year after you knocked them out when you ran over them in the last quarter and they'll be coming out breathing a bit of fire and I guess it's a chance for you guys to prove exactly where you're at.

Neale Daniher: Exactly, and having a Friday night game. It's time for a change. We've really built our club up to be competitive. We've played finals for the last three years and I think there have only been four clubs that have been able to do that and we've been one of them and we've got a Friday night game where probably two or three or four years ago we wouldn’t get Friday night games. We know that's a privilege. We've got a good draw, our first four games are at the G before we go off and play Sydney. We think our young players are going to be good, we need our 26 year olds like Travis Johnstone, Cam Bruce and Brad Green to take another big step and we've got some veterans who have still got some good footy in them with Neita and Whitey and a few of those boys. So we've got a good mix. It's never easy. The Saints for sure will want to atone for last year's finals loss and the game's set up for a ripper, I reckon.

David Schwarz: What about when you get through a pre season and you cop some nasty injuries towards the end. Lynden Dunn - there's some pretty big wraps on the young man who's pretty skilful and he had a good pre season. He's had a facial injury.

Neale Daniher: Yes, he had a facial injury. He was down at training today running laps. He had a depressed fracture but it wouldn't surprise me if he was back a bit earlier than we thought. The other real disappointment was James Frawley who has a stress fracture of his foot. He was looking really good so he might miss the first two or three or four games, but Col Sylvia plays his first game at the weekend and Clint Bartram plays his second so we're not in too bad a shape. You always have a couple at this time.

David Schwarz: Jared Rivers?

Neale Daniher: Jared's a little bit sore so we'll just see how he comes up next week. I reckon that right now he's about 60-40.

Liam Pickering: You've got to come up against the Saints next week. They've got a heap of players playing in the VFL tomorrow; will you have a look at that because some of their best players are having a run around?

Neale Daniher: We'll be out there having a look. They won't be able to keep us away, we're all out there having a look at the Sainters there. There's a few who need another game. We play on Sunday at Sandringham but we'll only have about three or four topping up.

MFC MEMBERSHIPS - WHY? [Join here]

David Schwarz: Neale. Memberships are always important at this time of the year. I guess every club is chasing every supporter to get on board. Why should Melbourne supporters that are looking to get onto the Melbourne membership base, why should they get on board this year?

Neale Daniher: because they understand that in order to be up in the top four, in the top two and to win it, that the teams that win premierships are the teams that have been the most financial in this competition. It's not just money, it's money plus smart decisions but we need to catch them. At the end of 2003 we were six million dollars in debt. We're hoping by the end of this year we'll be debt free. We've got a very stable board, we've got a very good CEO in Steve Harris. We look forward to have a new home and it's just a really good time to get on board because we've got some exciting young kids. We've been three years in the finals but we're not happy and I think the time's dawning for an exciting couple of years.

IMPROVEMENT - 2007

Liam Pickering: Whereabouts is the improvement going to come Neale to take it up to the very best sides. We know that West Coast have had their own issues but Sydney have been a great team over the last couple of years. How do the Demons catch up to those sides?

Neale Daniher: I think where the Demons will catch up is that firstly we're not probably expecting Neitz or White or the older players, even Byron to play better but where I see us improving is the example last year of James McDonald who was an All Australian as a mature age player. I see we'll have a lot of improvement from players like Travis who I think is a star player but he only came tenth in our best and fairest. I think Cameron Bruce can be an All Australian and Brad Green can be an All Australian and follow James McDonald - those blokes are around 26 and can go another step and then we’ve got the young players like Brock McLean who's only 21 and we know he's going to improve. We've got Col Sylvia. He hasn't played anywhere near his best yet. We've got Bate, we've got Jones, we've got Bartram, we've got Dunn and I think we've got Mark Jamar who can imporve as well. We've given him more and more game time. I think he'll improve. Even kids like Chris Johnson - he's had a tremendous pre-season and I think he's about to blossom. We've got a good mix and I think it'll be coming from our younger players and the three or four I mentioned around 25 or 26 who'll improve.

Liam Pickering: What about a couple of the older guys. Adem Yze had a disappointing years last year and I'd add Russell Robertson to that after winning the best and fairest the year before, Robbo struggled too.

Neale Daniher: Well, Robbo had a knee complaint.

Liam Pickering: yeah, I understand that but he'll need a bit of improvement.

Neale Daniher: Well, Russell will improve. I think in Russell's own estimation, he won the best and fairest the year before, but he carried a lot of shoulder and knee problems. Now he's fit and we know he play some real good footy. I think with Adem Yze, at thirty we ask him play solid footy. That's probably what we need from him. Who else is there. There's Byron who we spoke about. One bloke I haven't mentioned is Aaron Davey, well he's an excitement machine, he's starting to get some real stamina into his game. Brent Moloney we didn't have last year, Clint Bizzell didn't play a game and both of those boys will come in again this year and make a contribution.

David Schwarz: A question from Steve - what is being done to reverse the trend of recent years where we get off to a terrific start then stumble towards the end of the year, where is this improvement going to come from?

Neale Daniher: A good question but first of all we didn't get off to a flyer last year, we were nought and three. When we went up Sydney for the fourth game we just hung on so it wasn't that we had a flyer last year. The point is that we've had really good patches but we haven't finished the year off. There's no doubt about that. We haven't been at our best come finals time. We haven't been cherry ripe and we haven't had all our best players available and that's an area we're addressing in terms of we've got a new fitness man in Bohdan Babiczjuk.

David Schwarz: And the word is form all of the players couldn't be happier with him. Individually, he's really sharpened some of the players up.

Neale Daniher: And, still injuries have a big impact. Neitzy got up for the finals last year but the two years before that he was out of action, and you really need - and the Sydney Swans have shown it - to have your best players up and in good nick at the end of the year and we're no different. We can't have three or four or five going down and be right at our best and hopefully with a bit of good luck and good management we'll get there.

HOME AND AWAY

Liam Pickering: You talked about the MCG and the fact that you've got the first four at the G and I'm just having a look at the draw and you've got 9 of the first 12 at the G. You play the ground well.

Neale Daniher: We love playing at the MCG and we didn't lose too many there but it doesn't guarantee anything. We also need to address the fact that we haven't been able to win on the long grounds. Mind you West Coast and Adelaide are hard to beat over there but we're having a look at trying to improve our game and our personnel on the road. We love the G, our supporters love being there and we really need the membership. We've got a great opportunity to jump for 25-26 thousand with the offer to MCC members who aren't Melbourne members. It's a great offer. Forty Dollars to get on board and it really changes the whole dynamics of our club when you go form 25 or 26 thousand up to 40 and that that means for sponsorship. I know when they sign up for the MCC and they look for another 40 bucks, it's going to have a huge impact not just financially but how we're seen in the whole scheme of things within this town and how we pick up sponsors from that. There's a real flow on from these people getting on board.

Liam Pickering then invited callers to join the club and asked Neale to hang around for some listener questions.

[if you haven’t already done so, you can join here]

SOME QUESTIONS

A caller, Emmanuel asked whether Paul Johnson will be given a shot in 2007.

Neale Daniher: Paul Johnson had a shoulder injury that need a reconstruction last year. He's up and going, he's had a really good pre-season. He's probably at the moment our third ruckman, he's still learning the craft at the moment. We could use him as a key position but we need him as a ruckman just in case Mark or Whitey fall away. You recall in the final last year young Smith had to come in and ruck for us but we don't want to be in that position this year. He could play key position for us and in the future he might when Neita retires but right now we need him to ruck and you can't play three ruckmen but he's going to be important for us.

David Schwarz : Will Jeff White play more up forward this year?

Neale Daniher: He can and he did a bit in the pre season and he really looked good. We want to give Jamar Mark a bigger crack at it because he's a different sort of a ruckman, he's big and he's strong and he balances out Whitey and Whitey can go forward. Jeff probably won't have ground time as he has in the past and that'll be good for him because we'll be able to keep him going a little bit longer.

A young caller, James asked about Brad Miller - will he be good enough for his Dream Team this year?

Neale Daniher: I'm not really quite up with the Dream Team. Tell me what does he need to do to get into your Dream Team?

James: He needs to get a lot of possessions.

Neale Daniher: A lot of possessions eh? He can, he's very good at centre half forward but when we send him down back we actually don't want him running around getting possessions. We really want to play him forward; at CHF he does get to the ball and always presents really well, but he still needs to be able to play both ends but if he's in your Dream Team and he's getting plenty of possessions I'll be happy too, so you whack him in there.

A caller Steve, a real one-eyed Melbourne supporter (literally), asked if the club had someone to help people with disabilities.

Neale Daniher said he would take that on board (and suggesting that the Ox might want to take on the responsibility). He finished by saying he'll see everybody on Friday night and Go Demons.

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