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He's been handed a poo sandwich. We may or may not ever recover from the post-Daniher/Bailey/Cameron/Prendergast armaggedon ... but it's not his fault. At least give him a couple of years to see if he can do something, ANYTHING, with this bunch of hacks.

Okay, let me qualify this. Our disposal, although at times having errors (including the handball into traffic problem, something we've done for a decade now) is not that bad. Our conversion - I50s to goals - is actually extremely good. The team, when they have the pill, is doing the right things. The problem is when we don't. Those that are willing to chase are too slow, and those that aren't are made to look useless. We fail to actually deliver a shepherd and thus protect a ball carrier. We cannot break down a spread-out run-and-carry - the same system that served us so well when we've demolished teams is now annihilating us. I genuinely can't look at today and say that any particular player was godawful. I can say a few were poor, some were quiet, but none had an absolute howler. Instead, it seems that the entire thing is based around our failure to operate once again without the footy in hand.

'Fix the problem and the blame will fix itself.' (That is, don't waste time blaming anyone.) First, look at the playing list and assess its strengths and weaknesses - IMO the list consists of predominantly attack oriented players (compare Geelong with Collingwood for example). Second, look at how to get the best out of the current playing list. Third, invent a game plan to suit the list at the moment and then evolve it over time - don't try to enforce preconceived ideas or copy others as there is never enough time to do this and MFC needs to be ahead of copying which never works anyway. In short, be flexible and make the most of what you have got - the great Norm Smith created the ruck-rover role to find a position for a member of his playing list who could play but didn't fit the conventional positions of the time, Ron Barassi!

our midfield is seriously puss! tigers and saints did the right thing by giving him the flick!

Good post. I have mentioned quite a few times in previous years he reminds me ALOT of Goddard, naturally as observers we compare players with past/current players they are appear most similar too. Goddard and watts have alot in common most notably there draft number and the huge amounts of critism both endured / are enduring early in their careers. Alot including myself thought Goddard was too soft and slow. I know the guy personally (know his sister/family really well) and followed his career as a junior he killed everyone he played on rediculously easy, was a great cricketer and basketballer could easily have played either at the top level also. Goddard is now one of the top level footballers going around with not many positions he can't play. I very much see watts the same type of player, I'm pretty sure he won't be the stay at home key forward more like half midfielder with a touch of half back and a pinch forward flank. He will be a very good player and if he were in a top 6 team now he would be talked about as the next great player.

I think you'll find every player hanballing to a man covered by a Richmond opponent Coz we don't run and spread. We have no interest in sheparding, bumping off the ball or creating options with any kind of movement. Morton at least tried and moved off the ball providing an opition. Can't blame the man who tried to be creative but sometimes ran into trouble and had nothing on offer to help him out Whipping boy syndrome this is. Lay blame on the easy target. He was not our worst and at least he tried something most others either didn't or couldn't.

Hey ... don't be prejudiced. People with no skill, ability or awareness have feelings, too.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Royal is coaching poison. Last year he crucified our defence after Wellman had built up a good defensive unit. This year he has turned his attention to our midfield. The results speak for themselves.

If I actually knew what his plan was I'd at least know what to look out for but at this stage I can't see any difference between the crap game plan bailey had and the crap way we are currently playing. Surely the plan can't be to play 2 to 3 metres behind your opponent, always pass the ball to your teammate but only if he's outnumbered at least 2 to 1, make sure that you only tackle with one hand, never use the centre corridor even if it's the best option, bomb the ball indiscriminately in to the forward line to ensure the opposition have every chance of clearing the ball, keep to the boundary and all on the one side so the opposition have the chance to spread across the ground and make a complete dick of you. Is that a good part of it? I have never been so close in my life to walking away from the club.

This is not a Neeld problem....This is what he has walked into. A club that does not know how to succeed....If Neeld spoke to Malthouse about how far back we are...i hope the entire club listens to every word. We have a bunch of AFL kids here who have almost killed their AFL careers....WHY? What is the MFC doing that is completely wrong?

Lets ensure we get the facts right people. Morton has put on 12 kilos since drafted. Morton served a strong apprenticeship of games in his first two years and then after strong pre-seasons in the last 2 got injured right at the commencement of preseason games ruining any momentum. Morton won the Larke medal at the under 18 championships playing off a half back flank yet this will be the first year he has trained to play in our defence. Morton does not need to become a dogged inside player but he does need to go when its his turn. I would not be surprised if he improves markedly under the new regime but will need time to find his feet. Best of luck today Cale and for the rest of the year I hope this season has you having alot of people eating humble pie.

well yeah that's what I said a week ago well if we were playing Carlton tomorrow I would be expecting an almighty flogging, put it that way. The mind boggles thinking how Judd and Murphy will destroy us, they are the champion midfielders you are supposed to draft and develop with picks in the top 3. They have a number of other stars all over the park as a result of their years in the doldrums, and are genuine flag contenders this year. Then there's us. With similar drafting gifts, albeit a couple of years behind, we have not been able to take advantage like they have. They got Kruezer in 2007 and we got Cale Morton who in his fifth year cannot even get a game in a truly ordinary side. There is no excuse for that, of course many simpletons here want to believe we picked the wrong bloke, even though it was widely recognised that he may have even been a no.1 pick that year as the top 5 was very strong - but Morton is at the wrong club, he would probably be running around dominating if the Blues had picked him instead of Kruezer. That is why we do not have one champion player on the list, it's because there is something wrong with our culture, our methods, our staff, I don't know what, it probably has a lot to do with money. The fact that Judd is their captain when he friggin barracked for us and could have gone anywhere is a fact that tells you everything you need to know about the big fish and little fish of modern footy. If anything exposes what a failure we are as a club it is the success of Carlton . and yes they started 2 years before us, but in 2009 they finished 7th and lost a final at the GABBA by 7 points. How far off that are we? Pretty blooody far

Carlton make me sick. Can't even talk about them. Hope they rot in hell.

I vowed that nothing less than a win today would provide me with any solace. However, I have managed to find a positive to get really excited about (outside of Howe's fantastic game). The progression of the unfairly, maligned, Jack Watts. Already this season he's shown definite development and maturity. Remembering that he's had very little leadership to look toward in the forwardline. Still, he is slowly, but surely improving every week (not something you could say for the majority of our promising players - whose development seems to have been stifled by poor coaching and management). It does help that he's bulked up over the pre-season (but still needs another 5kg) and increased his aerobic capacity. This has and will enable him to magnify his versatility. On that note, there's a lofty comparison I'd like to make. There's a bit of Goddard in the way I can see him developing. He is a beautiful kick of the football. He can play anywhere on the ground and usually makes really good decisions. I'm at the stage of wanting the ball to be in his hands at almost every opportunity. He rarely misses targets and is able to pin-point lace out passes, over fifty metres on the run. He also kicks goals. With added muscular power, Watts and Clark will be a formidable duo. Both tall, yet extremely agile. Get a Liam Jurrah next to them and another pacey small forward (the likes of Eddie Betts or Gartlett) at their feet, and all of a sudden you have an extremely dangerous forward combination. It's about the work rate down there though. If the likes of Petterd and Dunn are to get games, they must adhere to maintaining the all-important defensive mindset. Chasing, tackling and forcing the opposition to turn the ball over. Jack still has a few things to work on, but he's showing marked improvement. Once he gains more strength, we can expect him to lay strong, uncompromising tackles as he did on a couple of occasions today. Enlarging his aerobic capacity will allow him to chase opponents down all day as well. I thought Jack's progress was worth noting, particularly considering the way the media (and indeed our own supporters) have unjustly crucified him. We can expect nothing less than what he delivered today from now on. I for one believe we have someone special on our hands.

People focus on his weakess being contesting etc, but that is what the bigger bodies are in the team for. WE get smashed on luncontested footy atm, something that was his strong point. Shouldn't the club be pushing him to help balance the team in that respect. Was good to see him hit a lot more targets apart from one big gaff when he spotted up a tigers bloke on our forward 50. definately not in our bottom 4 from today though. Hopefully Neeld rebuilds him into a player who contributes positively to the team week in.

These types of comments give me the Sh1ts. Good players seize the moment when presented with it, Not play in fear of being dropped. Case in point the young blonde headed bloke today from Richmond(Morrison). This guy beat every opponent today, Can you say that about Morton? Welcoming mediocrity is worse than losing, Do you like losing?

A coach has to take some of the heat when 16 out of 22 players are all out of form and playing without confirence at the same time. This is not about talent. This is not abut endeavour. This is not about game-plan. This is not about size of bodies or experience. Blah blah blah... It's about coaching. Why? Because its is about confidence across the playering group. And this IS the coaches job - to lift them, inspire them, encourage them, teach them. I have said it before and I will say it again. I will not "buy in" to a new coach until 11 rounds are played. But Mark Neeld has to coach these players out of their slump. That is a major part of his job and I expect him to attend to it.

Do those who question Neeld at this early stage really think that anyone in football could have turned this rabble into a winning side over the pre-season? Would they rather have had Dean Bailey behind the wheel? It may be that we have gone backwards, but perhaps that is completely neccessary in order to move forward. We can't fix everything at once and we are a mere three rounds in. Behind the scenes they are working on a list of problems - and there are plenty of them. We have heard the new coach talking about trying to work on being more defensive for example - that doesn't happen overnight and no amount game day tweaking is going to instate this any quicker. I heard Leigh Brown on Grandstand before the game today. He was talking about our ball movement being the next focus and that they would working on some aspects of that today. Again, this will be no mean feat to implement and those of us able to look past the humiliation of today's defeat should have seen some beginnings of this change starting to happen. They over-corrected at times and overused of the ball but again this should be expected. In addition to the seemingly long list of on-field problems Neeld and his team have inherited, he has had the off field distractions and a major meltdown across the board from our senior players to contend with. Add to this some serious holes in our list and I think common sense should tell all of us what we are seeing is no surprise. We are long suffering but we should be rational given our current set of circumstances. These are not excuses and of course Neeld will ultimately be accountable, but lets pay some respect to the magnitude of the mess he has taken on.

We exempt Neeld from blame for the debacle but we bake Royal when he has absolute dross (excluding Jones) to work with. Demonland at its best.

Moloney and Sylvia will be 2 huge ins imo People had a crack at Moloney but i reckon he would have helped today, and Sylvia's worste is alot better than what a saw from a heap of blokes today

At least the Titanic sank in pursuit of greatness. We're sinking in pursuit of mediocrity.

Deck chairs on the Titanic but I cant think of a reason why Morton, Bate or Davey should be selected this week. I reckon Martin is gone too,

How the hell can the coach of the club take no blame? He makes zero game day changes, dropped Davey for one week, and then comes out after the game talking crap about how we won a quarter. He has plenty of blame to shoulder.

There are probably quite a few of us who still give just the smallest amount of crap...... Or at least there should be.

If MFC are in any way accountable then I cant see how Neeld can avoid the burners. The opposition was ordinary, we were soft and crud. The coach must wear. I feel for Neeld give the Mifsid incident and other off field issues but his honeymoon is well and truly over for the on field.

Disagree. I think some blame has to go to Neeld. We didn't get 12 goals worse in the space of one off season. We dominated this team, and the bombers... and now we look worse than a VFL team. SOME of the blame has to go to Neeld. His plan may work, but right now, I don't see how humiliation that hurts your club is actually HELPING.

Firstly, we have a crap midfield. Rarely get first hands to ball and when we do, often get tackled with the ball due to lack of quick hands, awarness, smarts, etc. Secondly, because we have a crap midfield, the ball gets pumed into our defensive 50 way too much, and not enough into ours. Thridly, we may have decent defenders, but we have no rebounding defenders with great speed or skill, which causes the ball to stay in our defensive area even more. That's it in a niutshell as far as I am concerned.

Correct, I left the game half way through the third quarter, I'm just sick to death of putting up with this crap. We are inept and our game plane sucks, it's outdated already and even if it wasn't it will not win us games and certainly not a flag. As an example we are obviously not allowed to use the centre of the ground, that's of course if by some miracle we actually find the ball in our players hands, and at one stage Tap[scott was by himself in the middle of the ground but the Melbourne player kicked it to Bate on the wing who was outnumbered 2 to 1, guess what happened. This is madness and as Matthews said on 3AW today, the style has changed and the press is disappearing for a more open style of play, what run and carry? I have never seen a worse team than Melbourne and I seriousy question Neeld's capacity to coach at this level. There is nothing there now and in every game I've seen this year we have been outplayed, out possessed, our run, out skilled, out thought, out tackled, and generally demoralised. We are rabble and we have managed to turn good players in to hacks and second tier players in to "delist at all costs". Our Captains are terrible, our senior players are demoralised, our new additions are bewildered and our team will disappear up its own ass if we don't do something soon. Mitch Clark must be wondering what the hell he's done and Moloney, Sylvia et al must be thinking who they should approach at the end of the year.

On the train back home, my thoughts: Too slow around the park, run and spread non-existent, hand passing woeful, where was the midfield (N. Jones excepted)? Positives: Watts was good again, some deft touches and grunt when required. Howe good playing back. Clark did okay given the service. Jones tried hard. It wasn't as if we were particularly insipid - we just aren't good enough. The return of Moloney, Sylvia and Jurrah may improve things, but interestingly they didn't miss Green, I felt. I'm not sure how you pick up a team that are so low on confidence. It's going to be a long, long road even after this year, but we'll get there.

On a positive note, most of the backline did a reasonable job given the disparity in inside 50's. Vickery hardly touched the ball, Riewoldt had next to no influence - if we'd been told that before the game we'd have been thinking it was our day for sure. Unfortunately our midfield is easily the worst in the league!!

I still do not see what Bate offers the side. Nor Morton. When we are getting flogged in the clearances do you think the rucks maybe could belt the ball away from those tigers players at their feet. What a [censored] side we have, I feel for Neeld, we looked stuffed 3/4 way through the 2nd quarter

Substitute Bailey with Neeld, and that is the same line I heard being trotted out 5 years ago. I am over it.

Time for the whole playing group to have a big heart to heart session, this list is not playing to any game plan and from what I have seen the first three weeks have not been lost by game plan. The game plan will work if players are willing to run, spread & chase. It is the lack of run from the players and the lack of willing yourself to the contest to back your mate. Confidence is way down but that doesn't stop you running.

Here is my post match summary: we are the worst team in the competition outside the two clubs who have been around for 2 years. Port Adelaide and Richmond have both passed us by.

The MFC does not know how to be ruthless. We had power when the VFL was an amateur comp.

The difference is Carlton is a ruthless club who will do anything to be successful, but we don't seem to take it as seriously.

Jaded and a couple others have intimate knowledge of this but we get them from China and while they work 30 hour shifts, I don't think we will get the webjet ones for a few weeks, longer if we get a second sponsor pretty quick.

Agree too. Shocking umpiring sapped our confidence, gave them 5 soft goals, robbed us of a couple and then in the second half they ran over us, Our players wilted in the heat against a better opponent in the second half and with all hope gone surrendered meekly. Had we had the breaks we may have lasted a bit longer and had a smaller defeat. Contested possession was our way in the first half. Interesting sidelight, Dermie on Fox league teams showed Hams in the Grimes/Waters incident take a large step lowering his body just before the tackle but then throw his head back as if hit in the jaw before the Melbourne player touched him. Other clubs are doing this and getting frees. Dermie called it cheating and that it should be stamped out by the umpires. I am sure the first time we try it we will see it outlawed.

I have said it before and will say it again It aint just the $$$ As a retired qualified Human Resources proffessional I can assure you that research at every organisational level and over any period of time show that $$ is not the greatest motivator or indicator of success. It is a significant factor if well targetted and provided it supports the employee (player ) needs. Interestingly autonomy is always well up in most reports (with Stability and Security). How this translates into a Footy coaches demand for structure and adherence to rules may explain some of the apparent performance variances at the moment. I see Neeld as an intelligent man surrounded by a group of similar intelligent people and I am sure Craig has a far deeper understanding of Footy club culture and individual performance factors than I do so I am waiting for the improvements. I only hope that the improvement does not require wholsale changes as history shows and the existing AFL oversight structures make this unlikely to happen. We do have plenty to look forward to as we have acheived some progress with our draft levels picks and I think reinforcing with Clarke etc has added to the mix that the coach/es are looking for. All teams in the AFL are in the same system and have to manage the system to achieve the results, Grand final success is obviously an intricate target or there would not be any variation in the winner. Dont get me started on the luck/ umpiring/ Chaos theories. Footy is fantastic. Melbourne provides fantastic stimulation, I am obsessively passionate and I hope for some success to top off my joy GO DEES

Typical doom & gloom and selective memory from Demonlanders, Carlton started their rebuild 2 years before us FFS, Carlton started their rebuild in 2002, we started ours in 2008. They were hampered for 2/3 years after salary cap breaches and draft restrictions. It took them 7 years to get back in the 8. One comment tonight was of particular interest for me not sure if it was Matthews or not but the comment was along the lines of " what your seeing is a group of players around the same age reaching their potential around the same time". Something we need to consider not saying we will be a Carlton because I don't see a Murphy on our list and we definatley don't have a Judd. What it shows is when are boys get the required games, experience and pre-seasons into them there will be marked improvement

I think their personalities are too big to not be involved. Hird I reckon will come good, very intelligent guy with a lot of empathy for those around him, but Buckley will probably go the way of Voss and be more frustrated with a lack of intensity than trying to mentor the young kids. They were at their best when being able to lead by example but when it comes to stepping back and leading a team from behind the glass, I don't think it's gonna work. You could see in the way Buckley was reacting to the game, he wasn't analysing it trying to to work out what needed to be changed, he was getting angry with small mistakes and in the end it all compounded. I reckon they'll have to put aside their own passion and their idea of how the game should be played if they want to become good coaches. The problem with those two is that they can see every player as a reflection of themselves and very few were as hard at it and putting in as much as those two so everyone on the ground is immediately not putting in as much as they should be. Getting angry about it is only going to hurt them in the end. All the same it doesn't heaps worry me if it gives us two teams we can eventually walk over.

Tanking plus development plus leadership = success. We are only two steps away from the solution.

What am I looking forward to? Spirit Heart Gritted teeth Gut busting efforts No side stepping No basket ball tap-ons Just a decent old muscle clenching deep digging never give in chasing down presure cooking turnover generating torso twisting heart pounding gut exploding chest engorging never stop till the whistleblows honest 120 minute effort by 22 proud and passionate players. Not much. Just that. That's all. And back it up again next week. And so (it should go) on....

Interesting. I recently watched the replay of last week and thought our generAl play in the first half was ok. We showed some confidence before the avalanche started. It provides some hope perhaps the season isn't a right off yet. I still think this seasons story is yet evolve. I still watch to see what his coaching grouP can do.

we beat them in the NAB cup and we are bloody awful if only that footy had sat up for milne late in that drawn grand final, their window would have opened and oh-so-sweetly shut, but they pinched one

Hold on, I watched that - and went back ten seconds later to see Mitch's virtuoso performance again and "Video has been removed by the user". Disappointing, it was the finest MFC performance since Watts/Grimes/Fitzpatrick's SEN ad for Outback Jack's steakhouse.

Carlton started their tanking run at least three years ahead of us. They have more top picks than us and they got special dispensation from the AFL to offer money outside the salary cap to lure top players to their club. There is no realistic comparison between us at this stage. Our team in 2015 should be getting close to what they are producing now. If we still can't compete at that point, start making these comparisons.

Any player with leadership is a must for our club even if they are old. Maybe offer simon black big money for 1 year if voss says time to hang the boots up. He would bring great leadership for treners and grimes thoughts?

We lack class where it counts and mature and developed talent at both ends of the ground. And we currently dont have a go to player or players when things get hard. Its that simple.