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I'm not overly down because I'm getting what I expected. It's round 17 after-all, so I've had a fair test sample throughout the year. I've only tipped Melbourne twice inaccurately. I tipped them in round one to beat Brisbane and I tipped Essendon to beat them. Obviously I tipped Port last night. Last night we had 10 more inside 50's, far more tackles, and just about the same number of disposals, but our system and delivery into the forward-line was very poor. We constantly have the same issue - the midfield, although it was good to see Jones fight through a slow start and cope with a tight tag from Kane Cornes. That's a bit of a break-through for him. Moving forward I like the backs - Frawley, Tom McDonald, Watts, Grimes, Nicholson ...; the forwards with Clark, Jurrah, Howe, need support, but hopefully Garland is developed there, as his brain fades are less costly and we need a dangerous small; the rucks are solid if unspectacular. I wish Neeld played Trengove in the middle and not forward, as he did in the first quarter and I look forward to some midfield additions at year's end. Viney isn't a messiah, no player is, but with a quality inside mid, plus hopefully two other top 5 draft talents we'll start assembling some quality where we need it. It will still take a few years, but rather than seeing Couch and Magner run around I'll be seeing genuine talent that will evolve. The midfield is crucial, but arguably the easiest area to fix. Selwood, Bartel, Judd, Pendlebury, Hodge, Cotchin, Scotty Thompson, Lenny Hayes, Sidebottom, Thomas, Goddard, Wells, Deledio are all first round draft picks. If all goes to plan at year's end we get three first round draft picks plus Viney. Imagine 4 of the above walking through the door as 19 year olds. If we were under the old zoning system I'd be far more perturbed, but our destiny is in our own hands. Get these picks right and we'll assemble top shelf talent. And there will be top shelf talent in this draft. I know that plenty of you are sick of hearing about draft picks. If I felt the same I too would be in a state of despair. But I know that this year's draft opportunities are massive for the footy club. And I just thank God that Barry Prendergast won't be calling out the names.

I'm not a frequent poster by any means on the forum, but I do read it quite often, especially after matches. There's a common lament that's thrown around quite a bit each week; that we've lived through x years of rebuild, and we shouldn't be in this position now, but we should be playing (imagine!) finals footy. I don't disagree with the latter part of the statement, but I'm not sure I completely agree with the first part. I'm an unashamed supporter of Neeld (we'll get to that), and I'm generally optimistic about where we're heading, because I don't believe that this is a rebuilding period; instead, we're building. In other words, Neeld's (re)build is emphatically not a continuation of Bailey's, but is a completely different beast, and an ambitious one at that. Let me explain. The team under Bailey seemed to be constantly in a rebuild phase: it became almost an axiom of the team. I'm not sure whether Bailey was a bad coach, but he certainly wasn't an ambitious one. By that, I mean that he seemed to be rebuilding, while waiting (patiently!) for a finals opportunity to conveniently present itself. He had an aim, but no objective, the latter being a quantifiable outcome (like "improve kicking efficiency," "improve ratio of tackles to opposition possessions per game", etc.), and the former being the end-goal (which doesn't at all have to be realistic). The club under Bailey was reactionary, conservative; the only really great performances were when the game was on their terms, or when they were criticised of being mediocre (see for example the "bruise-free footy" win over Essendon). They never really attacked games, and I think this was the fault of the insidious "we'll get there one day (but we're not good enough today!)" mentality created by calling it a rebuild. We always had the talent, but never the desire. Neeld inherited a directionless team. A team that was waiting around to get into the finals, without fighting for it. A rebuild requires that there are some salvagable parts with which to work with. (Renevations à la Buckley's Collingwood are even easier! Just replace a coat of paint, and you're done! ). Neeld said pretty early on, and he has said at almost every opportunity since, that he is working towards something new. A new brand of football, a new intensity at the ball, all overseen by a new coaching staff. Neeld has an ambition, and he said it as soon as he was made coach: to make us the hardest team to play against in the league. I don't think I've heard him say anything about winning a flag, or playing in the finals (I could have missed something, of course). Every team wants to win the flag. Bailey wanted to win the flag. But you can't win the flag by simply saying that you're going to win the flag. Being a "good" team isn't particularly specific or helpful for any real course of action: many different teams are good at different things; even two "good" teams (e.g. Collingwood and Hawthorn) are "good" in different ways. Being a tough team to play against, on the other hand, has defined parameters, and a defined path to achieve it (improve contested possessions, restrict ball movement, etc.). Neeld is building from scratch, a new team with a new mentality. Neeld's Demons will be, in the future, a proactive team, have no doubt. We have had a shocking year. I'm not that naive. We've won less games than under Bailey. There's no denying that. But there have been few games where I've been disgusted by how the team looks like it didn't show up, whereas that was most of the time with Bailey. Three quarters of a season and a preseason can't erase completely that mentality of rebuilding. But it's going. It takes a hell of a lot longer to build a house from scratch than to rebuild one. Bailey's house was hideous sometimes, pretty others, but was always shaky, and there is no way it could have gone any higher, because the foundations (which I think are the ambition of the archetect) were always faulty. Neeld is laying new foundations. They don't look like much now, but the house built on them will be a hell of a lot prettier than Bailey's. Edit: spelling(s)!

This is my take on our position, we are not good enough in a number of areas, we know them and so do the Footy Department. The list is much poorer than many thought, we are not fit enough, we have a new batch of coaches with new ideas and plans that take time to adjust to, we have a weak midfield, no small forwards, lack of general pace other than a few like Nicho and Blease, poor disposal skill, weak culture and a lack of real hunger to succeed at all costs. Now what to do to fix that: first we must finish as low as possible to get the best picks and trading/drafting position, second, we must trade/deal and draft well with the minimum risk of failures, third, we delist those that are surplus and couldn't be traded, fourth, we get the players fit, fifth, we get the players absolutely familiar with the game plan, sixth, we empower our leadership group to change the culture with full support of the whole club, seventh, we get the players that are on the 2013 list to buy into the win at all costs culture, which simple means you do what you have to do to win. It all sounds pretty simple and of course it isn't, but surely that is the starting point. Last, if the FD agree with my positon on best draft picks being essential, then we needn't question team selection for the rest of the season. If the Dogs were to fall behind us on the ladder we would go back two picks, lose bargaining power to trade and deal with GWS for best Under 17's, probably lose or pay too much for Viney as Dogs would name him, whereas I believe GWS and GC won't, thereby lose another top player and maybe two top players with our later 2 picks than Dogs. In other words I see it as an absolute disaster to finish higher on the ladder. Maybe the FD agree. Things are working to that scenario with our heavy injury list so we don't need to ta-k. I can't even say the word. I believe with a good trade or two, a hard pre season, our best players being available, further development in several on our list and a a few good draft selections we can turn it around very quickly.

Depends on how you want to frame it. I still believe we're on the right track and this season is a necessary evil. Not pretty, but necessary for the long term prospects of this great club.

Lets put everything aside, history, recruiting, past coaching indiscretions, and concentrate on one very simple stat. In the first quarter tonight, we kicked a bigger score than we kicked for the remaining 3 quarters. Despite Port activating their sub in the first quarter, and having another very sick player on the ground. Last week we lost because we apparently ran out of legs. This week, we've been apparently preparing for this climate and had full use of our bench for the whole match, so what's this week's excuse? I fully understand that our list has some holes. Our midfield is horrible, yet players like Magner and Couch, who we all know will never been A graders, are getting a game ahead of Gysberts and Morton. If Neeld wants tough in and under players like Magner and Couch, he should understand that he also needs very good outside support because these guys are rubbish users of the ball. Yet both of these guys were used in attacking roles for the last few weeks. Why? Garland has had a good month up forward, and Rivers is an absolute leader of troops down back. Yet Garland was kept in the backline until the last 10 minutes of the match, despite having a dirty game defensively, and Rivers was never switched back to help. Why? Neeld persists with Dunn down back, who lacks strength and accountability, but who is a beautiful kick at goal, and yet we can't kick to save ourselves. Why? Nothing is ever so black and white that we can categorically say "problem X is the absolute core of our issues". But a senior coach who cannot react mid games, a senior coach who cannot motivate his players to push past their opponents even from very winnable positions, and a senior coach who seemingly won't budge on tactics, is a senior coach who deserves to be questioned. If you just blindly follow what is put in front of you, then you have nobody but yourself to blame for the disappointment that may come your way.

This is a thread to add some sense and sanity to Demonland following the spate of the knee-jerk "sack Neeld" threads that have popped up in the past 24 hours. Until we can get genuinely talented players in our midfield, we are going nowhere. Get it? N - O - W - H - E - R - E A Cotchin. A Deledio. And a Martin. That's what we need to find at this year's draft. Hawthorn also did it with Franlkin, Roughead and Rioli. Collingwood did it with Pendlebury and Thomas. Geelong did it in the early 2000's. Now it is our turn to hit the jackpot. It wouldn't matter if Norm Smith himself came back from the dead to coach us if we don't.

Some of you are deadset delirious.!I love the fact you guys keep going over us winning 8.5 games last year, big deal? As Cam Mooney said on SEN a few weeks back, if bailey stayed coach we would of kept winning 8 odd games every year for 10 years, where does that get you? You fans just have to cop the fact the Bailey era was a complete waste of time and season 2012 is a complete restart and the magic aint gonna happen overnight. Is Neeld the right man? Way too early to tell, but all I know is a lot of premiership coaches started their first coaching season in a similar matter and we just have to be patient.

IMO......... I think there is a lot of patience and a little bit of foxing going on here. Players are being asked to work on the aspects of their game that are lacking. Trengove, for one, has said that the coaches are wanting him to improve his uncontested possession numbers which would abviously reduce his inside work as he tries to play a role that allows him to achieve his goals. It would be somewhat naive to think he would be in the minority as far as this is concerned. Having players do this is essentially playing players not so much out of position, but moreso out of their comfort zone (so it's not tanking per se) until where/how they are playing starts to become more natural and productive. Now some of these players have had to show these improvements at Casey (Couch, Blease, Morton, Nicholson, Watts, maybe Gys, maybe Moloney) while others can possibly only do it in the ferocity of an AFL contest (Magner, Trengove, Howe, Rivers). Once the group have enough players showing the necessary improvements in their weaknesses, they become a better balanced and well rounded unit. This sort of stuff takes time and it can't be done in a pre-season because there isn't enough pressure to ingrain instinctive reactions. So, the coaches need to throw these players in the deep end and keep them from paddling to the shallow end as long as this season continues. Off season will be spent on skills and fitness only this year it will all be more relevant than it was last time. Once the fitness (cream) and the skills (candles) are in place it will be Happy Birthday MFC. The group will not have MASSIVE changes for 2 reasons. 1) You can't cull a third of a list unless you're trading them all for someone else or replacing them with new players. Where will the coaching group find 15 players? 2) A lot of them are not as bad as they seem atm and will be given the opportunities to keep improving on their weaknesses to earn a spot in the firsts.

I have to say, I am just surprised how surprised everyone is. That was the single worst side we have put out in the past 5 years. Yes, part of that is how horrible Morton and Moloney have been, and part of it is terrible injury. But we have a REALLY BAD LIST!

The weekly cycle of Demonland under Neeld: Game Time: Insipid performance by the team with no apparent purpose or modern game plan and no sign of hope. Post Match: Demonlanders who actually watch the game question how a team that won 8 games last year can become a 10 goal worse side so quickly after spending an inordinate amount of money on new coaches. Monday to Thursday: Neeld evangelists shoot down anyone who dares question the direction the club is taking, sprooking buzz words like ‘culture’, ‘186’ and ‘deadwood’ and expressing unwavering confidence in the coach. Thursday: Team selection and our team doesn’t look so bad on paper and we cling to a small chance of winning.

I don't think Bailey's game would have stood up in finals, no doubt, but to blame him for the ineptitude we are seeing now is just cowardly. Neeld makes the calls on who to play and where. He chose to play two rucks in this heat, to have a sub with zero fitness base, to play a tiny makeshift forward line. He tells our players to kick across the ground, even if they cannot actually kick. He is responsible for centre bounce set ups, where we are often hopeless out of position and chasing our opponent. He may not have inherited the fittest or best skilled list, but he inherited a list with lots of good young players who have now gone backwards. It's not all his fault, but when you are leading, you need to take accountability.

All I have to say is Neil Craig is there to over see the coaches including head coach & report to the board regularly, Im sure that he values his own job and would do it in all honesty. Have faith in the team we have in the FD which includes Rawlings, Craig & Misson. Neeld is there to stay and will see out his contract, meaning he will be there in 2014. They wont sack him. Im still unsure if he can coach but until we add talent & class he is p1ssing into the wind with what he's got. He's certainly getting the ball rolling into the right direction even though we arent seeing it onfield yet, but thats the players, not him. Things that I learnt from the coaches box last night were: Neil Craig sits in the corner quietly taking it all in, doesnt interfere or speak, has a joke around at the breaks - nice fella. Jade Rawlings was getting so frustrated at certain players, very involved. Leigh Brown is Neelds right hand man, very involved, always on the phone & in Neelds ear, was also extremely frustrated & angry. Neeld was very quiet, didnt say a hell of a lot really, was a strange experience, frustrated in the last quarter. Aaron Greaves is a bloody solid bloke! Dave Misson, Royal & Satterly were all on the bench working with players as they came off. Gysberts, Bate & Sellar were all very quiet also. Was really suprised at how quiet Neeldy was in the box, to me just looked cooked & obviously made up his mind on whos in & out with buying into the new regime, kinda get the feeling the axe will swing. I would love to see his updated whiteboard now with the holes in our team. Honestly one of the worst performances Ive personally seen live. Another strange thing was the constant miscommunication between everyone when two players would go to come off, get to the boundary only to be turned away so they'd have to run back. This would leave two Port players free & this happened multiple times. Im not sure where the mix up was coming from but it didnt help our cause much having 18 v 16 regularly!! Anyway hang in there Gremlins, Im very saddened & frustrated and all those words but it ain't going to happen overnight & I can understand the frustration after years of rot. We are on the right track with the FD, just wait to see some class players added & it could turnaround quickly. This years draft/trade/recruiting period is by far the most important ever. Neeld will be fine if we get this right.

Well this is it isn't it. Strikes at the heart of the Hardnuts, Tonatopias and other narrow-minded types who've been angling for a sacking from day dot. It takes a particular kind of hidden agenda to be so virulently against an incumbent like Neeld. These posters obviously won't state what this is, but I think it's quite reasonable to deduce that at least one of them (or someone close to them) has had their nose put out of joint by the sweeping new changes taking place at the club. Make no mistake about it - jobs and livelihoods are under threat at season's end. People - quite a number of them in fact - will be shown the door, marking the end of their ride on the AFL gravy train. The situation reminds me of that scene in the movie Moneyball where the character John Henry (owner of the Boston Red Sox) discusses the hard road taken by Oakland A's manager Bily Beane to achieve success. "I know you are taking it in the teeth Billy, but the first guy through the wall... he always gets bloody... always. This is threatening not just a way of doing business... but in their minds, it's threatening the game. Really what it's threatening is their livelihood, their jobs. It's threatening the way they do things... and every time that happens, whether it's the government, a way of doing business, whatever, the people who are holding the reins - they have their hands on the switch - they go batshit crazy." Mark Neeld is now inevitably experiencing a similar type of backlash as he tries to transform our basket case of a footy club. Credit to him for sticking to his guns. And look out all you underperformers in a few weeks time.

I get really frustrated by people looking for a quick fix. We have tried that many times before and it always ended up in tears. For those who think we did better under Bailey they are obviously easily satisfied. As one poster pointed out as Cam Mooney said, if we had kept with him we probably would have won another 8 games this year, next year and the one after...but by then the club would have sunk into oblivion and probably receivership which would have forced a merger or worse. This is a desperate time, in spite of our reasonable financial position right now. We don't have the cattle on the park to get us where we "need" to be - it has moved on from where we "want" to be. Our recruiting both at draft and "experienced" player levels at the end of this season is vital. Vital, not so we supporters can walk into the office on Monday morning next year and know that we are not having to fend off the "hopeless" mantle we have. But more so the club is set up to make a proper tilt not just at winning a few games each year (and being boys who tried - and failed), but also those flags we so desperately have been missing. When I started following Melbourne in the late 50s (in last century's, VFL comp), Hawthorn had still not won a flag. Nor, had North Melbourne or even St.Kilda. And back then, we were the only "serious" contenders to Collingwood, Carlton and Essendon as a competition powerhouse. It was more than hubris and the "curse of Norm Smith". We hung on to our glorious past (an sometimes players) and the ways of running a club, for too long. If winning a few games every year, is all you want, I can't wait for the day when you opt out and follow another club. Meanwhile, I figure I've waited nearly 50 years...I have enough faith in what is being done at this time, to hang on a bit longer.

He aint going anywhere! Will be a 10 year premiership coach.

absolutely baffles me that ppl are blaming neeld for our performances. he inherited a list of front runners, who would turn up 1 in 3 weeks at best, had no defensive side to their game, and were destined to win 6-10 games for the rest of their careers. how many of you were calling for an overhaul after last year? neeld is looking at players this year, and seeing for himself what they can do. there will be some major changes at the end of the year, but until then, we are going to experience a lot of pain. hopefully though, its not as much pain as the players go through over the off season. if they thought it was hard this year, i think they are in for a shock next preseason. they will be pushed and pushed so that they realise what it takes to get to afl fitness standard. be great if they spend a bit of time on skills too!!

Well as a Darwin resident I attended...but left before the siren as Im absolutely fed up with this crap. It bloody breaks ya heart. First quarter i thought here we go then when I left we had 2 goals in 3 quarters. I sat right next to the emergencies and coaches box, they were very quiet in there. Im not sure about the crowd but I wouldnt think it would be more than 7500-8000 and a very poor atmosphere. Jake Spencer - walk away from the game son. Jetta - take a bow. What he lacks for in pace he makes up for in footy smarts. Grimes - was good Sylvia - did try to lift us but to no avail. Trengove - first time I've seen him play this year live & I agree he looks awfully slow. Tom McDonald - may well be our best backman. Bail - tried hard to break the lines Petterd - hmmm, not the player he was. Green - great first quarter, did try his heart out. Couch - major thumbles. Magner - is a good VFL player. Disposal nowhere near AFL standard. Slow Nicholson - broke the lines but can get too excited and caught in trouble too often. Martin - slowed right up but offers so much more around the ground than Jamar, nice goal. The heat was not an issue as it was quite chilly after half time. We had been training for it for a month anyway. Im really disappointed with that performance, Im usually quite positive but I have seen enough this year to warrant disgust, when is this team going to improve, we have been rebuilding since 2007 and still we are no better on field, our skills are quite possibly the worst in the league and its not good enough. Mark Neeld has all the right people around him but as Ive said before hes done nothing yet to excite me, Im still sitting on the fence as to whether he can actually coach. We will know more next year with hopefully some better players & less injuries but he'd better improve. We were probably ahead in the free kick count but jee wizz the umpires stooged us with some stupid decisions. I did not enjoy myself at all tonight at TIO and walk away with only 3 things that impressed me. 1. Jeremy Howes mark 2. The speed at which Neil Craig chews chewing gum 3. How many snakes alive the emergencies and coaches go through. The rest of it can go to hell. Over it and not wasting my weekends anymore this year watching this shambles. Sorry to be negative guys but just sick of it and the crap we all cop being MFC supporters.

You can't rebuild the "devastating MFC of old", that's from another era when we had many more supporters and a great playing list; that's finished we are a minnow club now and will never strut the MCG as the sole occupier. We have to build a new MFC now, one that can stand on its own two feet and not be subservient to the MCC and to do that we have to cut out the rot and stop living in the past.

I really have a problem with this 'accepting mediocrity' nonsense simply because I don't want to remove a coach less than a year into his 3 year contract and when I can see what he is trying to implement with a team that simply isn't good enough. We are not a good team - I want to improve our team and our club but this isn't as easy as removing a head coach - it's deeper than that. It's about finally putting some money into the sports science side of footy that the best teams are way ahead of us in and that is where the game is won and lost in today. We need to get our blokes bigger through the hips and arse without losing their speed, and we need to let those talented youngsters we have get the most of themselves instead of letting talent go to waste.

Yeah Sanderson is riding high on the coat-tails of Craig's good work over many years.

One Home Renovator bought a house in Smith St, to Jazz up & sell for profit. One Home Buyer bought a house in Smith St, to renovate & move his family into. Both houses had turned out to be in poor condition, with weak foundations, & hidden faults. The Renovator got a Jack & hoisted the house up in parts & stacked bricks & wood under to level it. And put tape around electrical wires where they were worn & exposed. the plumbing was blocked & this was given a temp fix. The renovator quickly plastered over the cracks & painted, sold this house to a young couple & moved on. The Home Buyer took his time fixing things properly himself, one by one, methodically moving thru the issues in a logical order. The Home owner spent more time but used much more care. 50 Years later the Home Buyers house has been extended & a further renovation done to it. It stands Tall & Proudly, in Smith street. The other has been leveled, and is a retirement home these days.

I reckon 99% of the Bailey support was predicated on the idea that "games together" with "talented players" would be all that was required. That approach has since been shown to be fundamentally flawed. Just letting those players have fun together (no hard training) and play with flair (no matchday kpi's) was all that Bailey ever did. He was a terrible COACH, and faith in Neeld should not deemed misplaced simply because of the mistakes of his predecessor.

Much like how after round two, we were going to win zero games for the year, presumably. Then we rolled Essendon - whoops! Everything always looks so much worse after a loss. Forget about predicting what's going to happen early next season, there's a buttload of water to pass under the bridge before we get there.

May or may not be our worst year, but I've NEVER in my 30 years of being a Demon been as without hope as I am this year. It feels like I'm not even following footy this year, and like my team doesn't have a soul at all. I've never had a season before where my mood is so effected by it on non-game days.

I dont completely understand your agenda hardnut but whatever it is take it somewhere else. Our forwardline tonight on paper was the worst you could possibly see and it really was only second to our disposal forward of centre. . The list was rated highly based on where players were chosen in the draft not based on their output or the balance of the list. Our mids were rubbish last year and they're rubbish this year

1. Moloney - He's been worked out, and the game has passed him by. 2. Trengove - Played one of his best games of the year tonight. Slow, but from reports he's under the stress of a difficult training regime 3. Grimes - Played one of the better games of his career tonight. 4. Frawley - Definitely has gone backwards. I'm a little worried, but he's not where the problem lies. 5. Davey - His desire and speed are both gone. The game had already passed him by when Bailey was still in charge. 6. Bail - He was never that good. 7. Jamar - He's played one good year in his entire career. He has 1 strength; The ability to win taps. However, they don't go anywhere useful. They never have. 8. Magner - Definitely being played in the wrong position. This is on Neeld. 9. Petard - He's been shite since about halfway through 2010. Hardly any of your list is Neeld's fault, IMO.

Bailey may have won more games than Neeld will in his first season, but he did it by teaching a game-style that was not only never going to get us to the top, but that actively damaged the talent we picked up during his tenure. This strikes at the core of why we're so bad. I don't care how many games Bailey won us. His moronic (and, above all, damaging) "gameplan" must be totally cut out like a malignant tumour, and Neeld is the man to do it. I still believe that.

His predecessor won more games in his first season, with arguably a worse list, than I reckon Neeld will. His predecessor also got 8 wins out of the same list last year, including over Port in Darwin. We can keep blaming Bailey, and our recruiting til the cows come home, or the people in charge now can try to show us something positive to hold onto. Because right now we have done nothing but go backwards. We are no more defensive, but we certainly seem to have lost our ability to attack. We are back to ground zero. I'd like to see what Neeld's legacy will be. I desperately hope it's a good one, but my hope is not based on anything I've seen thus far. It is just a reason to keep holding on.

No accountability on or off the ground. Mark Neeld has a hell of a lot to answer for, and our list seems to be a lot worse than anyone could foresee after years of rebuilding.

I seriously question the intelligence of anyone who thinks that Neeld should have done better to date. Mind boggling to see some of the unrealistic expectations some have. Where on earth was this improvement supposed to come from? Why is pertinent evidence consistently ignored? For a supposedly higher class of supporter that MFC has, some certainly are absolute planks.

Mark Neeld is doing a fantastic job. Have a look at our list atm and tell me if any coach in the league would do better with it! When you got blokes like Clark, Jurrah, Watts out, Jamar becoming shot overnight, the loss of Scully, our lack of depth and Trengove turning into a spud, then its no surpise that we are struggling. We will be right next year and I think we'll be BIG improvers, Neeld has my support and I think he is doing a remarkable job for what we have out there.

I was at the game too, every time spencer went near the ball it was comedy hour! He has a crack but skills are no where near it.

I think the most natural understanding of "hardest team to play against" would be nobody playing against MFC would get a cheap kick. To that end, we'd be manning up, pressuring, shepherding and backing each other up - all the stuff that Bailey had not worried so much about. Good old-fashioned accountable footy, actually - exactly what we were looking for after Bailey. Therefore a logical comment for Neeld to make at the time, to the supporters and public. To coach the team to play this sort of tight and team-oriented football would be very doable - it does not depend particularly on skill. Given the low fitness base, which Neeld may not have fully realised at that time, you can understand him raising supporters' expectations with the statement, only to find in the event that it didn't play out. I'd accept it if we ran out of puff every week because we weren't fit enough to keep it up for four quarters. What is so disappointing is that our current style of play is not characterised by most obvious and basic structures and tactics that would make a team hard to play against. What can we see of Neeld's coaching since he made that initial statement? High levels of fitness training (fair enough I suppose - though there must be a point at which it becomes deadening rather than strengthening), and (especially in the beginning) public negative comment on his players, coupled with a clear distance between coach and players (remember "compliance"?). Also a focus on tactics (like playing the boundary, and the bloody useless zone) rather than taking the game on, a focus on "roles" and targets rather than flair or outcomes, plus dropping players whose reputations exceed their performance, making minimal moves during the game, and maybe now also, letting games go in the interests of his longterm experiments. Nothing there to inspire players' individual or collective confidence, which is clearly a huge problem, and almost certainly a major factor in the deterioration of skill and decision-making. I agree with the comments above that Neeld is not succeeding in having a positive effect on the players, and that he appears to be stubborn. While sticking to your guns is in general a good thing, and his ideas may well be excellent in general and excellent for MFC in particular, nevertheless success is pretty much a non-negotiable. If a percentage of the players became as disheartened as a big percentage of the supporters are, Neeld's inflexibility may be approaching the point of no return. Reconstructive surgery and physiotherapy are wonderful things - but when the patient starts to bleed badly, what you have got to go for urgently is First Aid. The patient here matters - the patient is the MFC, and it is more important than the coach no matter what his vision might be. I don't see the value in haggling over who to get rid of - clearly we need them both, and we need them working together. Adjustments to the list at the end of the year will not fix anything now, and what we need most now is a couple of wins to stem the bleeding. The most basic way to achieve that is players putting pressure on the opposition and supporting their team-mates - and a coach applauding those things. We need Neeld to see his immediate job as dealing with this corrosive sequence of defeats that is surely now undermining the club. His plans for the team can't be headed for success when they are being embedded ever more deeply in defeat.

Did you think "hardest to play against" meant straight away? If so, how did you think Neeld would achieve this given how bloody easy to play against we have been for the last 7 years? If you didn't think so, what's your drop-dead date for his delivery on that promise, since mine's too vague for you? And you've got a seriously funny view of "shouting down" people if you think that's what I did. Even stuie who is notorious for being a bit touchy, took my post on board and was able to respectfully put his point of view across without bursting in to tears the way you have.

I get where you're coming from Nash, and just to clarify, I didn't expect us to be the hardest team straight away, but I thought we'd be on the way by now, at least in competitiveness and effort, if not the scoreboard. Just feel like something isn't quite clicking between coach and players, he's seemingly saying and doing the right things, and the players are seemingly buying into it and wanting to do it, but it's not working.

I dont think its fair to accuse Stuie of not supporting the coach or club. FWIW i agree that Neeld and co need to be assessed just like all other parts of the club. The cold hard fact is that Neeld is not performing to the level i would expect. This does not mean i dont support the club or Neeld, but expect results and im not seeing them.

You're being disingenuous stu. He didn't specify a timeline, though I thought it would be fairly obvious that this was a long term goal and not an immediate one. But you're implying that not expecting us to be "hard to play against" immediately means that we're prepared to wait forever; that's not true. You'd hope that some time durng Neeld's tenure we'll be well on the way to achieving whatever he's been appointed to achieve, and if he doesn't achieve that he'll be shown the door. As always, the truth lies in between the extreme views. Your view that "hard to play against" should happen immediately is an extreme view, and you're assuming anyone who doesn't share your view holds the opposite extreme view (will wait forever for "hard to play against"). That logic doesn't really stick.

WAY to early to think about sacking him, but not too early to judge what he's done so far and if it's worked. Neeld needs to have just as much accountability as the players for where we're at, and I'm shocked by the posters here just going along with the "Neeld is awesome, players suck" theme and then having a go at me and suggesting it's too early to judge. If it's too early to judge, how do you know he's so good?

did you really expect that we would become the "hardest team to play against" in a year? yes, we've gone backwards, but we needed to because we have players that have been coached by coaches that didnt teach our players any of the basic defensive aspects of the game. we had some great wins last year, but the majority of them came after massive losses and our players being challenged. neeld needs 2-3 years, and to be able to make the changes he thinks appropriate at the end of the year before we judge him. personally, i think that we will surprise a few ppl next year. with another preseason we will get closer to afl standard fitness. clark has been a massive loss, as has jurrah. i have huge hopes for watts next year, and we will have a huge injection of talent with the upcoming draft. while i understand we've been rebuilding for a long time, and supporters have been waiting even longer, neeld is 10 months into his contract and needs to be given the opportunity to put his stamp on this list before he cops the blame.

I'm right behind what Neeld stands for too, but he's not delivering what he promises. ("Hardest team to play against") And I don't expect our problems to be fixed in 10 months, but I never imagined we'd go THIS FAR backwards and he needs to wear some of that.

Not at all. the players and coach need to be given time . its all about the development of the game plan. they had a dip tonight. it was a good honest loss.

I believe you've had one to many frothies mate!

I am not protecting anyone. I accept that the list is seriously low on midfield talent and our players do not have the stamina or the instinct to spread both ways. I am not sold on Neeld but I dont understand how I can possibly rate him until he has the time to rectify our midfield, general conditioning and culture. I would think based on your football knowledge you recognise that this cannot be achieved in one summer when youre coming from as far back as we are. And anyone that doesn't think we're coming from a long way back should just watch 186 again if they need to be reminded.

Amazing, isn't it? Wasn't a massive fan of Bailey, but boy, some of our young players produced some fine displays of brilliance under him, even in his first year. Neeld has turn promising stars and powerful leaders into..well...a whole bunch of Nothings.

Time for a supporter and member driven rebellion. The club is a laughing stock.

Boring game, predictable result. Not fussed by the result at all, it's the same crud we've served up all year so I'm pretty used to it now.

We are a club without a "team". Great facilities, 10+ coaches, no debt............but no team. We will struggle against GWS in Sydney & GC in Qld. Bottom is not beyond us.

This playing list was rated very highly (for a young list) before Neeld arrived - playing lists do NOT change dramatically in one year at any club. Neeld and co. out, and advertise and recruit replacements.

Exactly. Minus Clark. Now, I'm not saying Bailey was the right coach, I'm not saying we would have won a flag under him. In fact, it wasn't feasible to keep him after 186. But FFS, what is this rubbish? Worse lists than ours have achieved more this year. We have been utterly destroyed by teams who aren't and shouldn't be ahead of us. I simply refuse to believe that we could continue to go backwards with a list that is no different to last year's. Yes we've had injuries and yes we've had off field issues, but nothing excuses the complete incompetency we've witnessed again and again this year. At what point do we question what the hell this game plan is? Why players have gone backwards? When does Neeld take some sort of accountability? I'm tired of feeling so goddamn hopeless.

Every Melbourne game consists of a Howe screamer, a Blease goal on an acute angle, and a bunch of shite football in between.