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I've read that thread and the one thing it doesn't address is just what a frigging cess pool would be left if we removed another coach and who his replacement would be, therefore to suggest Neeld be removed is a totally moronic suggestion. I despair for the capacity to think clearly of those who vote in favour of his removal.

I hope the AFL don't strip us of our recent success!

We should come right out and admit that we tanked, in our drafting, at every draft in the last five years. There, I have admitted it.

Stage 1: Denial = Friday Stage 2: Anger = Monday Stage 3: Bargaining = Tuesday Stage 4: Depression = Wednesday Stage 5: Acceptance = Thursday and Saturday and Sunday I'm with PaulRB

This is a time when we should be circling the wagons and throwing our support behind the club; God knows there are enough on the outside throwing rocks at us. As the saying goes, it is what it its, we are in a pickle and need to work hard to get out of it so all i can suggest is we back the club stop the hysteria and let Neeld and the other coaches do what needs to be done. We all knew, at least those that have half a brain did, that our list was pretty ordinary and it's proved to be so; not only that we have had a heap of injuries and played some of the dumbest football ever seen in any competition. The Coach has said he will cull the list at the end of the year and will be active in the trade circle so we don't know what next year will be like until the dust has settled and the pieces have fallen in place. Until then we will lose games and lose them by a fair bit; part of that is because of injuries and part is because our list is inadequate, but I have seen a quarter or two this year that has shown what we can do and if we do have a few additions and a few less injuries we may be ok. The constant call for the Coach's head and the call for a player to be included then dropped the following week if he's not BOG are getting to the ridiculous stage. It's very hard being a Melbourne supporter and I've been as despondent as anyone but we've come this far so don't drop off now.

Adrian Anderson "So Brock, did you hear directly from the CEO, President etc. mouth that Melbourne were deliberately losing games all season in a hope to gain high picks in the draft" Brock McLean "Ummmm, errrrrr....ya mum has AIDS"

I don't know why I'm bothering... As is evidenced now by Barry Prendergast trolling the club, the only way to rise up the ladder is access to the best young players in the land. When you don't have a quality senior group, which we didn't, when you don't have a single star, which we didn't, you need to rebuild through the draft. You may snag the odd good trade, but it's the draft table that is your remedy. I consider we "softly" tanked. Playing some young players, playing some in different positions, less rotations, etc. to hopefully engineer a result that can improve your opportunities on draft day. I would have demanded no less. The culture at our club is poor because for a long time we've had poor leaders. Even Brock McLean was in the leadership group FFS. One of his best mates was Nathan Carroll. Octoberfest in Germany ring a bell ? This club was never going to change its culture until it started getting some ripping young talent and culture changers, which is a major reason I want Jack Viney. Did you want to follow a club at the bottom forever ? I repeat, the culture of a club is determined by its senior players and until we develop a quality leadership group we'll struggle. It will suit some, like yourself, to blame our woes on tanking, but it was messing up in the draft that has caused our current plight. You'd be one of very few supporters that didn't want their club to maximise their prospects on draft day.

A team of 20 QCs could not prove that we threw games . "Tanking" is more of an issue in Sports betting. Picking a development side ahead of a best side available is entirely different to tanking . This is merely a Melbourne bashing exercise by the press .They cant get enough of it . Bring it on [censored].

I have no issue with the media giving us a whack - we deserve it. But I wouldn't watch On The Couch if you paid me - Iron Mike Sheahan just screams "punch me" from every orifice. "Tanking's bad mmmmmkay!". I can just see Gerard cruising around Manly in an open top convertible, white sweater casually tied around his neck as he winks and flashes his false choppers at every bit of hot totty he sees at each set of red lights. A vacuous ninny with a silver platter complex. Then there's Roosy who actually knows football but his blatant Swans bias makes him unlistenable. You know what Paul? Your bathwater may well be the nectar of the gods but just because every other club can't go out & get a "Hally" or a "Mummy" with an AFL sanctioned salary cap discount doesn't mean they all deserve to have a collective bucket of [censored] poured all over them. Three tossers of the highest order.

and surely Carlscum would be talking to Brock advising him to tone it down. Carlscum don't need any spotlight put on their tanking either

Brock went from the apprentices to the masters. He played in the 'Kreuzer Cup' match, Round 22, 2007 and would have seen the Blues' methods. If he's got a real concern about the ethics of tanking, he would have chosen not to go to Carlton.

Very good point. Hard to lump all of those clubs in the same category, because the circumstances surrounding their respective poor seasons all look a bit different when you line them up. What those clubs have that Melbourne don't at the moment are large supporter bases and commercial interests making them much stronger financially and bigger fish than Melbourne have been for a long time. We're doing better commercially these days, but each of those clubs have significant off field strengths that we haven't been able to compete against for a long time. When you compare Melbourne's rebuild with that of the 'rebuild' teams listed above with Melbourne's, and I say this without the raw data in front of me, we would be the ones that invested in youth most completely. If you go back and analyse when these teams started to perform poorly, they still retained seasoned players even when the young high draftees were being integrated. The change in list from 2006 to 2008 was not only dramatic but almost brutal at times. In hindsight perhaps too much so. I was comfortable with the improvements the team was making up until 2010, but in losing Junior and Bruce (after physically mature McLean had already left for Carlton the season before) the balance of youth and experience on the list shifted far too dramatically toward youth. Then factor in that the number of recently drafted players on the list who weren't as physically well developed as other players on offer (think Scully vs Martin), it stands to reason that there bodies were not (and still aren't) able to carry the load of AFL football. The game style also changed to a far more contested style of footy during the rebuilding period as well. Would we have rated young talent differently in 07-09 if we knew contested ball would be so important in 2011? Probably. The football department has recognised this, and has started to make recruiting adjustments. But readymade mature age recruits of the James McDonald kind aren't easy to find, so that leaves us as approximately the third youngest team in the competition. Ahead of the expansion teams. I cite these as the biggest fundamental reasons for Melbourne's failure to step up. However, I think the club is moving in the right direction off field. I highlight the successful pursuit of Mitch Clark and the financial ability to dramatically increase the size of the football department (including Misson and Craig, I'm very happy to have them on board). I think this upcoming trading and drafting period will be crucial. To the point where it will profoundly change the fortunes of the club. It excites me more than a little. As far as tanking's concerned, I just find it hard to believe that a culture of a club can be so adversely effected by tanking. There are too many examples of teams that perform poorly, bring in good talent accordingly, then improve exponentially for that to wash. As long as the equalisation method called the draft exists the tanking discussion will too. Be it AFL, NBA, MLB, whatever, but to blame tanking for Melbourne's culture, relevance or lack thereof is just too simplistic a reason.

Just on MFC twitter, 2 boys , 18 years from now.....

The time I bump into Mike Sheahan so I can express my displeasure in some extremely laymans terms.

When people don't feel sorry for me when I say I barrack for the Dees.

Just to add, right now I've got that Olympics "perspective" feeling that I get every 4 years. That feeling that I'm watching the best of the best on the world stage. These magnificent athletes who have worked their whole lives, often for little fiscal reward, for that moment where their performance will define them as people. Puts into perspective how unimportant the dickwads running around for the MFC really are. They can have their inflated salaries, German 4x4's and Chapel St slappers. Give me a kid like Seebohm who was genuinely heartbroken that second best in the world wasn't good enough for her. Thats real heart and pride in performance.

Hang on. A Carlton player makes unsubstantiated allegations about the Clubh that he cannot possibly prove. Its on an issue which Demoetriou is already satisfied about. How have we given him any ammo?? If anything the AFL are at risk here and they will hose it down. There is an old rule that you never set up an enquiry where you cannot control the outcomes and you could be mud splattered in the process. Your reaction to this Billy with the 'end of the universe" approach is melodramatic. Its not fact at all. Its allegations from an embittered ex player. And in his role how would he possibly know what is going on and how could he possible prove his statements. Billy, I see all sides of the argument and I am cutting through the oceans of chaff on this. And if the Club is rooted it will be for other reasons than some boofhead make accusations in public.

Its the AFL thats under the microscope because they said tanking was not happening in the competition. Demetriou has said so himself. If it could be proven, then the AFL could not possibly punish one or more Clubs without them looking inept and incompetent in the process McLean has made unproven allegations that a Club breached the rules. The AFL will interview McLean. I would think the AFL would be boiling Brock at this interview for making serious unsubstantiated claims. He would also be well advised to ensure he controls his public comments in future.

Nothing will happen. This 'interview' will just make it an 'official' nothing.

I'm worried this is going to destabilise the club so much that we'll finish last and we'll end up getting picks 1 & 2 in the national draft.

For someone who supposedly supports and loves the clubs, you sure do say a lot of [censored] things about us

The main issue for me isn't so much as is Neeld up to it. It's how far would it set us back if we were to get rid of him so soon? I am on the side that feels Neelds attitude is what is right for the club, perhaps there are mistakes that he's making perhaps trying to instill things that we aren't ready for but I can't see this year as a fair year to judge him. There have been a ridiculous amount of unforeseeable variables that make it impossible to say whether or not he is a good coach. He has inherited a list that was unfit and is underskilled. He brought in Mitch Clark and I reckon that if we had him for the second half of the year we would've got a couple more wins under our belt. He showed what he could do when we barely got it in the forward 50, now we are starting to stack up in that stat. It would be the dumbest thing for us to give him the flick before his second year and I reckon he'll run out his contract regardless of what happens next year. He needs at least one year after cleaning house, and it'd only be right to give him a chance to build his list.

Demetriou said tanking doesn't exist. I highly doubt the man with an ego the size of his pay packet is going to be forced in to doing any back flips any time soon. It's also going to be impossible to prove anything conclusively.

I am not in favour of banning people but there is a group of posters simply trying to bait people and it is ruining the discourse, the discourse I say! And Demonland isn't a democracy, it's a benevolent dictatorship and I don't think there is much patience left in our overlords for this nonsense (or at least I hope there isn't).

My post is about the insinuation that McLean left because we tanked. He bloody didn't, it was money and nothing else.

Where are you both? We need strong leadership. We need you to come out firing against these tanking allegations. Come on ... hit back and hit back hard. Now!

I like it that in 6 more games Jack Viney runs out. EDIT: for the dummies, yes I know it's not certain he'll be a Demon, although I'm certain he will and yes, I'm not saying he's the "messiah".

Interesting to look at the fortunes of 2 other clubs with new coaches this year - Adelaide and the Dogs. Both finished at the bottom of the ladder last year - now Adelaide is challenging for top 4 and the Dogs for bottom 4. Sanderson and McCartney both came from long-term stints at Geelong through their successful era under Bomber Thompson - it's reasonable to deduce from their tenure that both are very competent and took their learnings from that period to their new clubs. McCartney was so good Bomber got him over to Essendon to help him there too. Maybe Sanderson is a genius and McCartney is a chump? Or could it have something to do with state of the lists they moved to? Adelaide was coached by Neil Craig with a reputation for physical conditioning and defensive football, the Dogs were coached by Rodney Eade with a reputation for attacking football. Interesting to look at the fortunes of 3 further clubs with new coaches this year - Collingwood, St.Kilda and Melbourne. Buckley, Watters and Neeld all came from long stints through a successful period at Collingwood under Mick Malthouse - it's reasonable to deduce their competence and learnings. Collingwood and St.Kilda have maintained their solid performance from last year, while Melbourne is languishing at the bottom of the ladder. Maybe Buckley and Watters are geniuses and Neeld is a chump? Or could it have something to do with state of the lists they moved to? Collingwood and St.Kilda were coached by Mick Malthouse and Ross Lyon with a reputation for physical conditioning and defensive football, the Demons were coached by Dean Bailey with a reputation for attacking football.

You shouldn't have. From the same dolt on BigFooty: London to a brick they would be the first to cry about us being a soft club if we hadn't have tanked & were still [censored]. Haters gonna hate. Whingers gonna whinge.

No-one's laughing. Except Collingwood, Hawthorn, WCE, Carlton... 'But rpfc, I don't care what the other kids do, I care about what you do.' Where is the arrogance? Where is the indefatigable defiance that is present in the best clubs? What we did was perfectly legal and righteous and we nearly screwed it up and since then it has all blown up. Hopefully we will see a little defiance from McLardy and Co.

Moreover, the hiring of Barry Prendergast was the single greatest act of tanking in the history of the game!

Oh, quit the handwringing. We did what any other team would have done, we didn't do it as blatantly as Cartlton, as effectively as Hawthorn and Collingwood nor as yo-yoishly as West Coast. Nothing will happen.

Geez, I feel such a d1ckhead I always thought young Brocky left because Casey Fields was too far away from his favourite haunts

Schwab has been the man behind our draft strategy for the past five years ,along with CC . We have been actively attempting a rebuild based on youth and have made no secret of the fact .It is no surprise that some of the older players at the club have been disgruntled at this approach. The voice of some of these guys may have been a lot more relevant if they had shown more on field leadership and had attempted to protect the kids coming through the ranks .Instead they chose to speak out against the administration and divide the club whilst their own performances underwhelmed . What we have now is a team that is the third youngest in the competition ,with some more young talent coming through .We have a no nonsense coach and the last bite of the cherry in the draft before the rules change .I think Schwab has orchestrated our survival both on and off field whether we like it or not .I feel for the older supporters who may not be around in two or three years ,as I feel for the older players who have tried hard on the field of play . If I were CEO of Melbourne I would have followed the same path. The pain we all feel at watching our young guys make mistakes and our old guys not try will all dissipate when we have 22 talented ,well trained players at the age of 23-27 who are winning nearly every match.Mclean may be bitter that we could not afford his asking price at the time but I for one am glad there is a long term plan in place . Teams like the Saints ,the Bulldogs ,North and Freo and Geelong will slip down the ladder in the future as they need to introduce new blood.It may not look like it at the moment ,but we are closer to our next flag than these older teams . The future finals series will be made up of younger lists that will not suffer from retirements/delistings as we have in our re-build .I can see Essendon ,Richmond ,Meth Coast and even Gold Coast becoming stronger in the future as we will .Collingwood ,Carlton ,Hawks ,Swans , Crows and WCE have the window open as they have the right amount of games into their talent and their bodies are strong enough to cope. Next year will be brighter for us ,the year after even better . Those who cannot stay the journey and want to knock their own club should get off the reality bus now. Our recruitment policies are based on the realities that faced us after the Daniher years. I can cop the flak from tools like Brock McLean and I will laugh when we knock him out of future finals contests(if he is around). If your skin isn't thick enough to handle the abuse now then get tougher or get off the Reality Bus . Unfortunately ,being a Melbourne supporter is tough

Extraordinary really that Sheahan and Healy, with 60 years combined media experience, could not take that interview to its logical end, the Kreuzer Cup when their "whistleblower" was uniquely placed as a d Melbourne player to comment on Carlton's Round 22 effort against his old side. That suggests rank incompetence or a set up. None of this changes anything I said earlier on this thread except it does highlight Healy's long standing antipathy to us and Sheahan's laziness.

The whole thing was contrived and directed beautifully by those three floggers. I actually feel pity for Brock because he just took the bait so easily - the poor dumb cun*. Mike Sheahan has got one of the most punchable heads on tele.

Wow, what a brave and insightful interview from Mr McLean. It really takes courage to come out and pot your former club when its at its absolute weakest whilst at the same time attempting to justify your own pathetic performance with the "I was forced not to try" argument. If you want to be a whistleblower, do it when you have something to lose, it gives it credibility. Also its only tanking if you had any chance to win in the first place. Its amazing to me that anyone would have a problem with experimentation with our list the year after a pathetic 2008. For those of you who think this tanking argument is legitimate go back and tell me which games we should have won, I was at all of them and I saw nothing to indicate we were capable of winning any game we lost. Trying our absolute hardest against RIchmond earlier in the season we won by 8 points, a goal after the siren 2 goal turnaround is far from giving up, FFS if we were trying to lose we did a bloody bad job of it. Warnock at FF had worked until Jordie Mcmahon had the highlight of his career. What people here seem to forget is that Dean Bailey and Brock McLean have nothing to lose from coming out and claiming tanking. Bailey attempts to justify his pathetic coaching record, McLean attempts to justify his pathetic season and pathetic cash-grab turn-coat move. Go back and read the articles where he goes on about how he 'wanted to play because of his family connection'. What this whole saga should have proved once and for all is that there is no point in whinging about priority picks, as they are not guarenteed success. Cheating means getting an unfair advantage, throwing the members of a pathetic team to different positions because they have been losing all season is not cheating, or tanking, its desperate measures for desperate times. Yet again an over-bloated football media searches for a way to continue to have shocking stories.

But then ... why didn't tanking affect Carlton, West Coast, Collingwood or Hawthorn's culture in such a way. Unfortunately there are no simplistic conclusions in this matter.

Can we lay it to rest forever that Mike Sheahan 'supports' Melbourne? He can GAGF.

So you are appalled at the moral of it all, OD is appalled because we didn't do it well enough to be good three years later, and I am more than comfortable that we did what any professional organisation would do to maximise the benefits of being crap - within the rules of course (don't want to be seen as cheaters) - and we all move on. Only MFC supporters would still be uneasy about it. You may not care about what other clubs do, but we are competing with these other clubs and they did what we did without hesitation or equivocation and to great success. Fate has somewhat ruined our 'ill-gotten gains' but still we cringe. If you want punishment - we have had it. HWFUA decided to FUA and so karma has been served. And the cosmos is at peace.

One simple fact though. The fact that the club didn't re-sign Brock had nothing to do with tanking. They just didn't think Brock was as good as he thought he was. And virtually ALL MFC supporters were over the moon we managed to get pick 11 for him. Most Carltank supporters were not pleased with the deal. Says it all really. Love the histrorical revisionism that occurred last night though.

LOL Brock Mclean, you stink mate. Ive seen you at tramp and revolver. I reckon you were speaking more sense at 4am than in that interview!

Watched On The Couch last night. Roos labelled the MFC as irrelevant, and I immediately thought to myself 'who's the dude on Demonland who keeps saying rather mindlessly - "get Roos" - like we could even if we wanted to?' Well thanks for reminding me tonatopia. I have one simple question for you: Do you still believe in the tooth fairy? Some people in Kansas actually think the earth is 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs didn't exist because they weren't mentioned in the Bible. It's hard to convince them the earth is in fact about 4.54 billion years old and that the universe is now estimated to have been created about 13.7 billion years ago. Time for you to get real. Malthouse and Roos don't want to coach this club. They will effectively select the club they wish to coach if they want another senior gig - and, cop a tip, it's not ours. And it never has been.

Absolute storm in a teacup. We all know we tanked. And yes we all know it compromised the W/L record of Bailey but it would not have saved his skin LT. We werent the first and we wont be the last. And sorry all it isnt the root of all our evils. The AFL will not investigate it as its not in their interest and Demetiou has already made a statement about it. Nothing to be gained from that witch hunt. Its says something about the state of the club and supporters that we get all hot and bothered about a 2nd string molasses paced journeyman whose greatest achievements were wheelies in the Trinity Grammar car park. Redleg is right about the truth of McLean's departure. And I reckon he will be resigned at Carlton on possibly lower $$$. Dont want him at MFC. And for all the Riley conspirators, lets remember that Riley as caretaker coach was encouraged by the Club to "win" in 2007 as it would be taken into account for his application for the open top job. And I dont know why there is a fixation on R22 of 2007. After beating a lamentable Blues at the MCG in Round 14 of that year we were never going to lose to Carlton in R22. The biggest problem for us was winning R19 against the odds against WB. That put us on track for winning 5 games. Now back to the melodrama.....

Oh Burnouts McLean you cheeky devil, you don't quite grasp the irony...

Wow... Worst poll ever. If people are genuinely calling for the sack then we know who to ignore, but my impression is that most who are being labelled with that are either calling for more accountability of the coaching staff and/or questioning why the same posters saying "you don't know if he's bad or not, needs more time" are also saying "I have faith in Neeld". It's a circular argument, and pretty obviously this poll was started and worded in such a way as for point scoring by certain posters. Henceforth, I won't be voting in this thread, and I'm TOTALLY SICK of the same 4-5 posters over running every thread with their name calling and off topic posts. STOP RUINING DEMONLAND.

We tanked. We weren't the first, and we won't be the last. But right now, at this point in time, we are the last. And that's why this issue won't go away. Why journalists still paint us, and not Carlton or others, as tankers. There has been no benefit in tanking for the last few years. We can thank rule changes, and the AFL's franchise team love-in for that. If it wasn't for this someone else would have been in the gun, and we would have been forgotten about. The tanking chocolate wheel would have landed on someone else; the Lions, Tigers or Port, or someone. This will die down. The AFL will do nothing. We'll improve and someone else will tank. Just give it a year or two.

Carlton were still at it when they gave up pick 11 for him.

Top effort from Nicho to play on with a fractured jaw

Reality is, it's more complicated than any one thing, and my pet hate at the moment here is all the "it's the ...... stupid" threads that embody the stupidness they seek to expound. It's not JUST the coaches fault, it's not JUST the players fault, it's not JUST the recruiters and development staff's fault, it's not JUST Bailey's fault... It's a combination of all those things and more. I know we all hoped Neeld would come in and everything would click, but it hasn't, and he's learning and growing just like the team is. Might work, might not... I'm not gonna tell anyone to be patient etc because I'm struggling this year as much as the rest of you, all I know is it's too late to change teams now!