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Defending Schwab seems about as popular as saying that you rate Terry Wallace's views on list management, but I reckon Schwab gets some pretty unfair treatment round here. There's little doubt that he meddled too much in footy department matters, but he's seemingly rectified that behavior; and when I look at some of his raw achievements one can't help but be impressed. Our sponsorship has been at record levels, our membership is at record levels and our financial position is supposedly at it's strongest since we broke with the MCC in 1981. And speaking of the MCC, Schwab has presided over an agreement that now makes us once again a section of the MCC and he's also orchestrated an agreement that ensures a better financial dividend from the MCC. Also, we now own the Bentleigh club, which places us in a stronger financial position with greater leverage. The first person I heard say that we "grew out of a ground and not a suburb" was Schwab. I've always felt that he gets the MFC and our difficulties. He understands our nuances and challenges better than most and he embraces our rich history, which says a lot considering he grew up a Richmond supporter. He's responsible for our re-branding with the emblem change. An emblem that reflects our legacy to those lost in wars, our history in writing the rules of the game and our longevity. Whether you like the blazers or not it's another sign that he wants us to embrace our heritage. Does anyone give a better speech when discussing our club and its place in history ? But those that seemingly don't like him want to put every poor playing performance, bad recruiting decision, or past coaching inadequacies at his feet. I'm not suggesting that he's above scrutiny, or that he hasn't made mistakes, but equally there's been much to like. Stynes virtually begged him to come back to the club such was our squalid state. Off the field things are now looking very sound and for that Schwab must take much of the credit and I'm glad that the Board has recognised his good work. Clearly we all want our on-field fortunes to change and it remains the club's greatest challenge, but off-field he's presided over a club that now has no excuses, or impediments to make this can happen. I have a feeling he'll leave a lasting positive legacy to the MFC.

Just thought its worth mentioning how wonderful it is to see Essendon on the cusp of missing the finals. A reminder: if Essendon fall out of the 8, our mid-round compo pick is effectively bumped forward a place (as they will select Daniher, whereas another team would select a player we'd probably have our eyes on).

Poise and maturity beyond his 19 years of age, at pick number 53- he has easily been the best value pick for the MFC over the last 10 years. I know it's only early days, but young McDonald is showing all the signs of a 200 gamer backman, and a future AA fullback. Only weighs in at 88Kg (apparently) and still has a lot of development game and body wise to come. A major shining light in the doomy Melbourne landscape. Hats off to the recruiting team for this coup! Wraped with this kid!

The probability that someone will be subject to a "let's get ..." statement can be explained by the following formula: P = (X/16 * D)/T where: P is the probability in per cent X is your club's position on the ladder D is a factor of 100 if the poster is on Demonland T is the time elapsed in days since the person was sacked

This is just about the only informed post on this discussion. What a lot of uninformed drivel. When Schwab went to Freo it was a financial basket case with massive debt, no membership base and no sponsors. When he left he fixed all of that. He set up a solid viable financial future for the Club. It's absolute crap to say he was a disaster for Freo. He came here with a Club in even worse shape. In his time the debt is fixed, the worst facilities in the competition have been fixed, the football dept has been addressed, the membership is building, he has put into place the beginnings of a financial base for the future of the Club through the MCC relationship, rumoured to be worth $1mill plus per year and the Bentleigh Club purchase. Sponsorships are building and a huge amount of work has been done to engage our supporter base in a way that hasn't been done before. Eg Foundation functions, Mates of Melbourne etc People are carrying on about him meddling in the football dept but what do you want the CEO to do when he can see it isn't functioning up to standard. We are only learning after Bailey has gone how bad his development of the list and the players was. Schwab obviously could see this and had to step on toes to get it fixed. Who isn't happy that he did that and we have moved on. There's a structure in place now that I am confident Bailey didn't have the experience to create. As far as I am concerned now that those things have been done the CEO's role going forward is to work out the long term strategy for developing a sustainable membership and revenue base for the future survival of the Club. Casey is supposed to be part of that but Connolly who is responsible for that told a function this year that the Club has spent $2.4mill in Casey and has 1500 new members since they moved there. Is that the solution to our future membership. Doesn't look like it at this stage but at least it's a start. Rather than bag him out of hand I'd like to know what the next strategies are that are being implemented before I make a judgement. Does anyone know? I haven't seen any evidence of it here and yet so many people want him flicked. We need a CEO who will grow long term membership and he has a track record of doing that at Freo and it has grown significantly since he has been at MFC. I would like to know his next steps before carrying on like so many uninformed people here. Hopefully he has presented that to the Board and they like it enough to renew.

Cannot believe some of the negativity here. Yes nasher, jnrmac, stranga, maybe olddee too, this means you. Half the side missing through injury and you've also forgotten Gold Coast's pretty good form line coming into this having been competitive against some tidy opposition. We saw Tappy play his best game yet, Spencer show some promise - we lost our drive out of the middle when Sellar went in to spell him - Green hint at the possibility he could be a useful senior player next year, Sylvia continue to show what he can do, Grimes continue his form, and some very positive ball movement in the first quarter and the latter part of the second. The alternate skipper gave us some strong contested marks and Dunn some mongrel. Sure they ran out of steam - Gysberts was up and down on the spot from midway through the last quarter - but it is an underdone side. The coach has been telling us Cook can't run out a game and now we see the effect of having to put too many not quite fit enough players into the side. Hey here's a thought, maybe the coach does know what he's talking about? Wouldn't that be amazing. Just enjoy the win you ingrates and take the positives out of it the way you've had to take the positives 15 other weeks when there was no song at the end.

Gys needs to stick a poster of Jobe Watson up on his bedroom wall. He was an unfit, lazy [censored] albeit smart footballer, with questionable disposal & was on the verge of being delisted. Hard work goes a long way.

I doubt it's your forelock you've been tugging.

Or, he was a bloke that started his career with a successful team only to spend 75% of it being thumped and constantly under criticism. I thought it was obvious Brad has been told his time is up this year and he was enjoying the last bag of goals he'll kick on the G in front of his family. I was glad he got to do that, and I think anyone that wants to take that away from a 250 game player is mean spirited.

Are you saying that if a coach has his side sitting in the lower echelons for a few years that he's going to come under pressure? What a ground-breakingly, staggeringly brilliant piece of insight. Cheers Bandicoot.

Geeez.....I came on DL today thinking that there might be a positive note....but alas....the same old depressing comments by the same old depressing posters...."We are no good...We are pathetic....ect....ect..." Take the win.... even enjoy it for a few moments....It beats the S&^%$ out of losing....

Its only rumours and speculation that lead me to have any negative feelings towards Cameron Schwab. On the flip side, he speaks well to the media, has obvious passion for the Melbourne football club and it's history. Whilst i'll admit the Blazers were a little cheesy, i generally like the way he romanticises our past. Also, getting too involved in Footy matters only shows to me that he is passionate about the club. He's stepped back now, and if things are running well i see no reason not to keep him on.

Pretty much what he has been accused of at Freo and at Melbourne is interfering in the football department. The Geelong saga last year got put down to the players giving up in a game as they were sick of the interference from Schwab and the position it put Bailey in. Really though you could easily put this down to a desperately Bailey who meant well but eventually needed a fall guy for his own shortcomings. However the Cameron Schwab when Bailey was coaching was very vocal and talked a lot of footy in his whiteboard wednesday segments amongst other things like his twitter and very football based blueprints. He has now stepped away from doing as much and let the football department represent itself, coming out only when necessary such as the Jurrah issue and Neeld racism issue. He's let McLardy be a spokesman for the administration and I agree McLardy has done a decent job in asserting himself at the right moments. Unless we have been duped the facts are that Schwab and his crew have done a decent job off the field with AAMI park, Casey and the bank balance. However, if there is suggestion of ongoing interference it is so disabling for the club that I'd change my opinion on him. I'm inclined to think Schwab has become wiser and learnt from his mistakes, be they real of perceived and that the likes of Todd Viney, Neil Craig, Healy and Mark Neeld will be strong characters who can enforce boundaries and keep strong relationships. All in all its much easier to commit to Schwab now with a steady (yet abysmal) on field and football department than it is when things are up in the air. But from the outside looking in I'd say he is the best candidate for CEO.

His disposal efficiency is 2.5% above the AFL average. It amazes me how so many of you can only see the negatives in everything and averyone involved with this club.

You only need to look at Neelds influence on Jones to realise he'll be a good coach. Everything takes time, and Neeld should have plenty of time to get us up.

I am only a 3rd year supporter of the Demons since moving to Melbourne from the ACT (yawn) and Jones was a huge influence on my decision of which team to adopt as my own. Tough. Hard working. No nonsense.

Can't believe the whinging.....In all honesty we are about the same as GC (given the injuries and the personal out)We win by 7 goals...... Our players get a bit of confidence We had a 72% in kicking effiency(best all year) Some of our players celebrated a bit to much???....So they should after the year we have had.... Yes we are not premership material yet....So what??? I saw a bit of improvement in the shepards....tackling....running to position.... God help you lot if we had lost You know we can enjoy a win....It may not go down as a great win.......but it was a win...

Posters suggesting the board go to market to see who's out there before CS is reappointed clearly have no idea. Doing that is essentially asking him to reapply for his job. Both humiliating and pointless. It's really quite simple, the board thinks he's earnt another contract or they don't. He's either performed well against his KPI's, or he hasn't. Personally I think Cameron has many admirable qualities, but a few flaws. Whilst I firmly believe he gets the narrative of our history better than anyone, I also think he spends too much time paying tribute to it. He's good at working a room when it suits him, and [censored] poor at other times. No point rehashing the footy department stuff, it's been done to death. If he hasn't learnt to stop meddling he'll make himself unemployable. He and Connolly turned Freo around, and for that he deserves a lot of credit, But anyone with footy and business acumen could have done that. There was a lot of heavy hitters wanting to get on board. I think he's a good (not great) CEO and we're probably lucky to have him.

Having walked down this road some time ago my advice is simple. Make it fun. Don't get angry and keep the treats coming. As binman said Hot jam donuts are the go. The lava hot jam will keep them occupied for hours. As soon as the kids see the match affecting you in a negative way they will want out. Celebrate the good things and laugh at at the rubbish. You'll end up laughing a lot.

Did you have your pants round your ankles at quarter time yesterday? Getting closer.

Gysberts and Blease have both got some good attributes and did some nice things yesterday, Gysberts inside and Blease outside but neither is fit enough for AFL football. Dunno if they can get there but Neeld, Misson and Craig will. If they can they'll be handy. The other 2 10-20 picks Tapscott and Strauss are safer bets to make it at MFC. I've had my doubts about Tapscott but he was good yesterday, Strauss needs to wind up to the confidence he established before his injury and he''l be a solid player.

I have trying to work out if your vendetta against Schwab was about something that I wasn't privvy to, or possibly something insightful and important. It is now obvious to me that it isn't. Your argument is that the players are playing badly, therefore it's the CEO. Not honouring Stynes, by playing poorly, was a rebellion by the playing group against Schwab?!?!? Wow.

I'd rather we actually focussed on getting the midfield. I am not sure the issue is the midfield coach.

I'm actually glad they are having a go at our playing list, they were talking us up when we started recruiting some high draft picks and I think we started to drink our own bathwater. All the talk was we had the best young playing list in the comp and it was just crap, we had a lot of high picks but that didn't equate to good footballers and it is sobering to see that we did poorly with our picks. Our list is behind GC and GWS they have recruited well and are going to have some exceptional talent come through; unfortunately for them unless they get some top quality senior players they'll go nowhere. They will have to start trading some of their first round picks soon to secure a couple of senior players and will have to fight to keep what they've got when they start to test the salary cap.

I've known someone closely most of my life who's often confided in me, is incredibly intelligent, reads people extraordinarily well, is extremely successful in business, loves footy & finances his local team. He often meets AFL people especially at Crown, but isn't in the footy industry. ...asked about the Melbourne problem recently he said, "You need a very bright CEO to run your day to day business. Melbourne has Cameron Schwab. He previously was at Richmond & Freo who both faired poorly when he was there & so is Melbourne now. That says something. I've met him a few times. He's a likeable, nice guy who says a lot of nice sounding things at the time, but he can't walk the walk. I wouldn't hire him, wouldn't let him work for me, he isn't smart enough." That's all he said. It's with trepidation that I post this at all, understanding its anonymity won't carry weight anyway & will possibly cause some posters to consider me an ass (but my friend would hate to be quoted & feel betrayed. He's not a Demon & his popularity helps his business.) Personally I'm clueless on this subject, I know nothing about the inner MFC folk, but just hope the good people that do can have the smartest, most astute football & footy business brains running the club.

I saw it differently. When Brad Green kicked his fifth, he was mobbed by delighted team-mates. He'd lifted everyone Wonna-style after his third. Greeny is providing leadership in the team-bonding that we need so badly. Right at the end, Green to Howe was wonderful - without hesitation, he was aware of where his team-mate was and he had faith in his team-mate to take the hanger. Team-lifting faith, I reckon. Should be more of it - and when Watts gets back, I want to see the team counting on his skills and decision-making to a greater extent than they did for two years. This is wonderful stuff from Greeny, mature and constructive, and team-focused. What's more, his marking today was as good as it ever was, with his kicking improving too. Definitely a keeper for mine. Huge contrast with Moloney, who seemed to me to be lost. No sense of the team, no awareness of where his team-mates are or what they are capable of doing, and with no expectation that they can be counted on, he fiddles around looking for something that he trusts... Moloney isn't contributing anything to the kids, as far as I can see, unlike Greeny, whose example is so right. And Trengove looked the real goods to me - contested, marked, knew when he had to go - looks a real captain in the making. I enjoyed the game. We were smashed in the midfield; which in a 25-goal game is a lot of head starts the Suns got; yet we held them in our backline, and scored nicely ourselves especially given that we really are badly undermanned. If you take out the absolutely dominant Ablett and Bennell, Gold Coast would barely have scored at all, so that you could say we basically beat our man and their team everywhere else on the ground. Nothing brilliant, but solid, with some good things continuing to emerge. Joel McDonald really does some good stuff. Jones is a gun - very sure and decisive. Blease is exciting, and will eventually get his act under control - reminds me of Yze's early games, or Farmer's, with the rush of blood dumb things - they'll go with experience, for sure.

Not only another very good game today but just want to send out a personal appreciation. Post siren when it came to giving out the footy's Jonesy spied my little boy with the number two on his back and made a beeline. Giving him the ball, a ruffle of the hair and some words of encouragement. A truly great moment in his short MFC life and the smile on his face was/is priceless. Thanks Jonesy. Ripping bloke and heart and soul player...

The persistance of some on this forum has changed my mind on Neeld. RR's poll nearly had me convinced I was right in supporting him but given we only won by 42 points yesterday, I think we should sack him and just let Bandicoot, Hardnut and Tonatopia, et al share the coaching job. We'll be better off then, won't we? Give me a break!

Schwab is grossly, unfairly underrated. He managed to get two new sponsors after the season had started and after a very negative media response as to the club's issues. He has done very well in arguably one of the club's worst years in its history. Also remember that when he came here Melbourne "had no brand". Crowds are up - 18,000 against the Suns isn't great but 2-3,000 up on what we would have gotten 2-3 years ago against a small-drawing team - and he has set Melbourne up to have a strong presence IF it gets up and running on the field. There have been some great fan initiatives since he arrived, and the creation of the Melbourne Business Community is going to help us snag some high profile free agents. He acknowledged the high income earning support base and took advantage, something the club should have done decades ago. It's not his fault entirely that the club sucks on field. He has a vision and for the most part it has worked: he was part of a group that saved this club from its off-field issues. More than deserving of a new contract.

Just another thing to add. I am sure that CS as CEO of the MFC has numerous benchmarks that the board would use to assess his suitability for the position. This assessment would determine his eligibility for bonuses. Almost every CEO of a sizeable company in the country would operate similarly. Don McLardy would have looked at these benchmarks, looked at the year and the board would have discussed whether or not to offer CS an extension or not. Just cos it happens behind the doors of a boardroom meeting doesn't mean that the club is being negligent in assessing options for a new CEO and more to the point just cos we hear that they want to extend his contract doesn't mean that it hasn't been discussed at length prior to now.

Agree, it seems to me from the outside that he was "meddling" in the football department because he didn't rate the direction that Bailey was taking us in but no-one was listening to him. I don't see that as a failing. Some don't like that and say he focuses too much on our past, but I see that he has a plan for differentiating us in a crowded market. Maybe he should have changed our name to iMelbourne and got us trending?

At the risk of upsetting the critics who post here, I suggest that injecting four class players into our side being Jamar, Jurrah, Watts and Clark would make a huge difference to our performance and our confidence. Removing a similar group from any side would make them struggle. We are not the basket case that many believe.

Great point. He was consistently bagged and i recall quite a few posters saying he is would never be much better than a b grade plodder. He's not A grade - yet. If he keeps improving he will be and must be an amazing role model for the younger guys. Our younger players all need a couple of years of hard training and development, after which we can better judge where they are at. Three good examples are Gysberts, Strauss and Blease. All have great potential but have suffered from bad injuries and are not yet fit enough. It will be a real test of Neelds development skills to see where they are at in 2 years time. The other one is Spencer. I was impressed with his efforts on the weekend. Big unit who is unlikely to reach his full potential for another 4-5 years as is the case for most ruckman (ie mid to late 20's). Three obvious examples being Jamar, Jolly and Maric. Spencer is a keeper.

If there was ever a player that needs a huge pre season over the coming summer..Gysberts is it.

Steve, you're such a defeatist and bitter little pill. Why do you even bother supporting the club, when this is the best you can offer? Taking delight in schadenfreude and self-flagellation is really quite sad.

But I was under the impression Freemantle fared quite well from an administrative point of view, during Schwab's tenure. As an aside, Rob Mac... in LA with a guitar... could your post be regarded as Mackenzie's theory? ;-)

I'm of the opinion that we should canvas options before considering reappointing Schwab. If there is a better person out there, particularly from a successful background at a strong club, then I would look very closely at them. I don't buy into ADC's argument that he is the reason blokes (in particular well paid senior players) have fallen short of providing what the club needs on field, but also I don't like the fact that his people skills are not as evidently strong as you'd want in a person in that position. He is a holdover from a troubled past and should ideally be replaced with a Neeld-type outsider who comes from a successful environment. I'm a big believer that this 'old boys' element within the club needs to be knocked on the head.

Rank post. How can you possibly justify the statement that the club didn't honour the passing of Stynes. What do you think would have been respectful to mark the passing of Jim? Winning every game? Winning the premiership? Grow up, stupid.

Get over it, support the club, and when the wheel turns, enjoy the success.

What do all these names have in common: Batram, Watts, Clark, Petterd, Jurrah, Bennell, Jamar, Gawn, Couch, Davey, Nicholson, McKenzie, Martin and Taggert???? We were always going to find it tough to run out the game with this many players from our list unavailable. And we lost Morton, and and players like Gysberts, Blease, Tapscott, Strauss have no fitness base to speak of. We will improve.

FWIW I thought given how few there were available to play today, it was an acceptable performance in an ordinary game. Jones continues to become to become elite (29 @ 97%) . Howe finally had a DE above 60%, as did Sylvia. Joel Mac's DE was 91%. Tommy Mc continues to improve. Gys was reminded about the pace and intensity of AFL. Green showed he hasn't lost it all. Dunn is continually improving under the new regime. The captains led well. Blease needs to see some vision of Davey's 2004. Tappy indicated how good he's going to be. Some of you will never be happy!

In a year such as this any win is a good win. Stats were interesting as they matched us in most of the key stats at half time (and at the end really) but we were up by 8 goals. For instance they had more inside 50's. I thought that in the first quarter and a half we moved the ball into our forward line the best we have for ages and our back-line worked really well together. There were some really well weighted kicks to position and only one on the full (a record for us this year) I liked the game of Spencer and thought Sellar was ok. Moloney was hopeless. I hardly ever bag players but couldn't help giving him a couple of (small) serves. A player can't really help being slow but jeez he's a plodder this year and a couple of his efforts were slow of thinking and half hearted. Blease was good in spurts and could be the small forward we need as he reads the ball well and has the pace. But defensively he still has alot of work to do. A couple of times he just jogged along as GC moved the ball when a full on chase was in order. Nice to see Green marking and kicking well. Howe was a highlight, he has such great hands. Jones keeps getting better in my book. His evasion skills have improved and as i have noted before his kicking has improved out of sight,. he nailed a couple of bullets today. Fantastic both have re-signed. All in all, whilst the last quarter and a bit was pretty poor i thought we played pretty well. I was reflecting that it was heaps better than the woeful game against them near the end of last year. The line was 25 points and we near doubled so well done dees.

Yep, was there with my little girl (4). It's become a regular ritual for us and good daddy daughter 'hang out' time. Gives mum time out too. She loves singing along to the song at the end of the game, and has been lucky enough to do it on 4 occassions in the last couple of years and now had 2 kicks on the G. Hopefully much more singing (post game) to come.

Aren't Demon supporters lovely people taking their young ones to the footy, congratulations to you all it makes me feel good (my kids are now in their early thirties). The club is in good hands from a supporter base when you read this topic.

Bennell is a fringe player . His fringe is probably his main priority .

Caddy can play. Don't worry about that. He is not the 30 plus possession accumulator that others are, but he is hard as nails and is a goalkicker. No selling of the soul for him but certainly worth a shot if we can get at him. For those interested, i can tell you that he is still unsure on what he wants to do with his future. For all the benefits of living on the gold coast, all his mates are here, he likes the idea of playing AFL back in Melbourne for a Melbourne team, close to family and friends and is leaning that way. The question is which team. I believe Essendon is still his preference however Melbourne are well and truly in the market. Source won't be revealed however this is the accurate position of where things are at with him.

I had a great day today...sat on level two,,right next to Robbie Flower and Todd Viney. Rod Grinter was directly behind me ,with Greg Healy next to him.. In the next bay was the melb current players ,Jurrah,,watts,Clark etc. Had a great win,then hada kick of the footy with my son on the g Got a terrific car spot too !

I'll listen to Terry Wallace's drafting tips right after I finish my book on Hitler's Advice for World Peace. Godwin's Law hread

I've followed the Demons for more than 20 years and Jones is the most improved player I've known in that time. Russell Robertson improved massively in the middle of his career, but Jones is in a different league. The best thing is he's improved in every area: his kicking; his decision-making, his speed and more importantly use of acceleration, etc, etc. It's probably unfair, but it's hard not to consider a player's value in reference to their draft pick.Jones was taken at 12; for a long time I thought he was more like a Pick 25 (and, for a short while, lower than that). Now I think 12 was an absolute bargain.

Apart from some good work from Nathan Jones, our highlights have been Clark providing a traget and Howe's 13-14 odd nominated MOTY marks. And the win over Essendon...