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I would not let G Lyon have anything to do with the Melbourne Football Club.

Today, we did give a crack, we weren't devoid of effort, we ran, we chased, we pressured, and we even scored goals. In the first half. But before everyone jumps off the cliff, let's be clear about something. Today was a completely different performance to the last two weeks. West Coast is a very good side; they were off the boil in the first half, and we exposed them. When they stepped it up in the second half, when Cox, Kerr, Priddis, Shuey, Kennedy and Darling all lifted, no Melbourne player could go with them. The third quarter was terrible, but if you saw it, you'll see untalented players making crucial mistakes and causing goals from direct turnovers. Dean Terlich himself led to about four. It wasn't a situation like last week or Round 1 where the players stopped trying, it wasn't a situation where we just gave up. And take a look at West Coast in the third. Their forwards couldn't miss when they kicked for goal, and their mids gave them unbelievable use of the ball with unbelievably good disposal. Comments like 'Neeld can't get them up for even a half' are ridiculous, misplaced, and unfair. What happened today was that a very good side played one outstanding quarter, far too good for us, and we are a very poor side who can't compete with that kind of football.

Can somebody please tell me why Toumpas is playing? The kid is not ready and needs to develop his game at Casey. Neeld is going to [censored] his career if they don't drop him!!

We just didn't have enough Beards. Dropping Watts and Gillies meant we were two beards short. They had Josh Kennedy whose beard helped him to a masterful display, and a few other blokes who I cant name, because i couldn't recognise them with all that facial hair.

Ok so we lost ...........again (no surprise) I though the first half of the game was great - we played like a different team. Once everyone calms down we can begin panning for the positives. Our only problem is when things go against us (frees and a small margin) the team drop their heads. Clark: is a god (wish I did not remove from dream team) Sylvia: has potential to be a god N Jones: A true fighter M Jones: Looked like a 100 gamer Terlich: I will admit I thought he would never fit in to the team (again played like a 100 gamer) Tappscot: thought he showed a bit early (like a chappy role - wish they put him in the mid) Davey: thought he was dead - showed a lot early (just feel we have lost those exciting/motivating players - Jurrah and Wonna) Trengove - moved freely for the first time in ages (he just has to build fitness and then can help Grimes and Jones) Spread (first half) What else?

People are saying that 'we shouldn't be known for sacking coaches' - but average losing margins of 100pts are completely unacceptable to me as a football supporter. Yet others maintain 'give it time'. Surely not.

What annoys me most is that the main areas where Melbourne are rubbish (effort, running, spreading, tackling and teamwork) have nothing to do with talent.

Miracles? How about not losing by 104 points in half a game? How about a game plan that allows players to play to their instincts and best assets? How about showing any sort of competitiveness for longer than 60 minutes? Nobody is asking for miracles. We are asking for the bare minimums.

Everyone needs to lay off Toumpas. He clearly isn't ready for AFL and needs more time in the VFL. There is not a single point in labeling him as a spud. I've had it! Just bide your time and quit being so pessimistic. Its not like he's the very first person ever to play his first year of footy and look a overwhelmed by the big league. Take a chill pill.

Casey dominate the second quarter - 10.11.71 to 4.7.31 Jesse Hogan has three goals to half time. Stats: Strauss 16, Nicholson 13, Magner 13, Hogan 11 Goals: Hogan 3, Smith 2

That is THE dumbest post I've read here. [censored] off troll.

I mentioned elsewhere that WC received at least 6 free kicks inside 50. Kennedy 4 Frees For and 5 goals Darling 3 FF and 5 goals Clark 0 FF and 3 goals Davey 0 FF and 1 goal I think a couple of the WC inside 50 FF were questionable and I know for a fact that a couple of the marks inside 50 were questionable. However, the thing that gets up my nose is the blatant holding the ball / incorrect disposals by WC players inside our 50 that the umpires ignored completely

'Melbourne fans again booed their team at three-quarter time.' http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/eagles-inflict-more-misery-on-lowly-demons-20130413-2hs7l.html No we didn't. I didn't hear much, but I suspect it was directed at the umpiring, which for the third quarter was heavily in West Coast's favour (the holding the ball against Clark was awful, the holding the man against Garland was worse). Whoever wrote this garbage can GAGF.

I actually saw a future out there today.

Get bent, Stuie. Our first half was great. For a team coming off a performance like last week's, it was inspiring and good to watch. Our midfielders were having a go (we were leading clearances at half time), Clark was leading from the front, and we had a few links from full back to full forward which were perfect. We played as a team, and we looked so much better than the last two weeks. Yes, our second half was awful, but from watching the game you'll see that our problems this week weren't effort, they were mainly talent. Our bottom 6 is so, so bad (and, in fact, is more of a bottom 12). If you didn't see any positives today, then get out of this thread, because many of us did.

Mitch was our only reliable big man out there today. Jamar and Sellars for that matter are not worthy of an AFL game right now. Let us hope that Dawes will add something to that glaring inadequacy.

Does anyone else get confused by this Best character playing for Casey. I read that as Taggert as our best on the first take. Gawn has to be a certainty to play next week.

Ok let's calm down with the big calls regarding a player 3 games in playing for the worst team on earth. Very harsh and stupid. However I agree that he should not be playing. I feel sorry for him actually. He is not ready and he needs to get a feel for AFL footy at Casey (it's the same level of talent when it comes to Melbourne anyway). We are destroying his confidence. He looks really shattered. It's not fair to him.

Did he say who he would then choose the next time around to coach?

We NEED MAGNER - just put anyone on the LTI list. I know he is not the classiest player but he will put in 100% no matter what the score. Right through the Nab cup and Casey games he has been a standout. He knows how to find the footy (shown by his 30+ touches in the last 2 casey games) and he will put his body on the line. It all starts with the center bounce!

Very worrying second half. The bottom line is that we have at least 5 (probably more) players running around that are just not up to AFL-standard. Mark Jamar should have his contract torn up and be shown the door. Fed up with him. Cox is a superstar but the amount of times he was in a paddock forward of the centre was ludicrous. Players today who earnt their stripes, or went up in my estimations as AFL players were Tapscott, M. Jones, Terlich. Players who I think we need to stop kidding ourselves over, and realise are probably not AFL-standard anymore (or perhaps never were): Byrnes, Garland, Sellar

It's great being here. Great atmosphere and the guys are really giving their all. I am proud to be a supporter.

I've woken with a vision, so I'm taking charge. 1. We need rain, and lots of it. Everyone go outside in whatever you slept in and perform a rain dance. Ballet, tap, jazz-fusion, funk, shuffle, foxtrot, interpretive or ladies choice. It doesn't matter, just make it pour. 2. We need a team to place the drop in pitches in the centre square. While you are at it, drop in some pitches in the old practice wicket area next to the Southern Stand. Use the heaviest machinery you can find and dig up as much turf as possible. 3. Someone steal the WC team property steward's bags. Use the 'West Coke Eagle' routine from the Chaser as a diversion. Ensure that no player has boots. Close every sports store in a 50k radius. Make them play in runners (or better yet, bare feet). 4. Everyone else (after rain dance duties) lose your way from Richmond station and accidentally walk across the playing surface on the way to your seats. But leave the Robbie Flower wing in front of the members. We want the entire game played in approximately 50mx10m (the proximal distance of a Sylvia burst of energy). 5. Tell the umpires to bounce the ball at every stoppage into the mud. Play Jack Viney in the ruck. 6. Someone contact Tonya Harding's bodyguard and provide him with photos of Sellar and Pederson. Sorry guys, take one for the team. With the places on the injury list, promote Magner and Couch. We need to take any disposal skill out of the game and make it a brawl, like we used to have in the rain at the Western Oval or Moorabin. Channel the Northey teams. Turn up today and make some noise.

I noticed there was no bugular today. I doubt he was having a week off. Has he gone with Cameron. Maybe they had been trying to get rid of him and cameron demanded he stay. I must say no one noticed around me that he wasnt here so he wasnt missed to much. It was good just to have a team run out to the song and thats it.

I'm of the view that Neeld needs to be shown the door immediately before this group's confidence and ability to turn it around is destroyed completely, if it's not already. I didn't think it was possible to feel more hopeless than I did in 2008, but zing! Here it is.

When Jamar handballed a shot at goal to another player who was under pressure, I couldn't even use use words. I just kind of roared loud and incoherently. Scared the hell out of my children. Thanks Mark Jamar.

The guy was SA-captain, tore up the Championships and performed admirably at SANFL level. I think he'll be OK in the long run, writing him off now is ludicrous but atm he's a long way off. Wines was always going to be better early.

Multiple times he got or could of got the ball and gets ignored, it's crazy. Drop him now. He'll dominate Casey. Then when he's stronger he'll work out AFL. He's smart, creative and skilled. Just needs some strength. I'd love to see him getting a go at half back later in the year. He'll surprise some

Right now, with Gillies, Sellar and Jamar we have three of the least effective players in the comp generally running around in the 1s (Gillies aside for this week). The sooner we don't need guys like this the better it will be for all of us

It's unacceptable. It has been for 2.5 years.

Don't see how a coach, who is responsible for the players performance, is a "scapegoat".

Ummm welcome to three weeks ago?

Gee, what would you guys be saying if they lost the first half by 50 points. That was a good effort fo 1/2 a game - much more than we have seen before. Obviously there is a problem with keeping it up and serious issues with some players (Jamar for one), but I'm amazed that posters can be so confident that the problem is the coach.

I'll tell you exactly the moment when it becomes unacceptable. When the siren goes next week and we've lost to GWS.

Sylvia was good today.

An 80 point loss in a half is unacceptable. We can't keep churning out this vomit inducing rubbish. Something has to change. I saw Essendon players last night embracing Hird. He is a coach they would die for. Our coach can't even get the players up for a half of footy, when we are 10 points down in the main break. It's seriously a joke. I am greatful for both Nathan and Matt Jones, Clarky, and I thought Evans and Bail made a big difference to our overall effort. Terlich and Viney too. But it's just not good enough that senior players like Jamar and Byrnes are running around like headless chickens. That first half was a case in point that we can and should be competitive. That a simple game plan goes a long way. What happened in the second half sits with the coach and our senior players. Not bloody anywhere near acceptable. One more loss and it's adios Neeld. 18k turned out today. How many next week? Can't afford to keep this up.

Judging from today's comments, it's definitely Mark Neeld. Can we please just give the guy a year. Changing coaches every couple of seasons is not the way to win a premiership. Surely that's obvious to everyone?

I know hes a loyal clubman, but whoever gave him a 3yr contract should be sacked, i would love to know who approved that.

Biggest winner of the day is the swear jar.

I urge all of you to read Flanner's piece in The Age today. Simply the best football writer we have. Makes a mockery of the volume and vitreole in the rest of the media.....

So Watts isn't playing this weekend? I thought the point of dropping him was to send him back to the twos to gain some confidence and touch. What is the point in dropping him then likely bringing him back in without even playing at Casey? The whole team was rubbish last week, and though he was poor he certainly wasn't the worst. Why was he made a scapegoat? We have ruined him. Our club has no idea how to develop players.

I find self serving posts to be annoying in the extreme, although the two points for me from that article are two points that several of us here have been hammering home for ages: 1. cutting Junior McDonald prematurely was a major miscalculation; and 2. appointing Sheedy, rather than Bailey, in 2007 would've been a huge shot in the arm for this club. Both very regrettable mistakes IMO. Good article.

Melbourne is the laziest team in the AFL. Can't argue with anything Roos says in this article. No defensive pressure at all. We don't get high numbers of tackles because we are NOWHERE near our opposition players, OMG its so freaking obvious. Everything that we see and complain about week in week out. Lazy lazy lazy players. He breaks it all down with damning stats. They don't lie, and while I blame the players, the fact that we have five coaches that have coached at senior level ands they can't get effort out of the players is incredibly damning on the coaching staff. http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/lazy-demons-back-to-square-one-says-paul-roos/story-e6frfkp9-1226619240205

You morons bagging the coach for this god-awful quarter need to realize that its' the players who are responsible for dropping away so quickly. It might be fitness, or it might be something else. Whatever it is, getting a new coach is not the answer.

Hams the seriel ducker. AFL needs to look at this.

Sylvia is having one of his 'on' games. 2-3 of these in a row and we should push to sign him.

The banner "No one's as tough as a melbourbe member"

What I don't get about the debacle is this; After 24 games of ineptitude, Mark Neeld has apparently taken the boys away to tell them to forget the game plan and just play hard, tough footy and to beat their man. This should have been his foundation from day 1. His first off season should've been purely fitness and contest training. Lay the foundation of hard, aggressive footy and then, once you're happy with the competitiveness of the team (to be the hardest to play against rah rah) implement the stages of the game plan.

I hate Essendon, but I admired watching them tonight, stuck together as a TEAM, backed each other up and attacked every contest with a fantastic intensity. Both sides were actually hard at it all night. Players giving everything for the coach. Yes I hate them but I would love our boys to stand up and hit every contest like that. Players like Hocking and Howlett are the types we could have done with picking up in the drafts years ago, skinny project types as opposed to guys who are just hard and never give up that is a glaring deficiency we have now. Hocking would be a nightmare to play against I watched him tonight every bump was with intent to hurt the opposition or at least make him earn a possession, he was desperate as were his teammates in their attack on the loose ball. Cmon Dees time to lift you may lack some skills but have a look at both these sides tonight for the non-negotiables.

Sorry thats crap. Blease is one player that has improved under Neeld and Craig. As RPFC said Blease did his ankle and was underdone in terms of match practise. Coming on as the sub in the first game looked ok,.. but everyone at that point of the match is fatigued so the pressure is far less at that point of the match.