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Fark me. If we're going to give up on a player before he is even in his first proper contract, the club may as well fold now.

Problem is, preception is reality. To put it another way, if you were undergoing performance counselling at work, would you be spending your time at work talking to your mates, cracking jokes and taking long lunches? No way, you would be putting your head down to get back up to scratch and out of the crosshairs. When you are 0-3 and losing by average of 100+ points, anything other than total dedication to make things right is perceived to be tomfoolery and not giving a [censored]. It might not be the case but I'm not sure our players are in a position to argue the case.

People moan about how crap we've been at developing our highly ranked kids, but I notice Tom Scully and others at GWS (a club designed to develop it's kids) are also struggling. Maybe getting young players fit and firing in a competition dominated by mature 24+ year olds is difficult and getting harder. Our problem is not that we are worse at developing kids than other clubs, our problem is we are too reliant on these kids to take us forward rather than our established 24+ year olds...

I'm happy to defer to Dave Misson's expertise when it comes to AFL player fitness. I expect many of the keyboard experts here couldn't even do 10 push ups.

I will not comment on the veracity of the claim - so I will not crucify any player based on rumour and "in your endo". As a general response to anyone defending any of our players getting on the turps ? These guys are paid great wads of money to be professional athletes - if you want go out and get shitfaced or eat pizza's morning noon and night or party hard 24/7 then alls good but pick a different profession - its not that hard. As a professional footballer you are paid to turn out in the best possible shape and getting hammered is both disrepectful to the club and supporters who have an expectation of professional athletes being professional but also disrespectful to teammates who do the right thing. To repeat - this is a general comment aimed at all footballers from all clubs and not in response to unproven claims on Big Footy.

melbourne supporters are pathetic

The point is that under bailey we still managed to win 8 and a half games and play attractive football. Why not tread slowly in a new club and build the fitness base and take 3 years to weed out the slackers. Bailey deliberately didn't over train as he had a list of 18 year olds whose bodies it was deemed would not stand the rigors and adjustments were made. Luke Ball when he first started at St Kilda developed OP when Grant Thomas insisted he do a full pre season, note Jack Trengove was so fatigued last year he could hardly run. Don't overlook why the fitness base was low, as that was part of the longer term plan. Why did MN sack the leadership group, why install 2 rookie captains, why sack all the coaches (except Royal ) and the leadership group then ignore or discard all the footy intellect accumulated and start afresh? It was arrogant, naive and in retrospect a massive error to rebuild again. If it was just about fitness I could accept the changes but it is also about man management, management style, game plan and vision. Look at what Ken Hinkley has done at Port and how he achieved it. They too were not fit enough but all their out of contract players have stayed on. MN does it by the numbers and is so full of himself he casts of those who don't do it his way and for that he will pay the price.

If the club had any brains they'd find a way to motivate and retain obvious talent like Frawley and develop it

After being sidelined with concussion for a long time he returned yesterday only to be taken off the ground for a concussion test. He,his family and team mates must be concerned about what lies ahead. I dip my lid to you Rohan. You're not the best player and I have given you plenty over the years when it comes to your football skills. Yesterday you looked pretty sharp and had a crack all day. I will never ever question your endeavor.

Recently I posted that a loose defensive press was the key reason for the high margin of Melbourne's losses this season (Winter is Coming if you're interested) I just read this in The Age, in an article 'Carey's Carlton Warning' (see link below). I have replaced only the names Mick Malthouse, Carlton and Brett Ratten with Mark Neeld, Melbourne and Dean Bailey - otherwise it is word for word (with some editing for continuity - see article for reference) "AFL great Wayne Carey has suggested Mark Neeld may have to alter his defensive game plan if Melbourne is to rebound from a winless start to the season. There are concerns aplenty less than a month into the season. What will particularly worry Neeld is that the Dees have conceded more than 100 points in each of their games. They look good when playing attacking football, as they did before half-time against West Coast at various stages on Saturday. Advertisement The Dees continue to give their opponents too much space, prompting Carey to declare: ''Melbourne don't have the defensive attitude.'' Carey said, unlike in his years at Collingwood, Neeld did not have the list necessary to enforce his famed defensive mantra. ''You have got to look at your cattle. I think Mark Neeld is starting to realise, 'Hang on, this side can't play the defensive footy that I like','' Carey said on Triple M. ''They don't have the personnel Collingwood had when he got to Collingwood. "He has gone to Collingwood, they had some mature bodies. ''This [Melbourne] is a young, fast, take-on style game of footy. I think he is realising that they just can't play the style of game that he wants.'' The Demons had more of an attacking mantra under Neeld's predecessor, Dean Bailey." Ultimately, it reaffirmed my view that a team unequipped to play a defensive zone will feel significant short term pain, regardless of who is coaching. Neeld may be as good a coach as Malthouse tactically, but if he is to persist, he must have backing from the board they will not sack him in the face of the further big losses Melbourne will undoubtably receive. It will be interesting to see how Neeld and Malthouse respond if the losses keep coming, and how the board responds. It makes me feel that Neeld needs more time and with a third pre-season under Misson, we may see the improvement we are craving. Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/careys-carlton-warning-20130414-2htve.html#ixzz2QUxdfmxl

Seems like a good time to bring back..

I am sure these are all things that keep Mark up at night. Personally, I think the troubles we are having now would be comparable to the problems we would be having if we still had Moloney, Martin, et al. and if we didn't remove Green, Moloney, and Rivers from the LG in 2012. The leadership at our club is young and that is why we are at where we are at. Junior McDonald should have played 2011 and 2012 with the Demons as Captain and this would have been mitigated slightly but I am not so naive to think that we wouldn't be having the pain we are having. We have some talented kids and we need to make sure we are developing them right - this is how we get out of this mess. Toumpas, Kent, Barry, Hogan, Taggert, Tynan, and Stark need to be played under the right conditions after establishing themselves at Casey. I appluad(ed) the recruitment of Terlich, Jones, Magner, Rodan, Byrnes, Pedersen, and Gillies in lieu of speculative kids because we don't need more talented kids - we need to develop the ones we do have the right way. And having bigger bodies take the brunt of this nonsense is better for our future.

Bailey also 'retired' most of our senior players prematurely and gave free games to these underdeveloped 18 year olds. Why did he do that, particularly if they weren't fit/hard enough?!He completely lost me when he forced Junior McDonald to retire a year early. His approach to the development of young talent was IMO naive in the extreme. Let's not now get revisionistic about things. Nice bloke - but it seems to me that he completely stuffed our list. It was all way out of balance when Neeld arrived and was wholly lacking in many of the fundamentals (ie, leadership, fitness, culture). The whole world knows this - surely. Edit - iPad typo.

Look at Sydney on the weekend. Their top 2 contested possession midfielders were Kennedy and O'Keefe with 18 and 17 respectively. Other than that they had Parker next best with 10. From there they surround them with high quality runners like Hannebery, McVeigh, Malceski, Shaw, Mattner, Goodes etc. We have Jones as a high quality inside midfielder and Viney, who we assume will be. Other than that we have guys like Trengove, McKenzie, Magner etc who can play as an inside midfielder, but the top teams have show that you only need 2 plus a defensive stoppage midfielder (like Jordan Lewis, Luke Ball, etc) which is the role best suited to both Trengove and McKenzie. Examples of this are Sydney, Collingwood (Pendlebury/Swan + Ball), Hawthorn (Mitchell/Hodge + Lewis), Richmond (Cotchin/Tuck + Jackson), West Coast (Priddis/Kerr + Masten), St Kilda (Hayes/Dal Santo + Steven), Adelaide (Thompson/Dangerfield) and Geelong (Bartel/Selwood + Corey) etc. But we really, really lack the outside runners that the good teams have. On the weekend (and in previous weeks) we have been killed on the spread and quick transitions where we haven't had enough guys that can cover the ground quickly enough. Look at Hawthorn, who have been bringing in as many high level runners as they can (Hill, Anderson, Shiels, Bruest, Savage, Smith, Duryea) in addition to their quality outside players like Birchall, Suckling, Guerra, Rioli etc. West Coast ran us off our feet, and there will be many teams that will do this to us this year as we just don't have the runners in our side. That's why Evans came in quickly, Bail as soon as he was fit. We need damaging outside players that just outrun their opponents, just like Toumpas. He represents a greater need than the inside midfield (which we already have mostly covered for the future). Don't agree? Have a look at our drafting last year. Other than Viney and Hogan (both exceptional circumstances), we picked Barry, Toumpas, Kent, M Jones, Terlich, Stark and Clisby. There is a common theme and it is very much in running ability, particularly outside the stoppages.

I don't judge kids after three games but he should not be playing AFL. I thought this was why we got Jones, Magner, Rodan, Byrnes, et al so we don't have to throw these kids into situations where they are asked to do too much. Thankfully our happy idiots are not allowed to play Hogan or we would be playing him to so he can be monstered and beaten and be bereft of confidence. Let him play for Casey, get Magner on the bloody list and let's stop throwing our kids to the wolves.

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.

Thought this was a bit of a positive read I got from demonology regarding his game on the weekend. I was at the game on Saturday, he missed a couple of easy ones so probably should of had 6. All of his goals came from marks, a couple were on the lead and the rest from strong contested marks. What I liked most was that I think he has a bit of the Wayne Carey arrogance about him. Had a good old fashion push and shove with an opponent at chf, jogged back to his position at full forward then decided he hadn't had enough so ran back to give the opponent one last shove. Another time he gave Dom Barry a spray for his delivery into to forward line, then followed it up with a 10 second mostly inaudible rant to himself. Love how he is spending the year at VFL level with no pressure and a chance to work on his game. The guy will be a beast in years to come.

Next week as we all Know MFC plays GWS I believe we are a chance to beat them , previously we would have said a shoe in but that's not the point anyway On the other hand Carlton plays West Coast in Perth North Melbourne on the other hand plays Brisbane in Melbourne GWS is also winless at this stage So my question is If Melbourne does beat GWS Carlton looses to West Coast Or North fails to beat Brisbane What then ?? The ladder will be GWS, CARLTON or possibly NORTH Winless after 4 rounds !! If this played out this way who do you think the MEDIA spotlight would turn too?? Would it stay on Melbourne ? Or Would it switch to either Carlton or Nth??? What would it mean as a club to have the pressure off ? The week after we Play Brisbane in Brisbane who have also only won one game so far Football is neither life nor death , but rather a passion that needs feeding each week. We need to get a new perspective on this, and were Melbourne actually stands, the only way Melbourne will continue to Fail is if we Fail this week, because the pressure will remain and nothing will have changed It is essential that this does not happen ! This is their best chance to turn it around so far this season, this must be drummed into the players, If it isn't then it is a failure of the coaching team to do so. There will be no place for anyone to hide should we fail again this week.

I actually think Tom scully has gone backwards a mile since he was at Melbourne, which is fantastic haha but it must be hard, if the players are drafted to collingwood they learn off swan, thomas, pendelbury,if it's geelong they learn off selwood, bartel, corey, enright, Being able to learn off stars of the game on a daily basis and having their support in the game would make a huge difference.

Yes we can and we will. We have just played 3 pretty red hot teams, and have learned alot in those three games. Time to turn it on for four quarters. Big Maxy will lead the revival.

Even Misson was shocked, but it seems most posters don't understand how bad our football department was, Neeld had a lot of work to do to get it operating the way it should be.

How good would wines be in our side? Not as good as he is with corners, boak and co surrounding him. Bet Toumpas would be looking better and we would be saying, "should have taken Toumpas"

That won the Eagles a flag....

Maybe I'm naive, but how would Storm players know when MFC players were due for ice baths rather than spas?

I've just jumped in on this convo - but you can't just blame the coach. The MFC lacks leaders, experience and quality on the park - you name it the MFC dosen't have it at the moment This doesn't just develop overnight - Sacking the coach will not make our problems disappear

Well said. This is crap. We played a hard running style and Bailey and ran out games better than this. Hell we ran out games better last season. Fitness can't be the issue. Further, I reject the notion that we were so far behind it has/will take us 3 pre seasons to build back to an AFL standard.

Interesting point. We implement a youth policy just as the game becomes more hostile to developing younger kids by gifting them games. So maybe the youth strategy we tried would have worked in the 90's, but the game changed and no one noticed until now? I'm trying to think of recent new AFL players that were a little older - Podsiadly, Dickson, Barlow, Zorko, Dwyer. Even Magner had immediate impact before his role was changed. The only young players from last year's draft to play up to AFL standard already are Viney and Wines - both regarded to already possess bodies older than their ages. O'Meara and Crouch both got great benefit from being at their clubs a full season ahead of their first AFL matches (as did Viney). Hell, Jones is 25 and Terlich is 23 and they both look the goods. Maybe those are the kinds of new players that thrive in this new 'established' environment, where blooding youth early results in lower confidence instead of better development. It's interesting that at the time, blooding Watts so early wasn't seen as a mistake. It's only now in hindsight that we see that it undermined his confidence. The comments from other coaches at the time (Voss and Malthouse I think?) were very positive towards our list, and no one was telling Bailey he was an idiot for giving early games to kids. Everyone assumed that this would work as it had in the past. Then the game changes and we didn't see it until it's too late. This is all supposition of course but I find it interesting regardless.

Do others who have foxtel find it annoying that they put the scores of the other games being played on the screen, Those of us like me who tape the other games then have that ruined by knowing the scores. PS. My remedy has been to place my granddaughter's toy dog in front of the spot where the score appears. Is it just me?

2007 Division 1 premiership player, thankyouverymuch.

Absolute rubbish. All of us on this forum merely speculate and hand wring. You accuse me of reading too much of the Hun, but I reckon you listen to SEN too much. Clark - recruited by Neeld Dawes - recruited by Neeld M Jones - recruited by Neeld Terlich - recruited by Neeld Kent - recruited by Neeld (yet to play, but looks likely) N Jones - playing the best footy of his career, under Neeld. The penny may have dropped with Sylvia....responding. Evans played well on Saturday and will get better...under Neeld. J Viney - playing with the spirit and guts ALL our players should be displaying...under Neeld. Our captains are bloody, bold and resolute!!! Byrnes, Pedersen and Gillies may yet work out. He, too, is a developing coach in the AFL - he needs time. We do agree on one thing - Daniher needed to rebuilt after 2000.

Dimboola don't kick off their season until next weekend, I reckon we could get over them as we have had more game time

A good ruckman for a number of seasons?! Get your hand off it. He's had ONE good season, which he duly was rewarded with AA selection. One good season a ruckman does not make. He was embarrassingly bad on the weekend, to the point where we may as well have been a man down. He cannot get to a contest around the ground, and his pathetic body work in marking contests makes Paul Johnson look like a superstar. Jamar got out marked at one stage in our defensive 50 by CHRIS MASTEN. Masten is a quality player, but he is NOT a marking threat against a ruckman in a one-on-one situation. It was deplorable. Gawn in, Jamar out - ASAP.

Forget trade scenarios, we should be planning how to best keep him at the club. Chip is vital to the back line going forwards and people talking him down here are clearly trying to make themselves better about the possibility of losing him. He is our best backman by a mile.

We get a lot of the same blah blah blah from posters on this site, yes I agree with what you have above, but what? you didn't agree with Bailey getting sacked and us having to start again, last time we played finals was 7 years ago, Neeld is trying to build for the future so we don't see a run like that again. Suck it up, nobody is happy with now, but take the long view

This thread is an embarrassing joke. How many other clubs' supporters decide drafting was wrong after three games? THREE. All those who agree with the OP should go read Axis of Bob's post. It well explains exactly why this decision was made, and highlights the logical reasoning missing from all those who bleat that we made a mistake.

The quote I read from Neeld was that while it would have been good to give Watts a game at Casey, the team and the club's interests must come first and that's why Watts was the 23rd player (in case Clark didn't get up). Now I'd understand this if we were a good side, but given where we're at, it is not going to make much difference if Watts or someone else was the 23rd player and was required to come in to the side. We lost by 94 points - would it really have made much difference (if Clark didn't get up) if we brought in Watts or one of the other emergencies? I would argue it's more important for the team and club to develop Watts and you don't develop him by having him sitting in the stands. Terrible decision and completely and utterly lacking in common sense for me.

Toumpas will be a bloody great player for us. Cracking kid too. Wish we could have him and Wines to be honest. And Viney. And Hogan. Got three out of the four though.

What's done is done. Toumpas is our guy now and we get behind him. Yes Wines is a great package including leadership and players that can win their own ball are probably a better option for clubs in our position right now, but if we can just avoid ruining him Toumpas will be great player for us in the future, once we can get the ball out to him and are able to use him in the right way

Looking on a POSITIVE side. IF we beat the Giants and Carlton lose to West Coast we will for one whole week at least be ahead of Giants and CARLTON on the ladder! Glorious thought don't you think?

It's not that they wouldn't get picked, they'd be the 21st or 22nd pick in a much stronger team. Even players like Buckley and Cheney went on to get games at Collingwood and Hawthorn, teams not exactly short of decent players. The idea that there were star midfielders available and ready to come to Melb is far-fetched at best. Rodan, Byrnes etc. are experienced players from successful teams, brought in to help establish some standards in training, preparation etc. Don't think we'll be seeing reports that either of them were out at 5 am getting p*ssed. As has been posted elsewhere, Terlich credits Rodan with being the one who's helped him most make the transition to AFL footy - that's already a win. If the pair of them spend most of their time at the Dees as effectively playing assistant coaches at Casey, that seems to me a more than useful step in helping with development - something we're apparently notoriously bad at.

hey thickshakes, how good do you reckon wines would be looking if his side was 320 points down for the season instead of undefeated in second place a 5 year old would understand this point

Demonland poll prior to the draft: http://demonland.com/forums/index.php?/topic/32253-poll-wines-or-toumpas/page-5?hl=%2Bwines+%2Btoumpas#entry671352 Wines v Toumpas (as preferred first MFC pick) Wines - 60 votes Toumpas - 143 votes We (the supporters) wanted him. We've made a few draft blunders over the journey (all clubs have) but honestly guys, to say the MFC "stuffed up (again)" with this pick is ridiculous.

It gives me the opposite feeling to be honest. It shows how quickly a rubbish team can be turned around with the right formula, we just have to find our one.

No way known is Jamar quicker than Spencer - Jamar is the slowest (physically and mentally) I've ever seen. Spencer averages more marks per game than Jamar. Jamar never kicks the ball so that argument is bereft of data. One thing Jamar is good at is crawling around on the ground after he's fallen over in a ruck or marking contest.

No disrespect to Toumpas, but this kid has everything we need and more. Just watching the Showdown and he's taken it by the throat with 22 possssions and 2 goals. Easily in the top 3 or 4 on the ground. "A ready made gun midfielder who supports Melbourne and is Viney's best mate? We'll pass thanks." F me...

Something that annoyed me was the quote that if the players didn't play Neeld's way (along the boundary) they "better start saving their petrol tickets for Casey". I mean, if he said that i think it shows foolishness and is the voice of an outsider. Why make Casey an object of ridicule and why make Melbourne an object of ridicule, in the same sentence. There was a reason embraced by the club to set up at Casey, and playing for a seconds team shouldn't be seen as a badge of dishonour, or just as punishment for not following team rules. The non-playing of Watts (in either team) also marks a level of pettiness which is hard to justify and flies in the face of reasons for dropping him in the first place. it seems to me that Neeld's zero tolerance Malthouse style authority needs to buy some petrol tickets if the players are going to go the extra mile for the coach.

Actually feel sorry for him.

being dropped from this rabble for a week would be a reward.

I hope we show some courage and stick this out. Changing coaches every couple of years is ridiculous.

Im still in Neelds corner. Only because if we get in a new coach it means well another coach again and another game plan for the players to learn. We would need to get a premiership coach and I dont think they are out there. Also we are a toxic club they probably wouldn't want to go near us. Forget about Roos he wouldnt so it. Damien Hardwick has been coach of richmond since 2010. They havent played finals yet and they probably should have with there list. Brad Scott has been coach since 2010 and nth have only made the finals once last year and got smashed. Nth are with us near the bottom without a win either. These teams have had some thrashings to. I know not as bad as ours. Calrton are 0-3. If it wasnt malthouse coaching then questions would be asked about them. Im just saying instead of changing just stick with neeld now and let him finish what he is trying to do.