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There have been some diabolical things happen to our club in recent years but there are two things for which we can all be thankful:- 1. That we avoided the temptation of appointing Kevin Sheedy as coach in 2007 and 2. That GWS wanted Tom Scully and took him away from us. I don't want anyone to run through him on Sunday. We don't want to lose players through suspension. Keeping him down to his current output would do just fine.

I personally don't suppor the sacking of Neeld this early in to a new season... If Neeld is sacked after a loss this weekend then the Don and board should also resign immeaditly.... I will have no faith in this current administration. You don't employ someone to do a job and sack them half way in to it. Also there is the Schwab issue This club is becoming a side show

Neeld must be supported for the three years of his contract. If the board form the belief that they got is appointment wrong 18 months ago, the first thing they should do (prior to sacking Neeld) is to resign their positions on the board. They bought into the plan Neeld presented, his approach, and him as a person. If, after 25 games, they are convinced they got it wrong, then the indictment is on them more then on Neeld and they should go, let a new Board decide on Neeld, and make changes if they deem it necessary.

Let me open with this. I have always admired Hird, a great player, decent human being and wished we had such a champion at our club. My gut instinct tells me the Essendon Football Club tried to be cutting edge with all this supplement stuff, however my gut instinct also tells me that The Essendon falls within the Too Big To Fail scenario. The Evans family are powerful in AFL circles, so is the Hird family. The current AFL CEO was appointed by the AFL Commission - Evans Snr was on the Commission. Current AFL Commissioner Kelty is very close to Hird and Evans and gave counsel to Hird in recent days. My gut instinct tells me a deal has been done and the EFC will get a slap over the wrist. Hird is a demigod in AFL circles and nothing will happen to him and he knows this. Forgive me for been a tad cynical about all this. Hird and the EFC are not bigger than the game itself but the outcome will show the opposite. Finally I reckon I am not the only one who thinks that this EFC group of players are surprising many with their amazing fitness levels over the past 2 years. Make what you will of that. I smell rats everywhere at this club.

Kind of getting sick of these, "I know the club isn't performing better but let's get out there and support the boys" threads. Most people have already made up their minds. The pity and sympathy around here is getting too much to handle.

Wow. Still just getting used to that iPad are you champ?

No reason for us to wait til the end of the game.... we should be able to rustle up 22 team jumper owning supporters to throw in from the first bounce.... at least there would be an excuse for not knowing the game plan

Definitely M Jones - his attitude, (that would be expected at top clubs, btw) has been amazing and infectious. Leader written all over him.

Dees need to hang in there, stay the course, Christ it's only round 4

If the board sack neeld they better have a replacement close to signed up for next year. I can already picture neeld gone and then the board fumble and stumble their way through the process and we end up with another untried coach in 2014. If the board already believe that the replacement coach is a better option then that's fine by me. But don't sack a coach in the hope that a premiership coach might say yes.

Tom Scully makes feel like I'm 208 cm tall. I see him, and I just want to throw up!

Nineteen I just want to thank you for the work you do for the club and bringing a part of it to Demonland. I wish I was in a position to help the club the way you do, and because I can't I am very thankful for the people like you who do. Cheers.

I can't quite understand how Hird developed such a golden reputation. If I were managing him, I wouldn't let him near a microphone. Some of his better moments have included criticising an individual umpire (labelling him 'disgraceful'), undermining an Essendon coach to the point of making his job untenable, denying that he wanted that coach's job, and then taking that coach's job. Now we have a new scandal, in which his performance at the press conference did the EFC no favours. For a golden boy, he has quite a rap sheet.

Would you consider a trade for an "Air Jurrah" t-shirt ?

how superior of you! I don't think anyone is suggesting sacking Neeld would "magically solve all the problems." What I think is, if the orchestra cannot play together, and the conductor says he has no idea why, and he's had a go at changing the personnel, but still they cannot do the basics together, then persevering with the embarrassment of dreadful gigs is neither sensible nor economically viable, and the conductor clearly isn't able to fix things. You need to look for a different conductor who has different ideas, and who can try something different, to get everyone in tune and playing together. Neeld appears to me to have his eyes fixed too far above the basics, and is imposing a repertoire that does not suit these players. He also belittles them - a bit like the way you have sneered at his detractors. Not calculated to win anyone around - that'd be right, wouldn't it? The fact is, things like tackling, shepherding and running to make a lead - these are not superstar acts. They are not failings due to the players lacking talent. You and I could have a go at those things. If the coach cannot get those things happening, for whatever reason, he is not able to do his job. How long it will take to repair the mess - who knows? The question at the moment is, do we have any reason to believe Neeld is going to be able to do it? If not, based on the evidence, then the second question to ask is, how long can we afford to run the place down this way? Because these thrashings are destructive and corrosive; left for long enough, they must end up terminal. I can't see Neeld making progress on the basics, or on the big picture (game-plan). No identifiable good results. I can see disorganised and demoralised players, trying to hold on, endlessly reiterating how much they are behind Neeldy (like all last year's talk about "buying in"), but not keeping their heads up. Lots of inarguable evidence there - the whole football world is beginning to feel awkward about Melbourne. I'm not supposing anything magic is going to happen, no matter what we do. But I really would like what is happening now to stop. I don't think we can justify letting it continue.

Strength and respect. Sow real strength and leadership from the president down, the respect will be there and when you respect the people you work harder and push through barriers to make sure you have their respect and don't let anyone down. As Macca said, it starts from the top.

... by investing in talented kids and under-agers. Which we have done, in spades. We've also topped up across the boards with some solid younger players from state leagues. If Neeld was only interested in saving his job, he wouldn't have picked up Hogan, who can't even play this year. In any case, drafting and recruiting is a club-wide activity, with input from the entire FD, and includes the coaches, list management, recruiting etc. etc.

Selective listening? King and McLure are parroting pathetic media gibberish. Stand firm - don't be seduced by such rubbish.

geeze misplaced optimism here.. we've just turned in the worst start to a season in nearly 30 years, we have hardly put together 0ne good piece of play in 6 hours of football. We absolutely stink at the moment and I would not be confident against anybody.

News just in - Dermott Brereton is an absolute [censored] Thinks he is still 22, acts like he is 14.

It is not pity or sympathy. It's called support.

Damien Barrett is a sleezy "ambulance chasing" Gutter Journalist !! Nothing more, nothing less. He is your typical Sensationalising "Nerd" Reporter who wouldn't know one F...NG thing about what it takes to be an AFL player or a REAL man for that matter...

Jack Hanath may prove to be a costly miss. Rather Magner running around in the ones than Rodan running around at Casey. Rather perservere with Petterd for another year than pay the superannuation for Byrnes. Rather have one short on the list than have Gillies on it. Martin had his best year for us when he played first ruck, the only position he really seemed to be able to pay, prefer him to Pederson and Jamar at the moment. Even the guys on MMM said the after the game the 4 of them were at best, depth back up, and couldn't believe they were all in the first game. It's an appaling lack of judgement.

As opposed to one of those QC's that just wings the exam...

Gysberts, Pick 52, Pick 63, Pick 68, and Pick 88. That is what Pedersen, Byrnes, Gillies, Rodan, Jones, and Terlich cost. They are hardly the reason why we are at where we are at.

While I understand your concerns the fact of the matter is this isn't something that Essendon, the AFL and even ASADA can just sweep under the rug. Even if the AFL convinced ASADA to impose a slap on the wrist type penalty (if something breaching the rules did occur) that penalty is answerable to WADA. If WADA aren't affraid to keep pushing and going after the likes of Lance Armstrong, I don't think Essendon and the AFL will give them to many sleepless nights.

If Home and Away paid twice as much as Tarantino, Leonardo Di Caprio would be doing a bedroom scene with Alf Stewart.

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

Does a good job at hosting a few TV shows about footy. Had ample opportunity to support the club officially and been asked this same thing on umpteen occasions by his fellow commentators. Always been clear he's not interested and only wants to continue in his present role/career. He was a quality player for the club and i'll always appreciate the service and committment he gave on the field, but the club needs to grow up and move beyond ex players who won't committ but still like to be "seen" to be doing something on the odd occasions when asked. Inviting the likes of Garry in (or whoever it is) to provide some sort of advice each time we have a change of coach or a crisis arises, smacks of amature hour. P.S. I think it's a tad early to be calling for Neeld's head (inference of the OP banner IMO) but that's just my op. Keeping the faith for a while longer...not sure how much longer though. I guess the next 8 to 10 weeks will tell the tale.

For anyone who might be interested in something to do with the original topic, Trengove has come out saying the claims re the spa bath are rubbish: "THE CLAIM that Melbourne players were not taking their recovery session seriously following the 94-point loss to West Coast last weekend has been dismissed by Demons co-captain Jack Trengove." "...a Melbourne official said the Storm players were not present at the recovery session. Trengove said the claims were completely untrue. "I was personally there at the recovery session and I saw none of that," Trengove said when fronting the media at AAMI Park on Wednesday morning." http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2013-04-17/recovery-claims-untrue-trengove.workstation

I cant believe people want Jetta out, he is one player last week that was hard, effective but foot and didnt panick when he had the footy. Leave him down back. Even knowing we got smashed last week, i only want to see one maybe two changes, would love to drop Frawley, but that wont happen, so i guess Sellar for Gawn or Spencer. Mckenzie will most likely come in if fit Toumpas will miss for him, if not McKenzie i would like to see Blease back in.

I saw persistence, run and courage in those clips. I'm looking forward to seing more of that on Sunday.

Daniher took a completeltu under-resourced club into a Grand Final. I'll take that. We couldn't be further away from what he achieved now if we tried. His achievements are underrecognised by many on this site.

Young Libba out of contract at the end of this yr. been offered $300k ish for next 2 years. Apparently Saints are sniffing around him. Think he would be a good get, may what a change of enviornment after what happened to him last yr.

Watts has to play, he seems to play with confidence against the expansion teams.

You could be onto something there ... a bit more like Aenid Blyton than Roman epic poetry.

It is so depressing that we are talking about this already in 2013. Bloody Melbourne. (Thomas, LeCras, Betts and Stokes in that order please! - with Davey and probably Sylvia going we should have the infamous war chest to throw at two, possibly three of those free agency selections.)

How the heck is LeCras not a small forward? I mean, he's small and he plays in the forward line. QED.

Small forward is the name of the role, it doesn't mean the guy has to be Nahas size.... You said "Small forwards are highly over rated and apart from Rioli none have featured in the last number of premierships." Steve Johnson and Jimmy Bartel both play small forward roles and are both recent Norm Smith medalists. Lewis Jetta did pretty well in the Grand Final last year. Where do you think forward pressure comes from? When there's 4 big men going for a pack contest, who goes after the crumbs? Silly to say small forwards don't matter.

So Jack had a couple of shockers. So he was dragged, but he took his medicine. A game at Casey might have lifted his confidence, but that assumes that confidence is the problem. If Mark Neeld think he needs to be more determined, or more aggressive, or work harder, I don't see that he needs to play at Casey for that. He's had a kick in the backside, let's see how he goes now. I thought he had a fair year last year, and looked a much improved player. If we trade everyone who plays two bad games there won't be much left. Give him a fair go - and if at the end of the year he wants to go, let him. But its in his interest to work his value up.

ASADA wont be doing a deal with anone you conspiracy theorists have no idea

I think the AFL have done a deal with ASADA to ensure this happens

i agree on all points the AFL is too gutless and brand concious to suspend Hird and the players and they will get a fine exactly the same as ours

Damien Barrett clearly doesn't like us and he makes no secret of it, as mark neeld said, jack watts was ill as well as out of form and that's why he was subbed, he is a confidence player who was feeling like crap and getting destroyed on the field, makes no sense to leave him out there.

Where did he place Tambling when he revised that draft?

I will be very disappointed if Gawn and Kent dont come in. Even more disappointed if they bring back Gillies as Josh Mahoney suggested.

I'd be stoked if Watts was given a full game on the wing

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.

I hope Chip was blasted, for twice standing on the mark and not even bothering to put his hands up. He just watched as Kennedy kicked it over his head. I thought it was selfish, lazy and pathetic. At the other end of the ground Brown was jumping around on the mark when his side was 12 goals up. One player cares and the other doesn't. Pathetic.