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I know there's a lot of angst around the club because of the way the team's performing at the moment but I think we should give Don a vote of thanks for being there for the club when Jimmy became ill, for standing with him and then for taking over in such difficult times. I hope history judges him kindly in that light. As for Peter, he's now the "Interim Man" - twice had the gig and I'm sure he hopes he won't hold it for too long and that we get a stable and strong leadership to take us into the future.

Apart from being an MFC man what are his credentials? You could appoint Jeff Hilton and Jace Bode for being Melbourne people, but if they're not qualified then G&GF. Personally I couldn't give a toss if board members are not diehard supporters, as long as merger/relocation etc.. always has to go through a member's vote (at the moment merger does, relocation doesn't - but where are we going to, Fiji?). Doesn't mean I support Kennett but if somebody with qualifications is in it for the right reasons, not just getting their head on TV, I'd consider them.

How many 'millions' have the Swans received? Do you know? People criticising the Swans financials are just shooting blind. And how many top 10 draft picks have they had in the last decade? Melbourne are dreadful. We'd do well to study the Swans, even without a 'cost of living' allowance.

Moderators, i strongly agree with the stance about inter personal abuse. It pathetic, boorish and tedious to the extreme. However there has also been a big increase in outrageous and disgusting comments such as the one above about spitting in CS face. Foul and should not be tolerated. I searched for the report button to no avail. I know biffen has form but based on his suspension surely HH deserves a a long ban.Too much. The next time anyone wants to joke about the 'feral' supporters of other clubs they might want to pause and re read some of pathetic posts on DL from a small but unfortunately vocal minority

Like when McLardy said on the club website that there would be no changes and Schwab was sacked the next day?

geez 600K just handed to you, 10 years of the average wage,as a reward for being an utter failure.. not a bad line of work this coaching stuff

Regardless of the level of truth in some of the more subjective points made by Caro can we finally all agree that Schwab was an absolute disgrace as a CEO (Connolly contract), and maybe, just maybe, the players were right to want him gone back in 2011? The club backed the wrong man and now every supporter at our footy club has to watch the worst Melbourne team in 30 years get flogged every week. Good Times.

A non-playing teenager is our most important player, according to Robert Walls. Surely he has forgotten the potent contribution of [pick 11, 2015 draft]. This is a standard Walls formula article - make a sweeping generalisation based mostly on either the bleeding obvious or the current media smoke, then make a list of players you can come up with two sentences each about. After about fifteen minutes' work, send to editorial staff to have pictures added of players mentioned, for colour. Watch as pub debate is stimulated by arguments over the obvious deficiencies in the article. Collect a paycheck and a byline on a sports page spread. Be rich, trim beard, take a nap. I dunno what he was like as a coach, but as a journalist he is just plain lazy.

To demon31 & any other detractors of don mclardy.......you are small minded vitriolic people who should acknowledge that this man took on two positions ..MFC & Reach foundation.....positions he didn't want or need ... Simply to help out a mate! He did the job to the best of his ability & we should acknowledge that fact & be very grateful. We seem to live in a very gratuitous society.... Instant success ...everyone perfect ..no time for learning or development. I have taken the tack that the mfc for me started in 2011 & I am there for the ride. Let's get over the past problems, recruiting , bad development of players etc , we have a good man in p.jackson to get the ball rolling & we will go ahead. Really ...what is the point in agonising over past decisions.... Lets move on & have a bit of positivity

If you can't laugh at yourselves then who can you laugh at. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=553867591342220&set=vb.113208555377897&type=2&theater

I don't care. The expansion clubs are costing $200 million all up. They've made it harder for clubs currently at the bottom of the ladder to recruit (apart from the fact that we've done an awful job with what we did get). I have no qualms about getting some support from the AFL in the environment they've set up.

Don should be applauded for putting the interests of the club first. Despite what we might think of the Governance of the club in recent years, he has made a contribution and is now doing the right thing by the club by stepping aside.

Yes he did ... "Money is important. The Swans know that as well as anyone. Without some additional support from the AFL in the 1990s, we just couldn't survive," he said. "But just giving clubs money doesn't solve the problem. I don't think that does the club any favours. "There has to be a really hard-nosed plan of how the club is going to resurrect itself over a five-year period. "You've got to look at the better clubs, snap out of denial ... and almost start again." I think Colless is right on the money. And I'm sure Jackson will deliver a 'hard-nosed plan'.

Interesting AFL.COM.AU article on Colless' view of MFC. Link A quote from it: "But they just seem to have lost everything and have had so many top-10 picks. It's just extraordinary the way they have collapsed. It almost beggars belief, to be perfectly honest." Says it all for me.

I cannot abide in his views purely on his assertion that we should ditch both Davey and Sylvia. Obviously he hasn't watched much of Melbourne this year when he suggests that Davey was finished years ago.

I really cannot understand the logic that supporters are making a big deal about what side of politics anyone pursues This is a Football Club and i am sure there are members on all levels representing both sides of politics at the polling booth Alan Stockdale is a Melbourne supporter and that is one box ticked and that is one more than anyone that is not I really think that until Peter Jackson has made his recommendations i would think every position in our club will be left as it is This would also include player movements and coaching positions Unfortunately we need to be patient as we don't need any more bad decisions

That's ridiculous He's committed a whole bunch of serious crimes in a very short period of time, he has gotten off super easy if you ask me

Before people shoot this thread down by saying it will never happen, please consider that he openly stated on radio that he was 'interested' in the melboune coaching position (2012) but was never approached by the MFC. Right now, our club needs Leigh Matthews. He is arguably the greatest player of all time, has won 4 premierships as a coach and is still heavily involved in football analysis and is super intelligent and will remove all doubt and division from our supporters by eliminating the 'can he or can't he coach' question. I keenly listen to him on radio, and have found him to have his finger right on the pulse, to the extent that it is very hard to argue against his opinions. His presence alone will unite our club - supporters and players. With lethal as head coach, we can halve our coaching department and focus most of the coaching budget towards the head coach himself. Dare I say, a man like lethal barely needs assistant coaches. Leigh understands the emotional and spiritual element to football, he is super tough and can quickly turn a bunch of losers into world beaters, ie, Brisbane, "if it bleeds we can kill it". He is also tactically elite, he starts from defensive attacking strengths. With the lions, he put his best attacking players down back, and created a fierce attacking backline. This created drive thru the midfield and was capped off by penetrating kicks down forward. Leigh is able to get the best out of his players and tailors roles specifically to his players strength. He works with what he has, and makes the team feel fierce and invincible. Some say he inherited a super team, others say he allowed a team to become super. I still think that our team can be super. We must persue lethal, and at least ask him if he is interested, for if he is interested and wants to coach us, it would be negligent not to give him the position of head coach. Presidents, the board, ceo's are very important, but nothing wins games of football like a "great" coach. And who could argue that Leigh Matthews is not one of the greatest football individuals in the history of the game. Nb, he even looks like a demon. Nbb, he is only 61.

1) I doubt anyone serves on the board with the intention of driving the club into the ground 2) There are some absolute Karmichaels on this site

Schwab, McLardy and Neeld in a short time. Satyriconhome: "everything going fine"

Thank you Don for performing the role with dignity and for putting your effort, time and resources into the club. You stepped up at a time of great tumult for the club and performed the role as best you could in difficult circumstances. As for those who have been disgraceful in their comments about Don and are now saying he has done the right thing in stepping down and thanking him, I reckon you should have a good long hard look at yourselves - you know who you are - are maybe take a spell yourselves.

Thank you Don for stepping up in what was a terrible time for our club. It's a shame things have spiraled out of control during your time, but I know your intentions were always good and you will continue to love this club. Onwards and upwards.

I understand what you're saying, but I think I look at it a little differently. Less than 2 weeks ago, the club had a board meeting, it was acknowledge that the football department structure needed addressing and that Neeld needed some clean air in order to Coach. It was also stated that all those personnel with football responsibilities would be continually assessed. Since then we have had one game. This is an organisational change process we are going through, and from my experience, you do not change your view after two weeks. If you say assessments will be undertaken, then assessments will be undertaken. I see things like this. Jackson says football department needs to be restructured and Neeld needs clean air, while all personnel will be continually assessed. I'm going to approach this from a HR perspective, because that's my expertise, but until you have set up the new structure, identified the roles and responsibilities that you need performed, and provide time for personnel to get used to operating under that structure, you can not properly assess their productivity or effectiveness in the role within the new structure. What Jackson's statements say to me is: We're reviewing the entire football department, including all the roles and responsibilities of those in the department and will assess whether the people within the organisation are able to perform the roles that will exist within the new structure. Remembering that Jackson has only been around for less than 2 months, and the comments about the list being in a similar state to GWS, I don't believe their is a strong enough body of work that Jackson has witnesses intimately (within the club culture) to make a decision on Neeld, let alone assess whether he fits into the new football department structure given that it obviously hasn't been finalised as it was put to the AFL as a proposal in order to receive the funding. Remember back to Bomber Thompsons early days at the Cattery. He was on shaky ground regarding the teams performance (who were further advanced than us), and the club decided to free up Thompson from some of his responsibilities, restructured the football department and then all of a sudden things improvement rapidly. Same thing happened with McKenna last season at the Gold Coast, and now they're taking that next step in competitiveness. If we truly are in a similar position to GWS from a list perspective, then it is right that we are on the bottom of the ladder. In assessing Neeld's performance, that also would need to be taken into consideration. From what we've seen, Jackson won't be swayed by media or public pressure. He will go through this process in the way he knows is right, and won't deviate from that until he's got a solid body of evidence to make the right decision. To me that suggests Neeld will be given until at least the end of the season. This is about long-term stability, not short-term concerns.

Ahhhh no he wasn't! Let's get the facts right. Pick 3 and Pick 13 went to GWS in return for Hogan, Barry and Pick 20. Also as part of this deal we allowed Gold Coast to take the first mini draft selection in a trade for pick 3 and therefore meant Viney got through to the second round. See Emma Quayle reference. http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/three-win-in-minidraft-20121009-27bbk.html So it's Hogan, Viney, Dawes and Barry for pick 3, 13, and 26. So you can actually break that down as Hogan for pick 3, Viney for pick 13 (even though he was drafted at pick 26) and Dawes for pick 26 (despite being traded for 20) and Barry as the set of steak knives. It was said pre draft that his value was as a late second or third round pick - somewhere between 30 and 55. That's where we should consider him for player development, not that it should be influenced by draft pick. Taylor Duryea and Sam Grimley played in their first games for the hawks this year after being on the list for 4 years. They also showed little until last year that they'd even make it to AFL standard. We should hold on to kids for too long because we do have an opportunity to play them if they are good enough but what they do in their first year at least should be inconsequential.

And what a player. A ball magnet. A goal kicking centreman. As much as I loved Todd Viney, imo, Wells should certainly have been named in the TOC ahead of Viney. He was simply a better player. I have no idea about the signwriter's Board credentials.

It's top 20 picks we've had an abundance of over the last 10 years for appalling results.

Haha my thoughts as well - could he be the first coach in history to get the sack after a win? Oh please - their lists have far more talent than ours does.

Over the past 7 years (since 2006) we have had 5 top 10 draft picks...interesting to note over the past 3 years we have had 1 top 10 pick Cale Morton #4 - 2007 Jack Watts #1 - 2008 Tom Scully #1 - 2009 Jack Trengove #2 - 2009 Jimmy Toumpas #4 - 2012 Over that same period (since 2006): Carlton had 3 [top 10 picks] West Coast had 4 Buldogs had 3 Essendon had 4 Port Adelaide had 5 Gold Coast had 5 GWS had 11 I think its pretty easy for an interstate footy boss to critise a Victorian team considering the money thrown at them over the past 20 years.

I deleted it myself, you can stop crying now and stay on topic.

Here we go...Bring it on i say. I want to go to the footy again and sing our magnificent dam song!!

apparently it is a very cold day in hell today

He'd need to.

I think this piece from "opposition analyst" just about sums it up (although I suspect Neeld had a role in adopting the plan used successfully by Malthouse to win a flag in 2010): Flattery or imitation: Demons fail to copy Malthouse plan The problem is that on Monday, Melbourne didn't have the personnel available to enable it to work for the full four quarters and particularly so after Chris Dawes had to be subbed off at half time. I think Neeld knew this and, as a consequence, there was a fair bit of work done to avoid the necessity of subbing him off earlier (which was probably to the team's detriment in the end). Though we certainly don't have the cattle, I think this highlights Neeld's greatest problem - his inflexibility in being able to make the necessary moves once the wheels start falling off (and confidence levels drop) in order to change the flow of the game. We've seen it enough times this year and last. On Monday, Collingwood scored 10.6 to 0.4 in a patch from quarter time until halfway through the third quarter. While Neeld has done well in attempting to do what he says was his mission - to "change the culture of the club" and this aim should continue into the future irrespective of who is the coach, he has failed to fulfill what I see as a fundamental in coaching on match days with flexible tactics and strategies that can work to change the course of games. If he hasn't shown this ability in 1½ years as coach, I can't see things changing in the next 12 weeks and, as a consequence, he's on his way out. He'll be very lucky to see out the season unless he's able to find ways for the team to consistently play as it did in the first quarter on Monday. He's been dealt a shocking hand as a coach with everything that's happened at the club both before and since he took over but the reality is that he is at the least no better at the coaching caper than his predecessor even with all of the extra assistance at his disposal.

You need to get there early WYL, they play it every week!But you are right, bring on the planned changes to get us on the right track. Today could be defining for our club, even if it goes largely unnoticed. I'll take any hand out we can get off it will get us closer to a flag.

Zilch. Nada. Zip. He's just fuelling the pathetic 'Sack Neeld' chant without offering to help or offering an alternative. Superficiality at its best.

What a frigging joke! One line sums up the whole article: 'Without knowing contract situations, I would release these players...' Thats basically admitting that you did no research (contract info is very easy to attain). He just picked up a footy record and went through and went 'he's ok', 'don't rate him' etc. What a hack. If I was the editor of The Age I'd be pretty insulted by the lack of effort put into this.

That we've played 12 games in 11 rounds 4 times

No worries. - Argue the points of discussion, not the people involved in the discussion - Avoid Racial, Political or Religious discussions - Everyone is entitled to express an opinion but with that entitlement goes responsibility to observe the code of conduct and use common sense Satyr shows flagrant disgregard for these rules. Practically every post he makes breaches at least one of them. Every critique of the club, no matter how reasonable, is met with abuse. There is little interest in discussion, merely a mindset of placing anyone who is critical of any aspect of the club into a box labelled "naysayers who think everything is crap" and treating them with contempt. It is completely childish and cumbersome, and quite clearly I'm not the only one who feels this way. For someone who takes it upon himself to represent the club, he is doing a terrible job at it, certainly on here, and I doubt the club would be overly impressed with it. I will admit I have lost patience with Satyr's conduct and may have stepped over the line on occasion in responding to his posts, but when it's every second thread he is hijacking to attack people for merely expressing an opinion, the only conclusion I can draw is that he has been given a free pass to do what he likes.

It's a sad and tragic story for all concerned including the victims of Liam's crime. I hope all concerned can find peace and that Liam can turn his life around. Nothing more to say at this stage really.

Brace yourselves, winter is coming

You said: "... we have the worst list in 40 years. This despite having the greatest access to early draft talent in history." You cant simply cut out a clearly important factor (our access to high picks and priorities during the introduction of two expansion clubs) and then present as an accurate discription of the situation with a blanket statement which you would have presented no actual statistics to back up. Granted 2009, our access to talent has not been the greatest in history, compared to drafts without the introduction of expansion clubs. Clearly been hindered by GWS and GCS. We got the leftovers from two expansion clubs let alone have one of them poach our top picks because the of AFL flooding them with money. What we have had to choose from and our picks aren't legendary. Legendary would be St. Kilda's access to the 2000, 2001 superdraft and 2003 draft which got them Riewoldt, Koschitzke, Ball, Dal Santo and Goddard - all top 5 draft picks bar 1, all the backbone of their finals, minor premiers wins and grand final appearance. Look, I know you like to think you're the smartest man on DL, but behind your constant insults, belittling, rudeness, bias rubbish, and need to affirm your false belief in your 'superior' intelligence, you're just another keyboard warrior who likes the smell of their own farts and is wrong...

Last year I sat infront of a couple of dees fans in the members, who were calling for Moloney to be traded.. The same fans were screaming like school girls over a Viney handball. My opinion is that had Neeld embraced and spoke to the senior group instead of putting them all on notice after a season consisting of 8 wins (something he still hasn't accomplished in a year and a half) We would still have Moloney and Rivers and some exp heads able to guide the likes of viney and Tmac on the field.. Moloney was a gun, and when Neeld [censored] in his face and made a kid who hasn't played more games than Moloney has had Brownlow votes as if you wouldn't buy in. It was a lack of respect to senior players, had it been local footy it would of been a mass exodus mid year! If Melbourne were a smart club, they'd still have Bruce, Moloney, Junior McDonald, still leading the way.. But like always no respect is shown to senior players..