Leaderboard

Stuff it. Here's the end to the most productive period of work I've had in months!

Indeed, I thought it was inevitable that one of he or Nicholson would go. He was a player I always wanted to make it, as he played with the right type of aggression and, as you said, heart. Didn't really have the tools in the end - no shame in that. Really nice bloke too apparently. Thanks Nev.

Nab's share price has gone up today, clearly as a direct result of me working 8 hours uninterrupted yesterday. Please don't let that happen again..... ever

I'm not surprised but am disappointed. Always like Nev as a player. I hope GWS give him a go.

Confirmed by the club that the stars are gone. So too the ridiculous collars. The Schwab cleansing is almost complete.

I didnt go yesterday because I wanted to be at my computer in case Demonland came back online.

It is looking like the Pies who will determine his fate. Heavily predicted to be there at 6. If Pies pass on him, it could be our choice if Lions take McCarthy as suggested, or possibly Aish if he slips.Getting Scharenberg at 9 would make the Tyson deal a blinder for us. Wonder how Barrett would see it?

Not too ramble or guilt, but on the topic I took out the subscription about a year and a half ago, not only is the mobile setup absolutely incredible, the no-ads pays it's way in spades. Further Demonland allows us Dees supporters some joy in these years of pain. I guarantee you I got more satisfaction out of my $25 dollars here, than the membership I bought for the real club! I'm a paid up Demonland member on a 22 year old checkout chick wage! Screw coffees this week, there's no spring carnival put a few bucks into Demonland and we all benefit! Thanks again Nash, DL and all. Sprawling Bigfooty looking for a training report or Aidan Riley stats was something I never want to do again!

For Nasher: Much <3 to you

Just took out a life time membership. Figured I've got some bloody good value from this forum over the last couple of years (thanks to most of you), and after experiencing a techo issue like this it makes sense to cough up and help the little bit that I can. Actually, thanks should also go to the Demon Shop who quickly sold out of the few items I was keen on purchasing this morning and therefore allowed me to re-divert the funds without approval from the household CFO. Thanks to the Administration team that makes talking about the Dee's with other keen supporters possible. It's truly appreciated.

Pickett Fence called, wanted to remind you of his pick 2 for Mitch Robinson suggestion.

"The 190cm backman was this week flown to Melbourne by the Demons in the hope he could slip to their No. 1 pick." Champion Data picks the top 30 draft prospects of 2013

I like the MFC logo/crest. It stamps us as who we are. I actually didnt mind the stars thing but if they go they go. Just make the jumper comfortable to wear, collar or none...not fussed personally. The most important aspect for the 2014 jumpers is company A on front and company B on back !!

Brisbane say they will pick him up as a Rookie. Melbourne need a quality small forward to compliment the tall timber. Worth getting in before Brisbane in the Rookie Draft?

I have always had a bit of time for Banfield... pretty sure he tore us apart on more than one occasion. Definitely worth a look in my opinion.

What was your username? I would like to refund you. Also if you had a life ban how are you back? Any give me your details and you will be refunded in full and possibly banned for life again. I haven't made up my mind yet.

I think you'll find that in the world of AFL "imminent" is a single word which describes the length of a piece of string.

Melbourne makes list changes Aiden was the final nail. Best of luck to him, plays with plenty of heart.

This has been around in one shape or form for a while but it always raises a bit of a chuckle - Deciphering the AFL Draft

No doubt as a scatter gun approach, as we said we'd pick midfielders and then grabbed a backman

Would be a fantastic get at pick 9. Very exciting prospect

That's up there with "why isn't Nick Sautner getting a game?".

So long as it's the proper red and blue, that's all that's truly important. Whilst I consider the collars and the stars 'classic Schwab', I couldn't have cared less if we'd kept them or scrapped them. So long as the red and blue are OK.

Back in the US, back in the US, back in the USSR?

Done. Short and painless - yay

[censored].....now what do I do with the three jumpers with nr 39 on, sad but probably inevitable, just couldn't get a run at it, tried his guts out everytime he played for either the Dees or Casey, and yes he was a bloody nice bloke....got 40 games in, so wasn't the spud some on here think.......... wouldn't surprise if he headed home to the west.......best mate Jamie Bennell now back on the Eagles list, they may look at him as well....

They certainly do things their own way down there.

Neville bloody bartos.

Pick 4 and 14 for Scully. Pick 3 and 14 to GWS for Hogan, Barry and 20. Pick 20 and 47 for Dawes and 61. Pick 61 and Gysberts for Pedersen and Pick 72. What a weird mess this is... Scully and 47 brought us Hogan, Barry, Dawes, Pedersen and an unused Pick 72. It's a big win even with the 'Pedersen as Albatross' dross that posters love to regurgitate.

My mouth is a little dry...How many hours did i lose?

I am all for taking Freeman. What we need most now are midfielders who not just get the footy in close but also SPREAD !! I cannot emphasize enough how much we need our footballers to spread to receive the ball. That has been the most obvious way that our disposal differentials are so far apart from the other clubs. It's all good to recruit mids to get the football from the centre square but we need our players to run and spread.

I have rationalised that Pedersen was a swap for Gysberts who was next to useless so we have a draw there.Pedersen will be helpful in our relationship with Casey over the next two years so we are marginally in front.

Yep, waste of time doing another past draft analysis of MFC's choices. Every supporter knows we have serially underperformed in the draft for a long time.

thank God, I was starting to panic

I bloody hope so. I would never say no to donations as I had to spend a bit on 2 days worth of tech support. You can subscribe by following this link: http://demonland.com/forums/index.php?/subscriptions/ Or if you are already a subscriber you can donate here: http://demonland.com/forums/index.php?/donate/ Thanks for your patience. Nasher can explain the technicalities.

Very much in the style of Sloane. Similar height and weight. Ferocious attack on the footy. All good from me.

You posted some great pictures but they were subject to copyright. A link is acceptable but we can't publish those images without the owner's prior written consent. Thanks

this is my most hated saying ever!!!!!

You do relaise that this isn't an argument against Neeld or even Riley, it's an argument against mob opinion.

Trengove is quality, his body wasn't right last year. The thing with Jack he tried to set the example as per Mark Neeld's instructions, he was so focused on doing the hard defensive acts that he forgot how to get the footy. He will be a totally different player next year.

I'm happy we got this guy, but if it was Neeld who was still in charge and he went and recruited Riley most people would be [censored] off.

Welcome Aidan. I imagine Kelly O'Donnell is responsible for identifying these mature players and he had some success last year with M.Jones, Terlich and Clisby. We've got a lot of midfield soldiers on the edge of the best 22 now - McKenzie, Nicholson, Evans, Kent, Tapscott, Jetta, Bail, M.Jones now add Michie and Riley. I'd be more keen on some X-factor and a KPB. Maybe we can get some at 40 or the RD or maybe there just there isn't any this year.

Here's a link showing his tackle on Brad Ottens. Fast forward to around the 50s mark. Certainly loves the rough stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxUVGacFx1Q

I shudder to think how much worse the player moral and professionalism would have been during the season if we didnt have Chris Dawes the man is worth very penny

Every footballer is one injury away from retirement. (BTW, there's an apostrophe in there … Clark's. e.g. "MJT's one obnoxious post away from being banned" is very different from "MJTS one obnoxious post from being banned".)

Ok, self belief comes from within the player himself. Yep - thing is, they all had it... I say self belief can be destroyed by others, and this is what I suspect has been going on at Melbourne for some time. Look at the loss of self belief in grown-up victims of child sex abuse. And please don't trash this board by swooping in triumphantly declaring "he calls Neeld a pedophile!" - I don't. I use the extreme example to establish the connection between abuse or long-term denigration and a loss of self belief, and simply say that the loss of self belief in our players since the 2011 (2010?) Sydney game, or after half time last Saturday, may well be because they have been in effect being undermined for some time. Abuse can erode self belief. Here is my speculative reconstruction, in an attempt to fit the visible with the scraps of explanation that can be gleaned at present: We know that the interfering Schwab and coach Bailey were diametrically opposed to each other over something to do with the players' performances. Bailey no doubt was too nice to the players - and Schwab had some very different ideas to Bailey. The players were pretty resentful of Schwab's interference and went out on a limb criticising (when asked), only to find themselves stranded out there. The 186 loss ensued, costing Bailey his job. Why were the players so pathetic that day against Geelong? I suspect the real issue undermining the players' focus that day was to do with the way they had exposed themselves to risk by speaking up when asked just a few days before. The timing is too suggestive to ignore. So what exactly was it that Schwab was doing or saying to them? The question in my mind is whether Schwab was making comments designed to push the players towards training properly and showing accountability on match day, or whether he was making personal comments about their characters (along the lines of a lot of the frustration aired on this forum), which came across to the players as undermining negativity directed in a personal way at them. If the latter, Schwab was directing at the players what he really meant to direct at the coach - was using the players to get at the coach, and it would be seriously undermining. And I suspect this must have been what was going on - I doubt that senior players like Brad Green would have shirked a proper training regime, or imagined that they could "dob in" (when asked) a CEO insisting they should develop proper fitness levels and show accountability on match-day. But, after the players spoke, the scale of the political forces at work sunk in with every day of silence about what they had said. What could they have been expected to believe about what they had done when they spoke up? If this reconstruction is anything like what did happen, then Neeld in effect picked up where Schwab left off. With Schwab removed from interfering, Neeld came in with his sterner approach to coaching the team (necessary for them to be competitive, no question), but in doing so he took on already fearful players and simply replaced the undermining effect of Schwab with the undermining effect of Neeld. Special circumstances, post-186, and requiring careful handling. Only that Neeld with admirable determination set about the rebuild, relying on all he had ever learned in other places - none of which had ever had the sort of problems Melbourne had when he arrived. Perhaps the tone of voice he used, and the up-front personal remarks he made to the media - and presumably in private too - hit on raw nerves. He spent months chatting with Brad Green about his impending retirement. It seems likely to me that the players recognised that Neeld and Schwab were on a wave-length - especially when Neeld was so publicly disrespectful of Bailey, and as time went on the Schwab-dobbing players one by one steadily disappeared. Today, the players appear scared... "lacking self belief"! Maybe from their point of view they still are in a war zone, with everyone outside pretending it isn't so: maybe what is needed above all else is for them to be convinced that they are on "our" side. Surely in the coach v CEO war, with the club swinging in its support now to one side, now the other, and dragging the players into it, the players must have wondered what their role was meant to be. At the end of last year, I suggested a big "clean-out" would be far too destructive of player morale. You could dispute the connection I claimed, but you could hardly doubt the subsequent collapse of morale. Yelling at the players now, and threatening more player sackings ASAP, or demanded they grow up and fix their self belief - I wonder if that isn't just reprising the preparation for that Geelong game...

How recently did you change your 'signature' from 'I Believe in Neeld' RR? You seem to turn pretty quickly mate. It's one game, relax.

Neeld simply could not have done any worse. New coach please.

I admire the loyalty and the optimism of the Neeld defenders and truly hope they are correct .But after 7 rounds we sit below a club that has been in exsistence for 1 year and another for 2 .Gee, they have made good ground on the 150 year start they gave us .It is not that we havent won a game -we havent even remotely looked like winning one .I find absolute frustation and emptiness in watching us play.I might be missing it all but I cant identify any discernible focus much less a game plan .We are shambolic .Why would you stand up and applaud Neeld ?.At best you can make a case for giving him more time to turn things around but I unlike others see no signs of any turnaround.Can anyone name a measurable positive to date ?

Weak supporters you would not no the first thing about me mate. Im far from a weak fan i am however very tired of not winning and rebuilding and hearing fans like you tell me the sun will come up in the morning. Im well with in my right's to ask what the hell is going on buddy.