Leaderboard

If I may I would like to address a couple of your comments and appreciate everyone has their own opinion. In terms of management style and whats right and wrong, history shows there are many different styles of leadership that can be successful. Singling out players rightly or wrongly according to the latest management school of thought has been done because every player needs something different. Not one approach fits all. I can suggest with some authority that Neeld holds strongly to the value that every single player needs to be coached, lead and challenged differently, not one size fits all. He challenged Jack early as he thought thats what Jack will respond to. It is actually as simple as that. You cannot say that is Neelds' style. In fact it is a management solution that fit a certain situation to which he applied to Jack. I hope that makes sense. Secondly, Neeld himself was the first person to point out to players at our club on arrival that at CFC tell everyone they have the best club and resources in the world. The fact is he told them MFC have newer and better facilities for PLAYERS. This does not mean the coaching staff do. Yes we have invested in more coaches than ever and that is a huge step which Neeld himself initiated and led. I can tell you it is falacy to suggest that our football club coaching staff have better resource off the ground than other clubs. Neeld has personally driven the club to get up to speed on all types of common industry coaching support tools which the football club didn't have. The club has traditionally thought it was an innovator but reality is they have been at the bottom of the table for everything to do with coaching resource and infrastructure. Again I make these statements as I have a bit to do with most AFL clubs and can also benchmark MFC. Neeld has done a MAMMOTH job to rectify this and has worked himself and the staff into the nights to get it to where it needs to be in order to play on a level playing field. When I say mammoth what he has done so far is outstanding. But he knows there is so much more to do and the club admin needs to make further gains to support him. Again I understand everyone is entitled to an opinion, but its very easy to cast judgement when you don't actually know what, who, where and how are going on behind the scenes. Just one more point on emotion if I may indulge ... Mark is not emotional about our players. He is objective and sees them for what they are. They are the people who bring to life his game plan. He is VERY strategic and the emotion will come in when you start to see players earn his pride and trust. It has still been a blank canvas and rightly he is at the moment letting the Sports Science team get the job done to get the players into the shape required to be part of the game plan to deliver ultimate success. It is my personal opinion that Mark will use the emotion card alot like we have see Chris Scott or Brad Scott....Rarely....but for a purpose. Don't underestimate MN, everything he does is calculated and for a purpose driven outcome. A game is yet to be played. But if MN does fail it will not be because he didn't leave no stone unturned. Go Dees

Personally I just love it when people give an opinion with no supporting evidence whatsoever. I love it because it narrows down the list of people to bother reading on this site.

Eddie McGuire is a self serving control freak and will push Collingwood where he can. I don't like his head on my TV.

The only problem I would have would be if McGuire was commentator for games involving Collingwood but Foxtel has assured that this will not happen.

I haven't got a problem with Eddie on the Footy Channel. He's a pure TV entity. Could be worse, it could be hosted by Anthony Hudson, Kevin Bartlett or Michael Christensen... ergh... Gippy

I think you miss the point. McKenzie was offered a spot on the senior list which at minimum would have been a two year contract. He stayed with Melbourne on the Rookie list, punted on a long term injury to get a senior game and had no guarantee of a contract beyond the year. Views on his skills may vary but his loyalty is exceptional and that he has won the coaches award for the last two years and the Heart and Soul Award last year says a great deal about him as a person. I also think his skills are being underestimated here. He clearly played with injury last year missing the first batch of games with a groin problem and the fact that he is yet to join the main group at training this year indicates that even when he played last year he wasn't right. If his body stands up this kid will end up in the leadership group at minimum.

I am 24 years old and recently completed a leadership course through work as i move up the ranks of a rather large company. The single most important thing we were taught was communication which included everything from talking, listening, body language, the way you dress and present yourself, everything about you when you interact with other people. Positive and negative feedback to players, coaches, media, everyone. I also remember reading an article somewhere about Hawthorns captiancy. From a spectators point of view on the field luke hodge is the leader of that club. but off the field someone has to go and meet sponsors and do media commitments and things like that, a very busy person. I think there is a whole lot more than I could imagine involved in being an AFL captin. Maloney and Frawley seem to be our on field leaders but from what i hear Grimes is so very professional off the field and apparently held in very high regard. Having siad that I still dont think think there is a stand out captian which is probably why we have these disscusions.

Was listening to SEN the other day and they were replaying a fantastic interview with recently retired big hairy Cat, Cam Mooney. When asked about the single biggest influence on the Cats premiership dynasty, he did not hesitate in naming the appointment of Tom Harley as the club's captain at the start of 2007. "Why?" asked Nathan Thompson. "Because of his communication skills" said Mooney. Being a good player, honest, disciplined and hardworking, is essential for leadership. But the the key quality, according to Mooney, was the ability to communicate effectively and intelligently to every player on the list, from youngest to oldest and from most talented to the biggest battler. I so hope Neeld gets this decision right. It should be noted that Harley's selection was a surprise to many outside the Cats at the time, so don't be surprised if a left-field choice is named or possibly even a youngster.

Come on guys, the Malthouse thing is being taken out of context here. From my memory it was a game at Etihad where he also said the forwards were playing way out of position. It's hard to hit targets when they aren't presenting. Jordy came in well under prepared in 2011 but still gave us all he had, for some reason he always looked to hand off rather than kick and this is what Mick had a problem with, but at times maybe that was a better option than blazing away as beamer tends to do. Our mid field let us down badly against solid opposition (Hawthorn, Geelong, Collingwood) and it was the senior players (flat track bullies), the so called big bodies who were responsible. A couple of seasons ago Mark Mclure said that Maloney and Silvia were dumb footballers and I couldn't agree more, they both play like junior footballers, they don't play team football they try to barge through opponents and get away with it against young teams such as Gold Coast, they always want to kick the ball rather than use team mates in a better position, this is primary school stuff. Col Silvia is a forward and a damaging one when on song (not often enough), his peripheral vision is not good enough to be a quality mid and he and Maloney should never start together at a centre bounce, against quality teams they get creamed. Jordie, in fact both Jordie's will be good footballers for the MFC. A good mid field needs at least 8 to 10 contributors with a couple of star quality players, Trengove will be one of those, Viney when he comes maybe, lets see who else stands up and in the meantime get off Jordies' back.

everyone should be a fan of this kid...he may never have the elite kicking skills of a pendlebry or judd but he has more ticker than both of them combined. i think there needs to be a spot in the team for a 1% player. the nut case who is going to throw his body around, accepting death before dishonour and the bruises associated with such play. jordie mckenzie is one of those few players who seem to become 10foot tall and bulletproof when putting on the jumper. he seems to actually care about the MFC as an institution rather than just a footy team and therefore he should be applauded for the 5chase downs and 10team acts a game (plucked the numbers out of the air) rather than booed for his 4missed handballs. matty whelan and daniel ward made solid careers off playing this style of football

Thanks for such a great review of my book. As was mentioned above, this book really only recounts the first chapter in Liam's incredible journey. Assuming he has a full uninterrupted pre-season, which will be his first ever, a fitter and stronger Liam Jurrah should take his game up another level next year. Thanks to all Dees supporters who have cheered him on and taken him to their hearts. Finally, an apology from me for occasionally being overly sensitive to criticism levelled at him by Demonland posters.