deanox

You could also claim that they don't like Neil Craig because he is in the footy dept, or perhaps they don't like Don McC, or maybe they had a disagreement with their line coach? Or maybe they don't like the bloke lining up next to them in the forward pocket so they didn't bother trying. Lack of effort on the field does not reflect whether the players like the coach or not. Also, how come you can't take Jackson at face value when he says he doesn't know whether Neeld can coach or not? It seems like everyone just wants Jackson to come in and find a solution that involves proving their opinion correct. If Jackson doesn't do what any particularl person wants they'll just argue Jackson is making a mistake. Let Jackson do his thing and trust in it. Or put your hand up for the board at the next election. Or call a SGM and put your hand up there. If you are a paid member you have the right.

Look after today I couldn't care whether he stays or goes (provided we have a replacement and a plan ready to take over), however I don't think he was deflecting or blaming the players, he was saying "everyone talks about how much pressure im under, but don't make it about me, make it about the players" - he is saying, don't worry about saying 'how are you coping mark?' think about the fact that the players have had to suffer the same distractions etc. He was actually sticking up for the players and saying 'remember that they are still human and are affected by all this stuff'.. I think Mark has backed the players by saying 'these are the group to take us forward' and 'these guys have talent, they just don't have experience'. What was he meant to say? 'Yeah the boys were crap today because i coached them poorly?'

Listen to it properly, when he said that he was talking about all the external pressure that had been on the club and the effect they have. He was saying don't just look at me and think 'he has had a heap of external factors (stynes, davey/misfud, tanking, aod cream), the same pressures have been affecting the players.

They also had more scoring shots for most of the night. I wish we had that problem!

i thought our biggest deficiencies last week were KPF and strength in thr ruck. Sellar can assist in both areas but unsure if we are too top heavy. Although the long term plan is for us to have 3 KPF.

Re gifting games. My take is that the kids, and the players the coaching staff see as genuine long term players need to earn it. They need to develop and play well to get promoted. We have also recruited a bunch of what i call "fillers". Pederson, Sellar, Rodan, Byrnes etc. These players are there to provide a few things: solid, older bodies, a great example on the training track, some knowlede about how other clubs train, think and work (to bring that perspective to our young list), AND they are also cannon fodder in the ones. If they play great. If they develop, great. If they dont, who cares. But they dont always need to earn games, sometimes there is value in them placeholding if no one else deserves the game. We say play the kids and people whing that we throw them to the wolves and we get belted, and they whinge thar we recruited older guys who arent getting a game. We say make the kids earn their spot and learn to dominate at casey first, but people whinge that weare playing the old guys and not giving the kids a go. Instead of whinging all the time, try and analyse WHY the coaching staff may have made the decisions they have and consider the motivations that way.

That does sound like me...

Contested possession stats can be over rated. Every loose bouncing ball nick maxwell picks up 20 m away from an opponent is an contested possession. They are also important in that tgey reflect genuine contested situations like the bottom of packs. Hard ball gets may be a better indicator of this however. Uncontested possessions may indicate kick to kick in the back line but they include all possessions where your team mate passes to you and you are free. Important stat relating to skill and ability to run and get free.

Thanks stuie! Doesnt surprise me wheb you see the loose chains we allow, like carlton did when they switched. I wish our guys would run just as hard when we switched the play!

In other opinions it would reflect that a) we have poor skills and cant hit targets, and that b,) we dont run hard enough into space to collect uncontested possessions. I would like to see the uncontested marks stat, i bet we are getting smashed because we dont run into space for our team mates. I bet we also have high contested marks, not because we are better at this than our opponents, but because we kick to contests, more than other clubs, instead of hardworking leading players more often. Can someone tell me where we sit for "uncontested possessions against" which is probably a better indication of how effective our zone is rather than "uncontested possession differential", which is probably reflecting the fact that we are last for uncontested possessions. We may still be low, but id be interested to know if we were closer to the median.

Daisy would be our best mid, would halve the load of nathan jones and set a great example for our young mids. He is also the best of the FA pool and has not committed to the pies yet. We need to get our act together and show some potential but we should be throwing everything we can at him. Long or short deal it doesn't matter. The injection of an a grade footballer into our midfield would change our results dramatically.

I imagine he will do a very thorough review of the whole club, including talking to players, coaches, phys eders, water boys, boot studders, front of house, back of house, all levels of staff/management and the board. He may not say 'the coaching staff have it wrong', but he may be able to identify that the coaching staff have 'lost the players' as everyone on here keeps putting it. He may also walk in and find the footy department is running rosey, the players are on board, the coaches are doing everything right RE coaching but we are just crap, whether due to poor players or poor gameplan etc. In which case I would think he would say to the AFL 'they just need support on field'. I agree RE well considered changes being made. But I don't think the big public statements are 'well considered changes'. I'd be very surprised if Jackson supports sacking the coach 1 month into his temporary CEOship. That would mean he would be responsible for finding a new coach, and I think he has more important things to do. Also, were he to appoint a new coach, or admin staff, or footy department etc, a new CEO would come in in 6 months time and be stuck with what PJ has done. Jackson should respect that the new CEO will need to be the one to make those decisions and appointments. Otherwise in 2 years we'll have the same old scenario 'poor so-so, he didn't get to bring his own team, and got stuck with the coach/admin.etc that PJ chose'.

To be honest, id be surprised if PJ will get involved in the football department to that level of details at all. I can't see him making any big changes as he is only a temporary appointment. Any decisions he makes will affect the future CEO. I understand that he is there to review the clubs performance in all areas, to steady the ship and make recommendations moving forward. That being said, if he saw a glaring issue that could be fixed immediately, i imagine he will. As an outsider, he is in a position to say "the board is a shambles" or "the coaching staff have it wrong" or "the players are terrible and need replacing", without having any conflict of interest. He has 6 months to do it. Review and make recommendations. In my opinion, his appointment is a clear statement that no further rash changes will be made and we should get used to the status quo. I also think he'll come up with a list of recommendations and it'll be up to us to follow them and implement them. If we do this to the afl's satisfaction, expect strong support from afl house, both on and off the field.

Sounds like lack of fitness may have cost us in the end. To those who were there, does that sound right? Did we have a younger team than port in the middle of the ground? Glad for Jim to get some ball in hand, a few games with 25+ possies will be important for his transition, i look forward to hearing a report on his game.

Bring in two walk up start senior mids. 25 or older with at least 120 games experience. One comes via FA (daisy?). Throw cash. One comes via trade - our first pick plus a player (watts or jamar are both surplus to our needs, would consider trading others inc blease as well.)

Week 7 of 8 is a bye. best case scenario he misses 6, is ready for vfl week 7, plays afl week 8. If we promote magner the only set back for mitch is he cant play (vfl or afl) until week 9. Id make the switch, magner for 7 games right now is more valuable than mitch for 1. But afl collective bargining agreement says mitch must agree to being put on the list, so it is not entirely up to the club.

Freudian slip?

I agree there has been a change, but that really has to be taken in the context of the growth both he and the club have gone through. He has undergone media training, he has had a chance to start improving players fitness, he has delisted and recruited players. The club is distinctly different than it was 18 months ago, and what was required then may not be what is required now. I am not disputing anyone's take on Neeld, the MFC board, the footy department etc. And thre reason why not is because unless you are involved I don't think you really know much about what is going on. I don't know, I have theoreys, I agree with much on here, but tend to think what is closer to the truth is that we are actually half way between the two opinions. My intention was just to through the other thought out there for discussion, and hopefully we can have a good one without pot shotting each other. $20k supporters shouting together in support of one team on Sunday was a fantastic feeling wasn't it? Cheers Spork, I spend most of my time reading this site on the mobile so its a bit hard to respond!

Perhaps Neeld hasn't actually changed, but media hero's and keyboard warriors who have been type casting the coach and assuming his message and game plan was just a copy of Malthouse circa 2010 were actually wrong in their assessment (much of which is not based on any real info). Just being a devils advocate...

Massive heart for using "one fell swoop" correctly. First time I've ever seen it written on a forum and not thought that the op was worried about an attack by chickens...

I agree that part of the coaches role is to manage the team as a whole including motivation, confidence etc. however on the back of two comprehensive beltings my opinion is that he did that - we came out firing and played great footy for half a game. Did Neeld make any changes at half time? Do you think anything he said caused them to lose confidence? If the answer is no, the loss of confidence is something that occurred on field in the third quarter. It was a massacre, arguably the worst quarter of the year and when it was over we were out of the contest. Neeld wasn't or there and couldn't change or affect the players at this time. The fragile mental state is due to the beltings, not due to his motivational speaking. The belting in round one was caused by complacency, of the players, of the coaches and probably also felt by many supporters.

Jaded, you're observations are spot on but imo your draw the wrong conclusions. You highlight that only some of the players can compete for the whole game. We saw in the first half that the players can if they want to, but in the second they weren't interested. In 2013, after the season we've had and the pressure on the players, if they don't have enough motivation to play four quarters, then that should rest with the players. The first half showed me that the coaching staff have prepared the players sufficiently, unless Neeld tried to change things significantly at half time this all lies with the players. My opinion is that bad luck and poor umpiring in the first 10:30 of q3 robbed us of momentum and confidence. Good teams, successful teams, teams with confidence would have come back, lifted their heads and turned it around. After the last two weeks, once wce had kicked 4 or 5 we lost all confidence on field where Neeld couldn't help. Rate Neeld on the first half today where he was able to motivate players after the lady two weeks. Judge Neeld on how we respond next week, but he could do nothing about the on field loss of confidence today.

You mean the hs link at the top of the article? It doesn't make any mention of the Mark Thompson discussion so I assume it leaves or other important bits too...

I wish we could get transcripts of press conferences. Rarely do I want to watch a 10 or 15 minute video and I don't like reading the media's interpretation of the q&a sessions. They never report the whole conference or the whole answer and always or their own swing on the answers rather than reporting straight up what was said. Does anyone know if these sort of transcripts are available online?

Beards should be a non issue, to be honest I like them. We are out of form and playing crap, beards has nothing to with it. Making them shave them off would just reduce morale even further, and to be honest, morale and confidence is probably our biggest problem right now.