Forest Demon

I have never really understood the desire to call out every former 'great' of the club to come down and save us, Lyon, Schwarz, Neitz etc. We need changes at the very top, not ex-footballers with little to no business nouse. And even if they were to help out in the football department, none of them have any coaching experience. The most they could do is the odd chat to the boys about what the club means, which all of them already do anyway. We need good, no great, business people that none of us have probably ever heard of to come in and get this ship back on course, not some bloke just because he used to take a good grab and kick a few goals.

This sort of stuff really is [censored]. For those who say it starts and stops with the playing and coaching group, you are delusional. Anybody who has worked for a company with a cancerous culture, poor management etc, knows full well how that will impact on every little part of that business. Unfortunately, it seems the MFC falls into this category.

The moment Rodan took off aimlessly in the first 5 minutes and ran into a brick wall my heart sunk a little. Hopefully there is a big improve from both of them.

I admire your sentiment. I was once like this and wish I still was to be honest.

Haha, was just thinking the exact same thing. Are they free on Saturday night by any chance?

Yes I have, and while there are definitely those who are disagreeing here and there. I think 99% of posters are on the same page after yesterday. Usually there are attacks flying around at each other from all angles. All off season, there were believers, non-believers, and everything in between. But yesterday broke a lot of people.

After a long off season where Demonland posters have continually been attacking one another over a vast array of subjects. Commonly resorting to personal insults and other childish behaviour. For the first time in months, there is no bickering, no snide remarks about each other, just about everyone seems to be on the same page for the first time in a very long time. All it took was one of the worst and most embarrassing performances in the club's history to make it happen. I have been around Demonland reading and posting sporadically for about 7 or 8 years now, and I honestly don't think I have ever witnessed a reaction as unified as the one on these boards in the last 24 hours.

Exactly my thoughts while I was watching the game. At the end of the game I got up and muttered 'F@#k Geelong and F@#k Jared Rivers' purely out of jealousy. My girlfriend is worried about my mental state after what happened yesterday. I can see myself sitting in a straight jacket, rocking back and forth in a padded room one day talking about this football club.

Not that this is the way it works, but he actually deserves it more due to how terrible we were.

I am not against Joel Macdonald like others are. He is not great, but he has a dip, and unfortunately, this is enough at the moment.

From the interviews I heard, they all said the same thing. "I didn't see that coming, we hav trained so well" etc. What, did they think they could just have a few good training sessions and turn up and have a win. And they all sit in their little pockets in the defensive zone, expecting to mop up opposition attacks without working hard enough. I agree, that was the single laziest display I have ever seen. And this list has priors, so they are definitely not excused.

Ultimately, the posters calling for heads are only doing so because they are supporting the club and want what is best as they are concerned with what is gonig on at the moment. In my book, that is still definitely supporting the club. Supporting doesn't mean having blind faith. I think Melbourne fans have given more than any other group of supporters and received the least back from the club.

Correct that sackings cost money. Neeld's contract for instance would have two years to run. So just even Neeld getting the arse would mean that coupled with the tanking fine, you are already down around a million for the year and we are barely even out of the blocks. Obviously all these things would need to weighed up, money alone is no reason to keep people at the club when it is clear they need to go.

I didn't hear the context of that comment. Was he saying it as if he was in the know and was confident about that? or just shooting from the hip willy nilly like most of us are on here?

Yep, has to be man on man. I just don't see any other option. We don't have another 3 years to sit back and learn if yesterday is any indicator of the performances we can expect in the meantime.

Don't anyone dare come in here say something along the lines of, 'I didn't know Cameron Schwab was playing on a wing', or 'Oh, is Don McLardy the midfield coach'. The board is never responsible for a single loss in isolation, but they are responsible for years and years of mediocrity, and then just when things couldn't get any worse, yesterday happened, the single worst display I have seen in my time supporting my club. And I am including the likes of 186 (the Geelong side of a few years back would have knocked up a double ton plus win yesterday).

"Systems and Structures in AFL Footy" by Mick Malthouse

I know it is a bit ridiculous to pin point one area tactically when there are so many problems. But now that I have settled down (a bit) this morning, I have one big area I think needs to be addressed on field straight away, and a few questions I am interested in in relation to it. So sorry for the long post, but here goes. Last year our biggest on field problem was they we were continuously hammered in uncontested possessions, which is basically a sign that other teams spread harder than us from the contest and just worked far harder than us in general. Even in our more competitive efforts last year we were still smashed in this stat. Neeld was even asked about it repeatedly by the media, which he kept replying to by saying it was our ball use which was the reason for this as we couldn't string chains of possession together, which may have been part of the problem, but it is clearly more an issue of work rate and conservative mindsets not wanting to run and take the game on. Now I have a couple of queries about this to pose to Mark Neeld. 1) What on earth was done to address this in terms of personnel in the off season? We attacked trade period very hard, but we were continuously being linked with tall after tall, despite our obvious lack of midfield quality. Dawes, Gillies, and Pedersen came in, and we even expressed an interest in Scott bloody Gumbleton. We drafted a couple of young mids which is all well and good, but they can't be expected to do much in their first couple of years (despite Viney being our best player yesterday). We bought in Shannon Byrnes and David Rodan, who although can play midfield, they are both predominantly small forwards (which is acceptable as this is another big deficiency). But who did we attack to bolster our midfield. Every name we were linked with in trade week was a 6 foot 4 plus. Does Neeld realise this is not basketball, we actually need to get the ball to these blokes first. 2) Where the fark was this apparent new fitness level? All pre season we have taken for a ride. The playing group are so much fitter are they, well it certainly didn't look like it. They looked just as out of shape as they did last year, the only difference was they gave even less of a [censored] yesterday then they have previously. I have never seen a side, and a pretty ordinary side at that, get so many extra numbers to every single contest and have so many players free all afternoon. Woeful. 3) Tactically, what on god's earth are you doing about it? We seem to be trying to implement some sort of zonal defensive structures through the middle of the ground. Well it ain't working. And I am not interested in hearing about premiership models and being competitive in the future. I want to go to the footy and see a [censored] decent game of football, not some experimental [censored] tactics that the group have clearly not even understood, let alone mastered. For me, players can easily hide in zonal defences. They aren't accountable for anyone, and everything can be someone else's problem. Hamish Hartlett, who I think is Port's best player, must still be laughing this morning how easy he was able to canter around the G collecting touches with ease. My one short term request is that we play man on man against Essendon. Let's make every single player accountable. If your man is collecting easy touches, you get a spray. If your man waltzes forward and takes an uncontested mark 30 out right in front, you get a spray. No loose man [censored]. Jack Watts is one of the most mentally weak footballers I have ever seen, so we set him up to play as a loose man, and when it doesn't work, he is just let there. It is no good for this boy's development to be collecting cheapies across half back. Go earn a kick Jack.

Not really true. Watched Fox Footy for about half an hour this evening, and Gerard Healy said Melbourne would be the biggest story on tomorrow's episode of On The Couch, and then even After The Bounce, which is absolute mindless drivel, they managed to have a serious discussion at the very top of the show about how bad we were.

Definitely wasn't a good look. And Port rightfully fed off it even more. They were giving it to him.

Wasn't really the point of my comment as I thought he made a couple of sloppy mistakes, but was more commenting on the fact that at least he had the right mindset and took the game on a bit.

Surely you come in jest. Sellar looked clean all day??? Jacks Watts showed promise??? Are you sure you were at the right game?

We are down by 10 goals, put him in the middle and say if you can't get 5 contested possessions before the end of the game you are playing at Casey next week.

Sorry, what did McLardy say? Must have missed that in all of this. And I love the way Watts looks so devestated and hurt after that performance, but mate, if it hurts that bad, and if you need someone to stand up, how hard is it to just [censored] do something, anything. And if you didn't stand up this week, and you haven't done it in the past, chances are you won't next week and the week after. As the not so great Dr Phil says, 'the best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour'.

Interesting those saying how we were huffing and puffing early on. Barry Hall was boundary riding for Fox Footy and noted after only 10 minutes how Port players were coming to bench exhausted, while our players cantered off in little more than a sweat.