titan_uranus

I've never seen him play - what's he doing wrong at the moment, BH? I'm not having a go at him - I'm fairly confident he's the best player on our list right now. I'm just interested to know what he's doing wrong (read: talking about Hogan is relatively exciting).

I have no idea what Sydney did well/not well two weeks ago, but at a guess I'd suggest they limited the run off half-back. Give O'Brien, Shaw and Swan room, space and unpressured time to get the ball into the forward line, and Cloke will be on the end of passes that McDonald/MacDonald/Garland/Sellar can't stop no matter what. I think that's as important an issue as who plays Cloke and who else in the back six zones off and covers space when required.

No they don't. I don't. Plenty on here don't. You're not a 'most hardened supporter' if you have a breaking point.

I'd like to see more movement through the corridor, but I'll agree with you to the extent that it's hard to judge the gameplan's efficacy when the players have been so poorly implementing it to date.

Absolutely agree that it was a great transition from the back line to the forward line. That kind of running, leading into space, and precision foot skills is what we need to see more of each week, but the more that happens, the more scoring chains we'll get, and the more we'll start to go inside 50 and score.

I think it's fair to say Davey's kick was a shocker, but as you say, if we have 2/3 KPFs in the side, then when Dawes is on the wing, we'll still have a marking target behind him, so that Davey's kick is able to go to Clark/Hogan instead of Rodan, and that makes a big difference.

A salient point. I originally thought Blease would get the vest, but then I thought to myself, if they want Blease to make it, they need to see that he can bring defensive qualities to his game, and that he can do it for a whole match. So I'd play Blease all day, get him to show that he can chase hard in the first quarter and the last (even if we're down). He'll also know that substitution awaits if he doesn't live up to his expectation. I'd go with Tapscott for the vest too.

This. If you want to join in when we get better, you have to pitch in now.

Providing great all-round value, is Dawes. Captain-coach? (tongue firmly in cheek)

Notables - McDonald and Sylvia go straight in. With Fitzpatrick holding his spot, can't see how Gawn gets in (too tall). McDonald takes Sellar's spot, so I'd go with McKenzie, Blease, Kent and Tapscott.

Melbourne v Collingwood MCG, Monday June 10, 3.20pm AEST MELBOURNE In: C.Sylvia, J.Sellar, S.Blease, M.Gawn, T.McDonald Out: J.Frawley (hamstring), J.Strauss

A few 'upset' chances here - Carlton over Essendon, Gold Coast over North, maybe even St Kilda over West Coast given how the Eagles are travelling.

Again - who doesn't recognise that our midfield is this bad? We all do.

Expecting us to be a team due to be on the up does not mean you also thought our midfield is good. Besides which, that's not what HT's silly statement was about. You and he are trying to say that people right now don't realise our midfield is bad. Who are those people?! Even the most positive Melbourne supporter understands that we have a midfield that would hardly compete at VFL level. You're just spouting hyperbolic nonsense to claim otherwise. Oops, good pick up. I was following the stats during the came and at half time it was much closer than that. Granted, clearly it didn't play out over the course of the match so that's not great. I'm not drinking Neeld's anything. I don't believe he is the right coach for us, I don't think he's doing a good enough job, and I don't think he's going to be here in 2014. But I do take umbrage at stupid comments like 'people don't recognise how bad our midfield is', when we all do.

This is wrong on a lot of levels. For one, Blease did not 'kill it' towards the end of last year. You're implying we fought off potential suitors to keep him, which is also completely untrue. He doesn't get a crack because he hasn't displayed defensive qualities which are required at AFL level. We continually berate our players for a lack of effort - Blease has been the typical lack of effort player. He was sent to Casey to get this side of his game right, which he appears to be beginning to do. He needs to continually work on that and make sure it's a regular aspect of his game because the Blease that has played AFL in the past is not going to make it if he won't tackle and chase.

Of the three games he's been down there for, he's played one good one. I don't think that's enough. I'd want to see him play three or four consecutive games showing that he can match that defensive intensity and pressure for consistent periods of time before I bring him back. Every time he's played for Melbourne his games have been characterised by selfishness, showboating and laziness in defence. If he comes back and shows any of that again, I'd be livid.

Admirable sentiment, but totally unfair. This is Neeld's job. It's how he pays his bills. Of course he's going to do his best to keep it. If you think he's just meandering along twiddling his thumbs waiting out time, you have a ridiculously poor perception of reality. He may not get any better, he may not do anything to save his job and he may well be sacked at some point. But Neeld has every damn right to try to prove us wrong and turn fortunes around. I don't think it will happen, but I'm not going to berate him for not walking.

Absolute crap, anyone on here who doesn't realise how insipid our midfield is is clearly in a tiny minority. We all know that our midfield is abysmal. Edit: Also, in the last few weeks we've actually been rather competitive in contested possessions and clearances. So I don't know which 'people' you're referring to.

Ridiculous argument. I've said in other threads that I agree with you regarding Neeld's performance as a coach, but to stoop to such low-level arguments as to blame Neeld for anything negative and fail to attribute any positives at all undermines any argument you're trying to raise. In the end, you can list the positives for Neeld on one or two hands. Jones is one of them, whether you like it or not. If Neeld is to blame for players not improving, then by extension he is to take credit for players who are improving. Moreover, if Jones' improvement comes from work ethic, what does that say about the remainder of our list? If he can improve irrespective of the coach, why can't others?

I don't think that, because you're joining dots, you're wrong. I happen to agree with you in that I think Neeld is a poor coach and shouldn't be here in 2014. I agree that he has communication issues, and I agree that he has made mistakes in his approach. I do find it 'palatable', but yes, I do hope it's wrong - don't we all? Don't we all hope that, in actuality, the players and Neeld get along as well as could be hoped and that Neeld's vision is going to actually turn this club around? For every comment that has been made by a player regarding 'buying in', surely there's been another one about backing Neeld. If you want to believe them on one point, believe them on all points. I'd be hesitant to put stock in anything Moloney has said this year, being as bitter as he is. Reminds me of McLean's approach. Rivers' point, though, is a valid and pertinent one. Also, I wonder whether it's appropriate to say we've made a mistake - obviously Neeld isn't working out right now, but to say it was a 'mistake' is to imply that we could have known better. After the Bailey era of softness I was hoping the new coach would bring an element of toughness to the club - yes, Neeld appears on the face of things to have taken that too far, but that aside, at the time I (and you, I think, and many others) applauded the move. To now, 18 months later, say it was a 'mistake' isn't exactly true. It hasn't worked out, sure, and we are bad, yes, but it's not a 'mistake'.

You can't honestly expect the AFL to give us a better draw (financially), do you? Nobody other than Melbourne wants to watch us play. Nobody wants us to be on a Friday night, or on prime time TV, none of the good clubs want to play us. We're going to get another draw next year involving 7/9 home games at the G against interstate clubs. We're going to be in lots of Sunday 1.10, Sunday 4.40, Saturday 2.10 games because they're not on TV. That's a commercial reality, and I do not blame the AFL for it. Stadium deals do nothing for us - we're OK at the G, it's the Etihad tenants that are getting poleaxed.

This reads really nicely, but it's based on mainly speculation and assumptions. You don't know what he said or didn't say to Gysberts. You don't know that he didn't come in in 2011 and say 'I think you have talent', but was more than underwhelmed at his laziness, for example. I'm not saying that's the case, but you can't say that anything you've said is true, aside from snipes taken from a clearly bitter Moloney. Also, your statement that Gysberts is top 25 at North Melbourne is utter crap. He's hardly top 30, he can't get a game despite them having had injuries/suspensions. Well that's nice. Until you realise that you've arbitrarily picked two groups of four players to make a point. What would you say if I said 'Gysberts, Morton, Bennell and Petterd or Toumpas, Viney, Terlich, Hogan'? I'll pre-empt your 'but Morton was for Rodan' criticism and allow you to put Rodan instead of Hogan into the latter group. The latter group still wins, by a country mile. The only proper way to analyse list management is holistically.

Some of the petty arguing in this thread is just ridiculous. What I guess it goes to show is how divisive Neeld is, which, whether he's a good coach or not, and whether you think he's the right man for the job or not, is not a good thing for this club right now. Personally, the argument that we've gone backwards from last year and therefore Neeld is doing a poor job of coaching is simplistic and wrong. The idea of a J-curve is well known - sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards. Maybe we all expected our 'backwards' period to last one year, and maybe now we're realising that, in fact, the position this club was in pre-2011 required more than 12 months turning around. That doesn't necessarily I believe Neeld is the man for the job. But I don't agree with the argument that we necessarily needed to become better in 2013.

I don't agree with a proposed salary cap expansion. The view is along the lines of 'if you give Melbourne extra money, they'll go out and buy good players, and that's what will make them better'. Eddie's even said 'give them $2m extra, they'll go out and buy 4 players for $500,000 each'. The idea is that a priority pick is useless for a club who has had access to high draft picks and gone nowhere with them. The first problem is that it assumes we can use the extra money to find new players. That's no certainty at all. Moreover, it assumes that if we do entice players, they'll be worth large sums of money. Again, not necessarily true. Also, how does it work? For how long do we get this assistance? If we begin to play well as of 2014, at what point do we get $2m taken off the salary cap? Providing handouts in the form of a bigger salary cap is no answer to inequality. The only answer is for the MFC to do this by themselves.

Generally a good commentator. If he said Aus v Japan is Australia's greatest sporting rivalry, though, I don't know if I can listen to a word he says anymore.