titan_uranus

I wouldn't be writing them off, after just one game against Geelong. I'd agree, though, that if they can't get a flag this year, or next, and they start to wane, then that will be a fail for them. They were lucky to win it in 2008 anyway.

No sh!t. You needed a poll to tell you that?

Meanwhile... Wtf Hawthorn. 30 points up at one stage, now 21 down.

Nick McCallum, the famous one, works for Channel 7 and 3AW, and has done the pre-game spiels that we used to do at our home games (remember the 'grand old flag' disaster?). He is a proud MFC supporter. He didn't write that, though.

True. Still is a reflection of where our club's at, though, that he did it at all.

It's a situation that raises as many worrying issues as it does provide us with hope. It's great to see JV has the leadership potential, and the balls, to stand up after one game (or, at the least, be good enough to warrant being asked) in front of the whole team. It's also great to see that someone actually cares. However, it's not really earth-shattering to ask, if a debutant 18-year-old has to do this, what the hell is wrong with the rest of them? It's somewhat laughable that the youngest member of the team is the one leading.

I agree that plenty of the decision to sack Bailey comes from Schwab and the Board's situation at the time. That doesn't mean Bailey wasn't a bad coach. Those defensive statistics surprise me somewhat - are you using points against? Our defence was always OK under Bailey, and in fact is still OK. The problem was that the midfield had no defensive capabilities, the same issue that we have now. Saying that Hinkley has showed a new clear direction is a bit ridiculous - they've played one game, against us. What if they come out next week and get belted? As for the others, Lyon took over a team that, injuries aside, would have been playing finals anyway, Sanderson took over a team led by Neil Craig, meaning that if they were nothing, they were at least a fit and developed list, and McCartney also had a year of completely sucking, just like Neeld, and thus didn't show anything within his six months, or at the very least, showed no more than Neeld. I accept that Neeld is struggling; no one denies that. But the fundamental difference between us and those other clubs is that our list had no stars, had no fitness base, had no game plan, and had no structure to it. To ask someone to come in and overhaul us is a big job. Yes, he is struggling, and there are plenty of things we could be doing better aside from merely pushing up the ladder, and yes, I'm disappointed in Neeld to date. But I do not agree that his job is comparable to any other coach's.

Thank f**k he's going to be OK, it seems, for Saturday. If all 22 played like he does, we'd be fine.

I'm a bit the same. I think effort has to be prioritised at the moment, though, so he stays, but when Jordie McKenzie is one of your best midfielders, you're never going to be a good AFL side

It's not going to happen now, so let's not worry about it. If 2013 goes the same way as 2012, revisit this discussion in late-August/September.

Because he was one of the worst things to happen to this club. As a club, we went nowhere whilst he was here. Chalking up meaningless wins in 2010 doesn't change that. He coached our players to be a bunch of downhill skiiers - sometimes this ended up with us winning by 10 goals, but the general problem was that we didn't have defensiveness. We were drastically unfit under his leadership. We didn't play like a team, and we didn't have any plan B, or C, or D. Dean Bailey was not a good coach, and pointing to his win-loss record as being better than Mark Neeld's is ridiculous. Neeld is clearly struggling. He's taken that list, flawed and all, and not been able to make much improvement to it. We're still not a team. We're still not fit. We still don't have a plan B, or C. But those are things which Neeld did not create. They're things which he has failed to fix.

From what I understood from the radio, they had Paul Stewart tagging him, and we spent a lot of the match trying to get Watts freed up to play loose. As a result, our defenders kept having to look after Stewart because Watts wasn't bothering to do so. Is that how you saw it? Either way, the fact is, Watts had a shocker, didn't do what he was asked to do (either play on Stewart or have an influence loose).

The sad thing is, work ethic should be the one thing he can get going from day 1. I can understand a game plan not coming together at the start, and needing a season, maybe two, to get it right. But the least negotiable of all the non-negotiables should be our work ethic, and it should have been his highest priority over the pre-season to make sure we lived up to his original promise of making us hard to coach against.

Does anyone have footage? Or remember what time in the game it was, so I can look it up on the game replay thing on the AFL website?

Let's take it in baby steps. No point trying to get us to go from zero to hero. This week, I'd like to see the following: Running. I want our players to run. Whether it's chasing, linking up, spreading, zoning, or whatever, I just want to see movement. Kick-ins. I'm sick of the kick-to-self, run 5 metres, then bomb it to the flank outside the 50 where Jamar and a pack of players are sitting. It's not only predictable, it's not very good anyway. Stoppages. At half-time in general stoppages we were down 11-1. I don't want to see Essendon continually ripping the ball out of stoppages. That will do for now. There are so many things wrong with us, but if we come out on Saturday and we run hard, we work harder at stoppages, and we do something relatively smartish with our kick-ins, that'll be a start at least.

To be fair to the defence, there was no pressure on the Port Adelaide ball carriers, meaning they were delivering the ball at will to their forwards. Very hard to defend when the forwards get perfect delivery. The real issue, as it's been for 6 years, is our midfield. They are slow, they don't work hard enough (whether it be spreading from stoppages, zoning, manning up, linking up in play, chasing ball carriers, or generally looking like they give a f**k), and they're not particularly skilled. Viney showed everyone what a true midfielder looks like. We can change our defenders as much as we want. When the ball is delivered inside 50 with such ease as today, they won't stand a change against GWS' forward line, let alone Port Adelaide's. I shudder to think of what Jobe Watson and Brent Stanton are going to do with us next week.

The kick-ins have been a disgrace for 6 years. I can't believe that they continue the same mindless fail of a strategy. It's unfathomably bad coaching.

Dawes was brought to the club to be the second forward. Sellar wasn't. When Dawes plays, Sellar/Pederson don't get second defenders, they get third. It's going to make a difference. Of course, that doesn't stop Pederson from being soft.

Was just being provocative

Which is why I said that there are plenty of things Neeld is doing wrongly. I just saw some highlights. In almost all of them, I saw a player with his back to the play, just following his opponent. It reeks to me of players following instructions without thinking about the game. I think it's unfair on Neeld to say 'hey, look at the Dogs and Port, they won big this week, so therefore we're behind them'. We can't make that kind of assessment until the year is up. All up, though, there are clearly a lot of areas Neeld is struggling in. Whatever his game plan is, he can't get his players to execute it properly. He can't get his charges fired up, and he can't seem to get his leaders to lead. Those are things he can work on over the coming weeks/months, and who knows, maybe we'll get better. Of course, we're just as likely to see 2013 go down just like 2012, in which case Neeld is going to be in serious trouble.

This genuinely is such a pathetic and unfair thread.

He briefly talks about how 'we've been losing for so long', when asked about our confidence. It's not unfair to infer from that that he's saying 'when we get behind, we're so used to losing that we lose our confidence in our ability to win'. Lends credence to the 'tanking has instilled a losing culture in our team'? Food for thought.

It's one alternative, and from my experience, it seems to be the one preferred by MFC supporters. I'm not used to our fans doing anything other than clap the side off after a game. It's not like the booing was organised or agreed upon. It was passion boiling over. We all care about this club, or we wouldn't be here. There's only so much we can put up with, though. If you'd asked someone on here in 2008 where we'd be in 2013, the answer wouldn't have been a description of today's game.

Your one-eyed hatred for Neeld is clouding your judgment. It's not a way to say 'leave Neeld alone', because he deserves to cop plenty of flak. But Bailey's time at the club led to us having an unfit list of C-graders. There's only so much you can do to a list like that in 18 months. Like I said, though, there is plenty Neeld can do, and he's not doing those things.

I haven't seen the game, but it sounds like Gillies, Nicholson, Watts, Dunn and Pederson were as bad as they come. However, it doesn't really matter. We're not going to go anywhere whilst the core of the side doesn't put the required effort in. We can change the players as much as we want, we just aren't going go become anything other than a bottom 4 side when teams can treat matches against us like a training drill.