Chook

Quoted for truth.

I am not a fan of Garland's at all. I'd rather play Joel Macdonald than him, simply because we know that Macdonald will screw up because of skill errors, not a total lack of intensity. Garlo's just about at the bottom of my list now that Brent Moloney's gone. Frawley? I don't know what's going on with him. Is he just marking the hours until he can move to a real club, or has he just fallen victim to his early success and AA nomination? Who knows, but just like Garland his intensity is way below the level it should be.

Their plane could crash.

He can be a media man all he likes if that's his bag. I'd just like him to kindly butt out of official business if that's what he wants to do.

If he got involved and it didn't work, then the criticism would be deserved. Likewise if he got involved and we came good, he could rest assured that he might still help us win the Premiership we couldn't get during his career. High risk, high reward. I'm cool with him staying out of it forever. It's this flip-flop, in and out crap that I can't stand. It smacks of a (literal) amateur mindset.

He learned what not to do in order to be a successful footballer.

The problem is that AFL is such a fast-moving environment that in order to offer any kind of useful opinion, you must be 100% involved. You cannot possibly hope to be of any help if you aren't willing to go all the way. Simply being in and out all the time is actually worse than not even involving yourself at all.

But unlike us he has the ability to get in there and actually do something about it all. And yet he doesn't want to.

Fair weather supporters? What about fair weather footballers? Fair weather administrators? Fair weather coaches? Fair weather footy club.

Let him know what he's in for. Help him make an informed choice before he throws his career away.

We're a disgrace to the name Melbourne. Hell, I bet Satan is even [censored] off with us right now for ruining the collective reputation of his demonic horde.

How can a guy who says he has no idea what happens in preparation for next week possibly be in a position to make an informed choice as to who should be our coach every time that question comes up?

If you think Neeld is going anywhere before the end of the season (round 16 at the earliest), I think it's you who doesn't get it.

Agreed. Any change of coach would only happen in a Lyon-esque under-the-table smoke and daggers behind the windows type of deal. We would be absolutely insane to sell our house without having another already lined up. We'd be pretty likely to end up homeless if we did.

This is a perfect example of why chopping and changing coaching regimes is a bad bad idea. You end up with a mish mash of players recruited along wildly divergent strategic lines of thought.

The reason we train so well is because that's the only time we get to play against Melbourne.

Burns was alright and Rodan gave us a couple of clearances, but as far as leadership goes they were woefully inept. However we do not see what they give us at training, and I suspect this is the leadership that Neeld was looking for. Gameday leadership is very rare, and a couple of delisted hacks are never going to be aces in that regard.

Let me guess. You've never been to university, have you?

Clarkson is a better coach than Neeld, so yes. However an important consideration is the stability of the club. Sacking Neeld would be extremely instabalizing, so it would have to be a measure of last resort.

Actually yes I would. He's clear as crystal about what he wants, and he's a concise communicator. Unfortunately it seems that a lot of our guys are still incapable of translating what they know they should be doing into in-game performance.

Wattsy sounded pretty honest about halfway through there, talking about the crap we've been through. He's really speechless, and it's not the normal kind of footy cliches you usually hear. Hopefully something does change, because I and a lot of other Demon faithful are THIS close to just moving on with our lives. We don't get paid to sit through this shite, and the players need to start giving us something pretty goddamn soon.

Like Brent Moloney did against Geelong one infamous day? The basest of baseline standards is if you're unfit, you don't play. Why else were we huffing and puffing in the first quarter?

I was reading lucifer's post, and it wasn't until he started talking about Russell Robertson that I realised his message was almost five years old. If that doesn't tell you something about this club's predicament, I'll go hee.

"He is - if it's possible when you play your first game - he's probably been a Melbourne person for longer than anyone else in that room." - Mark Neeld on Jack Viney after the young man got up and spoke to his team-mates after the loss. It's that kind of leadership and strength that will get us out of this hole we're in. What a great kid. I hope he's capable of taking on more than he should ever have to take on, and is able to turn this bloody ship around before it's too late.

If we had won this would have been a great thread, but I just can't muster the will to make conversation about it. Someone put me out of my misery.