old55

Sorry, you and Mark Neeld may be willing to reassess expectations to 25 goal defeats and 10 goal loss to GCS at home but I'm not.

I see you've jumped on "acceptable" and dodged "expected". I'll give you one fact - the most salient fact - that these results should not be expected or accepted. The coach himself didn't expect them. "Didn't see that coming" - then what's been his response since then - not to actually remedy the situation and have the team play to expectations - it's been to lower expectations - "we're less experienced than GC". Take a look at Port Adelaide - they lost important players Pearce, Chaplin and McCarthy over summer, but they replaced their failing coach and president and they're showing signifcant improvement. Their leadership group is Boak, Ebert, Schulz, Gray, Hartlett and Trengove. Yes it's not ALL Neeld's fault - we've got a poor midfield, major management problems and some unavoidable misfortune. But he hasn't delivered on his OWN expectations.

His message hasn't changed ...

It's about expectation - I don't expect us to be playing finals with our current list, but we SHOULD NOT be being beaten by 25 goals by Essendon or losing to GCS by 10 goals at home. We're not delivering that performance because the players are "feuding" with the coach - it's because the coach is a rolled-gold DUD and unfortunately as I posted on another thread the players have drunk his Kool Aid that they're no good, unfit and can't follow his instructions. We better not be delivering these same results this time next year - how anyone can think they're expected or acceptable is mind-boggling!

I don't think that's right - Jack Grimes, Nathan Jones, Mitch Clark, Chris Dawes, Colin Garland, James Frawley, Jordie McKenzie, Jack Trengove, Shannon Byrnes - there's nothing wrong with that leadership group per se. The problem is the current coach is not up to it. If John Longmire, Ross Lyon or Alistair Clarkson was running the show there'd be markedly different results.

The players have been drinking Neeld's Kool Aid that they're no good, unfit, too inexperienced, can't carry out instructions and have therefore been delivering on his message. One day they're gonna wake up from the nightmare and wonder how they got where they are.

I was there - BB's report is accurate and confirmed by Tricky. Jackson was very impressive - connected well with a simmeringly hostile audience and I really felt like he was already one of us. Howcroft was completely the reverse, aloof and extremely disappointing - for someone who is in the communication business, well all I can say is his performance mirrored our on-field performance.

I'll be totally amazed if we get a first round PP. We've wasted previous drafting opportunities and we need to show we've got our house in order.

What are they going to be doing - we've got Harrington in LM, Taylor in recruiting and Misson in fitness and conditioning - I can see a strong argument there's a new HFO and NEITHER of them are required let alone both of them.

I think the coach has to report to Head of Football Operations and just ONE footbal report to the CEO. IMO there's no way there can be a new HFO, Craig and Viney at the club - one of them has to become HFO if they're both going to stay.

Neeld is dead man walking and has been since R1 IMO. His departure will need to be aligned with the changes Jackson wants to make to the overall FD structure. He said yesterday that he has 4 FD people reporting to the CEO effectively making the CEO head of football - IMO those 4 must be Neeld, Craig, Mahoney and Viney. He quite clearly said he needs a strong experienced Head of Football Operations like Geelong (Balme), Hawthorn (Evans until recently) and Collingwood (Eade) - that's not Mahoney and I'm not sure if Jackson knows yet whether it can be Craig or Viney. When Neeld goes whoever takes over as caretaker will be decided in the context of the decisions regarding the FD structure as a whole. Craig, Viney and probably Rawlings are the caretaker alternatives IMO. If say Craig or Viney took over as HFO then they obviously can't be caretaker - I'm not in any way saying that's what will happen - maybe Jackson is looking outside - but if he is then more than just Neeld will have to go. Who wants the poisoned chalice of taking over with our next 4 opponents lined up - but we may have no choice but to act swiftly. It's ugly.

I like your posting Ron, but what's the evidence for this?

First of all Neeld "didn't see that coming" now he's reverted to running up the white flag and playing the youth card which existed when he couldn't see it coming. He's got no real explanation for what's going wrong but I have. Yes there is inexperience and lack of talent in the midfield and apparently they're fatal but the coach didn't realise this pre-season, it's only dawned on him now and he's clinging to it like an upturned lifeboat in a storm.

I honestly thought that was a joke post - but he actually said that??? Holy [censored]!!!

I've seen this "(because) we are still losing" posted by a number of the "stay the course" advocates. My concern is not that we are still losing - I fully expected us to be losing more than we're winning but I didn't expect us to be pantsed by PA, murdered, buried, dug up, poisoned, drowned and set fire to by Essendon, mangled by out of form West Coast, struggle for 3 quarters against GWS, and lose convincingly to totally horrible Brisbane. The GWS and Carlton results are the only ones that I can say fell with in my expected range of outcomes and they were at the very bottom of my expectations - but have been at the very top of our achievements. What I expected doesn't mean a jot, but what the FD expected does and I reckon they expected pretty much the same as me. They were wrong!

Heard Evans on 3AW Sports Today lamenting that the situation "is so complex and complicated" - only when you've got something to hide.

I agree there's speculation Ron but we're not going to get anything definitive on an open fan forum. Some have sources and some sources have more credibility than others. We can observe what happens at training and on fields and extrapolate. But unless you're on the inside it's impossible to really know if Neeld "has lost the players". Which really means important players to the club's future want to leave. This if true would be the key reason to move on Neeld in the short-term. We don't know but those inside the club should know. Edit: I've heard from sources I consider credible and seen on-field performance to make me very concerned.

I think there's two possible reasons for moving on Neeld immediately or soon Immediately: Neeld is permanently damaging the relationship between important players and the club and they'll leave at the end of the year - this, if true, is a reason for moving on him immediately. There's a lot of rumour around this point and some extrapolation but there's not much hard evidence. Only those inside the club really know. Moloney has recently been the poster boy for this but again no-one really knows whether he was redeemable and how hard Neeld tried. It seems Neeld had his moments with Davey, but I reckon Davey has delivered to his maximum capability this year. Rivers is a less convincing example - he left like Goddard did - for much greater opportunities. Martin, Gysberts, Bennell, Morton, Petterd - there's no evidence one way or another whether Neeld made the right call on these players. Watts is the likely example of mismanagement - the sub, drop, emergency, recall saga did not play out well in my opinion but again no-one has provided hard evidence that Watts is terminally disenfranchised, and indeed opinion is quite split on whether this really matters. There's been speculation about other important players wanting out but no evidence. Overall in this area Neeld got Clark to the club and Clark has been nothing but positive - that's a big credit to burn. Soon: Neeld is not the coach to lead us forward in the long run and if you've made this decision then we should move on him soon because important list management decisions are made from this time forward and we can pursue an alternative coach and make them with clear air and not waste a year.

Ask Wade Lees ... Read more: http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/casey-scorpians-player-wade-lees-cops-18-month-ban-for-importing-performance-enhancing-drugs/story-e6frf33l-1226541646433#ixzz2SU0bMn3e

Rodan can be having a positive impact on the club with his positive personality, his teaching and his work ethic at training without necessarily being in the senior side every week. He cost pick 88.

I agree with Satyriconhome that a big, big part of our problem is our inexperienced midfield. We've picked a side stacked with runners today - Clark and Dawes out of the "best 22", replaced by runners. Carlton have Gibbs and Carazzo out who are two of their key mids, on paper we should be very competitive and be able to restrict their score. Let's see what happens.

"inexperienced midfield" - that's all you've got? I've been every week and watched Brisbane on TV last week and will be there on Sunday and No, that's not footy.

Yes there's the whingers who think it's about them and post about how the team is affecting their life - get over it. But your complaints about lack of substance in the criticisms of the coach and our results seem hypocritical - you just provide platitudes of support. We're not going anywhere near expections of supporters and far importantly expectations of the club and its officers who are directly responsible for our performance. How about explaining why this is happening?

Neeld has a fairly full list to choose from a defensive point of view - sure we're missing our forward keys Clark and Dawes and that will affect our ability to score and the way we enter forward 50 - both of which have some flow on defensive impact - but the core of our defensive set-up is in place. Jamar is missing but I think he's well covered by Spencer. Defensive forwards - Tapscott, Bail, Byrnes. A full midfield complement. Only Watts and Jetta missing from the backline - but we've got a lot of players competing for spots back there. First choice key backs Frawley, McDonald and Garland are in place. Our midfied is ordinary but I agree with posters here that it's not as terrible as results have suggested. N.Jones, Grimes, McKenzie, Trengove and Viney should be able to provide clearances, defensive structure and running. Then in addition we've got Sylvia, Howe, M.Jones and Evans who can all run hard and play. That 9 decent rotations through the middle. Neeld has all resources at his disposal in team defence that he could reasonably expect to have and has had 5 weeks to refine who he wants where and what they should be doing and eliminate who is a team defence liability. We will struggle to kick a winning score. But if we get sliced open like a fat sausage a hot plate again this week there's really no excuse.