Ron Burgundy

Dunn's seems to be our utility player now. I like it - he can shut down players, and also kick the odd goal. And he has good size about him. All of this makes him dangerous.

The scoreline at half time did not reflect the game. We had a stack of forward 50 entries and we were unlucky/too inexperienced to capitalise on them. Did not help that we had Mitch Clark out. He kicks goals on the smell of an oily rag, and we actually had the fuel pumps flowing for a while there. I thought there were some very encouraging signs from that game - especially the second quarter. But heh - let's bag Neeld instead. It seems to have become a hobby for many of you. Pity it's so bloody boring/repetitive.

I love Sylvia. He is playing with real heart at the moment. Give him a new contract asap please. Matt Jones and Michael Evans are two other favourites. Nathan Jones should be elevated to Co-Captain of the club. I seem to recall that Sydney had three in 2005.

Consistent with what I posted earlier in this thread ...

I know it's been done to death, but geez we've stuffed up a lot of first round draft picks. Quite incredible really.

Scully will be a very good player. I have no doubt about that. However, unlike every other quality mid in the competition, I am very happy for him NOT to wear the red and the blue. Just don't like the look of the bloke. The recruiting regrets I have are not selecting Zarahakis, Darling and Sloane - all seemingly obvious selections. No regrets about Scully though - the compensation we received has more than made up for his loss.

A mate of mine pashed her outside their school at age 15. He's not a good looking bloke. Rates it as the high point of his entire life.

And announce a new deal for Sylvia too asap. He's the one I want the club to commit to and vice versa. I will lose the plot if yet another long term Demon leaves the club at the end of the year. Contract extension for Frawley as well while we're at it.

Comes naturally. Thank you Hardnut.

As was Rommel.

Yep, let's get Silvio Berlusconi.

EVERY other club in the competition would be thrilled to have Trengove on their list. Some of the criticism of him here is plainly stupid.

And I'm the one setting a low bar?! .... As an aside, GWS is a club participating in the most elite AFL competition in the land. They're hardly Pooraka under 9's. Happy to stand corrected, but I don't think any other side has kicked 12.2 in a quarter against GWS this season. So yep - I absolutely loved that quarter. In fact, I'll take that every week of the year, thanks. I'm starting to think I'm in the minority here in that I actually enjoy seeing this club do well. Whereas some here seem to take some bizarre satisfaction in seeing the club flounder - the "I told you so" keyboard warrior element.

Benson - it's actually very 'simple' to a lot of these dudes. You simply hire an 'experienced' coach to go into the sheds and yell at the players for a while, and then they go out and [censored] the other team (which incidentally is an elite sports team that has been trained to elite standards and is comprised entirely of elite players). It's that easy.

You 'get the feeling' based on a You Tube clip?! FMD. The hard facts are really interrogated on this site.

Unwatchable?! I have watched as many Demons games as most of you. And one of the best quarters I have EVER watched occurred only two weeks ago. If Demons supporters weren't so important and rare, I would really up the ante with some of you. Fair dinkum. Get behind the club. Many of you are like Italy in WW2.

So we shouldn't have picked Hogan?! Dead set ...

Nathan Jones.

Nice article. Unfortunately I suspect it's a little more complex than that though. Simple messages always appeal more to the masses though - I get that. Doesn't mean they're right. Or wrong for that matter. They're just compelling, albeit on a superficial level - such is 'journalism' today. People were saying much the same thing about Sanderson last year - however his name's not in lights thus far this year. Why not? Has he become a different man/coach in the past few months? Probably not - I suspect it's all to do with the win and loss ratio of the Crows. That Hinkley's doing well is not a surprise to many - he's always enjoyed an extremely good reputation, but the cattle he's working with aren't irrelevant. For instance, I don't expect he could coach the Scotch College Firsts to beat WCE. And the very people who used to bag me for arguing that the worst thing the club did was to cut Junior McDonald prematurely (ie, b/c of his soft tissue injuries, good young mids coming through etc) are the very same people who are now saying that Neeld doesn't have sufficient respect for the senior players. And there might be some truth to this - the appointment of the two young Captains and his apparent treatment of Moloney, Rivers and Davey did concern me at the time - but the chorus of complaint wasn't as unified then as it's become recently. Bloody unbelievable really. More blowing in the breeze. Some here seem to think Napolean or Spartacus, great people leaders, could just walk into the MFC and start winning AFL games. Neeld may or may not be a great communicator to the players - I don't know - but I think our issues were far greater than this, and the systems and structures that are now being introduced needed to happen. I suspect he lacks EQ, but I also think he understands football in a technical sense. IMO we didn't have a list in 2011 that any great communicator could simply come in and consistently extract top four performances out of. To the contrary, it seemed to me that some fundamental changes needed to be made. In that, perhaps some poor decisions were made - although, in a macro sense, I think the methodology has been sound. The football department struck me as entirely amateur prior to Nov 2011. Not irrelevant to this debate.

Bit ironic given your Demonland name ...

Binman - cop a tip, perhaps try to stop looking at things objectively. It doesn't appeal to the religious fanatics here - it simply inflames the zealots and results in pages of carp then being posted. In this respect, many within the "anti Neeld/football department/MFC board/administration/Watts/Sylvia/Toumpas/Trengove/Dunn/rest of player group" squad here seem to have evolved into a quasi fanatical religious movement. It appears to be led by Pastor Stuie, who seems to adhere to the stimulating formula that quantity kills off quality. In some respects, the formula works, because good threads quickly become un-followable and quality posts and debate are now being lost amidst the child-like "[censored] for tat" diatribe. For me anyway, it's starting to kill the site. I have a job, a new born and a wife who's struggling with the new born - unfortunately I can't therefore log on 24 hours a day, and because of the volume of repetitive, tedious posts within each thread, it literally has become impossible to follow certain threads (ie, find the interesting posts within those threads), because all interesting topics are now moving faster than Cyclone Tracy due to the religious zeal element. Re: the question of improvement. I have seen some good signs in recent weeks. I'm pretty confident the football department knows where the problem areas lie, ie, the midfield - in particular, clearances and the defensive structures and application. Our ball movement looks quite good/efficient. Gawn and Jamar are working much better, than Jamar alone in the first three weeks (which was a disaster). Evans, Terlich and Bail (but for some decision making) have been really good inclusions. Matt Jones appears to be a quality pick up. Last weekend, I found it encouraging that, despite the inside 50 and scoring shot stats against us, we were still genuinely in the game in the fourth quarter. Sylvia's poster and Bail's poor decision making under pressure cruelled the momentum somewhat. With 10 mins to go, we should've been 13 points behind. At the Gabba. Can't remember the last time we were in that position up there. Re: Neeld. I'm concerned that he lacks emotional intelligence. I think he understands (and has identified) what the problems with the list, the structures, the culture, the leadership group were/are - although I'm not sure he engenders empathy amongst the players in the way some of the great coaches can. His treatment of some of the senior players and his appointment of such a young Captain in JT has always concerned me. The dynamics of the sheds are subtle and must be respected. Perhaps he's just not a natural people leader - but I definitely think he gets it all in a technical sense. Jury's out, but replacing him prematurely will kill the club. Might appease some of the religious fanatics here in the short term, but it could ultimately turn out to be a very stupid, knee jerk reaction to replace him so early. The blue print the football department has introduced is sound and, without doubt, should be followed at the moment. Re: the next couple of months. I would've thought the message should be: be patient. Keep calm. Our list is in the bottom quartile in virtually every respect at the moment - it takes time, patience and adherence to a sensible plan to turn these things around. Simply landing Mark Williams or Rodney Eade and an experienced midfielder won't suddenly turn it around. But seemingly that's too objective for some. I'd very much like the club to announce a new contract for Sylvia and a contract extension for Frawley asap. Now, that would make me much happier. It would ease me as to the concerns I have about what's going on in the sheds at the moment.

Ironic really, but I think Wines would've been one. Toumpas and Viney seemed pretty happy when their selections were read out.

Agree with all assessments here, except possibly Dunn. I still think Dunn can be a very handy player for us. Looking at the backline reviews, I'm still curious as to why we let Rivers go. Has all the hallmarks of yet another senior MFC player poorly handled (and assessed) by the club. We still need his offering - on and off field. Rodan's an interesting one - would've thought Danyle Pearce was the more obvious Port player to target in the off season.

And Rory Sloane and Tom Rockliff.

Neeld let McLean go?