drdrake

One thing we need to remember for 3 quarters we kept a team to 6 goals, the defensive pressure was great but it was more about us controllong the footy. Once we controlled the footy it enabled the team to set up defensively to keep it in our forward half. The last quarter we just didn't control the ball, it was basically centre bounce clearance goal, we didn't have any chance to slow the game down as we just couldn't get the footy. Football is a simple game, if you have the footy and your opponent doesn't they can't score but you can.

Toumpas is going to be a good footballer, we need to stop comparing him, Toumpas has come into the worst midfield in the AFL, we have 1 consistant AFL standard midfielder in Jones, we have 1 midfielder averaging over 20 touches a game Jones, we haven't seen Viney and Grimes much this year, Sylvia is getting better but still hasn't had an outstanding game consistant which is good but we haven't seen the Col blinder that he usually plays once or twice a year. What I love about Toumpas is his skill, we will see a couple of games over the next 9 weeks when he has full confidence that he is a good AFL player where he picks up 20+ touches and kicks a couple of goals. I have to say the kicking skills of our draft picks are very good, Toumpas elite, Kent kicks like Rich from Bne low hard and longer than most expect, Terlich, M Jones and Clisby, Viney is also good. Our tall forwards will be looking forward thinking thank god we have players that can kick to their advantage.

Good problem to have, the best thing about Clark, Watts, Howe and Hogan is they play tall and are mobile enough at ground level. To me Howe and Watts are good enough to play forward with runs through the midfield. To me our best set up for 2014 blease Clark Hogan Howe Dawes Watts With Kent, Trengove, Toumpas, Sylvia and Viney rotating through with Watts, Howe and Blease spending time in the midfield

That hollow feeling that it is all over, Cameron had it, Don had it and today Mark had it. By the sounds of things a few more at the club will gave it over the next few months. There is a bigger concern that could leave us all with the same hollow feeling, if our club gets it wrong again we will not get another chance, this could be our last dance. The new board and Peter Jackson have no room for mistakes, every step needs to be right.

This is a shame that the oldest club in the afl is in the same position as the youngest club, both need afl money and priority picks to service. For the good things this board has done mainly debt demolition and the Casey decision, it has all been undone since that fatal day down at geelong, our club has been on a downward spiral since mid 2011 and the leaders of they club have been unable to stop the bleeding. The Gardiner led board got us out of the junction oval and we played finals, they left the club after a successful era what we thought was rock bottom, this board started well made us relevant, they created hype around a club that was poor on field and then whack it all started to fall apart, we started to see massive issues at our club. You are grateful for any person that sacrifices there own time to be on a board of a sporting club. Our club is reaching new lows every week and change needs to happen from the top down to ensure we can go forward.

Have to say Toumpas showed us yesterday he is an elite kick, one pass was only about 20m I thInk in the 3rd quarter went like a rocket first low hard accurate kick I have seen for some time

Yesterday was bad plain and simple, for afl full time professional players to be unable to execute the fundamental elements of the game is unacceptable. Over half of the team just can't kick to advantage even worse hand pass to advantage then when we get it right don't have clean hands we fumble drop marks misjudge the flight. Last week I was critical of Watts work ethic, this week I'm back sympathizing with him as he did work for the ball to drop short or kicked to his opponents advantage. We are not unfit we have to work to hard, we attack spread then turnover we need to work to defend, you can cope sometimes but not all the time and then we stop creating. One thing we are drilled is running off for an interchange, it is like the players watch the clock as soon as their allocated time is up off they sprint one stage yesterday 5 five ran to the gate. We sprint to the gate no matter where the ball is

Whoever it is from the sounds of things we have identified him and just need to sort out some internal positions such as current Footy Manager, funny that has been missed by all media out lets, if we are appointing someone for the role GM Footy Operations, to me the current Footy Manager is gone.

You must watch to many games at Subi, not every oval has a big dome in the middle so you can't see the other side. I am lucky sitting on the wing 2nd level, you don't miss anything and you get to see the play unfold rather than just where the ball is and I can tell you it shows the players that don't work and on Sunday Jack Watts didn't work hard enough.

My gut feel is the Footy Manager will be gone today or over the next week, we have to many layers with Craig/Neeld/Manohey, one will go and the footy Manager is the first.

If Neeld is sacked today which I consider unlikely, it is another massive blow to the current board. In 2007 we commenced to re-build our list and failed massively, but we were all happy for Dean Bailey in 2009, it was as bad as this season, but we forgave Bailey because a priority pick was up for grabs. This current coaching team is 18months into a rebuild, they have had 2 drafts and trading periods, I will stand by my position that if this was our second year of a rebuild we and not out 6th we would be willing to give Neeld more time, I hope he gets to coach the balance of th year and we make a fair and reasonable assessment when we have 3 of our top 5 players back plus Viney and McDonald, you take out the bottom 5 players from yesterday and replace them with Clark, Sylvia, Grimes, Viney and McDonald and then make an assessment.

JJJ agree with you, you will find most people that think Jack played well yesterday watched from their couch anyone at the game would have seen an extremely dis-interested lazy player, my only hope is that he was sick and couldn't work as hard as he should be.

Out Bail, Jamar, Watts In Sylvia, Blease, Gawn

Yes we did, but this came from players that just couldn't hit a target, replace them with Clark, Viney, Sylvia, Grimes, Toumpas in 12mths, replace Pederson with McDonald add in Hogan and Blease , we do have a big upside it is hard to see but ut us there

I just can't understand why we try to put a loose man in defense, it just hurts us everytime

He was a passenger today, I'm usually a Watts supporter but today he was lazy and should be dropped

You need to go, the TV shows only a small part on what is going on. Today I'm not that disappointed, in fact I reckon we will beat them next year. We tried hard and the Hawks kicked most goals on our turn overs. We have 6-10 players that just can't kick to advantage, you don't see that on TV we had players on good leads just for the kick to be put behind them.

I gather you weren't at the ground today, Watts was absolutely pathetic, worse demon player out there. Had a couple of minutes in the third quarter where he put in the rest of the time his work ethic was bad and should be dropped next week. Best Dawes N Jones Frawley(lucky he had the umps on side he was SOS like today) Garland Davey Rodan

Good to see they are kicking on this week

We should put them through a series of tests and then we see what we have got, this is more order of importance to make it as an AFL Midfielder so we will elimate once a player doesn't meet a standard: Skills: The ability to take clean possession and hit targets by hand or foot Pass Jones, Sylvia, Grimes, Blease, Howe, M Jones, Viney, Toumpas, Kent, Trengove, Tapscott, Evans Fail: McKenzie, Bail, Magner Endurance the ability to rum all day in the Midfield Fail Blease, Tapscott Unknown Kent Speed and Agility, not to be the quickest blokes but have enough pace to keep up Fail Trengove The Desire to compete Fail Sylvia This leaves us with Jones, M Jones, Viney, Grimes, Evans and Howe with Toumpas the great unknown.

I hate Hawthorn more than any club in the competition and by a long way. I dislike there supporters, in fact the only two times I have come close to belting someone at the footy was last year against Hawthorn when some low life got into the trident reserved area with his mates and got right on our faces and my brother who is a Hawthorn supporter after Jimmy ran across the mark. The underlying issue I have with Hawthorn is that we the MFC are their Bi..hes, their whipping boys, they own us and have done for some time. We talk about '87, the '88 through the early 90's and especially over the past 9 years. 2004 they sucked winning 4 games beat us round 1, 2005 Hawthorn Sucked winning 5 matches, they beat us, 2006 one year we smashed them and this would be the last win over them, the loss round 1 2008 was smashing, they destroyed us and basically have done so every game since. 2011 we had them at half time to be absolutely smashed in the third quarter. This week if they decide to beat us by 120 points they will. We move into Sunday, I will be their but unless our team can show some sort of fight It could be only for a very short time. The Biff is out of the game but we need to start something in the first quarter, all in just hopefully may fire us up and get them off there game. Hawthorn in 2008 played unsocial football, every chance they had to stick an elbow in your ribs and annoy the crap out of you the did, this is what we need to do. If it gets heated so be it a few fines, god knows our players haven't deserved their full match payments over the past 9 weeks anyway. I heard Dermie talking about the Hawthorn/Essendon game I believe 2006 or 07, the frustration on the past players was the Hawthorn had become Esseondons Whipping boys, they still got beaten that game but the next they won and haven't lost to them since. It was the turning point for that young inexpereinced Group.

The footy reporters are getting worse every year. The article failed to identify the main reasons for our poor attendances for home matched, we have played Port, GWS, Gold Coast, WCE as home matches with the GC at the worst time slot in the AFL season Mothers day 4.40. You replace that with our away matches Carlton, Essendon, Richmond, Brisbane and Fremantle and all of the sudden we average over 30,000 per game. The remainder of the year we have home games against Brisbane, Western Bulldogs, North, Fremantle, Hawks, Pies and Sydney The AFL have created a two tiered competition, the big clubs get the prime matches which equates to increase sponsership, attendances and the Corporate entertainment. Even a winning MFC team would not have increased our numbers by a great deal. Membership different story, the fence sitters would have not brought a membership based on on field performance and no one can blame them for that. One thing we do have which North and the Bulldogs don't are a lot of closest supporters they do go to the footy when times are good. I remember one year we averaged over 40,000 at our home games I think 2004 and for most of the ND years we have good crowd averages, winning brings out every supporter but our membership was lower than current levels.

Maybe not, maybe he has been 100% transparent with all party's even the supporters and we aren't listening. Maybe he is doing exactly what is required to change the culture of a losing club, maybe he is doing exactly what is required but due to our club being extremely poor for 6 years we are refusing to give him the opportunity to see through the process he started. Would love to see the minutes of board meetings, Neeld claims that the Board knows exactly where the club is at and what we are trying to acheive. Would he of had the same player turnover with a Malthouse or Roos, yes we would we had and still have to many drafting failures that just aren't AFL standard. The only 2 players that have gone that are is Moloney and Rivers, the rest are no good. I heard Neeld talk late last year, he mentioned that the club drafted for Baileys game style, run and gun approach more atheletes than footballers that where quick outside players, the problem Neeld had was todays game is about contested footy, we drafted skinny kids that couldn't play that style of footy, so he started to get players that can for the interim whilst they build a new midfield. I'm fearful that we move to quickly on Neeld we start back again at 2007 with that same quiters attitude. I believe we aren't as far off as most think.

Really, we drafted Toumpas, Viney, M Jones, Kent and Terlich, plus Barry, to me that is 5 mids and a running half back, add this to 2 key forwards in Hogan and Dawes, these players add or will add quality to our team, Pederson, Bynres and Rodan where drafted to be gap fillers so we can develop the younger players and not distroy them.

Isn't this just great, the brother of the guy on our board responsible for the football department making big statements on our coach. Is this inside knowledge or his opinion? It is unfair to Mark Neeld to judge him on the next two games, even if we are playing our best footy Fremantle, Hawthorn and Collingwood are 10 goal better teams. The fact we are playing bad footy makes these clubs 15 goal better teams, the fact that we have 5 starting 18 players out just adds to this. Can Mark Neeld coach, no idea, will we ever find out no because he is in charge of the second rebuild, if this season was our second year of a rebuild Neeld would not be under this pressure, was Bailey in his second year, from memory we were 1 and 10 mid year and happy for our club to lose to get the priority pick on offer, the fact is we have lost patience to be 6 years into a rebuild and have a worse list than we started with is extremely upsetting. Is this Neelds fault no way, we got our drafting and trading so badly wrong since 2007. He has nothing, 1 AFL standard midfielder that is consistantly at AFL level, 1 only, how can any coach win games with 1 midfielder, unless Sylvia, Trengove, Viney, Toumpas, Blease, Grimes can lift there consistant out put to be AFL standard midfielders our team will continue to be smashed. We can't expect to much from Viney and Toumpas this year but the other 4 need to drive our midfield forward. I don't want Mark Neeld sacked, I want to find out if he can coach and this won't happen till the back half of this year when we get Clark, Grimes, McDonald, Sylvia, Viney back in with hopefully a fully confident Blease and Toumpas, playing mainly against teams that will be bottom 8.