Johnny Karate

Or at the very least one 'Mark Neeld circlejerk superthread' where the 'I believe in Neeld' crew & the 'OMG I can't believe we're not the hardest team to play against yet. Sack Mark Neeld!' mob can continue masturbating in & stop clogging up the boards with 50 threads on the same effing topic?! Oh as well as permabans for anyone who let's their ego get the better of them by posting a new thread on it!?

My observation of it is that there seems to have been a massive over correction in this regard under Neeld. Under Bailey, the one thing the team could do well was spread really quickly to dangerous positions (with almost no defensive side). I can only speculate that Neeld has ruled with an iron fist & demanded total accountability at stoppages with the result being a reactive & static mindset. A guy like Trengove used to hunt the footy, now he waits for his opponent to get it & then tackles him. I think what we are seeing is a team so afraid of deviating from a determined coach's gameplan that it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Many teams go through these teething problems when a new coach is trying to exert his authority. I won't debate the playing list, it's clear that Neeld has inherited a mess but ultimately the coach bares the responsibility for what his players bring to the game. I believe that Jamar, Moloney, Jones, Trengove, Magner & McKenzie have enough body & mongrel to do better at the stoppages. The best coaches squeeze every last drop of talent out of what is at their disposal Neeld will live & die by his ability to do this. It won't happen overnight but if we're still having these discussions in 12-24 months time, Neeld is in trouble.

The expectation was that it would be. I was disgusted with the lack of passion & spirit in Round 1. Jim was a larger than life character & I expected the players to honour him. But what would I know? Maybe the fear of letting him down got to them? Maybe they believed their own publicity & thought there was no way the Lions could possibly be as hungry as them for victory. Expectation does funny things to young teams for better or worse. Hence, tough initiation. I agree we'll all know more about Mark Neeld toward the end of 2013. I'm hoping he can turn it around, others on both sides have gone the earlier crow. He deserves to see out his 3 year contract. Is he the messiah? A naughty boy? Or something in between? Time will tell.

The two things that frustrate me with the interpretation is that prior op is variable & punishes the ball winner for "slowing down" play. Jones on the weekend was a classic example, he roved a tap, was gang tackled almost before he had the ball & was ridden into the ground with no chance of getting rid of the ball. Holding the ball. The other is incorrect disposal & how seemingly "making an attempt" constitutes disposing the ball properly. The result is an ugly rolling maul with players just dropping & throwing the ball & 44 players confined to one area of the ground. It's awful to watch. It seems as though the "logic" is: win the ball = punished. Drop or throw the ball at the slightest hint of physical contact = making an attempt, play on!

Who? Essendon were 8-1 when Melbourne defeated them. Hardly their lowest ebb. Perhaps some are also saying that this year is an extension of the rot that set in last year? Imagine that. Perhaps saying that Neeld doesn't deserve the sack after 5 minutes in the chair isn't the same as the whole "I believe in Neeld" crew? Imagine that.

How were they travelling in 2005? They were [censored] & their nuffy equivalents were calling for Clarkson's head. Sound familiar? Sure there were. Clarkson inherited a list of Crawford, Croad, Sewell, Campbell, Osborne, Bateman, Mitchell & Hodge who were all key parts of their premiership side. He also added the likes of Franklin, Roughead, Lewis & Rioli in the drafts. Neeld is 5 minutes in & has inherited crap. Ever heard of Kevin Sheedy, Mick Malthouse? Masters of deflection & excuses. Their subtlety would probably be lost on the likes of you though. I don't know about that. But perhaps the club should offer a service for some supporters to voluntarily have "nuffie" stamped on their forehead?

Experience is a critical factor & one thing Neeld can't teach is experience. Nuffies tend to sugarcoat last year. Sure, we won 8.5 games but in reality we were going backwards. We beat Adelaide & Freo at their lowest ebb, were underwhelming against GC x2, scraped home against a couple of the worst Brisbane & Port sides ever assembled, our 2 good wins were against Richmond (who went past us later) & Essendon in the middle of a form slump. The only decent side we got within a bull's roar of was the round 1 draw with Sydney (who we beat by 74 points in our previous meeting. The rest of the year was marred by thumpings, tactical ineptitude & basically failing every test possible. 186 was the straw that broke the camels back but there were other embarrassing losses too; we lost by 10 goals to a crap Bulldogs team when finals were on the line. Nuffies also point to Neeld's quotes about being the "hardest team to play against" & wonder why it hasn't been the case in his first year. Like it was some iron clad promise to do it overnight. They fail to recognise just how crap the list is. Much is made of CAC's inability to net us a star from 2000-2006 but out of the rebuild years 07-11 we only really have Trengove, Grimes & Clark as keepers with the latter two having a fair share of injury woes. Apart from that the list is stacked with tweeners, failed picks & injury prone kids who lack experience. Blease 18/84 matches since drafted Gysberts 19/62 Strauss 15/84 Tapscott 25/62 The above are all early draft picks who haven't played nearly enough games. This is a major part of the problem.

Haha! When I first read it I thought that Patton had done damage to his labia. Tanking indeed.

I don't have a problem with people criticising Neeld & speculating that he isn't the MFC's next premiership coach. If you watch the team play it is a frustrating process. The players are slow & unthinking, they get sucked in too easily to the contest, in the odd occasion that they win the ball there is no spread, only handballs to stationary targets, the skill level is atrocious, often the get out plan is to go long up the line (on the full). We struggle to win contested ball even against the effing expansion sides & can not seem to score for large chunks of matches just like under DB. Brent Moloney was a B&F last year & won 19 Brownlow votes but his form has gone so far backwards he is pretty much a fringe player who seems unhappy at the club. These are all issues for which I believe Mark Neeld needs to bare some responsibility. Therefore I can't criticise any poster that pots Neeld for these problems. I'm willing to back him in to turn these things around. To bring some balance to the argument it is hard to think of a first year coach that has had a tougher initiation. He inherited a fractured club after the departure of DB & the aftermath of the soul destroying 186. Tom Scully's departure was still a foul stench in the air when Neeld took the chair. He had the tough task of trying to overhaul the FD & onfield leadership of the club after Brad Green's disastrous 1 year stint as captain. Liam Jurrah's problems, Jim Stynes lost his battle with cancer, the club lost a major sponsor through sheer dickwittery, sub par fitness, massive injury lists & adjustment to a radically different gameplan were always going to be tough factors for Neeld to negotiate. Its been an extremely tough initiation. On that basis I'm prepared to cut him some slack & measure my expectations accordingly. Expectations come into it as well. Neeld has probably inherited a more impatient fanbase than most other coaches, the prevailing logic is seemingly that the MFC has served its penance in the cellar under Bailey. It has become apparent in 2012 that the recruiting has not been great. Morton is still a fringe player, Maric was delisted, Watts isn't close to being a KPF in the mould of Riewoldt, Blease is fringe, ditto Strauss, Scully bolted, Gysberts has played 1 game, Tapscott has struggled & Cook is a million miles away. These were all supposed to be key planks in a rebuilt Demons team. Of the 07-11 drafts you'd say that only Trengove, Grimes & Clark are definite keepers, it's an effing disaster! Combine this with injuries to Jurrah, Clark & Jamar as well as the declining form of the likes of Green, Sylvia & Moloney is it any wonder we're [censored]? Nuffies will point to last year that we won 8.5 games but in reality we were going backwards. We beat Adelaide & Freo at their lowest ebb, were underwhelming against GC x2, scraped home against a couple of the worst Brisbane & Port sides ever assembled, our 2 good wins were against Richmond (who went past us later) & Essendon in the middle of a form slump. The only decent side we got within a bull's roar of was the round 1 draw with Sydney (who we beat by 74 points in our previous meeting. The rest of the year was marred by thumpings, tactical ineptitude & basically failing every test possible. They also point to Neeld's quotes about being the "hardest team to play against" & wonder why it hasn't been the case in his first year. Like it was some iron clad promise to do it overnight. While it's doubtful anybody could've done a worse job this year than Neeld it's equally doubtful whether anyone could've done better in the same set of circumstances. He has a power of work to do, the drafting and trading period will tell us a lot about his intent. He has a three year contract to get us up to competitive standard. To sack him before that would be a sign of an inept, directionless club. No credible coach will want to touch us with a barge pole & you'd be worried about the mental state of anybody keen to work for such a rabble. I don't profess to know if he is a coaching mastermind but I'm happy to back him in & see how it unfolds. He has my conditional support, I think everybody else owes him that too at this early stage.

If you do enough "forelock tugging" you go blind. I think that's the case with these guys Crawf.

Gysberts has shown a he's a smart inside footballer, albeit unfit with poor disposal which is similar to Watson starting out. Cook has never shown the same courage in aerial contests or gut running capability as Riewoldt. If he had, I'm sure he would've debuted in a poor side screaming out for a CHF. I don't see the comparison. We all hope that all of our players become stars - the Gysberts comparison to Watson may be very blue sky but it's presently far more chance of happening than Cook becoming Riewoldt.

Next year is massive for him. If he's still a plodder with less than 30 games to his name at the end of year 4, he's gone. I still have (probably blind) hope that he can be our answer to Jobe Watson. As for Fitzpatrick & Cook, it doesn't look good, I'm loathe to write off young players especially KPP's after a couple of years. However, all good KPPs have shown something in their first couple of years - what have Fitz & Cook shown?

Can you read? Way to miss the point genius. I said he should see out his 3 year contract - that's hardly proclaiming him savior of the club. Sacking him before that wouldn't even give him the chance to prove himself a dunce like yourself & the cabal of dullards ruining these boards think he is. Unlike yourself I don't turn on the club & can critically assess someones performance based on facts, not my own set of unrealistic expectations & gut feelings. As I stated earlier this club will be just about dead if we sack Neeld after 5 minutes in the chair. I'm Melbourne til I (or it) die(s) I wont follow another club, Thanks for your interest though. Maybe you'd be best served not following the Bangkok Bongs so arduously? The only hot air around this subject is the methane emanating from your mouth. So? Do you really think Malthouse will want to coach us if we stab his former 2IC in the back, 5 minutes in, after he himself put him forward for the Dees job? Go the Bangkok Bongheads!

Well there's plenty of posters outing themselves as d/heads in this thread. Obviously they weren't told by mummy: "if you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say it at all..." The lazy [censored] should've at least taught them "it is better to have others think of you as a fool than air your opinions & remove all doubt."

It's fitting that he bows out playing good footy. He's lost a yard of pace, going around in 2013 probably would've meant bowing out at Casey. Well done Brad.

It seems as though much of the debate on this topic is moot. Congratulations to Greeny on a magnificent career. 251 games & 346 goals is a fantastic return. Will never forget the QF in 2000 where he helped turn over Carlton. He could've left the club for individual success with another club but stuck fat. I respect his efforts.

Coot, are you suggesting that this club follow basketcase Pork Powder in a race to the bottom? The warning for Neeld is don't be crap? Don't be employed by a club that refuses to give you any FD or recruiting money or full say in list management? Don't be employed by a club that expects chicken salad after giving you chicken [censored] as your main ingredient? Don't accept a two year deal as a rookie coach? Don't be the first coach to lose to both start up sides? Plenty of prophetic warnings for Neeld there, Nostradamus. Hopefully the MFC board don't have the same delusions of granduer as the Port board (& presumably you) & Neeld is judged on his 3 years. Do people who make these asinine suggestions even think about the consequences? If the MFC board was to sacrifice another coach at the altar next year, would there be any credible coach interested in taking the reigns at our own basketcase? Quite frankly, you would be worried about anyone who was interested. The AFL would just about shut us down.

Haters gonna hate. He is obviously a divisive figure but ostensibly offers a bit of stability. Sometimes it's better the devil you know, anything but the old days where the CEO's office was a revolving door.

Gys needs to stick a poster of Jobe Watson up on his bedroom wall. He was an unfit, lazy [censored] albeit smart footballer, with questionable disposal & was on the verge of being delisted. Hard work goes a long way.

I haven't had a chance to watch any junior footy this year but do read up on it. It seems Hogan & Martin will be the two minidraft kids. Ideally MFC needs to fix its midfield first but it's clear Mark Neeld wants a quality key forward to back up Clark. It's encouraging that you say Jesse Hogan is AFL ready, in the past we have selected skinny talls (Watts & Cook) who certainly weren't AFL ready. Is he Jack Darling type? If so I think we should roll the dice & bid #3 for the mini-draft as it would net us Martin/Hogan, Toumpas/O'Rourke/Stringer/Wines, pick 13 & JV as a second rounder.

I'll leave pointscoring to one side & agree to disagree with the other stuff. I just think Gardner's comments were unnecessary & tipped a bit of petrol on the media bonfire. I agree with you, he's a nobody & his comments won't affect any investigation. I just question his motives in why he did what he did & the way he said it. If he'd said there was a lot fishy about that Richmond game - I wouldn't have a problem, but his comments were just so stupid & without any foundation in reality. He's clearly got an axe to grind with the MFC - that's the only reason he would've said what he did. I am a bit fired up about it because the media & opposition clubs are laughing at us, calling us irrelevant & then this [censored] who is supposed to be one of us is shooting his mouth off to suit his own agenda.

* Maybe * I want answers

In what way was tanking the easy option? It was the logical choice but never the easy option. Competitive, elite football clubs make ruthless decisions to improve their position. MFC did this with tanking. The club will die if you & others have your way & it admits the conspiracy to tank. How can you not see that?

Really, so how would this lottery work? There are means & ways of manipulating any system. Probably hasn't had anyone to tell him the answers yet

People with these views mystify me. It's like they want to see the club die so they can scream "I WAS RIGHT" from the rooftops while thousands of others will be devastated at losing the club.