IvanBartul13

Quite right - it has changed. The salary component is relevant, but the tenet of my comment is wrong as you say.

What Ive never seen mentioned is that Sylvia qualifies for Veterans list status. This brings two benefits - it gives you a National Draft Pick on the list rather than a rookie, plus there are Salary Cap allowances for these players. It is actually strategic madness to let him go when you can backend his contract and get some extra cap room and relief, plus your also retaining him without coughing up a primary list spot. These type of players (veteran qualifiers) are quite rare and are a strategic advantage. It's probably why Jamar got a three year deal as well.

Question regarding the Essendon issue - cocaine and other stimulants are banned under WADA in competition. So assuming that some of the player strikes are positive tests after playing, why is the AFL not obliged to reveal these to WADA and the players banned.

People we will see he has been sacked due to performance and as for the breaking of the contract he will get his money paid and be able to apply for and acquire a coaching role at another club straightaway because he is that good! It wouldnt be a bad result for Neeld.

And did trading a 1st round pick for a mature and drafting only two young players fit into this plan first year. He's changed his tune. There was no talk of a rebuild of a rebuild when he came in or everything centring around young players.. It was all Im gunna put structures and an elite plan in place and that is going to turn around the underperformance. Now to serve his own purpose he has changed to a rebuild of rebuild in mid-stride and its all about kids, who he scarcely gives opportunities to. Toumpas hip issue is a furphy, the only thing it did was make him miss a half-season of SANFL. He was right to go. Magner and Couch on the rookie list, Clisby, Terlich, M.Jones, Rodan, Byrnes. He sprouted "toughest team to beat" and "Moneyball" and not invested in kids at all - now to serve his own devices he is proclaiming we are all about the kids. Most of the players he's mentioned that hes playing under 50 games of experience aren't good enough anyway and arent really that young. Its a joke and he's taking the pi$s. It would be ok if we were getting pumped by 80 points if there were 6 or 7 promising kids in the team, but there arent. Sad thing for Neeld is that maybe he can coach and maybe his vision for the running of the club was excellent, but politically he has been nitemarish and the prosecution of his plan has been horrendous - and for that, he will go.

nd shareholders in poor performing companies, dont want CEO's and boards overthrown? Members, supporters whatever you want to call them want a successful team that is going to be arround in 30+ years time for their kids to watch and they want to see premierships in their lifetime, not a decaying rabble led by the worst coach in living memory!

And we consistently lose because too many of that ilk play on a weekly basis. Listen time for Neeld to go, he is recorded as saying - "Neeld said he would never have recruited key forward Jesse Hogan - who cannot be played until next year - or No.4 pick Jimmy Toumpas after two hip surgeries last year if he believed he did not have time to develop": That to me is disgraceful!

Perhaps if hed been playing earlier and more last year, our performance would be better. Thered be more fluency to our buildup play and we'd kick more goals etc etc We lost that game by 148pts, the entire team was awful, yet the player subbed was a high profile, number one draft pick who is forever in the spotlight. Any number of players could have been subbed and many worse performers on the night were left on the ground, yet Neeld withdraws the only player who could suffer material embarrassment out of the move. He fed him to the wolves that night! And hes done it before too - last year putting him on jonathan brown in the last line of defence and watching him get crucified in the last 3 minutes of the first quarter, where we went from being level to three goals down all because of Brown.

Our worst performace of the year - Watts subbed and scapegoated. Im not saying his effort is good or what have you, but he has definitely been crucified at times by Neeld. Rightly or wrongly, Watts is our most precious resource and Neeld has harmed the club by treating him in that way and it has curbed his development. Davey is one of the few players on the list who can kick. And he is a mature player with experiecnce. Theyve subbed and greenvested him as well as scapegoat. Watts and Davey have done wrong and aren't without flaw but they shine like beacons in a world of Tapscotts, Evans, Bailses etc.

Watts and Davey have been made scapegoats and humiliated via substitution and usage. The use of Watts positionally and the non-seletion of Davey, our classiest player, have been appalling. Cook and Sheahan who are playing VFL at the moment werent even given time to grow into their bodies and develop, they were thrown away by the compliance-mad coach. The club had a right to expect a 196cm first round pick be given more time. Sheahan could have been kept but Magner and Couch were retained. A good coach would have dealt with the Moloney situation a hell of a lot better and found a better result for the club.

Re: Evans I just don't think he is clean enough in close or by foot be a good long-term player, but he has some athletic attributes and provides the odd moment. I just think he is mediocre and wouldn't get a game elsewhere. There are a couple of reasons for the dismissal of Neeld and the installation of a caretaker, i) You can insert someone who you know 100% has the club's interest at heart. I'm not saying Neeld necessarily doesn't but a coach fighting for coaching future can do things more for his short-term benefit. ii) The club needs to get some enthusiasm back into it. One of the crucial mistakes made by Neeld, was coming in and beaing hardnosed and playing very structure based football. It sacrificed the enthusiasm a new coach can bring and the spike in form a new coach usually generates. iii) Some enthusiasm re-emerging in a totally dispirited supporter base iv) It may assist in the retention of required players who would leave if Neeld stays. If there are any. v) It allows a half season to reconstruct and recruit for the footy dept without a dead-man-walking coach in office.

Lucas Cook and Jai Sheahan are examples of delistings whilst Tarrant and Black have finally broken through in their 4th seasons at North. Moloney and some of the other established leaders he besmirched from the get-go. His treatment of Watts and Davey has been disgraceful. He is the first coach in AFL history to prioritise compliance over talent, an idiotic belief system for elite sport.

Structures are a very small part of being a head AFL coach. Most of the line coaches can set up structures. As a coach, he has made numerous media gaffes, he has demoralised, crucified and destroyed players. His team selection is often nonsensical. He demanded respect before he had earnt it and cast adrift players without them being given chances and has kept and recruited atrocious ones. He has changed his tune regularly on the status of the list to suit his own purposes and image. Michael Evans, an extremely mediocre player and a player he apparently was angry was promised a berth on the list, is now all of sudden a pawn in his stated-to-the-media youth policy, a policy that doesn't exist and only now verbally exists because it serves him a purpose. There is absolutely no evidence at all to suggest he is a good coach. We may look back and say he was inportant in clearing the decks and driving change, in much the same way Barassi was pre-Northey. But he is an abysmal runner of the onfield performance of a football club and history will consign him to being one of the AFL and VFL's worst of all time. The players should hang their heads in shame that their effort has waxed and waned during his tenure, but at the end of the day his inability to inspire them is the root cause. He seemingly just does not have the personality or the decision making ability (not just on the ground moves) to be a satisfactory AFL coach.

I dont think they can afford to drop Jamar to be honest and Gawn and Fitzpatrick in the same team is overkill. Fitzpatrick deserves an opportunity. Cannot for the life of me understand why Magner would be dropped and last week no idea why Strauss was dropped when the week before he had blanketed Nahas

...I was actually supporting not countering what you said.

Important to remember we've parlayed the Scully PP into Hogan, Barry, one of Chris Dawes' appendages and perhaps the passage of Viney to the second round. At this point, relative to other decisons, that is bordering on Genius.

Well i'll do my best - Bell - baddish pick, Smith - horrendous pick - Dunn - baddish pick - Bate - bad pick Morton - bad pick - Maric - bad pick - Molan - horrendous pick - Rogers - horrendous pick - Armstrong - baddish pick. Petterd - baddish pick. A line can be put through all those picks and those are selections should have built a strong foundation for the club and be in the side today. Prendergast's selections are only now reaching the point at which they should be impacting games and they are playing in a terrible side that should be stronger and its hurting their development. So I will put forward that Craig Cameron has a very big part to play and at the current time is as responsible, if you want to use recruiting as the essence of our on field problems. I just think it's unfair on Prendergast to totally blame him. The Molan, Rogers draft is the single biggest atrocity in our drafting history.

The term wasted rookie draft is not one I've read or heard before. The re-selection of Newton was forced upon Prendergast who had to rookie him, as Newton from memory had been delisted whilst contracted and was thus guaranteed a rookie spot. I believe the same promise was afforded Meesen and in any case, Daw was taken before Meesen in the rookie draft. Daw was a speculatory pick by the Kangaroos, good luck to them, but its probably the worst instrument I've seen used as an attack on Prendergast, who clearly will not in all likelihood be seen to have had a decorated career as Melbourne's recruiting chief, but nor should his predecessor, who wasted the best draft in AFL history and a succession of excellent draft picks - Bate, Dunn, Molan, Armstrong, Morton, Maric to name a few. Prengergast burnt the Cook and Gysberts selections. The latter is still in the system and the former was discarded by Neeld without being afforded the patience the Kangaroos have showed in its burgeoning key position players (Daw, Tarrant, Black). Obviously there are question marks on other selections and there have been terrific picks as well (Howe, Gawn, maybe Tom McDonald). Either way, his treatment and criticism is premature and unfair.

Is there a pic of him?

Matthew Dick will be a big chance if he is still available

Dominic Barry would have been no certainty to go in the top half of the draft

That is laughable. Some recruiters - who? Internet forum posters - most of whom have no idea! Sydney were taking him at 21 - guaranteed. So change my range to 15-21.

Those phantom drafts have almost zero credibility with me - Jay Clark's one is laughable, the AFL draftinfo one has that many players that didnt get drafted its not funny and Paul Daffey has a proven track record of having no clue. But its beside the point. Im not disputing Neeld's right to delist him for the reasons youve mentioned. Im just saying that a lot of what is written in these posts is unfair on the player, who hasnt necessarily been given every chance of succeeding.

Some of the posts in this topic are utterly ridiculous. Fact - Cook has been told he is no longer required by the club because he has been deemed not competitive enough - that is a 100% fact and he knew this before the season ended. Fact - he has injury interrupted preseason and the people going on about him putting on the 3kg after he left the club. It is a fact that the fitness program he was on didnt allow him to put on the weight required for him to have accelerated development as a key forward. It was more important in his program for him to have endurance training and low skinfolds, which is madness and his development was definitely mismanagaed to a degree Fact - Cook was a highly regarded junior, an AIS academy member and was a concensus 15-20 in the draft, so pick 12 is not that much of a stretch. Criticisms of Cook can be that his performance was mediocre and that he may have struggled with the new regime and the workloads (not on his own in this regard, Gysberts is another, Blease was tracking the same). Being a Melbourne footballer in the last year was a very different and very difficult experience and a few players thrived and quite a few struggled. The club has decided he doesnt fit with the program and has gotten rid of him, not showing any faith in the talent that made him pick 12. History will judge whether the club has made the right move. It could be a very astute move, but it could also come back to bite the club. I cant recall in history a high draft pick forward being shelved after two years. But the posts in this topic are unfair on the player and almost totally ignorant. Mark Neeld is a very gung ho coach who is going to live by the sword and he has decided not to persist with a player, who then is entitled to take that lack of faith and do whatever he wants in the pursuit of his dream to play AFL.

Was coached by Paul Satterley at the Northern Knights, who rated him highly, and he played with Jack Grimes. He's a good long kick, but couldnt win the ball in the games hes played with the Swans