Fat Tony

Jones is clearly trying his guts out. But there is so much spin coming out of the club at the moment. What did you expect him to say?

My view of what has transpired: Garry Lyon and the Board were seeking a coach with a hard edge to toughen us up. Neeld fit the bill nicely. He came from working under a great coach at a successful club and he also thought some tough love was required. I didn’t really agree that this was what we needed at the time, but given that was their view, I don’t now have any issue with Lyon and the Board not casting the net more widely. They thought they had the right man for the job and they backed their judgement. Neeld then entered the club like a bull in a china shop, slagging off a number of players in the media, completely turning over the senior leadership group (which was at the very least an implicit slap in the face) and presenting a tough guy image to all and sundry. In addition, he introduced an outdated, ultra-defensive game plan and also displayed a selection bias towards grunt. The result has been a slow, unskilled outfit which lacks any confidence and cohesion. (This is evident by the low uncontested possession stats.) Now, after getting off on the wrong foot with the several of the players and such a horrendous start, Neeld may well have already ‘lost’ some of the players. IMO we are now likely to see a large number of exits at season’s end and get little in return. Despite all this, we need to stick with coach until the end of the year at the very least. (I would advocate an annual season-end review of the coach’s role, in any event of the current situation.) Neeld, on the other hand, must do his best to unify the playing list and get some confidence and flair back into the team. Talk of ‘cutting away the cancer’ or ostracising older players to Casey will only make things worse and we will have (even younger) players asking themselves if they should leave. (IMO if players like Bleese and Watts look to depart the coach is in real trouble.) While Neeld’s judgement has been poor to date, I think it is really the judgement of the Board, Lyon and the front office that we should be questioning. They clearly were after a coach with a hard edge and they should have realised there was a risk of it backfiring given our recent history (i.e. Bailey’s sacking, tanking, mistreatment of older players). If players leave en masse at season’s end, I would like to see many of those in charge of the club follow suit. They should not be given a second chance to oversee a full rebuild. With respect to our game plan, I disagree with those of the view that we haven’t had enough time to learn it properly. Adelaide is flying under Sanderson. Essendon adjusted quickly under Hird last year. IMO Neeld’s plan has already been surpassed by more attacking plans which attempt to quickly move the ball through the press. If Neeld is ever to succeed at MFC coach he needs to quickly realise this and adjust.

8.5 'one offs' for the year. We are playing well below our optimal at present and our supporters are justifiably upset. Nobody thought we were capable of winning the flag this year or anything like that, but we were all hoping for improvement and not expecting to go back to rock bottom. The argument that we have to go backwards to go forwards is rubbish. Our list is still ordinary but our performances have been insipid. IMO it is the coaches primary role to get us playing at our best. Neeld has not even got close at the moment.

We beat Essendon last year. IMO our list is capable of 8-11 wins not 0-3.

But he has little currency atm. If he were playing for another club he would be a player I would be saying we should target.

I would prefer if we persevered and got the very best out of him.

Clearly Neeld would prefer the kick down the line to a contest to be more of a last resort option. (He would prefer to maintain possession but without risking going through the corridor.) But he has stacked the midfield with grunt players who are slow and don’t provide sufficient spread and included too many poor kicks in the back half. Players like Bartram and McDonald lack the ability to hit targets by foot and lack confidence to take the game on. They both need to be removed from the side or play further up the ground. Including some outside support to our best inside mids would also help. A midfield of Jones, Moloney, Magner, McKenzie, Bate, Grimes and Trengove doesn’t have the outside runners to either provide chasing pressure of ‘win’ uncontested possessions. IMO Neeld has taken too much notice of the Collingwood game last season when we were monstered in the clearances and Cloke killed us.

Excellent post. Recruiting has been our major problem and is obviously the key reason we are where we are. However, I also think it is the coach’s role to get the best out of our list every single week. IMO we are currently playing in a fashion that makes it very easy for our opponents. I strongly don’t agree with the view that we need to take steps backwards in order to go forwards. Lack of short-term success makes it more difficult to retain and attract quality players which inevitably leaves us worse off in the long term. I also think the ‘reprogramming the players takes time’ argument is flimsy. AFL players are full time and have been able to adjust quickly at other clubs. And how do we know they will be better players with their attacking instincts dulled?

I am tipping you are into self flagellation.

I see strong similarities in the game plans of Neeld and Smith.

I disagree with Walls’ assessment of Mitch Clark and a number of his other questions/comments are off the mark. (i.e. IMO our ‘improvement’ last year was just a mirage.) But I think many Demonlanders are way too sensitive and not objective enough when assessing where we are headed. I think he is right in asking questions on the following: Are our players confused by the game plan? (We have obviously been adapting better in recent weeks, but we still lack any real flow with our ball use.) Is Neeld’s game plan is the best plan for our current list? Will such a defensive game plan be successful in the future? Has the treatment of our veterans been destabilising? Was starting BOTH our captains on the bench a good idea given it was obviously going to draw more attention to the club? Should our setups at stoppages be more offensive given we have Jamar? I also don't think that criticism of MFC about Energy Watch is totally unfair given that the ACCC instituted proceedings against the company in August 2011.

I would prefer if we take shifts. You go first.

I doubt that Moloney or Jamar will still be vital cogs in our side by the time we are going for a flag. But this thread is really about whether we are able to hold onto our players in a world of free agency. IMO the signs are not good if we can’t hang onto players like Beamer.

Every week this thread calls for our small half forwards to be dropped. This week it is Sylvia and Bail's turn. Our game style/ball movement isn't giving them much of a chance at the moment. I would bring in Watts and Bennell for Tapscott and Sellar. (We would need to play Clark as the second ruckman, which robs our forward line a bit but gives us more pace.) Moloney is out of form but has been our best player over the last two years. I would persevere with him for a bit yet.

Great post. Our midfield mix is our key issue IMO. We are poor at both the spread and the chase. I think Neeld needs to decide who our best inside mids are and give them some extra support on the outside.

Greg Denham is a troll with an anti-MFC agenda, but he is not wrong in his assessment of where we are at. The thing I never understand is when people say ‘they don’t stand for anything’. We are a football club, not a political party or a religious group.

As I said initially, drafting has been the key issue. Of course it is easy to say which players we should have traded in hindsight. But IMO it must be easier to predict if a player has a future after they have had two years in the system. Going forward, Tapscott is a player I think needs to start showing more and find a position.

Pretty much every early pick other than Frawley and Jones, but the best examples would be Morton, Bate, Petterd and Bennell.

Great post. The situation with Daniher reflects the conflict of interest that exists between clubs and senior coaches. Do you try for a flag when you don’t quite have the talent to achieve it? Daniher realised he was running out of time to achieve his goal of a premiership and topped up. It was unsuccessful and we paid for it heavily for it. Our situation was no different to what occurred at Richmond under Wallace and under Frawley and at Brisbane under Voss. For this reason, list management decisions should be, by and large, taken out of the hands of the coach. However, the key reason we are still where we are is our poor drafting record. We have also been too conservative in moving on young players while they still maintain some value.

Our ball use was poor last night. On the positive, at least we tried to find an open man more often and bombed it less. Our team selection is still concerning. The backline is still way too tall and unskilled. Five KPD is two too many. Tom McDonald is not skilled enough and needs more time to develop in the VFL and Joel Macdonald is letting us down by foot. Next week we need to get Grimes, Tapscott and Blease into the backline so we have some run and kicking skill out of defence. IMO Tapsott won’t make it in any other role than HBF. He lacks pace and he didn’t have the required impact from a sub. I would also consider experimenting with Morton as a third tall KPD, but St Kilda might be too tall this week. Our midfield is way too slow and the Dogs exploited our lack of pace by employing a third man up to wack it clear of the stoppages. We desperately need to get some pace around the ball. Get Frawley in the guts, along with Bartram and Bail. We also need to consider swapping Martin for Jamar, who has dropped off badly. Davey has lost his pace and Neeld took too long to tag Murphy. The bench of Watts, Moloney and Howe at half time made no sense to me.

Would we have to use a Scully pic or could we use our second rounder if we finish low enough and JV isn't nominated by another club? EQ indicates in her article that it will be a first rounder.

I was referring to the boot studder.

Well Jack Grimes did go to ground and cost us a goal on Saturday!

Building a long-term program need not come at the expense of insipid football.

Trying to predict the 2015 premiership winning game plan is futile given how quickly the game evolves and how much the rules can change. I admire your optimism in the tough talking Neeld despite three consecutive hidings (including two to ordinary sides at home). However, I don’t. His short term goal is to get the team playing at its optimal every week. IMO he is failing badly on this score at the moment, in significant part because his game plan is obsolete, his team selection is unbalanced and the team is lacking the confidence to attack. Moreover, the success of any new training methods, leadership appointments and recruiting programmes can only be measured over the long term. We have no idea if they will eventually prove successful and strong confidence on this is just blind faith.