Fat Tony

Solution: Keep picks and draft well, target free agents, front load contracts of best talent. The only trades possibly worth considering involving picks 3 or 4 would be for the mini-draft.

That's because it would be a bad trade for us.

Why is 2013 that important? We need to build a list capable of winning a flag, not keeping the coach in a job.

$450K from Geelong. Not us.

Good luck Brad. Doesn't make Neeld's job any easier IMO.

A pick 4 and pick 12 swap for pick 7 and Boak is a bad trade on picks alone and he would command $800K in salary.

The same media that got shots of Selwood, Bartel and Scott in Adelaide. We are not on Boak’s radar and the only way to get there would be money and draft picks.

No he hasn’t, but it is pretty obvious that he would rather play for either Geelong or Port Adelaide. To land him we would have to cough up an obscene amount of money and beat the market in terms of draft picks/players to satisfy the Power. I would love to see Boak in a demon jumper but not at the cost which would be required.

Boak doesn't want to play for us and we would have to pay him too much. We would be better of using our salary cap space to pay overs for free agents such as Cloke or Goddard or further front loading the contracts of our current players.

This is exactly the reason why coaches shouldn't have ultimate control over list management decisions. Boak isn't that good and he would cost us high draft picks and command a big salary.

Logical way to look at it.

As much as our list needs a talent boost, a mass overhaul is not the best way to do it IMO. Players picked later than the third round are most likely to be busts and are a reasonable chance to slip to us in the rookie draft in any event. They also require two-year deals, which impinges on our flexibility next year. We would be better off giving one-year contracts to players like Dunn, Macdonald and Bail than taking picks 60 and 70 in the draft.

Contracts: Strauss, Blease, Moloney, Rivers, Jurrah, Cook, Dunn, Bail, Fitzpatrick, Green, MacDonald Upgrades: Nicholson Delists: Bate, Bennell, Petterd, Spencer, Davis, Jetta Attempt to trade: Morton Unsure: Bartram We would then have picks something like #3, #4, #13, #25 (Viney hopefully), #43, #60/PSD pick #3 The problem with making wholesale changes is that new draftees get two years. For that reason I would prefer to give a greater number of players one-year contracts.

The club did the right thing three years ago and I agree with the basic premise that tanking doesn't create a "losing culture", but Schwab et al have to go so we can move on.

We won't get a priority pick, so it will be 1, 2, 12ish and Viney.

Jack Viney complicates this issue, just as the priority pick did in 2009. For mine: Picks #1, #2, Viney, PSD pick #1, big losing culture > Viney, #4, #23, two meaningless victories, lesser losing culture, PSD #3

The incumbants (Wood and Yencken) are sympathetic to the MFC.

Without being inside the club, it is impossible to say whether he should be replaced or not. Those voting ‘yes’ are putting a lot of faith in intangible improvements, which I don’t think can be evaluated from outside the club. IMO the board would be negligent if they did not do a thorough review of the situation - given the on field results have been so poor. This may end up reconfirming the administration’s initial positive view on Neeld. We now have a lot more information on Neeld's coaching ability than before his appointment and so it is easier to assess his suitability.

IMO we would be better off with a smaller defense (i.e. three of Frawley, Rivers, Garland, MacDonald, Sellar, McDonald and three of Grimes, Bartram, Blease, Tapscott, Nicholson, Strauss). It gives us more run and skill but comes at the trade off of being caught short in the air. At times this year we have had a five and one mix (with Macdonald and Garland as small defenders), which is unbalanced. IMO Garland should be played on the third tall and either Tapscott or Grimes on the slowest small.

It is obvious there is a directive to go along the boundary out of the backline and we then give up far too much territory in switching because we don't want to take a risk bringing the ball into the corridor. This allows the opposition to set their defensive press and thus leads to slow ball movement. Team selection, by including too many key defenders with poor foot skills, then exacerbates the problem.

Disagree. Neeld's game plan is a massive outlier compared to the rest of the competition. We have been way too predictable and slow in our ball movement, which is a complete 180 on where we have come from. No other team is so averse to either using the corridor or using handball as an attacking weapon.

I don’t think making mass changes to the list is a great idea given the requirement for new draftees to be given two-year deals. I would prefer to retain players like Cook, Bail, Green, Gysberts and Dunn on one-year contracts. Tapscott will only make it as a small defender IMO. He does not have enough pace or tricks to play forward and cannot develop the tank required to play as a mid. But we would need to structure our defense to accommodate him. (i.e. play only three key defenders.)

To have faith in a Neeld future I think you must have confidence that his long around the boundary, defensive game plan provides us with the best chance of winning a premiership. Watching the way Hawthorn are playing, it would be a brave person to say that the future of football is not a style which puts a greater premium of retaining possession and encourages risk taking through the corridor. To my mind the quality of football is only going to improve, so this is even more likely to be the method to win premierships in the future. Neeld has not adapted his thinking and we are still sticking to the same approach used by Collingwood to win the 2010 flag. This is my key concern and all the other issues with Neeld are just side issues IMO. Comments will be put forward that this will come later in our development and that we do not have the players yet to adopt this approach. However, I doubt any coach in their right mind would be so discouraging of taking risks and then do a complete reversal and advocate it. The recruitment of players such as Magner and Couch also indicates Neeld’s thinking on the future of the game.

Having a signature saying “I believe in Neeld.” at a time when we are 2-14 smacks of evangelism.

Three-year contract or otherwise, it is clear as day that Neeld will start 2013 under pressure. (And fair enough too given our pathetic performances so far.) No matter what the board and administration say, another very poor start to the year next year and the media pressure will be intense. The club and the Neeld evangelists can only point to intangible improvements for so long.