Fat Tony

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.

Draft well.

RE: Cheney – It is easy to play reasonable footy in a top side. He will never be a world beater and it was no mistake to let him go. Our main long-term issue has been recruiting. Nevertheless, Neeld is chiefly responsible for our recent underperformance. We are playing without system or confidence and our team selection has sought to over correct our deficiencies from last year. (i.e. winning the contested ball and contested marking). This has come at the expense of speed and skill and we are a 10 goal side worse as a result.

Poor message or not, we have been killed "going with grunt" because we lack the pace to impact the contest. Possessions in the VFL are not always a good indicator of success at AFL level.

Neeld entered the club like John Wayne and it clearly hasn’t worked. Trying to toughen us up has been counterproductive (lowering the players’ confidence) and he is wasting his time. Building a tougher club comes at the draft table not from the coach. “Going with grunt” and a defensive mindset has resulted in three hidings. He won’t last long if he can’t adjust and build a modern game plan around our strengths.

We desperately need to inject some pace into the side, particularly to the midfield. At present our midfield mix consists of slow inside players (Jones, Magner, Trengove, Bate and McKenzie) and very outside receivers (Watts, Howe and Davey). The mix is wrong and we need to try and get some inside/outside players around the ball. Bartram, Bail and Frawley should all be played through the midfield as they can win their own ball (and possibly break away from the stoppage when they do) and apply pressure when we don’t have it. Our backline includes one (or perhaps two) too many talls and lacks kicking skill and run. Bartram’s lack of kicking stagnates our offensive transition and he needs to find another spot. I would run him as a tagger every week. Tapscott doesn’t have the tricks to play forward at AFL level or the engine to play in the midfield. He should be played in the backline on the opposition’s slowest small forward. If he is going to make it this will need to be his role. (Grimes is in a similar predicament.) I doubt if Tom McDonald has the skill level required for AFL. Despite being out of form, Green is still one of our better players and needs to come back in. If Moloney is fit he must play. Unfortunately he doesn’t help the lack of pace problem, so I think Magner or Bate need to be the one to make way. Martin is not a KPF and he is badly out of form. He is either a ruckman or a defender. (Although I am not sure his ball use is good enough to be played in the backline with the press.) Despite Couch’s good VFL form, he is another plodder. His inclusion would only add to our problem. In: Green, Moloney, Petterd, Nicholson, Blease Out: Grimes (inj.), Martin, Magner, McDonald, Bate Nicholson, Rivers, Frawley Tapscott, Garland, Morton Watts, Jones, Trengove Howe, Clark, Petterd Davey, Green, Dunn Jamar, Moloney, Bartram Sellar, Bail, McKenzie Blease

Four ruckmen in the 22. Four key defenders. A midfield full of plodders. (But with grunt!) An ultra defensive game plan. I think Neeld can take some of the blame. Hardest team to play against in the AFL. What a joke!

St Kilda's list was so strong that they should have performed better than they did in Lyon's early years. Moreover, St Kilda changed their gameplan significantly over Lyon's tenure, eventually copying 'Clarko's Cluster' to develop the modern press. Our lack of teamwork and ability to retain possession are deeply concerning. We should look at the way Hird was able to turn Essendon around last year. He has injected confidence into the playing group and instilled a defensive mindset.

Excellent post GNF