deejammin'

Pavlich, Sandilands, Mundy, Barlow, Hill and Fyfe, all 10 times better than our best players, I would argue Pav is a thousand times better. Some of these missed most of last season, but all are clearly centre to a far better list. I think you are letting the raw statistics cloud what actually happened. Freo beat Brisbane (same as us), Adelaide (we beat them by more), Beat North by 30 points (they beat us by 40), The Bulldogs (they beat us by 70 in a clutch game), Port Adelaide (we beat them by a similar margin once and then lost to them), Essendon (by a similar margin to us), Gold Coast (ditto), Sydney (who we drew with). Freo beat almost every team that we did, with the exception of Richmond who we lost to later in the season having beaten them once, while also beating a couple we didn't in North and the Bulldogs. Far more interesting is how they performed against the top 4 teams. lost to Geelong by 11 (we lost by 186), West Coast by 30 and 1 (we lost by 104 and 48) Hawthorn by 22 and 51 (we lost by 55 and 54), Collingwood by 80 (we lost by 88) Overall we lost to the top four by 350 points more than Freo, discounting 186 its still 164 points. This shows how much closer to the top teams Freo was, how much of a better list they were and how they were still way ahead of us in an injury ravaged season. Freo's poor performances (usually coinciding with the loss of Sandilands) was being beaten by North and Richmond badly and amazingly smashed by us by 89pts at the MCG in a performance that ruined their year. After Melbourne won that game against Freo in round 13(almost the high point of the year putting us in contention for the finals) we won three games, over Richmond, Port and Gold Coast, losing 8 of the final 11, winning only 1 of the final 6 despite playing cellar dwellers Gold Coast, Port Adelaide and Richmond. Basically we capitulated. Anyway, Freo beat basically all the teams we beat, were far closer to the top teams, had far more stars and far more injuries and were still ahead of us on the ladder. The only thing we had on them at all was our victory in round 13, and we failed to replicate that form for the rest of the season. There is no doubt Lyon inherited a far superior list to Neeld.

I was suprised we ended up with Neeld, but there was a field of 4 teams looking for coaches at the end of last year, and all ended up with unproven coaches. Leigh Matthews, Paul Roos, Mick Malthouse, Rodney Eade and Gary Ayres were all available (according to people on this board, I have stated before the reasons I think all of them were unrealistic/impossible/not the right fit) and yet Adelaide, Western Bulldogs and St Kilda all ended up with first year coaches. Weird huh? Must all be so incompetent that they didn't speak to those guys. edit: Spelling

i think we'll agree to disagree, and I've covered this at length in two threads now, but I am confident that my confidence is not misplaced. I have no doubt several people affiliated with ours and other clubs would have spoken to Ross and his management and all been told the same thing, that he was staying at St Kilda. Blindsighting your management is unprecendented, what happened to Harvey was unprecented, the money Freo are paying Ross is unrealistic for Melbourne, but even if we had been able to match it there was no opportunity to do so, Lyon did all this on his own,m behind closed doors, possibly before we were even looking for a coach. If you want to continue to believe people like Mike Sheahan that this club is out to destroy itself by not even trying options then go ahead, I am confident he is a dingbat.

Fuschia you are welcome to your opinion as I am welcome to mine, but where in my post did I say that I thought it was spiritual or uplifting? I said it was "a bit of fun" if you are going to quote there is a button for it and you might want to do your research. Also, Dunstall and Brayshaw rib Gary over everything, every year, its what they do, they rib him over crying when he did his knee, yo gabba gabba, the list goes on, those boys would give him grief every time, and I think you are assuming he was embarrassed, I have heard him say he likes it. I hardly think those two (JB and the Chief) should be the standard by which we measure what MFC does, they hate the club. Finally it is not overwhelming in this thread, the count of those who have a clear opinion ( I generally counted those who were sarcastic as against the bugler although its hard to tell) was 15-12 against, hardly overwhelming, the same no. probably want to get rid of Neeld on this board. Obviously I didn't express myself clearly, and I'm not having a go at you I really like your contribution on this board and find myself agreeing with you 90% of the time. I am sorry that it embarrasses you, but I for one am for live music and establishing club traditions, I do agree with the suggestions that he remove the blazer, go back to playing from the cheer squad and not just for the MCC however. I enjoy it, my parents who often go to the footy enjoy it, my gf enjoys it and my mates don't give me s*&^ about it (swans and hawthorn supporters) so obviously I have a different experience to you.

You find our team song embarassing? Do you find the trumpet embarassing in all situations or just when it plays our tune? Seriously mate, Freo's song is embarassing, but there was a good chunk of the MCG belting it out last night.

There is so much wrong with this thread its ridiculous, I like the Bugler. First off, there are at least 3 different people who do the bugling.... Second, to those criticising the performance I think all 3 play well, with good intonation and rhythm with a nice tone, all you keyboard heroes might want to try playing with a single mic in the middle of the MCG without being able to properly hear yourself while the music echoes out of the speakers around the ground with various delays. Thirdly, we follow a sport where all teams run out to show tunes, spirituals and stolen national anthems with ridiculous lyrics and smash through crepe paper and you're challenging the solo call of a trumpet! In case you weren't aware, when armies went to battle they usually had a trumpet and a snare drum, not a 1850's American folk tune jazzed up to sound like a show tune from a 60s musical (I love our song but seriously get your hand off it!) and they never, ever ran through some crepe paper! Fourth, Enter Sandman is a song about sleep and death, you seriously want to encourage our players to be more disinterested than they already are, also not all footy supporters love rock and roll, the footy supporters all being rock and roll loving pub junkies stereotype is far from accurate, there are families and many people of different backgrounds with diverse interests, Enter Sandman is not our team song. Lastly, at a time where the standard for footy entertainment is Meatloaf the bugler is a welcome relief! Its a point of difference, its our club song that we all love, and its a bit of fun, if you want to hate something have a look at the standard of football we put out, not the pre-game entertainment.

The problem with those who are so vehemently against Neeld on this site is that they are looking for things to pin on him. At this stage this is an unconfirmed rumour on Channel 7, no statement from the club or Davey. We have already heard that Neeld and the club have said the way that the Gysberts and Cook situations were reported were sensationalist and innaccurate, there would be a possibility this is in the same basket. I do not deny i have been dissapointed with Neeld and the team this season, but at the start of the year he put the players on notice, said they had this year to earn their spots and now those that failed to are being removed, Neeld is owed this right as a new coach. He will be answerable to his list next season and will come under huge scrutiny should we perform like this year again and rightfully so. But to attack him for doing what he said he would do is ludicrous. Finally should Davey move on or retire thanks for a great MFC career and many great memories you have been one of my faves for a very long time.

WYL more often than not I enjoy your contribution to this site, even though we don't always agree, but on this issue I think you are wrong, I know multiple people from Melbourne would have spoken to Lyon personally. The fact is he said he was staying at the Saints, whilst simultaneously having done a deal with Freo. Who knows when? Maybe early in the season while Bailey still had a chance to keep his job, as I have said in the other thread on this topic Lyon was playing a game with no rules, there were no offers and counter offers, no way for any club to know what was going on except Freo, it is guess work to say Melbourne had a chance to usurp them and it is naive to think no-one from our club spoke to him. He lied, Freo were underhanded, most of the football clubs and admins were upset by the way it unfolded. This one is not the clubs fault.

The fact is I doubt you know what happened with Gary and Ross, I seriously doubt that no person representing MFC ever contacted Ross personally, I also don't doubt for a second that he said he was staying at the Saints. He wanted Freo, he got Freo, behind his managements back. MFC would have spoken to him, deal with it.

Totally devastated, after all this club has put in and the emotional investment of the members in him over his journey this feels like he's throwing it all in our faces. I have no problem with wanting to leave, but this has been done in a completely wrong way. Also if anyone thinks PA would put an article like that on their website, before Melbourne have commented and not be trying to get him on their list you're mental. Clearly they are making a play, PA had no reason to write anything....

Improvement: No distractions, no deaths of incredibly important club legends who mean the world to this club, its supporters, the football world in general and reach foundation. No racism allegations, no bombshells about Jurrah during the season. Just the MFC doing its very best. Also it wouldn't hurt if another Vic club could implode catastrophically and take the media heat off us for awhile. No BS leadership group or captaincy stories. Besides this, Grimes, Trengove, Tapscott, Blease, T McDonald, Clark, Watts, Howe, Jones, Frawley, Mckensie, Garland, Rivers, Sylvia, Nicho, Jamar, Martin or Gawn to have full, injury free productive seasons where they show consistant form and some improvement. Taggert, Tynan, Fitzy, Evans, hopefully Jurrah, maybe Gysberts, to have an injury free run at showing their wares for the seniors. Make or break year for Davey, I would hope he could find a role in the side and play well. We sure as hell could use some leadership and his best form would be great to play as a small forward pinch hitting as an outside mid/half back flank. Or we could see him traded for something.... Viney and a few others to come in and bolster our midfield. This is where I can see improvement coming from, also if it doesn't I would hope we have enough on our list to be able to continue to drop players to Casey who don't perform.

Nice one Tatu, its such a hard finals series to pick, far more difficult than past years, apart from our consesus on Hawthorn we have so many different results, yet I can plausibly see each coming true, what a great year of footy! (Melbourne obviously excluded) Macca, I suck at tipping as my love for MFC tends to cloud my ability to tip against their best interests, as soon as our season was completely over in the 2nd half of this year I tipped much better. Again, I can see everything you have tipped plausibly happening, its that close a season.

A whole lot of retrospect, cull debates and gazing into the past and future on this board at the minute, so heres the challenge. We all claim we know football on here, but rather than doing the usual debates on whether exuming the corpse of a proven premiership coach and having it sit in the coaches box would have been better than Neeld this year lets see some real footy knowledge.. Pick the winners of each finals game, with margin all the way to the GF, obviously if you get this round wrong you will have to post an updated draw, albeit at the loss of some street cred. So at the risk of shooting any cred I may have in the foot here's my prediction: Hawthorn to beat Collingwood by 46 pts Sydney over Adelaide by 18 Geelong over Freo by 37 West Coast over North by 21 Collingwood over West Coast by 15pts Geelong over Adelaide by 26 Hawthorn over Geelong by 6 Sydney over Collingwood by 12pts Hawthorn over Sydney by 32pts There goes nothing, should be fun at the very least.......

Where are your facts coming from? I have it on good authority that all those candidates were at least contacted, (except Matthews who is way past it and no-one is considering him), not necessarily officially (as most often occurs at football clubs). Roos was not interested in leaving his media gig, see above for Lyon and Malthouse, our club wanted Neeld more than Sanderson. You are speculating without foundation, show me proof that these candidates weren't considered.

BH we have agreed many times in the past but this thread frustrates me in the extreme. No.1 how do you know G. Lyon or other members of the selection panel didn't talk to Ross directly? Can you categorically say that no-one from MFC had a conversation with the man? Lyon was playing a dangerous game, if anyone had got wind of his Freo deal before it got through serious S*&^ would have hit the fan with Freo, Harvey, Lyon's Management and St Kilda all involved heavily in a shifty dealing he was trying to rush through before they were aware of it. Lyon could hardly have played Melbourne and Freo in a bidding war behind all of these parties backs so the most likely scenario is that Melbourne spoke to both Lyon's management officially and Lyon unofficially and were told the same thing, that he was staying at St Kilda. Maybe we offered less money than Freo and thats why he never considered us, maybe its the list or maybe we never discussed money as both the coach himself and his management said he was unavailable whatever the reason I don't think the MFC is at fault or didn't do due diligence on Lyon. No. 2, You seem to approve of the club engaging in illegal or immoral practices to secure coaches etc. In the examples above these practices backfired heinously for Carlton and Richmond, Carlton has had the worst period in the clubs history (which to me looks set to continue), while Richmond has played less finals in the past 30 years than Fitzroy and hasn't looked close to a flag for a very long time! Richmond looks like it is turning around in a time where it has stuck by its unproven coach and made fair trades and drafts to build its list. Lastly, many have forgotten how frustrated Collingwood were with Malthouse in 2009, the whole Buckley/Malthouse saga emerged as Eddie and co thought Mick was heading in the wrong direction and saw this as the best plan for future success. The whole Malthouse contract was hardly the raging success Collingwood thought it would be. 2010 was a suprise, which emerged on the back of a perfect storm at Geelong (G.Ablett and Bomber) and the ball bouncing the wrong way in the first Grand Final. For mine Geelong is the best team of the past 5 years with 3 premierships, 4 Grand Finals and a Prelim and it acheived this by sticking fat with its under siege coach (Bomber), keeping its integrity and sticking by both Thompson and Ablett when they were screwing them. Then took a risk on a young unproven coach, who won a Premiership in his first year. This is the example we should follow. Geelong have shown you can have integrity in your off-field plans and enjoy success, in fact they are still way ahead of both Richmond and Carlton whose shady dealings continue to hurt them. They will also [censored] Ross Lyon's Freo in yet another win for integrity. Also, we couldn't have got Chris Scott he was already contracted at Geelong and coaching in a finals series, your timing is wrong. Also Matthews is past it, Malthouse was definately approached and wasn't ready/was off limits/had legal and financial implications far beyond us. Neeld hasn't had a great year, but I don't think that any of the examples you have mentioned show a lack of due process.

Also not bringing in players who are playing well in the VFL at the expense of players who are losing in the AFL may well get us investigated by the afl if one of our players shoots their mouth off in a couple of years

I don't know what would have happened had we got Sheedy, may have been good, who knows? But I don't believe GWS can be qualified as 'closer to a flag' we have beaten them twice, easily. Most of their best performers from this year will be retiring and being replaced by underdone kids (Brogan, Power, Mcdonald, Cornes) they have no dominant ruck or KPD and will be relying on young kids, putting huge pressure on them to perform. They are overpaying Scully by quite a margin and face salary cap and poaching issues over the next few years. Their core midfielders are good but not elite. They are relying heavily on drafting well this year, which is unpredictable. They will change coach at the end of next year. They have no club history, no culture and there is a large amount of resentment in the football community at large and finally if GC has taught us anything the second year can be far worse than the first, which for GWS would be diabolical. Not saying I see a flag in our near future, but I think both clubs are so far away that arguing one is closer than the other is farce

Look, this thread is ridiculous as its argument is fundamentally untrue. Melbourne did not fail to go after Lyon hard enough, they went bloody hard with a 5 year 5 million dollar contract. Melbourne was told he was staying at St Kilda while he pulled a shifty deal with Freo that not even his manager was aware of, there was no opportunity for counter offers, NO ONE KNEW THE FREO DEAL EXISTED UNTIL IT WAS DONE!!!! There is so much wrong with our club right now, getting involved in this horse$#^* arguments about getting Lyon or Malthouse (who also turned down a similar deal when it was offered to him before Lyon because he wanted a year off coaching and as Collingwood would have sued!) lets talk about whats actually going wrong. What about Neeld's onfield strategy don't you like? We are about to see his list management strategy so there's very little to comment on there and how much do you actually know about what goes on at board level at our club and how we have turned $5 mil deficit into profit!!!!!!!! I see a lot of posturing from some of the most vocal critics, a whole bunch of revisionist coaching arguments that fly in the face of fact and very little discussion about what is actually going on.

Why are people suprised that we sucked? We have always been a terrible interstate side, we were terrible when the season was on the line, we have nothing to play for, our fitness has been sited as bad all year, we are at the end of a long season, our key forward is out injured, Freo are tuning up for the finals while we are getting ready for another grueling preseason, this is the expected result. The only reason to expect any sort of performance is for those whose careers are on the line to try to regain their spot, and thank goodness none did, so the cull just got easier! And don't say pride or showing improvement, I think this coaching panel have decided whose bags are checked and are getting ready to load the NQR bus, the rest was about trying some stuff out. Seeya later 2012, bring on some trades and drafts and the hardest pre-season these players have ever known.Next year is make or break for the coach and quite a few highly touted talents, fail in 2013 and we're in deep deep trouble. JUST BE GLAD ITS OVER!

Not really, it makes the job much easier, if they had played their guts out and saved their careers our coaches may have been goaded into keeping on players who over a long period of time have proved they can't cut it and we would indure years of performances like this one... I'm hopeful we may finally get some people in who don't ever need to play to save their careers. I think you have answered the midfield question, we have a premiership midfield coach proving that you can't polish a turd, it doesn't matter how well drilled you are in positioning, ball movement and tagging if you are constantly pushed aside, butcher your disposal and can't stick a single tackle. Its the cattle, thats the fact, one more game and we can start analysing how well Neeld does in recitifying it with trades/drafting. PS. Totally agree about the umpiring, how is it possible to have a free paid to a player, the opposition kick it 50 metres away preventing said player from moving the ball on to free players in the forward line without having a 50 metre penalty paid? This happened 3 times at pivotal times today!

Jimmi, I couldn't agree with you more. All of Trenners strengths would be very useful to a side with a versatile midfield. Sewell and Mitchell are made to look very quick by their midfield at times, but most of the football media and many coaches talked about how slow they were coming into the system. The reality is our team don't block well for eachother, our ball use is clunky at best and our midfield is either one-paced, under-developed physically or has extremely poor disposal depending on which combination you pick. The reality is JT is in our top 6 mids even whilst underperforming, this is how terrible our midfield is and until we draft and trade to rectify this problem he will have no problem keeping his spot. And who knows, maybe with a half decent midfield group around him he will flourish. Hell, Adelaide make a plodder like Van Berlo look good.

I was refering to Carlton...

Tanking!

Best thing about Essendons decline this season is that yet again the media got overly excited about them (remember the predictions of a pies bombers grand final). Now they are going to struggle to make the 8, and if they do I see them travelling to Perth for an almighty flogging.

You cannot turn over every single underperforming player on a list in one year, Sylvia will stay, the coaches seem relatively pleased with him. He is contracted, he won't be worth enough in a trade and football clubs, like all performance institutes need a degree of continuity, there are so many already on notice (reportedly 11) there is no way more than that will go.