Jaded No More

[censored] report.

As expected, the wheels have fallen off. Now if only Neeld would fall off his coaching chair. The only thing that will save this game is if Brock McLean gets punched in the face.

For anyone watching this on TV- any news on Grimsey?

This was a respectable quarter. Tappy is really winning me over and Nathan Jones should be given the Bluey now, he is seriously a gun. If we could kick straight and weren't so god awful on the counter attack, we'd be in this. Sadly, knowing us, I'm scared the second half will be a whitewash.

And now with Grimes being injured, I pronounce season 2013 officially dead. I hate everyone.

FML this team is beyond bad. Put Frawley on Waite please.

I have no idea why I keep doing this to myself. I'm going to spend the day with my best friends who are Carlton supporters, sitting with the Carlton members. I'm actually terrified of what is going to happen today. At least the winner is shouting drinks.

I hope against all hope that we win today and I am proven wrong. Anyone who doesn't think us "Neeld haters" wish to be wrong, are kidding themselves. I'm sick of being a loser club, I'm sick of feeling sick at the footy. I want to be proud of this club and I hope I can walk away feeling proud today.

Another stupid decision. If he's ready to play, great, let him play. If he isn't, keep him at Casey where he can play a full game and develop. Imagine having to spend 3/4 of your first match on the bench. What poo!

The club should react out of fear of becoming irrelevant. Absolutely. I wish this club was more fearful of failure, but sadly it seems accepting of it, as are some of our supporters.

Forget stats, forget win-loss ratios. This is what it comes down to... If we all dread going to watch our team play and no longer get any enjoyment out of this club, then what is the point of our existence? Neeld has made us unwatchable, which means he has made us redundant. We exist in a competitive sports industry that is a fan spectacle. Fundamentally, we don't fit that criteria as a club anymore. How long can we really survive this way?

Jeremy Howe-69 marks Max Gawn-1 mark

Wow. [censored] outs. Big Maxy has a huge job this week. Is he ready?

Light. Tunnel. The End. *If you read this post again in 2016 and Hogan has turned into a dud/ has had 4 knee recos/ [censored] off back home/ has been found taking crack, please don't hold this against me.

I HATE when supporters say "well who cares about the players, they need a good kick up the arse". That's exactly like if your boss said "I don't give a crap if you're unhappy at work and you hate me, that's what you get for working for a terribly under performing company" When you work for someone you don't like, let alone don't respect, especially when your job demands so much of you physically and mentally, it's going to show. Just look at how Essendon play for Hird and tell me that 'buy in' is not half the battle. Essendon's list is no better than a lot of other clubs', but they have that intangible difference of having a coach they would die for. I reckon half our players would struggle to stay awake during Neeld's addresses, let alone go out and bleed for him. We are so fractured internally, that it has killed all natural talent.

I am in two minds about this. On the one hand, having a caretaker coach for more than 3/4 of a season is damaging. On the other hand, with each passing week this club suffers more. Confidence gets lower amongst players and supporters, game plan is shot to sh*t, players are unhappy. We need change, and we need it quickly. If I thought there was any chance in hell that Neeld could get the players to win a good handful of games this season, if I thought he was any good at galvanizing a team, I'd be happy to leave him be until the end of the season knowing that W-L ratios are not so important when we are clearly a developing team. But I'm scared, I'm scared of just how much worse things can get on the field, and therefore off the field. The way we let Bailey go was a disgrace, especially given that up to that point we had won more games in the one season than under Neeld combined. So now we've gone the other way and are trying not to be too reactive, which makes sense. Whether this hurts us more in the long term though, is a real possibility. I'll leave you with just a few key elements which have suffered badly under Neeld already: membership, player development and player confidence (and possibly morale, but we can't know that for sure). These things take time to recover, and the time to start the recovery should be sooner rather than later. Having said all that, it's an impossible position for the club to be in because the cons add up as much as the pros do for either scenario.

Until Sunday afternoon when we lose by 14 goals. Don't worry, it won't be long before we all get collectively punched in the nuts again. Yay for being a Melbourne supporter!

Sometimes I think that being dead would be less painful than being a Melbourne supporter. Now we totes won't make finals.

These discussions alone are enough to suggest that our club is falling apart, supporters are frustrated and we are not performing to an acceptable level. Say what you like, but many of us die hard fans have lost a lot of our love for this club since Neeld has come on board. I can only imagine how the players feel. Speak to the right people and you'll find out that many of our players, our better players, are as frustrated as us supporters and want out. Something has to give. Coaches are not bigger than our club and our club is bleeding. Keep him for the next 10 games or the rest of the season, it makes no difference, but come the end of the year, we need drastic changes. Again. I wish I knew how to fix our club, but I don't. But I do know that it's easier to change the coach than throw out an entire list of players, some of which are actually pretty good or at least has the potential to be. Our club is on a fast track to death. We need to change many things and we need to do it before it's too late, because the one thing we can all agree on, is that none of us want to see this club disappear into oblivion.

It's a good thing I don't play for or coach Melbourne then, isn't it? I'm not saying this is what our players should think, but our coach seems happy to lose by 5 goals so maybe you should question his mental stability. I'll be happy to see improvement against actual teams not equally poor ones, where the most we can manage is to win a couple of quarters. Yippee. Even [censored] Gold Coast have won more quarters than us.

No I'm not angry, I'm disillusioned. We made some odd recruiting choices in the off season and it has done nothing to improve our very weak midfield. Like I said, I don't care that we got rid of Moloney, I care that we haven't found a way to cover his loss. Like we still haven't found a way to cover the loss of McLean. The reality is, we haven't had a decent midfield since early 2000s, which is a disgrace when you consider the amount of early picks we've had. But that's not all on Neeld, it's a long legacy of [censored] recruiting and [censored] trading and [censored] development.

If we play Clark before he is 198% fit I will go on a killing rampage. No more Clark heart attacks please. No game frightens me more than a Carlton game. So many Carlton supporting friends, so little I can say when they thrash us. Again.

Perhaps we shouldn't have been so quick to throw him out if there was no suitable replacement? I understand the cultural arguments for getting rid of him, but on game day we now have just one genuine inside mid who is getting tagged to within an inch of his life. It's not smart list management. It also makes no sense that we kept Magner on the rookie list. He is no world beater but he can get the contested ball. We just need someone to temporarily help Jones while Viney and M Jones develop physically.

I love how some people are saying we've improved the last two weeks. Reality check, the quality of our opponent has declined. Back to the thrashing reality next week against Carlton. If we lose by less than 10 goals I'll find a hat and eat it.

The issue is not why Moloney was let go, the issue is that we have not replaced him with an equally hard body who can win the contested ball. All this has done is put more pressure on Nathan "one man midfield" Jones.