robbiefrom13

I hope you do not mean players, when you say "toxic waste". There may be something toxic that has gotten into some players, but surely they would be no happier about that than you would be. The toxicity you see is not the player. The player is a person, and with the right help can surely be restored to what he wants to be. I think it is an over-simplification to throw the player out with the bathwater that is currently muddying his passion/gift/career. It's sad that what Tadgh says sounds so recognisable, but rubbing people's faces in what's gone wrong is only ever an act of anger and it was never a good practice. Knee-jerk abuse may be understandable, but I don't think we can afford to indulge in it, given that many are now referring to the state of the club as a crisis. MFC needs to protect its brand and its assets, and do it intelligently.

I hope so. Still, on Saturday Jack looked for someone to kick it to, too often, and there was no-one. What can he do? 34 possessions, and he still can't alter the perception that he is not an embedded prized member of the team. What really concerns me is the expression "toxic element" that I have now read at least twice on Demonland. In another thread, it looked pretty certain that the poster meant players were the toxic element that needed to be removed from the club. There may be a toxic element in some players, but they don't want it there any more than we do: they play the game they love, in public, every week. Whatever's wrong is not them - they would, I bet, gladly see it sorted if anyone knew how to sort it. People often need others around them to help them feel good about themselves - our self-image comes from relationships; and I think at Melbourne there needs to be celebration of the positives rather than focus on what we lack, or dressing-room meditation on Tadgh Kennely's thoughts as some angry fans are advocating. Somebody suggested they all go out together and get plastered - in a stupid way, it might help! Garry Lyon said the day he kicked 10 by three-quarter time against the Bulldogs, he had had no sleep - been up all night with his wife having a baby. He said he was over the moon happy and it put football in perspective, and he never played so freely. On no sleep, he looked taller and stronger than anyone the Dogs could throw at him that day.

Your second sentence - it doesn't have to be an either/or. Preparation and fitness and appetite for the contest, ADDED TO the flair and existing skills, so that the exuberance is only increased - isn't that the right balance? "In some ways" - well, get rid of those ways: they are not necessary, not helping...(if that is what's happening).

I saw us annihilate Sydney two years ago with running that Sydney could not stop, even though we did not look like Kerr doing it. There are some good points in this discussion, no doubt. At the same time, I remember Liam Jurrah's arrival - half a dozen instinctive moments of GOTY MOTY contenders every game, and completely unstoppable when he went for it. Doesn't do any of that now - is it because we required him to become a disciplined part of a forward press for God's sake (he'll be remembered for THAT, won't he?), and he lost faith in his innate giftedness? Now he's breaking apart... will we ever see it again? Did we tame him? And the destruction wreaked on Sydney two years ago - has that been drilled out of our make-up somehow? It's a thing of balance - have we put a flood or defensive press or something on our players' minds? Remember the three Magpies gang-tackling Jack Watts? In a way, it's a bit like some of the posters here: just like the Collingwood players attacking the tall poppy, it appears Jack Watts' private school born-to-rule arrogance and nonchalance has provoked some of his own supporters. From the look of it, some of his team-mates would not kick to him either - and then we join in, complaining he does not "demand the ball". Was criticising Jack the best way to deal with this? Get tougher by all means, but within a solidly supporting team surely, and one that honours what you do bring, as well as working on any perceived weaknesses. New players need to be endorsed, and what they bring to the team embraced, as well as adding to their repertoire the team things they have to learn. There must be a proper balance, or a player may wonder what he's doing there... Sometimes a too-total focus on progress has a high price, taking from us stuff we will remember with fondness, and later be willing to pay anything to get back, when it's too late. If what's happened in the last six months at Melbourne is we have been reduced to playing "football-by-numbers", then we have gone too far. One size never does fit all.

Herald Sun, Tuesday June 15, 1993. Melbourne walloped Collingwood the previous day, Jakovich kicking 9. Jakovich told the paper, "You just play the game with passion ... it's just the love of the game. There's no better feeling." That's what's missing - the love of the game, above all else. We seem to have lost touch with that, all of us - not just the players. Balme admitted that Jakovich wouldn't chase, but he loved him anyway, for what he was. Garry Lyon said of Jakovich, "Sometimes, after he's kicked a goal you run in to congratulate him and he's talking to himself: 'Just get it up to me. I'll take em all on!'" I bet Jack Watts as a boy felt that naive exuberance - and that sense of ownership. Didn't they all? So get it simple again - this is what Malthouse is recommending too, apparently... Rediscover the joy of it - that's the missing ingredient. We should be going for and celebrating every good thing we can manufacture, and encouraging players to go for the peaks. Jakovich admitted he felt a bit of a dh afterwards, seeing the replay of his arm-waving - but he loved it anyway and it was infectious and we won games. Remember Wonna and the effect he had on all of us? And out of each moment of exulting will come a bit more belief. (Oh yeah - and add in a bit of tight defending when you need it, too.)

Over and over on this forum, we find ourselves being lobbied (not always politely or respectfully) to take sides: the players or the coach. The coach's job is to get the best out of the players that he has, and get the team thing happening. The players' job is to do what they've been preparing their whole lives to do, and follow team structures in doing it. Clearly the players are not playing to their previously proven ability, and cannot be following instructions when they play such rubbish football (with no spread, no shepherding, etc); and the coaches clearly are not encouraging the players' self-belief and use of their skills, nor are they getting through with their intention to harness the players' efforts to "a game-plan". The players are failing to do their job, and the coach is failing to do his. Does this mean we have to blame somebody? well, what if we do? If you drop the players, you have to pick somebody else, and we are already picking the best we have. If you sack the coach we have to start all over again, again, with further loss of face and confidence and morale, as well as the inevitable confusion. These guys (players and coach) need to get it right, together - they are who MFC has. If anyone else is interfering with their doing so, then the Board should surely tell them to f*** off - we are a football team, and the playing of football is our core business. The players are our ultimate assets in that sense, and the coach is there to get the best out of the players. Anybody else and their importance is secondary to the players running out onto the ground to play the game. So, what do we need to do to get players and coach sorting out the stuff that has them currently "not on the same page"? Do we think the players need to learn e.g. how to shepherd, as though they don't understand the concept??? Or does someone think the problem is that the coach needs to learn how to be a conductor instead of a Roman flagellator??? do we really think either party has got to where they are without such elementary things well understood (even though they clearly are not working at present, for whatever reason?) Or are the posters right when they suggest this mess is something that was here already, before Neeld arrived, and beyond him or the players to fix? In which case is it perhaps time somebody was put in on a permanent basis to restore what has been somehow broken in the lines of communications between players and club? Just like it was needed at Chelsea not so long ago? Such a person would work out what went wrong, of course, but not just to identify where to lay the blame and then get out - we don't need a report, or a Garry Lyon short-term fix. What we need is a permanent change in our system, that starts by acknowledging that employees of the club are all highly competent people, and motivated, but at the moment not able to make it happen... needing help, therefore. Not their fault, but about to be helped with a structure that maybe should have always been in place. It does seem that part of the bigger story here is that some players last year did express some opinions about what was going on; and the way it has played out it appears that it was not a legitimate thing for them to do so. If that's how it was, it is unfair. I know the hardline player-bashing posters, who call the players "cattle" and so on, will want to punish and discipline any player who does anything other than "comply" and play crash-and-bash; but that just isn't working, and the club is bleeding while we stand unbudgingly waiting for it to kick in. Chelsea is succeeding after a period of failure and upheavals, at least partly because they recognised the human capital in their players, and treated them with respect, and provided them with a permanent conduit for their thoughts about stuff at the club. Chelsea agreed that the players were stakeholders, entitled to speak. Qualified to, actually - more so than anyone, perhaps. Because, unlike anyone else, they are the guys who actually run out and experience the playing of the game. And so they and their thoughts matter, a whole lot. Questions to ask of the players, that only they can answer: is the way they are preparing for games working? Could improvements be made? Do they feel positive about their being at the club? They will know what they want to address... I can't understand the view that we should be angered by players having something to say about the way the club facilitates their playing the game. A corporatised view of football sees the players as mere operatives in a grand scheme way above their grasp. That is simply BS, and will never engage players in a creative and exuberant commitment to playing the game they dreamed about all their childhood. The team is, by definition, made up of (and, if you insist, at the mercy of) the players.... As I see it, it's time for MFC stakeholders to sit down together and come up with something that doesn't blame, but which all can own. Get onto the same page! And, the players are the most important, no matter how you look at it. To the hardliners on this forum, I ask you - if it is the players who are at fault here, is there any way you can see that will improve the results for the club in spite of the players? Drop them? - but who do you want running out for the club? Do you want us to shut down? You can't drop them all, even though some posters have actually advocated exactly that. Better to work with the players, I say. Excuse me while I duck for cover.

they have decked us out in the Fitzroy colours... incidentally, "0 warning points" - what's that?

Eddie Newton's role at Chelsea - but would Neeld go for it if it was suggested?... Worth googling if you don't know what Eddie Newton has done for Chelsea.. Will MFC members get vocal about their club, or just sit and moan about it? Is there a think-tank of interested parties working on how to save us from this train-wreck, or are we saying it's ok, and still pretending it's more-or-less how we envisaged the year? (How naive I am! - maybe it's not even pretending - maybe this is as the club - and the tuned-in supporters - saw the year?) Well, I say, as a school teacher, that once the students are enjoying your class and they know that you see good in them and you like them, there is no limit to what you can ask them to grapple with and master. Turn them off, and everyone plays it by the book, they go wooden, and dutiful, and you are on your own out the front of the room... Bag me out, but there's a big literature about this. Footballers too, just like kids - they are people, like everyone else - treat them well, you get the best of them and natural generosity pours out of them. Proactive engagement and shared ownership and responsibility and all the rest with it. But we don't appear to have any of that at MFC. Students remember the teachers who made it fun, and who respected them - and those are the classes they learn in. Eddie Newton is on the money. I am gutted to see Jurrah visibly despondent. Puzzled not to see too many others... We think they have shut down, don't we? So get somebody in there to fix it!

"I've been watching crap players at this club for 40 years. The fact that some "give their all" leaves me a little underwhelmed. I may remember some players quite fondly once they've retired, but either improve, or pizz off. "I accept that not all players can be stars, or even very good, but I just about have apoplexy when you're about to be given the ball, such is your diabolical usage, then I have little sympathy for the unpleasant comments that may be directed your way." So you said on April 30. You say Watts' softness is a "fact", and Neeld knows it. Watts'll be out of the team "soon", because Neeld said this would happen to players who weren't as they ought to be (as you said in your previous post). But Neeld said that before the pre-season, before the NAB cup, before rounds 1-5. What's holding him up from getting this "crap player" out of the team? C'mon Mark, get with the facts! You're holding us back! Why do they counsel Watts and work with him, when his softness is a "fact"? i guess you and I don't see the football the same way. I'm so ignorant, I enjoy it. I tried on your sneer for size and found that Watts isn't my "little darling" - as far as I in my inadequate comprehension can tell, it just doesn't describe how I think of any player. I wonder which supporters' thoughts you had access to, justifying that subtle comment. And, I wondered whether you would feel the need to sneer if there was a player at Melbourne who was an acknowledged star and loved by the supporters? Would it ever be ok to overlook imperfection in our enthusiasm for what a player was doing? If you've followed Melbourne for 40 years, that takes in Flower, Stynes, Lyon, quite few good players - was it really true of you all that time that "I may remember some players quite fondly once they've retired, but either improve, or pizz off"? Robbie often got under 20 possessions in a game... I enjoy watching them all, even feeling some fondness for them before they have retired. I certainly don't think of guys in a Melbourne jumper as "crap players". What I don't like about knockers is that they just wait, and often enough they get their day, when they can crow and say "I told you so!" I hope Jack Watts keeps getting picked, and keeps improving. I will be enjoying it, in my ignorance and stupidity, while you wait and guard yourself from feeling any fondness for any player. I love the footy, and barrack for my team and all of its players. Frustration and disappointment doesn't ruin my pleasure in it or my loyalty to the club and its players; I certainly don't ever run the risk of apoplexy over the game. Stupid me, I just can't get my head around the notion that the thoughts you express sum up what ought to be meant by "a supporter". I can see you are right about one thing though - the limits of my comprehension. That last sentence of yours that I quoted from April 30: I just can't get the thread of it. You appear to me to slide off criticising the player onto reacting to what people are saying about him, and the sentence derails at the word "sympathy": what you have written says that you are so disgusted by the player's poor performance that you cannot agree with criticisms of him. You sound confused in your misery. What I can't comprehend is why you have tormented yourself for 40 years; and I also can't comprehend why you can't see the enjoyment there is in going to the footy and getting behind your team. I'm sorry I spoke. This is just about the point of exit for me from Demonland. Footy is a good thing for me. This just feels nasty and sad.

This sounds right to me. Most kids have seen swaggering swearing hair-trigger violent behaviour at school. They also have TV. Close-up adult slobs may be a shock, but I reckon kids are in any case generally resilient. You shouldn't under-rate the power of a safe reassuring hand to hold. I got a lot of surprises when I went to the footy in the fifties, with my dad and my uncles, and stood there among the teeming masses who broke all our rules. Either in spite of or maybe even partly because of the thrill and danger, I was excited. I certainly wasn't repelled from the footy. I think that has to have been because dad and my uncles were fine in the middle of it all. I can well imagine they told me "yes, but don't take any notice", and pointed out to me what was happening in the game... Twenty years ago I took my then 10-year-old son in his scarf and everything to a Collingwood game and our seats were right behind two decked-out Collingwood yobbos with a slab each. They leaped and roared at everything the umpire or anyone else did right through the Reserves. Before the main game one of them turned round to make sure the "little fella" could see ok, and at quarter time asked if they could bring us back a pie! Often there is humour and goodwill visible along with the "rancid passion".

Not that I noticed. Glad to hear you don't boo them. Calling Watts "soft" and a "little darling" undermines that virtue a bit, though. And, I wonder why Neeld has Watts still in the team, given that he was so clear about it from the outset - is it possible that he doesn't share your assessment of Watts? Or he is pleased enough with Watts' progress even though he isn't the AFL benchmark in physicality? Neeld too soft too, is he? Not booing is a poor boast for a supporter.

yes. good sarcastic point. "the trenches"? neither of us were there, obviously, but how right is it as an analogy, do you really think? maybe we should R-rate football, to protect the naive who think they can take their kids to something so clearly about hate and annihilation?

this says more about you than it does about the people whose opinions you disagree with. I'm surprised such abusive language is allowed on this site. it's a forum, not a redneck shooting gallery. isn't it? Or, to put it another way, every morning the eastern sky has yet another, different, version of sunrise. If you watch it daily, it will impress on you the infinite diversity of our world. This can be applied to everything, including football. Jurrah, Flower, Jakovich, all the greats were players who "broke the mould" and brought a new thing to the game. They put Flower on the weights at one time, trying to bulk him up; tried to make a defender out of him at another. I remember Davey trying to play the hard man for a couple of seasons. But everyone actually is different. Watts is Watts. He tries and he cares and there are good things for us to love. Some of his game will improve, and he will do stuff we are amazed at - and not everything will go to the script we would like it to. That's life, SW, and we - in my humble opinion - miss the point if we throw around abuse when we don't see it play out the way we expected/wanted; especially, if we direct abuse at third parties. Surely, Neeld and Jack Watts are having an infinitely greater impact on Watts' development than any expressed opinions of Demonland bloggers. So, ease up, SW!

not sure the analogy holds. our kids underperform for reasons other than dreaming of future careers. Ockham's Razor, DL...

the next seven games, all losses, you can say that now? "Certainties"? I think you'll find the professionals in this stuff - the bookies - will not be agreeing with you...

being funny? do you too feel disgusted that Jack Watts "doesn't care"? Where does this sort of presumption and disrespect come from? or have I missed some sarcasm, and you reacted to Buzzy's post the same way I did? I hope these guys we support really do stay away from Demonland

you may turn out to have been right, but we haven't lost those games yet. I will be watching out for more of what was there to be seen yesterday - signs that show things are changing. Goodness knows, the team came out of last season needing some positives, and maybe we have underestimated the mentally unsettling effects of all that has happened during the off-season. I've scaled down my expectations, but not in any permanent way. I expect it to be absorbingly interesting, watching what we will manage to achieve in these supposedly unwinnable games. I predict it will not be all bad, as some wrist-slitters seem to want to tell us.

your footy team is like your family. My kids are all late 20's/early 30's and I'm very glad they're alive. My kids have some great things about them, and some average things. It took a long time for them to grow up. It turns out (now that I look back on it) that I never did mutter "only a parent could love them". At times (lots of them) I got frustrated, and angry, as well as proud, and a couple of memorable times I've been awestruck by stuff they've done, mountain-peak experiences in my life, but overall, it's just family. No superstars, but great company and engrossingly interesting even though they don't make the headlines. You love them. You love the ride, and every little bit of their stuff (I notice supporters who get real pleasure out of seeing the caught-in-the-headlights moments, roar with laughter and point it out to each other, which I take as sort of affectionate). Weaknesses are not just failure to win, they are also personality, and you can have affectionate commitment to the personality alongside the most fervent desire to see it improved. And actually, what is > what could have been. I know footy is a competition, so it's different, but when we are losing, the family thing sustains me. My absolute best memories of football are the Robbie Flower years. Loyalty under ridicule has its own special pleasures. I don't think we are insolvent yet, and life goes on for a long time. Enjoy the ride, I say. Yell abuse from the window and all that, but you don't need to turn on your own. I'm not just waiting, I'm enjoying it.

Obviously that's true. All the same, it doesn't negate the fact that there were some good signs in the other parts of the game. Not everything to take away from the game is bad. Some trends with promise, alongside the glaring problem needing to be addressed. Sufficient to make attendance next week interesting - stuff to watch for further development. As Beckett said, "I'm alive: it may come in handy later on...".

run the optimism bit by me again

Neeld had to start somewhere. He says he's still getting to know the players' particular strengths and weaknesses. Are we going to see him adapting then, in the next so many weeks, on the basis of what he learns? I am hoping so. What he has said suggests it is a possibility. Tailoring the game plan to the players will help restore the players' confidence. Confidence is from self-belief, but I suspect the value of "self" is not rock-solid for players at Melbourne, what with with the running disaster of 2011, and the public "new game plan" talk, and everyone being unsettled by the axe falling regularly since at least when Junior was moved on, not to mention the amount of mortality hacking at the club over the past few years. I think lack of confidence all round is a big part of Grimes turning it over in the face of no presenting option. Throughout the game we fumbled and reacted slowly, Davey and Morton and others hesitated and were lost - it could all be down to lack of confidence, especially when we have seen these same players decisive and accurate in the past. In the long run we want a cohesion made of what we have, rather than a created cohesion made up of players acting out "roles". That's not to say we can't look for improvements, and change bad habits and learn good ones and so on, obviously you can learn and develop and still be yourself (every school teacher will have studied the concept of "respect for persons" as a necessary element in classroom teaching. It means that we value the individuality of the student, and the knowledge and experience they bring to the classroom; the teacher aims to foster growth rather than imposing on the student values and judgments that invalidate the student's own take on life). I agree with Hardnut, we want to see some inspired outside-the-square thinking from our coach, alongside his unyielding expectations. We want a club that embraces its originals and values the contributions of its players, as well as one that toughens up. Watts is not the next this player or that player, any more than Jurrah is, just as Jakovich and Flower and Barassi and Doull and so on all were unique and the direct cause of many wins. By all means play cohesively and responsibly, but let it be a cohesion of the players that we have, and please never just the playing out of a white-board. When Richmond got their run on, they went for shots in total faith that it would go through - in contrast to themselves in the first two quarters and us all day. They suddenly remembered they can do it, and went for it. We look like we are flat out trying to play parts, and not really knowing them. This is what frustrates me, because there are some really talented players out there, under-performing... Hopefully, Neeld is on his own learning curve... New boy, everyone's patient, but he is not god. At the same time, on the evidence of his Collingwood experience, he does have an impressive skill-set of his own too. Unless he goes pig-headed and bullying, we can expect him to be thinking out modifications to his default game plan, as he gets to know the specifics of what talent is available to him. He admitted that it will take time to really know the list. On these grounds, at this stage I say we are reacting hastily, no matter how upsetting the current form is. Give him - and them - time to adjust to one another, and see what comes out of that. You can be sure they are putting into it at least as much thought as we are!

when Caro broached the subject with Neeld, Neeld told her to ring Aaron and ask him. Unless he was pretty sure of what Aaron would say, Neeld was playing Russian roulette. If someone invites certain sorts of comments, in a confidential context, we may all find something to say, or insinuate. Natural enough - nothing sinister. Sometimes we just vent anyway, invited or not. Talking is bound to be going on. What happens if the management has someone on the payroll apparently to support us, and listen, with a view to building connections or community or some vague feely-touchy thing - aren't we ok talking to them? And won't we be guided by them as to what kind of stuff they are going to work with - what's the problem with talking, if they are supposed to be making things go better? I've heard that in Japan there are enlightened companies that provide their employees with venting rooms, complete with punching bags bearing the likeness of the boss: it's considered wholesome in a high pressure organisation. So, what was the context when player X allegedly spoke to Mifsud? Or when any other player was known to be bellyaching at any time? I imagine Neeld will have wanted to know about this, and whether there is anything he needs to worry about. Maybe he was on top of this already, when Caro rang him - it appears he was quite confident referring her to Aaron. Either that or he's one hell of a gambler. As to what Mifsud says player X said, who cares? Mifsud and Vlad between them have no credibility left: we don't have to edit their crap. I imagine Neeld has asked his players, one by one maybe, "are we ok?" Enough said...

are we all having fun posting this stuff? how many goals are you tipping it will take to win the 2012 Coleman? long time supporters will remember the years when we went in hope and now can't actually remember the final scores of the games we went to. Mostly we went to see the incomparable Robbie, and all the other guys we loved... There's more than winning, and loyalty is part of being a supporter. Football is in a way an analogy for life.

"off the field" - think Ablett senior, Carey, several Rhodes scholars, Flower the timid accountancy student with coke bottle glasses, etc etc. Is off-the-field stuff indicative of their behaviour on the other side of the white line? What about the enigma of Jurrah? Is "who they are" the same as how they feel about their footy, their coach, their poor form? I don't mean to be offensive, but as you say, you "don't know", you are just wondering. I am not prepared to call Brad Green a liar on the basis of my wondering. Hard to see where this sort of disappointment-fueled speculation gets us...

pub talk. you don't know this.