Macca

Spurs win game 1 vs the Grizzlies ... highlights San Antonio looked good. On a mission? Meanwhile, over in the East, the Pacers coach had some interesting things to say. Don't poke the bear? ... LeBron responds to Frank Vogel From LeBron ...

Dawes spoke about 'effort' being on the players. We saw some effort on Sunday but where has it been before that? These blokes are professional sportsmen and whilst I'm not a big rap for the coach, there's absolutely no excuse for a lack of effort, anytime. The Richmond game proved that we can give effort. Makes you wonder about the mindset the previous week and certainly in the first 2 games of the season. In all the previous games really, apart from the odd quarter or two. I go through the list and I just see one under performing player after another (in the past year and a third) We have to show up in all the remaining games of the season. Whilst we'll struggle to get near the top sides, we're not 20 goals worse than any of them. Not in my belief anyway. And we're quite capable of winning games in the 2nd half of the year. We play the Doggies twice, the Lions here and have games against the GCS and GWS. All winnable. The Saints are no world beaters either. There's such a thing as professional pride. We played ok against the Tigers, but we're still miles off our potential (best)

But we now know that loss might have been a player driven thing. Our team hasn't played much better since. Not necessarily sticking up for Dean, just looking for fairness. I was not a Bailey fan. It would be nice to know the actual truth behind what happened that day. If we knew for sure, it might explain our current day happenings. I reckon many of us have drawn our own conclusions though. I've definitely mellowed in my stance on Dean. In this thread, not all the blame was apportioned to Dean ... ... Dean Bailey has been sacked

Well, if Freo employ the 'press' as they would be expected to do, there ain't gonna be a lot of room in our backline to clear the ball out If Jack is in the backline, he's probably in for a lot of work. If he wants to work. It's up to Jack. It's not a coaching thing in his case. He's been given every opportunity to play well. I'd still prefer him in the forward line and hope like hell we can get the ball down there enough. We need more targets in our forward line right now.

I'm happy to agree with you on your side of the argument . Both mindset and natural ability are related, I'll give you that, but you'd have to agree, our players are lazy (and I'm talking about our observations with regards to the last year and a third) It goes back further than that, but the current coaching staff aren't responsible for that. Ellis for them yesterday - he did not stop gut running all day. 39 touches for an average player (right now) One of our blokes gave up on a chase. That is a mindset thing. Pure and simple, Ellis didn't give up, our bloke did. That's the difference and if you couple that with all the other things we're mentally weak at, we won't win games of footy. We were much better yesterday but we're judging yesterday's performance against our otherwise putrid efforts this year. You and I saw Northey turn average players into much better players. There is no doubt that Norm Smith turned average players into much better players on a constant basis (from what I've read!) Good coaches get the best out of the best and the most out of the rest. What do they say? At this level, it's above the shoulders. They also say - you can't turn the 'proverbial' into strawberry jam.

If you're looking at things in pure talent terms, I won't argue with you on that score OD. We're a long way short and you're spot on. But what about the mindset things I listed (there are more that I could list) That was the crux of my argument. Look at how hard average players work for the Swans, Cats, Pies etc. Actually, they are not average players, they work so hard, they turn themselves into very good contributors. Our mindset is pitiful. Leaving talent aside.

Yeah, reasonable point, but a lot of what they don't do isn't necessarily related to natural ability. Gut running, tackling, making position, shepherding, blocking, playing in front, hanging their heads, not chasing with intent, 2nd and 3rd efforts, lack of talk, manning up etc etc are a mindset. Our midfield is under performing because they don't work hard enough and they are poorly coached. We could and should be a lot better than what we are.

We can question Royal now. He's either incompetent or has very little influence. Either way, he's not performing. Can't see him lasting. Nobody can oversee a midfield for this long without being called to account. Actually, on paper, we do have some talent in the midfield. Not great, but some talent. Their output is totally abysmal though and that is on their heads, Neeld's head and Royal's head. Someone has to take responsibility. Passing the buck achieves nothing. Grimes, M Jones, N Jones, Sylvia and Viney can all play. Terlich could almost be included amongst those 5. Maybe Magner as well. To a lesser extent, Evans, Davey, Jetta, Trengove, Howe, Nicholson, McKenzie (tagging) and maybe Bail, Blease, Strauss and Toumpas (when ready) can all be contributors as well. But they don't perform as a group. No proper teamwork when we've got the ball. Not much better when we haven't got the ball. A lot of them are lazy or just don't work anywhere near hard enough. Again, who's taking responsibility for this situation?

Last round of the season. Interest lies with the Champions league spots Currently ... 3rd Chelsea 72 points +35 (GD) 4th Arsenal 70 points +34 5th Tottenham 69 points +19 Chelsea are at home to Everton Arsenal are away to Newcastle Tottenham are at home to Sunderland There is a chance that Arsenal and Chelsea will end up equal on points and goal difference. They would play off for the automatic Champions League spot if that happened.

Watts may not deserve a spot straight away but I think we have to play him. Hopefully he gets played deep forward. He's had enough time in the backline and it isn't working anyway. He's a great kick for goal and lets face it, if he gets 6 or 8 kicks in the forward line, he'd probably kick 4 goals. He'll have Dawes and the resting ruckman (Jamar or Gawn) for company so he could easily be used in a floating/decoy type situation. Jack's name did come up in the after match press conference, so he's a possible starter. Byrnes and possibly Blease will push for selection. You can't have too many in your team with poor disposal skills so there a few likely candidates that could make way.

Well why not? They're very important questions. Our lack of teamwork is a huge issue. If we used the ball a lot better today, we might have won the game. Though it was a much improved effort. I don't believe he gets grilled very hard at the press conferences anyway. Not considering how putrid we've been. Anyway, Mark's future is in his own hands. I genuinely wish him well. Don't mind having to change my mind.

Not if the right questions are asked and the right answers are given ... These are the sort of questions that could be asked at the press conferences ... "Why does your team not use a lot of teamwork when you have the ball?" (like other teams do) ... and/or ... "How do you explain the huge discrepancy in uncontested possessions that your team has in comparison to the opposition?"

I would prefer it if he was much more careful with his words. You can tell he's not trying to say anything of note but things just keep slipping out. The references to Toumpas and Viney in the back of the box next week is a case in point. Pointless and not related to anything of any importance. A silly distraction. We don't need to hear that stuff. The supporters are wanting answers on why we have up to 100 less possessions a game and why we don't play an AFL brand of footy. Yet we have to continually hear rhetoric and excuses. One minute he's perhaps being brutally honest about our future and at other times he's talking us up and we're apparently going places. Check out all his quotes for the evidence. And it's not about hating with me - it never has been. It's about evaluation. I don't dislike the bloke.

I saw the press conference as Dawes intimating that Neeld is responsible for everything else other than effort - "That's on the players" Dawes said. Dawes remarks could therefore be interpreted as placing the onus right back on Neeld to get the team playing winning football. Clark also had some interesting things to say today about Neeld's 5 year 'Rebuild'. Dawes came across as well spoken and quite smart. Neeld was just being his usual self. His remark about Toumpas and Viney sitting at the back of the back of the coaching box was questionable. "See how hard it is" or words to that effect. Why does he continually make these type of remarks? What's that got to do with winning games of footy? We're copping all these putrid losses here and he's making silly references to how hard his job is? Give us a break. And how many references to how young and inexperienced we are? Can he just give it a rest? He uses it as a mechanism early and goes back to it at various times. Maybe he should have made a greater effort to keep Rivers and Moloney - there's a bit of experience. He doesn't seem to be at all upset about losing and he never talks about winning. Does he even know what he's been employed to do? I blame the Board and McLardy as well. They are virtually silent on the subject of winning games. Neeld is here to win games of footy - the rest of it is just filler. He will lose his job unless he wins games.

They got 120 contested possessions today against our 112. So we're not far way with regards to winning the ball. We continually get cleaned up in the Clearances ... 45 to 29 today. Magner got 7 and N Jones 6 but we obviously need more ball winning ability at the stoppages. Our biggest issue is that we get killed in uncontested possessions. Reason - we don't play well enough as a team when we've got the ball. The post below by CB sums up the reasons very well. Our lack of teamwork has been an issue for more than just this season.

6 - Terlich - worked really hard 5 - Magner - made a difference out of the middle 4 - N Jones - as usual 3 - Garland - played well 2 - Jamar - his best game for the year, showed good aggression. 1 - Davey - kicking skills were impressive. Much better performance by the team and we didn't give up - some positive signs. You're always going to have injuries but our outs really hurt us. Ellis was damaging for them but otherwise, our match-ups worked quite well. Need to back it up next week.

How could I forget that pearler? Added !

Perhaps Mark needs to get a lot better at saying nothing - like Allan Jeans. Some of what Mark Neeld has said ... "We will be the hardest team to play against" "I will give you a game plan" "Success may come a lot quicker that we think" "Don't worry about the negative headlines, just focus on the club" "You can expect these boys to be seriously competitive for longer this year" "We didn't see that coming" "Any of you people in the media got any ideas?" "The players will need 3 or 4 years to learn the game plan" "The players will need 3 full pre-seasons to get fit" ''Our aim is to be competitive for as long as we possibly can and that's where we're at,'' "It will take 3-5 years to get this team up to a competitive level" "It will take up to 5 years to rebuild" "We are at GWS level"

Neeld is all over the place. I'm surprised that Peter Jackson hasn't had a chat to him about it. Every week we seem to get a 're-adjusted' message. It's quite sad really. Get set for the 3-5 years bit to be yesterday's news. What's next? He's almost reached his zenith. 5-7 years maybe? Surely not!

And what was Neeld saying again at that pre-season dinner? This is a quote from someone who was at the dinner - a reputable poster on this site. Quite a turnaround in such a short space of time. And now the coach is saying this ...

Knicks at the Pacers game 6 - ESPN 10am tomorrow. ... Preview with video

... Crosby lights 'em up. Sharks need to get on the board tomorrow. Same deal for the Red Wings.

I've expressed my views about the coach previously. We just need to let things play out. We should expect a much improved 'effort' from the team tomorrow. But even with Clark, Sylvia, Watts, Viney and Grimes playing, we'd struggle to push the Tigers (the way we're playing) One of the biggest issue we've got is our lack of teamwork when we've got the ball. We don't create for each other. We never seem to score 'easy' goals. We do get the ball a reasonable amount of times - but our use of the ball is awful. 3 things that stand out ... We don't look like we're playing for the coach We don't look like we're playing in spite of the coach We don't play for each other. Otherwise, we'd be seeing the teamwork. At some stage, personal pride has to kick in. List management starts to be looked at, at this time of the year. The players have their own future's on the line.

Well if I was in charge of the books, there's no doubt we'd have a stack of room in the cap. Keeping 4 million in reserve, I'd put the 5.14 million leftover into one of those 'Air money machines' and let the entire list 'Go at it' Check out the name on this one

I agree - we need at least 3 mids. Free agents - ready to go talent. Imagine if Black, Hayes and Mitchell were playing for us right now? That's just an example - the club needs to entice 3 this year and continue to bring in experienced mids every year. We would have to have the salary cap room of course. It doesn't matter if these free agents only have 2 or 3 years left in them. Just keep bringing them in - you can never have too many quality midfielders. We could always keep 1 or 2 on as specialist coaches. It's your classic win/win situation. The experience these players bring is another win. You've gotta spend the salary cap anyway. Why not pay quality. Clark and Dawes are on good coin so we've set the precedent.