Macca

First of all, I want to say that our problems run much deeper than the head coach. The Board, the Administration, the Football Dept. and all the coaches and all the players need to share the blame for the predicament the club is in. But in answer to your post CBDees, here goes ... Let's not confuse taking off your only real goal kicking forward with anyone else on the ground who might kick a goal. This one was different and it seemed like it was a pre-planned thing. It was a jackass decision and typical of the poor way the team is coached in general. There is no way that you take off your full forward who has just kicked 2 goals in 2 minutes. He didn't need a rest - the ball had hardly been in our forward line and Clark hadn't ventured past the half forward line. It was the 20 minute mark of the 1st quarter !! You don't need to have played the game to know how poor a move it was. When a forward is hot you have to leave him on the ground. It was a ludicrous, idiotic and utterly stupid decision. I don't care that other coaches or clubs do it. In the situation we were in at the time, the game was on the line. Do we bow to processes, structures, systems and rotations over actually trying to win the game?? The reason I'm zeroing in on this one is because it's an easily identifiable coaching decision where there is no grey area. We can lay the blame directly with the coaching staff. Or more importantly, the head honcho. Another example of poor coaching was the handling of Sylvia for the centre bounces. Sylvia was in there for nearly every one of these bounce downs yet on nearly all occasions he was caught behind his man. He was effectively the 4th, 5th or 6th person in line to win the clearance. He got 1 ineffective clearance for all the time he was in there. Neeld should have pulled him out of there but he did nothing - nothing ! That is poor coaching. Here is a perfect example of Sylvia being caught behind at a centre square ball-up - courtesy of 'ucanchoose' (post #7 of 'The Centre Square' thread. In that photo, check out the 2 Port players coming in from opposite wings - with Demon players trailing behind. We don't play in front and therefore, we're constantly 2nd to the ball. The same thing happened under Bailey. It's a fundamental of the sport and a coach has to demand that it is adhered to. I could give you another 100 instances of how we're poorly coached but I haven't the time to write a 100 page essay. This all started in the 1st game last year against Brisbane with our stupid boundary hugging style and it hasn't gotten any better. By the way, I haven't listened to Neeld talk in nearly a year (apart from the odd news grab) He doesn't need to coach me so what's the point of listening to anything he says? Don't watch press conferences - they are pointless to supporters. I've said this before but I simply judge the coach on how the team plays on the weekend. It's the best way to judge - no bias. Maybe if we were winning I'd listen to him talk but the 'reverse' coach speak would probably kick in. He wins games or he is in deep trouble. That's the reality of being a head coach of any sporting club. It's always been about the 'wins' and that will never change. Bailey was a poor coach as well - we can sure pick 'em.

Not all reviews are the same. And it depends how transparent the whole review might be and who you might bring in as independent consultants. If the independent consultants were footy people, you might bring in Matthews, Roos and a recently retired great like Scarlett.

Barassi said it best "Great clubs have great Administration". And he said that way, way back. Until everyone at the club puts their hand up and admits that they are part of the problem then we will continue to have issues. The blame needs to be apportioned equally. That doesn't mean that everyone should be given the tijuana brass. It might just mean that everyone who is involved at the club needs to get a lot better. They all need to lift their game and be honest with each other. McLardy needs to bring everyone together to nut the whole thing out. He could have done it last year but it's not too late. They need to review how everything is done at the club and it would be best to bring in some independent consultants - unbiased footy people.

Who is ultimately responsible for taking Clark off at the 20 minute mark of the 1st Quarter? In the first 20 minutes we'd hardly had the ball in our forward line and we hadn't employed the flood. Had Clark even set foot past the half forward line? The few times we did get the ball down there Clark kicked 2 goals. The 2nd of which came at the 20 minute mark of the quarter. His 1st goal came at the 18 minute mark. Then he had to sprint to the wing for a 3 or 4 minute rest. Utterly ridiculous decision to take him off. Nonsensical. The bloke was hot, he'd kicked 2 goals in 2 minutes and then he's benched. He didn't need a rest. The score at the time was 3.2 to 2.1. As soon as he was taken off I thought, who is going to take a mark if we pump it forward. Might seem like a small thing now, but we'd just gotten back in the game on the back of Clark's efforts and then we take him off?

Yeah fair enough RN, you make a good point. I must say it's been a fairly emotional time for all of us. Rather largish meltdown last night reflected this. I just wrote a critique of our centre square work on another thread which in some ways contradicts everything I've said on this thread !! As I was writing it, I was hoping that somehow, someone at the club might take note! Just really frustrated like many others and I just don't understand how us supporters seem to know more about how the team should play than the people at the club. It's like the club and the way we play is continually 3 or 4 years behind the standard level.

Always watch the Cats/Hawks clashes. These games never fail to deliver a terrific spectacle. Tend to only watch the big clashes but it's nearly always with a view to see where our club sits in comparison. Unfortunately that view often ends up as "Why don't we play like them?" or "We have no chance of competing with this mob" or "What are they going to do to us when we play them?". As painful as all that is, it's a necessary evil. Otherwise we can't critique our own club properly. It's always best to compare our club with the best rather than those clubs around us or just above us. Geelong and Sydney (or a combo of both) are 2 clubs that our club should aspire to. That's a big reason why I watch other games. Our players and coaches could learn so much by watching the centre clearance work of the better teams. Had a close look yesterday at the centre bounces and 2 things that stood out. (as usual) 1 - Apart from Jones, our other various midfielders don't play in front of their man enough and don't hit the contest or the ball with any pace - we spectate. Hopefully Viney will at least equal Jones going forward. 2 - There doesn't seem to be any sort of real system in the centre square compared to nearly every other club. It's like watching a suburban footy team at work. It's been that way for years. When we do win a clearance (usually by Jones), nothing much comes of it. In other words, we rarely, if ever, score a goal when we win a centre clearance. Playing from behind should never be tolerated by the coaching staff. It's a fundamental of the game that has to be adhered to. We started doing it in 2007 and nothing much has changed.

You've got too hand it to the Cats. They literally play the game as it should be played. Their forwards play in front. They move the ball quickly through the corridor. They all play for each other and they are the very definition of 'team'. Not sure about being jealous but certainly full of admiration. They are a hard team to hate. Our players should be locked in a room for a week and forced to watch Geelong games vs Hawthorn. The coaches can do it for a month.

Yep, but it's not just the coach who has to improve immensely. The Board, the Administration, the Football Dept with all the coaches and all the players all have to lift their game immeasurably. They're all on notice. Many of us were of the belief that if we got rid of Bailey then that would fix most of our problems. History tells us that the problems run a lot deeper than just the head coach. This time around, everyone at the club has to put their hand up. Will they do so? Unlikely. Self preservation will probably kick in again. This is a hindsight comment but we should have had a total clean-out after '186'. Bailey and later on, most of assistants copped it in the neck but it wasn't enough at the time. We only made 4 or 5 changes to our list at the end of 2011 and many of us couldn't figure that bit out. Neeld should have cut deep as soon as he walked into the club. The fact that he didn't might ultimately hurt him. Neeld is now coaching on the edge and that's a good thing in my opinion. It's best to see how good people are when they're under extreme pressure. He might surprise us. I don't necessarily believe in the bloke but we've all seen people come good under pressure. Up until now he's coached poorly but he's probably got at least half a season to get a lot better. Let's see what he's made of.

With no disrespect to the OP the problem with a thread like this is that many will end up 'playing' coach. And many will come up with some wonderful suggestions and ideas. And it will all mean nothing. Neeld won't be reading this thread - that is an absolute guarantee. Garry Lyon wrote 1 or 2 articles a year when Bailey was coach. It all sounded great from Garry but it infuriated me at the same time. Why on earth was Lyon telling us what the team needed to do to improve? In effect, he was telling Bailey how to coach. And that's never a good thing coming from an ex player. I wonder if Garry will write another article this week along the same lines? Short odds he will and it will send the same message. If it comes to a point where the fans are suggesting how the team should be coached then the real issue is the fans don't have any faith in the coach. Same as it was when Lyon wrote his articles about our team under Bailey.

How about we see Neeld come up with his own ideas and positive suggestions. What are we paying him to do? We could have 15 pages of positive suggestions and ideas and it will mean diddly squat. The bloke has been put in place to do a job and somehow we've got to tell him how to do that job??? Ridiculous. The very fact that a thread like this has been started, says it all. We don't have a say in things so it's a pointless exercise. We have a 0% chance of changing things. Neeld either coaches a lot better or he will be replaced. It's as simple as that.

Neeld 'is what he is' and nothing is going to change. He's not suddenly going to change his coaching philosophy's and let the team play in a far more enterprising way with an instinct to attack with flair and purpose. It ain't going to happen. If it were to happen we would have seen evidence of it in the last 3rd of last season. Besides which, he's been drilling the players 24/7 into playing 'his way' so much, that they're most possibly incapable of change - at least under him anyway. No .... what you see is what you get and we can expect more of the same unfortunately. He's is so tunnel visioned with his beliefs that he's probably convinced himself that he can't be wrong. Things could get so bad that it could easily become a lot harder to recover. We're already in an quite unstable position as a football club and if you think things are bad now, just wait until we put in another 7or 8 'performances' like yesterday. I put it into the '186' class. Perhaps even worse. As pointed out by quite a few other posters - membership, crowd numbers, future sponsors, ability to attract free agents and so many other aspects of the club will be felt immediately. The truth is, the club lost a truckload of future dollars yesterday. This is a 'right now' issue and to ignore it would be football negligence. I have nothing personal against Mark Neeld. He's probably a terrific bloke but he is a poor coach. His record speaks for itself. 1 win and 19 losses against legitimate opposition. And a stack of heavy losses amongst those 19 losses. The club is always bigger than any individual. The same rules apply to him as they do to everyone else. Time for some hard decisions but I'm left wondering if we've got people at the club capable of making hard decisions. I've got zero faith in any of them.

Either the players take very little notice of the 'coaching staff' or they do take notice and we have a truly awful game plan. Either way we've got a major problem. This was discussed early last year 'ad nauseam' and the consensus was that it was the players not 'buying in'. This current list is Mark Neeld's list. He cut 15 players from last years list and he could have cut a few more. He didn't cut any more so it could easily be assumed that he was content to keep the 30 odd left over. The new players brought into the club for this season would have to be with his seal of approval. So it's his team and the team's performances are on his head. That is the brutal reality. Many on our list aren't up to it, so the players don't get off the hook either . Another 10 - 12 will possibly or probably go at the end of the year. That could make up to 25 - 27 delistings in 2 years. It may even be a few more, which is frightening thought. The board and the administration have overseen all this - they must all take their share of the blame as well. Time for everyone at the club to put their hand up and admit that they are all part of the problem. No more finger pointing can go on. It's one in, all in.

It may be a good thing that he's a mature age leggie. Hohns and Holland were quite handy for us before Warne arrived on the scene.

Yeah, as I was posting that team I had an eye on the future as opposed to right now. It largely explains why Cummins is in my XI. You are most probably right with regards to Lyon being in the team first up but 2 things to take into account. 1 - If Fawad is named in the squad then there is a very good chance that he will debut in one of the 5 Tests. 2 - The selectors did drop Lyon from the Team after the 1st Test in India so he may not be regarded as a permanent fixture by the selectors. In summary, if all those players I mentioned were named in the squad then you may find that XI that I named could be the one named for the 3rd Test (especially if we're 1 - 0 down in the series at that stage) It was more of a future's XI, Django, rather than the team picked for the 1st Test. I think that even if Cummins is fit, they'll wait a bit before bringing him into the side. I did call it the 'Best XI'. Should have put a 'Going forward' bit beside it to be clear. By the way, I like Lyon but it's doubtful he'll ever be 'Great'. And besides all that, we all know that England don't play leg spin very well !! Here's my XI for the 1st Ashes Test. I don't believe it's a 'great' team by any means. Ultimately I believe Cummins, Ahmed and possibly Paine and Burns will find their way into the team. Henriques or maybe even the 'smoky', Mitchell Marsh could come in for a 'Non bowling Watson'. I like the look of Doolan and Maddinson as well. We need to unearth a number of 'stars' if we're going to return to no.1 status. Warner Watson Cowan Clarke Khawaja Smith Wade Siddle Starc Pattinson Lyon

It's all academic with regards to the Title race but it's a bit of a mad scramble for Champions League spots. The relegation battle is on as well. 11 teams are still in danger of the dreaded drop. ... This weekends games ... Standings ... Interesting games this weekend include Manchester City vs Newcastle whilst Chelsea and Spurs have tough away fixtures at Southampton and Swansea. Arsenal and Everton need wins and Liverpool must win to keep their hopes alive for Europe. Special treat for those with ESPN. Monday evening (10.30pm) features a live FA Cup 6th round replay match between Chelsea and Manchester United. (at Stamford Bridge)

Watched a bit of the Bulldogs game today. Their kicking to position was excellent - all over the ground. The Lions were poor but the Dogs were surprisingly good. And they are not regarded as a finals threat. As we all know, in today's footy you cannot turn the ball over (especially when not under pressure) I'm judging Sellar mainly on last year but he and Howe looked ok in the pre-season. Frawley is a lot better than what he showed last year (in the disposal stakes) I reckon it's a much better team in terms of disposal skills than most/all of our selected teams last year. There were times last year where we had 6 or 7 blokes in the team who just kicked it anywhere. Even so, we're still a fair way off. We'll all be watching the new players with great interest. Lets hope they can all hit a target ! Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Looking at our team, it seems we don't have too many in the team that are poor/average kicks. Many of our players don't have great vision but hopefully the coaching staff have been working doubly hard on these 2 crucial areas of the game.(kicking skills and vision) Putting aside all the new players (7 in all), the existing players in this team could be looked at for their actual kicking skills under pressure and their vision. There are 3 players whose kicking skills and vision are well below par. Another 5 players have kicking skills and vision that could best be described as 'iffy'. Only 7 of our existing players (in this team) have reasonably good or quite good kicking skills (not all of these 7 have good/great vision) The comment is about this particular team, not the overall list. That's where we sit unfortunately. A lot is going to depend on our current crop of new players as the year progresses. I've underlined and highlighted those who need to improve their disposal skills and vision. New players are in blue. 4 or 5 of the highlighted players have the scope to get much better with their disposal. The jury is out on the other 3 or 4 players. MELBOURNE Backs Lynden Dunn Tom Gillies Dan Nicholson Half backs Jack Watts James Frawley Colin Garland Centreline Jack Viney Jack Grimes Jimmy Toumpas Half forwards Jeremy Howe James Sellar Colin Sylvia Forwards Shannon Byrnes Mitch Clark David Rodan Followers Mark Jamar Jordie McKenzie Nathan Jones Interchange Sam Blease Matthew Jones Cameron Pedersen Luke Tapscott Emergencies Aaron Davey Jake Spencer Dean Terlich

Here's my Ashes squad. The selectors will no doubt be thinking differently. One proviso ... the selectors have intimated that they will take 7 batsmen, 2 keepers, 2 spinners and 6 fast bowlers (or 5 quicks and an all rounder who bowls medium fast) Squad of 17 Clarke (Capt) Warner Cowan Smith (has to be rewarded) Burns (need one new batsman who didn't tour India) Khawaja Watson (V Capt) (plays in the best XI if he is bowling) Mitchell Marsh (have heard he might be the 'smoky') Wade Paine *Ahmed (if he's available) Lyon Pattinson **Cummins (if he is fit and raring to go) Starc Siddle **Bird (subject to fitness) *Beer, Ajar or Holland on standby for Ahmed **Harris, Hilfenhaus and Johnson on standby for Cummins and/or Bird (in that order) Best XI Warner Watson Cowan Clarke Khawaja Smith Wade Siddle Pattinson Cummins Ahmed 12th man Starc The XI bats "left and right" all the way through the order. Paine, Starc and Lyon are unlucky not to be included in the XI. Would have liked to have found room for Doolan and or Rogers in the squad.

Got a stack of new stuff to post in the coming weeks but in the meantime, here's a couple of 'bumped' songs from 'The Strokes'. A band out of New York with their own unique style.

Maxwell opened the batting and opened the bowling. When was the last time that happened? And when was the last time we opened with 2 spinners? Have we ever done it? Maybe Watson for the 1st question but opening with 2 spinners is a toughie. A wild guess would be O'Reilly and Grimmett. It's looking like a 4 nil clean sweep now (barring a massive batting collapse)

All the same, it's tough going for the batsmen out there. The ball is turning big time and is often keeping low or jumping off a length. Even the best players of spin are going to struggle in these conditions. We need someone to take the long handle - maybe Johnson? Thinking ahead, it's quite possible that Lyon will open the bowling. Maxwell could be on early as well.

So how do we bat in this innings? Do we go out there and try and smack as many as we can, before the pitch gets us? Maxwell opening! Here we go!

There's been some strange goings on, that's for sure. A month long training camp to help with team bonding could help fix things. (a training camp doesn't necessarily have to be a hard slog) Trouble is, many of our available players will be otherwise occupied in the IPL. Straight after that, the 'Champions Trophy' will be held in June (in England) There literally isn't any time for many of our players to draw breath. Not enough time to freshen up. The England players don't have the same problem as many or most of them aren't playing in the IPL. Our players have a whole host of distractions to deal with. There is a huge change going on in the sport as a whole and I'm not sure how it can be addressed. The money on offer is enormous (in t20) Lyon picks up a career best 7/94 ... bowled beautifully.

The way I generally view sport, there is nearly always something to be gained in winning games when it doesn't really matter. For any number of reasons. Primarily, it's the 'Never give up factor'. If we win this match it could easily help us win a close game in the future. There's the belief and confidence factor. Hating to lose anytime, breeds a winning attitude. You take a win anytime and you never give up - ever. Do we really want to lose 4-0? To India? Aren't we supposed to hate losing to teams that we hate? India are like the Pies, Bombers or the Blues. Any loss to any of those teams, anytime, is unacceptable. Even if you're clearly not good enough, you have to fight it out. We're finally showing a bit of gumption after showing very little in the first 3 Tests. Lyon could end up with a big match haul which would do his confidence the world of good (the coach has 'stated' that Lyon is low on confidence) A win is a win is a win. Edit : England currently 9 for 204, just after Tea on the 3rd day of the 3rd Test in New Zealand (the Kiwi's made 443 in their 1st innings) Considering the first 2 Tests were drawn, England are staring down another series defeat. (they've lost series to Pakistan (3-0) and South Africa (2-0) in the past 15 months) C'mon New Zealand !

Nathan Lyon bowled very well and we looked a different team out there today. Very competitive and good to see. Maxwell bowled ok as well and he should have had another wicket (a stumping) The track is really playing some tricks and if we can set India anything above 200, it might be enough. The ball is turning quite a lot and the quicks are getting some variable bounce. We need to bat with some real intent once we finish off their 1st innings. Ojha bowled really well for them and he is such a classical bowler to watch. He deserved so much more than the one wicket he got in our 1st innings. He could be quite a handful in our 2nd innings (along with all their other bowlers, Ashwin and Jadeja especially) The match is set up for a great finish and we've got a real chance to push for victory. It was great to see some good old fashioned Aussie fight out there today.