Deecisive

Should see if there are any GWS or GCS young mids' not signed up, and put some decent offers to them. if nothing else it will force them to pay more for their players. We will attract decent players with money, possibly picking up someone elses discards, Dawes for instance was essentially being discarded by the pies. Also the coach is going to be a key motivator as he needs to be seen as someone who can take us up into the finals and a flag, as no-one wants to go to a loosing club unless the money is $$$$$$$$huge$.

we have talls that we believe can carry our forward line for the next 5 years or more, but we are DESPERATE for mids. no point having 4 or 5 talls in the forward line if we cannot get it down there. Sure we could probably play Boyd or someone else down back or make them ruck rover but that is still not going to cover the positions we need. Is the difference between Boyd and the top midfielder so pronounced that we would sacrifice filling a major hole to get him?

A great job Dees, should have won by more but a win is a win. Its a start back on the road to redemption.

aaagggg Tom Mcdonald!!!!

Pederson, Sellars and Davis are all on the list and are all at this stage are under performing at AFL level, they need time to get themselves together maybe not for this year but start to show they are going in the right direction. They need mentoring and help with their skills. All three have potential, issue is whether we will see that potentional actualised at melbourne.

Jobe opened his mouth without thinking now his been told to shut up. The AFL is in a pickle they dont want to take points of Essendon and dont want to suspend their players during the season. The AFL is probably praying Jobe does not poll well in this years brownlow. End of the year just after Essendon leaves the finals the results will be released, 6-8 players guilty, 18 months sentence with 12 months suspended, the remaining 6 months suspension starts immediately. All in all a couple of essendon players dont play the first couple of rounds that might just mean they play GWS, GCS and MFC in those rounds. players come back for the rest of the year all forgiven, club fined $200,000 for unintentional/reckless action with low impact. Drugs like tanking will then no longer exist.

Pederson needs some more time with Casey and needs to get fitter/leaner. give him sometime he will get better.

One could also question why Watts didnt get a 50 meter penalty when he took a mark on the half forward flank and then the st kilda player pushed him in the back sending him to the ground clearly after he took the marking had been completed. Umpires certainly assisted St Kilda on the scoreboard, but even so we need to do a lot more work on kicking and decision making. Too many times someone got the ball and then did not know what to do with it, even when they had another player free down field they hesitated looking for better options which rarely came. Some try to hard to do it all by themselves.

Loved spencers endeavour his chasing was an example of what all of our players should be doing. The fact he chose to handpass usually to jones or someone floating around him just shows common sense they are better (sometimes) at delivering the ball down field. Toumpas, still needs to learn to chase, he jogs after his opponents far too often, I dont see the hunger in him yet to get the ball. Davey while he did not get the ball a lot, he always seemed to be in the frame chasing and knocking players over after they disposed of the ball, think it was a good effort. When he gets the ball his disposal is usually pretty good, our problem is we dont help break him free often enough and get him the ball so he can deliver into the forward line. Fitz didnt do a lot but what he did was reasonable, shows some promise, like all of our players he needs to work on his kicking. Garland, brilliant game, knew when to run off him man and give others a hand. McDonald a good game on Nick the *ick, but his kicking needs a lot of work. Clisby, good first game but needs to work on his delivery. Blease had a disposal efficiency of 33% ... really needs to work on that big time. Dunn, sometime I wonder why we bother with him Terlich tried but his disposal and decision making is pretty poor, is credited with 7 clangers, which in the backline usually results in scoring opportunties for the opposition. Pederson, needs to really back himself and attack the ball, and pump it long, stop with the silly little handpasses to players standing next to himself. Dawes outnumbers all day long, so hard to judge. Jack Watts I liked his effort and chase, just not some of his skills, luck just not going his way at the moment, a bit more time up forward will help. Jack Trengrove, too slow, there is a problem with him that they club needs to address, we cannot keep playing him in the midfield when he cannot keep up. Byrnes did not show a lot, but then he is trying to run all over the ground like a rover to get the ball, would be better to spend more time near our forwards crumbing or at least helping out dawes and co. I thought Rodan was good, he would have been better of spencer could hit the ball to our advantage more often. Nicholson, i like his endeavour but did two or three dumb things for every one of two good things, needs to work on delivery and decision making. 50% disposal efficiency is just not good enough. All in all we played a cellar dwelling team and got whipped which shows that why we did seem to put in 4 quarters we still play *hit football.

This weeks lets the boys start the year again fresh. forget the past get out there and playing competitive football. Would rather see fitzy playing full forward instead of on the bench, we loose too much around the ground with sylvia up forward. I think this is perhaps one of best chances at a win this year.

Roos is willing to talk now the Neeld has gone, so if he was not interested he would not be talking. He can see $$'s and possibly a reasonable list for next year. If we dont get him that still leaves us with several other reasonable optiions. Choco and Eade are the safe way to go, which melbourne must do. I personally would like to see if David King could do the job, but the risk factor is probably too high for melbourne to go near.

The only times we have been competitive this year is when we have tackled and applied pressure. most players will make mistakes if you keep the pressure on them when they have the ball. we just cannot do it long enough, so the opposition has 100+ more uncontested possessions because we dont man up, dont chase dont tackle. As for kicking skills, we have difficulty getting the ball out of the backline and if we do get it past the centre we trouble delivering cleanly inside 50's which invariably results in us turning the ball over to the opposition time and time again.

I doubt the board is expecting Neeld/Melbourne to win against Hawthorn and Collingwood, but for Neeld to survive we have to show a change in approach and attitude.

I guess it will depend on do they win playing with the same gameplan and strategy or because they play a different style of football, we know we have talent there, we know we are better than what we are showing, a coach has to bring that out. For us to compete and win we need the best out of our players which is certainly not happening at the moment.

There will be more than 50k there but they will all be collingwood supporters looking to see their club beat the living suitcases out of us and kick their percentage up.

I thought davey was one of our better players today, he was in there trying and his disposal is usually pretty good, a lot worse than him out there.

We need to move forward with the list we have, as it is all we have to work with. My thoughts after watching todays tragedy are: 1. man up, stay with your man and put pressure on him, it was pathetic to watch freo running around all day passing to their own players all by themselves all over the ground. There is no accountability. FFS no more of this we will keep a man spare in your defense and Freo keep one in ours, its a defeatist attitude and we ALWAYS loose from such an approach, so stop it. 2. p@ss off the press, man up... make them kick to a contest every time, no easy kicks anywhere. and try keeping at least some of our forwards in the forward line, so on the odd occasion we get the ball there is someone there to kick it too. 3. Attack the ball, dont stand there waiting for it to come to you. 4. Tackle, Tackle, tackle, 5. Shepherd, help out our fellow players, i dont know how many times I saw a Freo player holding off someone from chasing, not sure I saw too much of that from Melbourne players. 6. Think what you are doing with the ball, i.e. kicking it into your own team mates head and other party tricks does not help win a game. 7. Drop players who cannot or will not tackle, contest, run or who cannot deliver the ball consistently. 8. Keep neeld until after collingwood and hawthorn if no improvement by then, then time to release him and put in an interim so as to stop the further erosion of confidence, skill and commitment to a game plan that is not working.

No point sacking Neeld with Collingwood and Hawthorn approaching, who ever takes over is going to get their butt whipped so no point putting a caretaker coach in to take us to even lower depths.

we have an VFL team where players need to go to find form and to fight for a place in our side, as sad a side as it is. We are never going to get anywhere if we continue to pick players without making them earn their places. Nicholson needs to get some form with Casey, i would suggest mckenzie needs to get another dimension or two to his game again with Casey, he maybe hardworking, but skills let him down and he does not provide enough drive himself.

Loved his approach, loved his attitude and chasing. He will be an asset, especially if we can get some decent delivery to him.

play him on the wing that way he can go back and he can go forward.

Loved Daveys game, we need to use him more, which means other players have to help break tags so that we can get the ball into his hands, maybe have him play a little behind the play at time as well as ahead. We need his pin point delivery. I thought Garland was good, he always seemed to be spoiling, he did not win them all but I liked what I saw. Dawes played well, as for stopping, part of that may also be the high ball delivery. Loved that we tackled, need to take that and ratchet it up even more for next week. Tackled players make mistakes and cause turnovers. Hated our kick ins, how can we kick to the boundary line repeatedly and be out numbered or kick to Richmond players who are in a better position than ours. Hated the failure to move on quickly at times when we have someone in short and by the time we try to take a short kick everyones covered. Hated the way we failed to man up in our forward line when the Tigers have the ball. Its in our forward line 40meters from our goal and we are allowing them to have free players running around and take it out of their with little presure. Why are we not putting pressure on everyone of their players while it is in our forward line is beyond me. We just leave opposition players alone so that they could chip it around from side to side until they get melbourne players leaving players down field to cover and they just chip over them and start opening up a series of free men all the way down to the goals, or points as the case was often for the Tigers. MAN UP ALL THE TIME especially when the ball is in our forward line, its so much better if we put in more effort there to turn it over there than shaking it free in our backline and then having to deliver it back up forward.

The way we were turning the ball over and richmond was spreading he got lost in transition. Needs more time to get his feet, he also needs team members to support him and deliver the ball well to him.

I dont think he should have played today, was not fit enough to be competitive all day. did try but but body and skills are just not up to it yet. needs time in with Casey to try to get himself right.

Ah the good old days for melbourne with hardeman doing torps from centre half back and tassy johnson doing drop kicks from the square on kick ins...