Strafford

You would have to see that as a major cross against him as a future president of our club.

Just as I thought. The Satyr has a number of alter egos

It is a pretty important difference though.

You make some very good points, although I do disagree on Brock. Unfortunately he is slower than most ruck men and certainly wouldn't help our lack of spread. Carlton have some very quick players who can help cover his lack of pace, we don't have that. He would also probably be tagged playing for us, he doesn't for Carlton when playing mid. Good taggers would be able to work off him easily, although one big plus would be releasing N.Jones. Brock has a go, but just watch a few Carlton games and see how many times he is left trailing metres behind his man in open play.

How long have you been a Melbourne Demons supporter?

For me I do admire his passion, but I just wish we could over this losing games to get want we want mentality. This attitude is part of why we are where we are.

Strewth. How has it come to this? A crisis junkie as president...Working on the reverse psychology/ curse thingy, perhaps he could say we will never beat the Cats in the big games. Going on a winning streak against the Cats could only help. Just saying

It is not abuse merely an observation I think that is the second post of mine that you have apologised for jumping in or rushing your reading, perhaps even third.You are in such a rush to defend that I'm not sure that you are taking in the entirety of peoples arguments. If I wanted to abuse you I think I could do a better job of it, absolutely no attempt on my part to get around the swear filter lol

No you shouldn't rush mate. Yet you continually do In the mean time I will wait until Matty Jones has played 100 games, because I know he will be good then. To be honest I don't think you are getting where I am coming from.

I am very much of the view that it is not all Neelds fault and I certainly believe he was given a mandate, but I do find the recent Davey article an interesting read where he mentions having dinner with Neeld and his family. Some people perform better when resentful, angry, with a drive to prove people wrong, most respond well to being valued.

Neeld said this before he was a senior coach " When you get mature age recruits you want them to participate straight away. You want them to add value to your side" Neeld's obsession with games played, for all that it does have some validity, would have more credence if we were playing a bunch of 17,18,19 year old kids. Or even if that age group made up the bulk of our recruits, but it just isn't so. Byrnes into his 10th season, Gillies 23 and into his 4th season, Matt Jones 25, Pederson a recycled mature age recruit into his 3rd season, Rodan 11th season, Terlich 23 spent a season on the Swans list, Chris Dawes 6th season, even Clisby is 23. Last seasons recruits as they are now. Magner 25, Couch 24, Mitch 25 into his 8th season and Seller into his 6th season. At least half the guys we have brought in and more than half of our recruits that have played just aren't kids. The expectations that we hold as a club for them should be different to the guys coming out of the underage comp. Neeld said last season during an insight into matchday against Gold Coast that us being more experienced than Gold Coast "Guaranteed us nothing" "It just meant we were in the contest" Do you see the implications there, given subsequent events both for team confidence and consistency of message. Given this criteria for, being in the contest,we have had four games this season that probably qualify. Port were both younger and less experienced as were GWS. Both Brisbane and GWS were younger teams, but both were marginally more experienced. A couple of games difference. In two of those games we were flogged. In one we were a little better, but if the Lions had kicked straighter the scoreboard would have looked just as sick. Against GWS we blew them apart in the last and our defensive structures looked good for periods especially in the first. I can't remember a coach more into the experience mantra. As I said it does have some validity especially when coupled with being really young, but if you keep on saying you are failing because you aren't experienced enough, don't be surprised if your players believe you.

Which is true enough, but chookrat raised a good point. I merely extended it to point out that a relatively high turnover of players every week is unlikely to be helpful in our guys getting used to playing with eachother. In my view two of our major problems are teamwork and confidence. Confidence not only in themselves as individuals, but in their teammates as well.

A scoreboard kpi would be great Even better exceeding one.

A limbo decision, but probably understandable, even though the uncertainty is unlikely to be helpful.

Which overworked youngster did he replace this time?

Has Rodan been injured? Played rounds 1,2,5,10

Not for those who have an emotional investment in it mate. Whatever the decision it will have far reaching implications for our club.

A cunning plan then. I propose that we also find someone with the requisIte skills to hack into the MFC computer files and up the games played for all of our players, thus allowing us to say why our players can play good football rather than why they can't. Confidence is a wonderful thing

I'm just glad we hit so many of them, otherwise the result could have been really bad:)

That is a great point and one that should be discussed more. Probably makes the revolving door of team selection not due to injury less understandable though.

Can't see Clark being first ruck, not with that foot. I doubt they will risk him continually jumping in the harder centre area.

Sick of having to find positives in 10 goal plus losses, but I actually did have a few. At times I did like our style of play, many a time we stuffed up with skill or decision errors but I didn't mind some of what we were trying to do. A few players showed a bit. Unfortunately still down by 90 odd points.

Ha. Go tiger cats?....

So will bad fixes. I think Neeld is gone, but it doesn't mean I think everything is his fault or that we will be fine and dandy once he moves on.

Perhaps we are disagreeing over the term bagging then?