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Listened to Titus O'Reily on latest episode of the Junktime AFL podcast. While it may be common knowledge to some, I was shocked when he spoke of rumors of just how bad the culture really was during Bailey/Neeld era. Talks of senior players constantly eating McDonald's, one player getting so drunk in China the night before exhibition game that he couldn't even play the next day. Had to make it 17 v 17. Also said when Roos got to MFC, he couldn't believe the team were actually AFL players - they were that unfit!! I knew it was bad, but I just thought that the FD and/or players were just really below par, but those stories of the example setting senior players being slobs just blew my mind. Anyone else got any other messed up behind the scenes tales of what went on?

TPM posted very early in Neeld's tenure that his appointment was Dennis Jones all over again. Jones was a similar mistake some 36 years ago. After this Big Carl took the reins and immediately looked fearsome. Neeld for all his big talk was certainly no Big Carl. Lots of talk about the hardest team to play against but sadly we quickly became the opposite. I was nailed to the cross by most in Demonland for simply pointing out obvious selection blunders, recruiting blunders and various strategic blunders. Blunder after blunder. Why couldn't anyone here(apart from Tonatopia) see this? Just interested? What were you guy's thinking? Does anyone concede this very same problem has existed in the Melbourne FC hierarchy since 1965? Failure to see the bl oody obvious? After Brisbane round one last year, the stagnant game pattern, hit the boundary at all costs mimicking Collingwood's Style. IMO most in this forum just couldn't bring themselves to believe it.The great white hope! Mark Neeld. Some 75% here even demanded Neeld was the man to revive MFC similar to many whites in Jack Johnson's era who tried to invent someone to topple the Galveston Giant. "Neeld is the man to revive Melbourne back to it's glory years." The Posts defending Neeld just kept coming. Melbourne kept on losing and the margins became larger. Melbourne not only kept losing by large margins but it was the lack of any method, strategies heart that made us appear somewhat soulless. Neeld had no punch or zip. After match conferences were senseless. Pre game addresses lacked fire. They seemed scripted, boring and school teacher like. To the contrary players ran out onto the ground revved down not up. Tonatopia and TPM stood firm and waded through the various topics heaping praise on Neeld for doing what "needed to be done". Sellar, Gillies, Pederson, Rodan, Byrnes will all make way for future Melbourne stars next year. Sylvia, Hogan, Clark/Dawes, Toumpass, Viney, Watts, Blease, Gawn, taggert, Clisby, Frawley, Howe, Terlich, the Jones boys, Trengrove,Mac donald Grimes and Garland will form a potent force as early as next year with the right Coach and Administration. Neeld had to go just like Dennis. Dennis at least won 5 games in his first and only season. Good luck to Neil Craig instilling some confidence back into boys. Am tipping to fire up V Bullies and pull off un upset.

Last year I was savaged by posters on this site for pointing out the bleeding obvious. I will state it again. Neeld is missing a major skill required to have success as a senior coach. This is the skill to be able to get the most out of your players. Neeld has no ability to create the confidence and self belief required to be an AFL coach. The number of players who play as a shadow of the players they were prior to last season in staggering. Virtually all players have gone backwards despite them being mostly low draft picks, young and up coming. I watch as our x players who were moved on suddenly find there lost ability at new clubs and point to this as further evidence. At the same time our recruits from other clubs suddenly struggle to get a kick, struggle to play. I said it last year and I will say it again now. Neeld is not our man. He may be tough and smart, he may have a good footy brain but he is missing the skill of installing self belief and confidence while still being tough. He must be sacked ASAP. The perfomances since he became coach have been beyond appauling. Come season end we will see another wave of our better players asking to be traded or leaving through free agency if we don't get someone in who can install the most important thing in football........ self belief. Further we will be unable to trade for any quality recruit as the MFC will continue to seen as poison for any players career. We must get rid of Neeld before more damage is done.

Unfortunately, anyway you look at it, we have gone backwards under Neeld. Backwards in talent, personell, enthusiasm, gameplan, excitement, fun and most importantly ON THE LADDER!!! Until he and Schwab goes the Melbourne Football Club are without a chance of moving forward. Follow this if you will; 2011 we won 8.5 games - Surely Neeld would back himslef to take that as a baseline and build up from there?? We already had a young list so just develop them beyond what they had performed the year before. We are sooooooooooooooo much worse than 8.5 now. What I'd give for 8.5 wins. In 2011 we often looked fast, competitive dynamic: When we won, we won big - thrashed Adelaide (watch this! ), 94 points, thrashed Freo. Look at them now and then look at us? When we lost we looked spirited yet outgunned and leaky like many a young team does. Our list was good enough to beat teams like the Swans until Neeld disempowered and traded half the talent out and got spuds in. With the talent drain since 2011, even the best gameplan in the world we would still lose uncomfortably. Rethinking 186 - Cats pummelled 2011 runners-up Collingwood by 96 points two weeks later. This is THE Collingwood guys! You know the team that won a flag? The fully grown list and club lost by 100 to the Cats straight after we did. There was a well known power struggle behind the scenes at Melbourne which leaked out onto the field for 186. We were riven with internal tension and flogged by one of the best teams of all time, in top form, on their home turf. The Pies were at their peak and thrashed on the G. Can never be pretty but how is this equation? 186 = 96 (what the pies lost by two weeks later) + 30 (Cats at Kardinia Park toll) + 30 (internal politics leaking onto the field) + 30 (inexperienced and fatigued team). 148 is so much worse than that. In 2011 Brent Moloney came 7th in the Brownlow: The list turnover and spiralling performance of our best talent has been the biggest crime of the Neeld/Schwab gutting. Do they know how many losses we had to suffer to get those talented young players??? Back yourself to make them players, don't just trade out Gysberts for Pederson, Petterd for Byrnes. Moloney for Rodan. Bring more out of players! Furthermore it's well documented that all our AA talent has gone backward Frawley, Jamar, Davey. AFL standard - I am sick of hearing people write about the Neeld as though he picked up a failed rebuild basket case! We were stuttering but definitely on our way up. We were running out games fine. Neeld himself constantly sinks the boot in saying that he is trying to get to AFL standard. What disrespectful rubbish to a peer in Bailey to divert the spotlight from his own dismal performance. We have slipped so far backwards on any tangible scale since Neeld joined. I blame Garry Lyon, Mclardy and the board for supporting snake Schwab over the senior players in the wake of 186. It takes a lot of resentment for senior players to stand up to a bully CEO. (Pavlich vs Schwab at Freo is a happy example of where the players won the day! bye bye Schwabbie!) At the Dees, Schwab had put tanking in place, shelved a 'trust exercise' report and force cut their beloved Captain Jnr Mac! For them to defy the players by sacking Bailey while we were still a chance to make the 8 was just plain weak, reactive and horrible. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying Bailey was definitely going to last the distance, maybe we swap him for Malthouse after his contract was up in 2012 ala Ratts. But one thing is for sure, we have never looked as pathetic and hopeless as we do now under Neeld. But apparently our pre-season GPS data is up to AFL standard so I might be wrong

Melbourne coach Mark Neeld hanging tough after nightmare start to season Not altogether that bad. There are clearly a few paragraphs that should be bolded because they have been said by MR, but have been attributed to Neeld. Notes that he reads letters sent to the club, and sometimes conveys them to the playing group, which should fill a few here with burgeoning sense of self-satisfaction. Any thoughts?

I'm not sure if this has already been outlined by someone else.. But like many other supporters, I'm getting extremely frustrated at the way we enter forward 50. But I think (hope) I may have hit the nail on the head as to why we are doing this... When were moving the ball out of defence, we are quite slow at getting it up the ground, allowing numbers from the opposition to get back and flood our forward 50. Then we are constantly bombing it long and high into the forward pockets, near to the boundary. As a result of no one being able to take a contested grab usually in a pack of 3 or 4 players, the ball will 85% of the time, spill out of bounds for a throw in. Why don't we hit the ball up to a more dangerous spot..? Top of the goal square..? hit a man on the lead..? Myself as well as everyone else has been asking these questions! Neeld has definitely ordered the players to hit the pockets, and i think he wants the ball to go out of bounds.. He wants our forwards to practise again, and again and again.. In REAL match environments to DEFEND and trap the ball inside our forward 50.. like the best teams in the comp can do (West Coast, Collingwood etc) He wants it to eventually become a habitual thing for the players.. At this stage, it looks as though the players are concentrating on that more than grabbing the footy and actually kicking a goal.. They are almost in two minds.. but like most things, If you drill it into their brains and focus on something, practise will make perfect. And once we start locking the ball inside our forward 50 every time it goes down there, we won't have to hit the pockets.. We can drive it 20, 30 meters out, with the confidence that if Clarke, Jurrah or Howe can't take a contested grab.. Our forwards will be ready to pounce and throw their 2nd, 3rd and even 4th efforts at keeping the ball down there, until we SCORE. Naturally the players have to have the endeavour to apply this.. But i am confident it will come. West Coast are a good example of how it takes time and practise to get things right. From last on the ladder one year to top 4 the next... What changed? Their forward 50 pressure, the rest just fell into place..

FYI http://www.afl.com.au/News/NEWSARTICLE/tabid/208/newsId/133259/Default.aspx