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Mark Neeld's Melbourne tenure meets its cruel end

Expert
16th June, 2013
16

The 2013 storyline that refused to go away – Mark Neeld’s future – finally came to an end today when Melbourne showed their coach the door.

The timing of the move, both deservedly and undeservedly, has come under scrutiny.

It was awkward due to the fact Melbourne didn’t even play on the weekend. It was awkward due to the fact the club met with the AFL for assistance on Friday.

It was awkward and unfair due to the next fortnight bringing the club’s two most winnable games – St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs – in two months.

They were hardly going to show scoreboard improvement against the likes of Richmond, Fremantle, Hawthorn and Collingwood, their last four opponents.

But to be fair, there was a period in Melbourne’s history where they worried about things like awkward timing.

You may recall the comical decision to un-sack CEO Cameron Schwab after it was decided coach Dean Bailey needed to go.

In that light, it’s folly to be concerned with the timing of today’s announcement.

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If it had to be done, there’s no point wasting time.

My point all along, outspoken it may be, was that it did not have to be done, or at least not on the evidence to date.

There are three potential outcomes for a club’s season. You can surpass expectations, you can meet expectations or you can fall below expectations.

Mark Neeld suffered because the public expectations – and judging by some recent comments, internal ones too – had grossly overstated his team’s potential.

For various reasons already explained, the key of which was losing over 1000 games of experience, the truth is that Melbourne were always going to fall below their efforts of last season.

And when you take a team that won four games – propped up by wins against expansion clubs – and accept they’ll struggle to back up, what are you left with?

At best, a 3-4 win season.

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Given the Dees have had just two matches against the current bottom five to date – and had five against them in the second half of the year – Neeld was a fair to chance to meet such expectations.

In that light, it’s frustrating to see today’s events unfold. A second-year coach meeting expectations is not a sackable offence.

It’s especially frustrating when you consider we can all accept Melbourne’s problems extend far wider than just one position in the football department.

But all this is dependent on one man’s view on where expectations should have been.

There are those that hold an honest opinion Melbourne should have been a 5-10 win team, and it seems the Melbourne board may have been among them.

When we deal with this premise, everything changes. Under this criteria, Neeld has been a massive disappointment.

Such a disappointment, at a club that has disappointed for too long, cannot last.

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The brutal truth is if you don’t see a future with a coach, it’s only fair to sack him. That’s what the Dees have done.

But the cruel irony is that if everyone accepted the first premise all along, things would’ve been so different.

Instead of seeing big defeats at the hands of Hawthorn and Collingwood, critics would’ve seen two of their best quarters of the year (winning the third term against the Hawks and that promising, high-pressure first against the Pies).

Instead of clinging on to those terrible, terrible games in the first two rounds, critics would’ve seen the fact triple-figure-losses – which were threatening to become a weekly occurrence – have been avoided, albeit narrowly.

Instead of jumping on the Dees’ back throughout the past month, critics would’ve seen the fixture for what it is and instead looked to the next two weeks as a fair judging ground.

None of these indicators are in any way sexy – winning a quarter, what a great achievement – but the reality is that’s what improvement looks like at a team like Melbourne.

That, though, was the problem for Mark Neeld. No one properly understood what “a team like Melbourne” actually meant.

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