Mark Neeld has been guaranteed his job, and Melbourne’s hierarchy have vowed to rally around their embattled coach despite the club producing one of modern AFL’s most inept performances on Saturday night.
The Demons were smashed by 148 points by Essendon at the MCG in a dire display bound to spark a week in a white-hot spotlight.
Most of their players looked hopelessly out of form, some were accused of not trying, and they had virtually no winners on a night they kicked a pitiful 1.1 for the entire second half.
But despite Neeld’s team being battered on every statistical measure and appearing to have regressed on his watch, Melbourne’s most senior off-field figures publicly threw their full support behind the coach on Sunday.
Demons president Don McLardy has vowed Neeld won’t be sacked, saying knee-jerk reactions to the crisis would be counter-productive.
And senior club officials Cameron Schwab and Neil Craig also said they would rally around Neeld, who has another two years left on his contract.
“We’re not going to look at sacking coaches and going down that line at all,” McLardy told the Nine Network’s Sunday Footy Show.
“What we saw last week and this week was a long way from acceptable.
“But we’ve got to be really strong here … I’m certain we’ve got the right team. What we don’t want is instability in our football club.
“One of the key things in a football club is stability and trust in your people – and we have that.
“The worst thing we can do is panic and not trust in the people and the process we’ve got in place.”
A shell-shocked Neeld looked completely without post-match answers for the display – admitting the club was trying to “rebuild a rebuild” after a long period in the wilderness.
Chief executive Schwab admitted the Demons faced a “serious challenge” after their woeful start to the season.
The Demons’ whipping by Essendon followed a 79-point season-opening loss to Port Adelaide the previous week, and the club has also lived through an off-season dogged by tanking allegations stretching back to 2009.
“The one thing he (Neeld) can be confident of is he has our full support,” Schwab told Melbourne radio station Triple M.
Neeld has won just four of his 24 games in charge, with an average losing margin of around 10 goals.
But further strengthening his position was his most likely short-term replacement in the event of a sacking ruling himself out.
Demons sports performance director and former Adelaide coach Craig pledged his full support for Neeld, and ruled out ever taking on another senior coaching role.
Neeld has implored supporters to keep faith and vowed to shuffle underperforming players until he finds a competitive unit.
“I feel what they’re feeling – and that’s no consolation to our supporters,” Neeld said.
“I’m still confident we’ve got a core group of players – they’re working their backsides off to become AFL standard.
“We’ve got to get the whole club going that way.
“That’s a hard thing for supporters to hear, I understand that. We’re having a crack at trying to rebuild a rebuild.
“It’s going to be painful. We just need to find the players that are consistently up for the fight – shuffle them in and shuffle them out.
“There’s no easy way out. That’s clear.”
Terry
Guest
Mark Neeld, the TV coverage of your pre-game address showed a gulf between you and the players. When you addressed an individual, you called him 'you' instead of using his name. You spoke of 'we' the coaching staff having faith in 'you' the players, but where was the 'we, us, all of us'? Mark there is a bright side to hitting rock bottom. You've got a licence to innovate. (i) Why not bring in an assistant coach who actually plays alongside the players, organising them structurally and giving them praise? That will fast-track their learning. (ii) Why not forget about the scoreboard for a quarter and just play keepings off, with plenty of backwards kicking and less handball? Or take the Malthouse approach to a new extreme for a quarter, forcing the entire game to be played along the boundary line, with your forwards pushing up to flood the midfield? These slowing tactics will give young players a respite from the frantic pace and will also build their capacity to play tempo football during tough periods in future games. (iii) Make better use of speedsters like Aaron Davey. Focus your attack structure around opening spaces, positioning your speedsters on the edge of those spaces, then kicking, handballing or punching the ball into those spaces. Better odds of ball retention than the current strategy of kicking long to guys that can't mark. Even if one innovation turned out to succeed, it would lift the club and give you a more positive legacy. You've got nothing to lose.
Ash of Geelong
Guest
I cant believe even after round one that people were looking or speculating about mark Neeld getting the sack! Whats it going to achieve , Nothing let him serve out his contract or the year like it used to be not know were everything is sesationalised.