It’s business as usual for Melbourne coach Mark Neeld, for this week anyway. He will prepare for the Demons’ biggest game of the year, their Queens Birthday clash next Monday against Collingwood.
He will hope that his team can be competitive for more than one quarter after another poor performance against Hawthorn.
In the wake of the Hawks game, the footy world was buzzing that he was going to be sacked after Monday’s board meeting.
The board of directors though met with him and the President, Don McLardy, and there was a subsequent announcement that there would be an ongoing assessment of the Football Department.
Most significantly, you would think the efforts on the field will be looked at.
If Collingwood thrash them next Monday, the coach’s tenure, which has been put under the spotlight ever week except the Round 4 victory over GWS, will be over.
Mind you, with the board meeting this week put forward by a few hours, many of us thought Neeld’s time was up then.
He has remained upbeat that his position is secure and he must be admired for his optimism and confidence in his ability and that he is indeed the right man for the job.
Neeld believes the Demons are heading in the right direction, although it’s easy to make an argument against that considering the Demons nine losses in total have involved more than 700 points conceded.
Neeld constantly states that when he took over Melbourne was coming off a very low base in terms of their training methods being up to AFL standard and their player development had to improve.
However, they were in the eight at the halfway mark of 2011, indicating that under Dean Bailey they were on the u.
History tells us it all fell apart with the 186 point thumping at the hands of Geelong in Round 19 the last straw for Bailey.
Now they haven’t had a defeat like that since Neeld has been in charge, but there have been numerous 10 goal plus beltings and some 100 point thrashings including Round 2 this year by Essendon.
That match involved a loss to the tune of almost 25 goals. Terms such as embarrassing and irrelevant have been associated with Melbourne for almost every week over the past 18 months, but the club continues to have faith in the rookie coach that he will turn it around.
The board obviously recognise what Neeld has been preaching that this will be another slow rebuild, but they must be concerned by some of his mixed messages regarding the playing list.
On one hand, he has said the club is certainly rebuilding the rebuild by recruiting the exciting key forward, Jesse Hogan, who is too young to be considered for senior footy this year and Jimmy Toumpas at pick four in the national draft, who is coming off two hip operations, but on the other he did recruit for the now by adding experienced campaigners from other clubs who were not considered for senior selection last year such as Cam Pedersen, David Rodan and Shannon Byrnes.
They had a number of senior players, who you could argue were better than the new additions such as Brent Moloney and Brad Green, but Neeld moved them on. From the outside, it seems to be extremely confusing. Anyway, he’s still there, but the heat is still well and truly on him despite his self confidence.
It’s still highly unlikely he will see out the season, but he gets another chance to show his wares in the Demons’ biggest home and away match for the year and no doubt he will welcome that. However, it’s hard to see the team improving much considering the Magpies are a much better team and need a massive percentage boost to help their finals aspirations.
The Demons though do have a new CEO, with the highly respected Peter Jackson, who had the same role a few years ago at Essendon have his original contract of six months extended until the end of next year.
He has said there needs to be changes in all departments of the organisation especially in the football area. He looks set to be a very busy man as he tries to save a famous football club on the edge of the abyss.
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