Melbourne coach Mark Neeld says the winless start to his AFL coaching career has not surprised him and he is determined to stick with his current approach for the long term. The Demons, who had at least shown some competitiveness in the previous three rounds, were comfortably beaten by Hawthorn 15.25 (115) to 6.13 (49) at the MCG last night. It could have been worse, the Hawks lacking their normal polish in attack and missing a chance to hand out a massacre. Neeld said most disappointing was that his side was thrashed in contested possession, an indicator his players did not give a four-quarter effort. “We took a little step backwards with that tonight,” he said. It took the Demons to a 0-7 record and with matches against Sydney, Carlton, Essendon and Collingwood before their mid-season bye, it is not hard to imagine the losing streak stretching to 11. But Neeld said with his team in a “development phase” and needing to sort out many aspects of their game, there was always going to be short-term pain and he had made the board aware of that when he took over. “Everyone knows exactly what it was going to look like and where it’s at, that’s our job,” Neeld told reporters. “I didn’t go in there and say ‘Listen, we’ll be zero-whatever’. “But we spoke at length about what it could look like.” Neeld said he had used the examples of the Hawks, who lost six of their first seven games when Alastair Clarkson took over in 2005 and Richmond, who lost their first nine matches under Damien Hardwick in 2010. “They were similar type things, they were taking over from coaches that had been there for a while and completely changed the place,” he said. “We’re going to stay the course, we’re going to stay true.” Clarkson was happy his side thrashed their opposition in contested ball and clearances and not too concerned by the lack of poise near goal. “We know we’ve got some things to work on in our game,” Clarkson said. “But we’ve also got some key elements of our game that we’ve just been lacking in a little bit over the first part of the season and were able to get some of those things right.” A greater worry was he feared scans would confirm that forward Michael Osborne ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament late in the match.
