Melbourne president Don McLardy has guaranteed Mark Neeld’s job as coach despite his team producing one of modern AFL’s most inept performances on Saturday night.
The Demons’ 148-point whipping by Essendon followed a 79-point season-opening loss to Port Adelaide the previous week.
The manner of both defeats – particularly the awful second half against Essendon in which the Demons kicked just 1.1 – suggests a team that has regressed since last season when Neeld first took the reins.
But McLardy has strenuously defended Neeld and those in leadership roles at the club, which has also lived through an off-season dogged by tanking allegations stretching back to 2009.
He says knee-jerk reactions would be wrong, and has vowed to give Neeld and his football department full support.
“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.
“We don’t think that (performance against Essendon) is a true reflection of our football club and where we are.
“We’re going to support those people, the team we’ve put in place and we’re going to see this through.”
Angry fans lined the race to vent their fury at Demons players following the 28.16 (184) to 5.6 (36) rout – with most of their players hopelessly out of form, and virtually no winners on the night.
The Demons barely moved the ball inside the opposition 50-metre arc, their tackle count was nearly half that of Essendon’s, and they were beaten badly in every statistical measure.
McLardy admitted he understood supporters’ frustration, but urged them to have faith in the club’s leaders.
“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 answers for the display – admitting the club was trying to “rebuild a rebuild” after a long period in the wilderness.
On what the Demons dished up against Essendon, it would appear Neeld faces a task similar to constructing the Empire State Building out of broken Lego.
But the second-year coach has vowed to shuffle the players until he finds a competitive unit, and fix the Dees.
“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.”
