Melbourne coach Mark Neeld has left a meeting of the AFL club’s board but it’s unclear if he still has his job.
Neeld arrived for the meeting at the MCG shortly before 2pm (AEST) on Monday, accompanied by Demons director of sports performance Neil Craig, player development manager Todd Viney and football manager Josh Mahoney.
He left about two hours later, accompanied by the same football department officials and returned to the club’s training base at AAMI Park.
The board meeting was still in progress.
Demons president Don McLardy, who along with his fellow directors, arrived at the meeting several hours before Neeld, gave no indication before the meeting of whether the club planned to stick with the coach.
“It’s a board meeting, mate. It’s been scheduled all year,” McLardy told the AFL website.
“No other expectations.”
It’s understood Melbourne’s interim chief executive Peter Jackson used the meeting to outline structural changes to the football department.
McLardy used a pre-match speech on Sunday to forecast the changes but gave no indication whether they would involve Neeld.
While there is speculation Neeld faces the sack, the coach told reporters after Sunday’s 95-point thrashing from Hawthorn he still had confidence he was taking the club down the right path.
“We’ve got a really clear pathway that we’re following and we haven’t hidden that from anybody,” Neeld said.
“We believe we’re assembling a really good list that will take us forward.
“We’re not hiding from the fact that we’re particularly upset to get beaten by that much.
“But we’re realistic as well, we’re running around with a development team, a dozen or so guys under 50 games.
“We want to get better than that but I think most people are pretty realistic.”
Sunday’s loss was Melbourne’s seventh this year by 60 points or more and they’ve won just once in the first 10 rounds, against bottom-placed Greater Western Sydney.
Neeld has overseen just five wins in his 32-game AFL coaching career.