A BASIC plot is said to follow five stages: anticipation, dream, frustration (when first contact with the opposition happens), nightmare (when all hope seems lost) and then finally, resolution (triumph after adversity).

The five coaches new to a senior AFL position (and, importantly, their respective club's supporters) would do well to remember that standard plot outline as the season begins to unfold. It might smooth the bumps to some extent when they inevitably arrive.

Such thoughts ran through my head as new Melbourne coach Mark Neeld answered a series of questions on Wednesday at his first press conference for 2012. 

Here's a summary of what was learned:

-    Melbourne's leadership group will be announced in the week leading into the NAB Cup in February.
-    While his arm is in a cast for the next three weeks, Liam Jurrah is running and will be available for the NAB Cup.
-    Jack Grimes is switching between main group and running group as he prepares for the season.
-    Melbourne will have an input into Jack Viney's year, having committed to him for season 2013.
-    The coach is pleased with the way Jack Watts - a 40-game player - has trained.

But what we imagined and wondered were January's unanswerable - but much more captivating - questions, a series of uncertainties you could apply to every AFL club.

- Can Watts become the player everyone expects him to be?
- How many years before this young, inexperienced group gels and performs under a new coaching group?
- Can Grimes avoid injury and show how good he is?
- Who will be Melbourne's new skipper?
- How will the coach and group respond when opposition pressure arrives?

Neeld is working tirelessly - like every coach - to make sure all those questions command positive answers in the future.

However, the only option at the anticipation stage is to sell hope. He knows that. If it wasn't a cliché, one would be tempted in Neeld's case - given it was his 20th wedding anniversary on Wednesday - to call the period football's honeymoon stage.

Neeld was honest enough to say the team seemed to be training OK but "the test is going to come over time when we start playing opposition."

His comment reflects the reality of every AFL club and coach - even the experienced ones - at this time of the season.

They work in a void, developing their plans, hoping for a bit of luck and pushing forward. They have their own internal measurements but nothing can replace meeting the opposition. Minimise injury while maximising work is the objective.

The opposition remains an unknown quantity even to the most informed of clubs. "In terms of how well we're tracking, I'm not sure," said Neeld. "We're giving it every effort. We're making them (the players) fully aware of the way we want them to play."

It would be the same mantra the other four new coaches - Brenton Sanderson (Adelaide), Nathan Buckley (Collingwood), Scott Watters (St Kilda) and Brendan McCartney (Western Bulldogs) - will be repeating.

Maybe those coaches will dream they could be as fortunate as Geelong coach Chris Scott (and I don't use the word fortunate to detract from his 2011 performance at all). At a distance Scott appeared to perform the football plot miracle of missing the frustration and nightmare stage to shoot straight to resolution when he took the Cats to a flag in his first season at the helm (no doubt Scott knows he still has many tough moments ahead of him as his career progresses beyond year one).

We doubt the new five will dream too big. Coaches leave the dreaming to the supporters.

The plot remains one of anticipation. We are now one day closer to contact with the opposition.

That is the beauty of January.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs