SENIOR coach Mark Neeld speaks to melbournefc.com.au chief football writer Matt Burgan in the lead-up to round one in the first of a two part feature

MB: Last Thursday night, the club launched its season with the annual Commencement Dinner at Crown, which included the announcement of Melbourne’s newest legend, hall of fame inductees and life members. It was a big night for the club. What did you make of it?

MN: For me, I found it had a few components. I really enjoyed sitting there and getting further insight into the club. It’s really important to understand where the club has been and who’s been responsible. To see life members and hall of fame people being inducted and a legend elevated was good for me. After speaking to the players, no doubt, it was good for them to see. It was good to acknowledge that 2013 is here.

MB: It was also an important night for a host of new Demons.     

MN: Yes, we’ve got 14 new players at the club, so for those boys to sit there and receive their blazer straight after seeing something quite significant in the club’s history had a good ring to it. It was really well supported by the Melbourne people. It was packed out at the Palladium, which is hard to do, so it was a really good kick off to the start of the year.

MB: And now after the hard work and energy that’s been thrown into the pre-season, it’s all about to happen with the first test against Port Adelaide at the MCG this Sunday.

MN: It is - and it’s ready to go. For the players and coaches alike, pre-seasons are around the four to five month mark. In any other business, that’s akin to having four or five months’ rehearsal, with no performance. So we get to begin performances on Sunday. The build up to round one is always great for any sport. So we’re looking forward to kicking off the season. We’re mindful of course that there are 22 games – not one, so we’re looking forward to it.

MB: Do you think there is too much emphasis placed on round one, given there are another 21 matches to be played, or is it justified?

MN: I think with everything, the emphasis changes, depending on where you sit in the scheme of things. Coaches, players and footy departments understand that there are 22 games, but at the same time, we are aware that the footy public has been looking for a real game of footy since the end of September. If you’re like us and didn’t play in September, we haven’t played a game since the end of August.

MB: Four players have been under the spotlight in the lead up to round one, after coming back from injury. It’s been a case of ‘will they or won’t they play against Port Adelaide?’ I’ll start off with Mitch Clark, who played for Casey last Saturday – his first match in 2013. Will we see him on the ‘G this Sunday? 

MN: With Mitch, our medical staff has been very clear from the day he had his foot operation. There were a number of things he needed to do before he was able to play. They haven’t altered from that, and nor have we. They said that the expectation was that if all went well, he would have all those things ticked off before round one. That’s exactly where we find him now. They went down predicting a timeline, but the timeline was always guided by him having to do everything in his rehab – and he’s done it. So he should be right for round one, which is a great effort by the medical staff and Mitch.

MB: Jack Trengove also made his first appearance for the season with Clark in the VFL practice match last weekend. Will he play?

MN: Trenners had a stress fracture and missed the Darwin camp [in December], so he missed a fair chunk of the pre-season. He came back and played a game for Casey last Saturday. He’s not like Mitch [Clark] or Dawsey (Chris Dawes), who have had six or seven AFL pre-seasons under their belt. Their legs have had a certain number of kilometres in them. Trenners has only done three pre-seasons and played in the midfield, so we’ll see [for round one].

MB: Chris Dawes played in the opening NAB Cup match, but has since battled a hamstring injury. Will he represent the Demons for the first time against the Power?

MN: Dawesy has had tightness in his hamstring, so he hasn’t played for the last couple of weeks. He has been training, but not at 100 per cent. He’s been back in training for two weeks, so we’ll see how he goes this week. But Dawesy has been really good for our footy club, and he comes from a strong, successful club culture. He’s a premiership player and a key position player at the age of 24. Having another key forward down there to assist Mitch is great for everyone.

MB: And Jack Viney. He missed a couple of weeks with a neck injury, but played for Casey last weekend. Will he make his AFL debut in the season opener?

MN: We won’t be putting too many external, unrealistic expectations on Jack. He’s 18 years of age, and he’s going to come in and find out what AFL footy’s all about. And he will do that over time. Jack is a really good hard trainer and we’re really excited to have him as a member of our list. We think in time, he’s the type of player we certainly need, but we will give him time to develop properly. We’ll wait and see this week.

MB: The coaches reviewed the pre-season and NAB Cup internally last week. What were the findings?

MN: We’re an inexperienced group and we’re aware of that – we’re the third least experienced group going around. In terms of our pre-season, this was our second pre-season undertaken in the way that we wanted to train. We increased the volume and intensity in training by approximately 15 per cent, which is significant at the elite level.

MB: So how would you compare your squad now to this time last year?

MN: We’ve had more players complete more of the pre-season this year. Having a few extra kilometres in the players’ legs will be beneficial. With a third of players being new, the focus has also been on game education, and we’re also still establishing a club culture that has elite training standards, but that is coming along. Due to our list and the overall inexperience of it, it’s something that we are going to take a deal of time to educate the players about what it looks like. But we’ve been really pleased with the players’ effort to complete pre-season. Part of that was going to Darwin for nine days, which was searching and, at times, a really difficult experience for everyone who went. But we were pleased with what the players dished up.

MB: Which Melbourne players should the football public watch out for in 2013?

MN: It’s funny, because we don’t have too many experienced players at our club, in terms of 100-game players, and there are quite a number of players that are inexperienced that we talk about a lot. The majority of Melbourne supporters know about Tom McDonald and Jeremy Howe, but they’re 22 and 35-game players respectively. The way they’re spoken about, you could easily think that they’ve played more than 100 games each. But those two guys are still finding their way in the AFL. So we look forward to consistent seasons from those boys. At the other end, James Frawley has just played more than 100 games. It’s been well documented that James played under duress last year, but he’s had an outstanding pre-season and we’re looking forward to him continuing his development. James is an interesting one, because he’s played 100 games, but our expectations is that he’s playing like a 200-gamer. With Jeremy, we think he’s going to play like a 90-game player. And Tom’s like a 60-game player. They’re the ones who haven’t reached their full development as players yet.

MB: Which Demons do you expect to surprise in the AFL this year? 

MN: Of the 14 new players, I’m quite happy to say that they’re all here, not just for a short-term fix. We’ve recruited players who we think will be here in the long-term. That includes David Rodan and Shannon Byrnes. We think they’ve got quite a few years service, based on what we’ve seen over the pre-season. They have the work ethic and appetite to continue to improve. We will have quite a few players debut for our footy club this year and a lot of those guys have never played League footy before. Matt Jones is a really interesting case study. He’s 25 years old, so he’s a mature age recruit and we expect him to be around the selection table early in the piece. Dean Terlich is a couple of years younger, but he’s spent a year at Sydney and has played in the SANFL and become a premiership player over there. They’re two in that mature age bunch. Cam Pedersen is 25 years old at his second AFL club. But he’s only played 16 games of League footy. So with Matt, Dean and Cam, we tend to put them in the same boat. They might be mature in footy terms, but between them, they’ve played 16 games of footy, so they’ve still got some development and understanding about League footy. We will expect those guys at some stage to represent Melbourne, if they continue to keep training and playing the way they have over summer.

MB: You came in with a clear plan for the team when you were appointed coach in September 2011. Has that altered, given you’ve been here for 18 months?

MN: It’s pretty much the same plan, but all plans have a degree of flexibility and everything evolves. But we’re really clear on the way we want to play and the way we want to train. And we’re still very clear on doing it right from the outset. We have a group of young players who we’re working with to develop – however long that takes. We’re keen to get them into elite habits initially, so when we’re moving our way up the ladder, we can stay there. We’re not in for the quick fix. We’re in for establishing a culture that will carry the club through for a long-term successful period.

MB: The pressure on teams to perform in the AFL is at an all-time high. Melbourne is not exempt. Is that fair or unreasonable, all things considered?  

MN: The difficulty is that most assessments done externally are done from game to game. The reality is that we are inexperienced as what the Bulldogs, Port Adelaide, GWS and Gold Coast are. You always turn up and coach your side to win – there’s absolutely no question. And you always push for elite standards and you push hard to progress. But what we’re looking at is progression over time. It’s not a week by week progression. That’s simply it and that’s our lot in life.

MB: Having said that, what are realistic expectations for Melbourne in 2013?

MN: Expectations are on us this season and we’re setting ourselves that we need to see realistic progression. We need to get better in areas. We simply want to be more competitive for longer. We know that there will be times when we are inconsistent in games and inconsistent from week to week. We are going to be working over time until that inconsistency disappears. How many wins that turns into in the short term – I’m not sure. We know that short term competitiveness has a lot to do with the experience of our squad and we don’t have it. In saying that, we’ll be driving every single player to fast track themselves. We’re in a position where the captains of the club have played [112 matches combined]. Jack Grimes has played 53 games and Jack Trengove has played 59 and we often talk to them about it, but they’re expected to play like 150-game players each, every week. That’s where we’re at. We want to be more competitive for longer and we want to eradicate when we lose momentum in a game – having an enormous number of goals kicked against us in a short time. We need to get better at recognising that.

To be continued …