Neeld stressed that his focus was not on him, but his players, and helping to turn their poor round seven performance around for his team’s clash against Richmond at the MCG on Sunday.
“I’m OK, it’s not about me,” he told the Coach’s Office on Dee TV.
“In my world, it’s about the 46 players that we have, and in particular the 22 who played on the weekend.
“We are disappointed with the scoreboard, but particularly disappointed with the effort in some parts of the game.”
Neeld didn’t buy into the notion that it was the toughest scrutiny he had faced since becoming Melbourne coach at the start of last season.
“I don’t get too carried away with that external noise. My focus is that we were non-competitive in the combative part of the game,” he said.
“We felt over the previous three weeks that we’d seen a lot of improvement in that area, albeit the score line was similar against the Blues, [but] we were not in it on the weekend.
“We had over 100 ineffective tackles – that’s 100 times the boys made the effort to go and tackle and we were brushed aside – that was particularly disappointing. So that’s where our efforts are being directed.”
Neeld said the players and coaches were doing their utmost to remain upbeat, despite the trying circumstances.
“Footballers and people who work full-time in the industry are pretty good at that. It is pretty busy and there are lots of things to do, so they all know that they have a job to do,” he said.
“Again, there is disappointment when you go to the football and you are expecting to have a continued improved performance in certain aspects of the game and that doesn’t come – that’s particularly disappointing.
“I think for the coaches and the majority of players, they do understand that there’s going to be fluctuations from week to week, and everybody knows that with a young side. What happened on Sunday – it was too low a fluctuation.”
With Melbourne set to play current top eight teams Richmond, Fremantle, Hawthorn and Collingwood in the next four weeks, Neeld said it was imperative to attack each match with a desire to have an improved performance.
“After the weekend, there are a lot of areas we need to improve. The first one is that combative element of footy,” he said.
“Before we start worrying about those other fancy things that you should be able to worry about at times, as you go along the development continuum, we’ve got to get back to that and get that right.
“All clubs are at different stages, but there’s not too many clubs who continually have to revisit, with the player group, ‘let’s coach effort’. That’s not normal in the AFL, so we’re doing our best to eradicate that.”
Neeld said the No. 1 trait he wants to see against Richmond this round is an improved performance in its combative style.
“We know that they’re a really skilled side, who’ve improved over the last few years, and we’re going to have to be at our best defensively to stop them going the length of the ground with the footy, so we’ll have a look at that and the way that they play,” he said.
