Mark Neeld says Melbourne is at the same developmental stage as second-year side Greater Western Sydney. Picture: Wayne Ludbey. Source: News Limited
GOING into Sunday's crunch game at the MCG, Melbourne coach Mark Neeld has made the extraordinary claim that his team and Greater Western Sydney "are pretty much at similar stages in terms of their development and what we're trying to do".
As the Demons last night recalled axed former No.1 draft pick Jack Watts, Neeld said the AFL's oldest and youngest clubs would "get out at there and compete for as long as we can. I think both sides will take a similar mentality into the game".
The Demons are on average more than two years older than the Giants and have played almost twice as many career games (45 to 26). Melbourne has nine players with more than 100 games' experience, compared to GWS's four.
Both clubs are yet to win a game this season. But the Demons are yet to win a quarter, while the Giants have won two of 12.
Neeld said he was alarmed that his young team had failed to stop the opposition stringing together a run of goals.
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"The last couple of weeks we've come up against two really experienced sides (Essendon and West Coast) and they've got a run on and we've been unable to halt that momentum," Neeld said on the club's website.
"That seems to be a league problem at the moment.
"There is discrepancies, as always, with experienced versus inexperienced sides."
Neeld said his team had been competitive for about 20 minutes against the Bombers and "competed seriously well" in the first half against West Coast last weekend.
"We tailed off significantly in the third quarter and we're aware of that," he said.
"There's a number of things that we tried tactically that didn't necessarily work, but we'll be better placed to handle that again.
"In reality, we couldn't get our hands on the football.
"We were unable to defend their speed of ball movement, and that's where it stood for that quarter."
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