UNDER-siege Melbourne coach Mark Neeld says his resolve to coach has not wavered despite his side's 90-point drubbing at the hands of Fremantle at Patersons Stadium on Sunday.
When asked about his future post-match, Neeld preferred to focus on his team rather than speculate on his own tenure.
"Well, I can say ... it’s not about me," Neeld said.
"My role is very clear. We have a young inexperienced group mainly, that we are trying to fast-track in their AFL career.
"We're not sitting around having a look at our player list going 'oh, we've got to cull this many players'. This is the group that will take the football club through.
"We came up against a well-oiled, well-drilled side and we were overwhelmed with their pressure in the first half."
James Frawley, who sat with Neeld at the post-match press conference, leapt to his coach's defence.
"We put our hand up. We didn't play well enough. It's not his fault. We have faith in him and we're all behind him," he said.
"He gets put under scrutiny for it but us players have to take a fair bit of that blame."
Fremantle had 92 more disposals in the opening half and 22 more inside 50s to lead the Demons by 71-points at half-time, but Neeld said the issues were nothing to do with work-rate.
"I don’t think the effort was too bad," he said.
"Obviously when the game was there to be won, we were overwhelmed with Fremantle’s pressure – our ball use, we just couldn’t cope pretty much with their pressure and we were forced to put quite a few numbers behind the ball and that obviously dries up uncontested possession."
The Demons equaled their lowest ever score against Fremantle, 40, which they managed in a 61-point loss to the Dockers in round 23 last season.
Fremantle had Matthew Pavlich, Aaron Sandilands, Stephen Hill, Jonathon Griffin, and Michael Walters playing in that game, yet despite all missing on Sunday, the Dockers won by a far greater margin.
Neeld said a comparison to the 2012 loss was irrelevant given the turnover on the Melbourne list during the off-season.
"In terms of us, it's somewhat skewed because the major list change that we did was last November, not the previous one," he said.
"So if you ask me in 12 months, we'd want to kick more than 40 points."
The task does not get any easier for Neeld as the Demons prepare to face the ladder-leaders Hawthorn next Sunday, followed by Collingwood on Queen's Birthday.
