Hawthorn smashes Melbourne by 95 points at the MCG

MATCH REPORT: MELBOURNE has spent half a season amassing overwhelming evidence why Mark Neeld will not last the year as an AFL senior coach.

Hawthorn v Melbourne,

MELBOURNE has spent half a season amassing overwhelming evidence why Mark Neeld will not last the year as an AFL senior coach.

The Hawks match ended as the reminder why it seems short odds to happen on Monday.

By now it seems the Melbourne board is united on their plan of attack at today's board meeting.

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But this loss was enough to make any swinging voter rush for the ballot box.

The Demons were defeated by 95 points, their fourth 90-plus point loss of the season and their seventh-ten goal belting.

Dawes

Neeld was wildly optimistic post-match - about the one percenters, the effort, and about Chris Dawes' dozen marks.

Coach unleashes on Hawks

Yet the bottom line was that this side was again demolished on a day underlined the lack of hope in it all.

The evidence for the Melbourne board - and the football community - that it is time for a change started early and just kept on coming.

Hawthorn v Melbourne,

It included:

The first half in which Melbourne would manage just a solitary goal to Jeremy Howe, who shinned the ball through the teeth of goal despite two bumbling errors from teammates.

The high draft picks and potential stars like Jack Watts, Jack Trengove, Mark Jamar again shown up by the honest battlers prepared to crack in at all costs.

The windswept MCG which seemed like it had more seagulls than cheering Demons fans, yesterday's crowd of 28,546 putting their five-game home total at a disastrous 104,000 fans.

And above it all, the dead eyes of anguished president Don McLardy, who sat there looking pained and lifeless as Seven continually crossed to him after Hawthorn goals.

Lance Franklin

Aside from a brief respite in the third term before Alastair Clarkson's tirade sparked Hawthorn again, those goals came with such monotony McLardy got more TV time than some Demons.

There were wins for the Demons in the form of captain Jones (28 touches), David Rodan (24 touches) and the fighting performance of Dawes.

But the best performances again came from Neeld and Dawes post-match, in which they made a case about effort and fight not truly representative of what had happened hours before.

What is certain is that Mark Neeld is a good, honourable man.

But history is littered with the remains of good honest sacked coaches - Melbourne's last three in Neil Balme, Neale Daniher and Dean Bailey all spring to mind.

If Melbourne's dramatic last-quarter resurgence against GWS was compulsive edge-of-the-seat viewing, this was lamb to the slaughter stuff.

Consider Melbourne's performances this year.

Of their nine losses, all have been over 28 points.

Seven have been over ten goals, five have been 79 points or bigger, and four defeats bigger than 15 goals.

We have said it before: that is Fitzroyesque.

Pre-match McLardy had used his presidents address to talk of imminent changes in the next fortnight, and mentioned coach Mark Neeld not at all.

A cruel interpretation would be that he was an afterthought, but in reality what is harsh: what could McLardy say?

The Demons might have kept the margin under triple figures, but it was against a Hawthorn side very much in cruise control.

Nathan Jones and Brad Sewell started out head to head in a ball magnet shootout, and Colin Garland and James Frawley were fighting the good fight in defence, but everywhere else the Dees were hopelessly outclassed.

The Hawks would run in a dozen scoring shots in the first quarter and the only consolation was that just three were majors.

But with Hawthorn's mid-tier contributors starrring - Isaac Smith, Luke Breust, Paul Puopolo, Jonathan Simpkin - the dam wall quickly burst.

It would take the Dees until 18 minutes into the second term for their first major, and it was rich with comedic potential.

Colin Garland burst from defence and ignored Dawes, who was standing 30 metres in the clear.

He still ran onto the ball and tried to chip it to Rohan Bail, but missed him by 15 metres.

Somehow the ball tumbled towards the goalline, where Jeremy Howe shinned it through for goal.

From there Hawthorn took the foot off the pedal in third quarter, allowing Melbourne to run and gun on its way to 4.3 for the quarter.