Skipper forces Melbourne to confront its demons
This was published 17 years ago
June 19, 2003 — 10.00pm
It seemed more than a little symbolic that of all the clubs that could have been forced to deal with a drunken and embarrassed skipper during the holiday week, it was the Melbourne Football Club forced into damage control.
For several reasons. Every other leader at Melbourne has been embarrassed or placed under massive public pressure this season, but David Neitz, despite some moments of madness on the playing arena, was only teetering on the brink up until the early hours of Tuesday.
Now he is front-page news. The player normally expected to deliver his younger teammates home from the pub at a reasonable hour has been fined $5000 by his club, which is also looking at some sort of alcohol control program for Neitz.
"I'm your leader and I've done the wrong thing," he told his teammates behind closed doors yesterday before escaping, distressed but determined to atone, for a brief Queensland holiday.
The wider symbolism of Neitz's mistake lies in the sickness hurting the AFL in its hometown. It's too early to tell whether the disturbing state of the ladder is cyclical or more significant but never have the Victorian clubs as a group looked so lacklustre.
Chief executive Wayne Jackson said yesterday that the AFL would not interfere over the Neitz incident, but it did not need one of the game's more reputable frontmen discredited across two front pages in a week when it must also contend with no AFL games and a dreaded rugby union international at Telstra Dome.
Particularly just hours after announcing a new collective bargaining agreement with its players, a new deal that had much to say about footballer responsibility.
In fact, Jackson yesterday did contact the Demons. He is understood to have asked that they come clean regarding Neitz's punishment and later implied that he regarded it as a little lenient.
President Gabriel Szondy has raised eyebrows among his football department, his board and the industry for a series of public comments regarding his club. Coach Neale Daniher lost the faith of a significant number of supporters for his treatment of Shane Woewodin and Stephen Powell and right now is clearly failing to inspire his players.
Daniher has struggled in the past to cope with off-field crises at Melbourne. This will be a test for him, particularly because Melbourne remains in a position to reach the finals and boasts a list capable of doing so.
Even the Demons' new chief executive, Ray Ellis, has been embarrassed by his strange and unsolicited call to members last week and has been told to concentrate on putting the club into profit.
But the club did one thing right yesterday. It would have been wrong to suspend Neitz. That would have been a massive morale dampener for his teammates, remembering there is no clear contender to replace him, and further shamed a man already shattered by what has taken place on and off the playing arena this season.
But we haven't heard the end of controversial remedies for Melbourne's troubles and nor should we. For a start, five directors are up for re-election this year and the story goes that a series of challenges are already under way.
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