Captains question Demons' effort

Updated May 22, 2012 21:56:11

Melbourne co-captain Jack Grimes has blamed the club's woeful season start on patchy effort and a slower-than-expected pick-up of its new game plan.

But he is adamant that coach Mark Neeld has the team's full support and the decision to make himself and 20-year-old Jack Trengove joint skippers has not upset senior players.

Yet to win a match under Neeld, the bottom-placed Demons slumped to a new low with Saturday's 101-point loss to Sydney at the SCG.

Grimes said that performance was particularly galling, because he had believed they were making progress and were well placed for a breakthrough win.

"That was probably the most disappointing thing, that we went into the game so positively and had that terrible result," he told reporters on Tuesday.

But it has not altered his conviction that the team is heading the right way under Neeld, even if it is taking longer than expected.

"It is very different to the way we played last year," Grimes said of Neeld's game plan.

"We obviously trained it for the whole summer and put it in place over the NAB Cup and hoped it would all come together for round one and the first eight rounds.

"But it clearly does take time to adjust to this.

"We feel like we are making inroads, as much as the weekend didn't show it."

Grimes admitted he was puzzled by the sharp drop-off against the Swans after what were at least competitive efforts in previous rounds.

"We know at times our effort hasn't been there and hasn't been good enough and there's no excuses for that," Grimes said.

Fellow leadership group member Nathan Jones also questioned his team-mates' effort level.

"A four-quarter effort by 22 blokes is what we're not getting," he said.

"When we did get that, we were in games and competed."

But he backed the view that players were gradually adjusting to Neeld's game plan and at some point the progress at training would flow into matches.

"We're eight competitive games into learning a new thing, I just don't think it's becoming instinctive yet," Jones said.

AAP

Tags: australian-football-league, sport, melbourne-3000, vic, australia

First posted May 22, 2012 21:56:11

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Pendlebury, captains named club champions

Updated October 08, 2011 10:29:49

Scott Pendlebury has claimed his first Copeland Trophy as Collingwood's best and fairest award winner, upstaging Brownlow Medallist Dane Swan.

Pendlebury polled 65 votes on Friday night while fellow midfielder Swan had 54, one vote ahead of big forward Travis Cloke.

Also on Friday, AFL captains Adam Goodes, Darren Glass and Matthew Boyd all picked up club champion awards while Essendon's David Zaharakis claimed his first Crichton Medal.

Sydney co-captain Goodes won his third Bob Skilton Medal ahead of utility Rhyce Shaw and midfielder Josh Kennedy.

Goodes capped a stellar night by also winning the Paul Kelly Players' Player Award and the Paul Roos Award for best player in the AFL finals.

Shaw was named best clubman, defender Nick Smith the club's most-improved player and 19-year-old centre half-forward Sam Reid won the Rising Star award.

West Coast captain Glass won the Eagles' club champion award for a third time, beating midfielder Matt Priddis on a count back.

In the tightest vote count in the club's 25-year history, Glass and Priddis both polled 398 votes, but Glass was given the nod because he had played one fewer game and thus had a higher vote average.

Ruckman Dean Cox, who last month won his fifth All Australian jumper, finished third, just one vote behind Glass and Priddis.

Bulldogs skipper Boyd won his second Charles Sutton Medal, 10 votes clear of veteran Robert Murphy.

In just his third season the 21-year-old Zaharakis beat team-mate Brent Stanton to the Bombers' best and fairest, with fellow young gun Michael Hurley third.

All-Australian wingman Pendlebury was a popular winner at the Magpies' end of season dinner after finishing runner-up in 2007 and 2010.

Pendlebury's triumph adds to his list of accolades which includes winning the Norm Smith Medal for best-afield in Collingwood's 2010 AFL premiership win over St Kilda.

The 23-year-old also won the Bob Rose Award for Collingwood's best player in the 2011 finals series, which included a 38-point loss in last week's grand final against Geelong.

Swan's runner-up finish meant he fell just shy of becoming the first player to win the Copeland Trophy four consecutive times.

Onballer Luke Ball was fourth with 49 votes, two votes ahead of 2011 All-Australian defender Leon Davis.

Dale Thomas was sixth with 46 votes, followed by his fellow All-Australian Ben Reid on 44.

Cloke booted 69 goals to win Collingwood's Gordon Coventry Trophy for the first time.

Forward Alex Fasolo won the Harry Collier Trophy for best first-year player and retiring big man Leigh Brown was awarded the Darren Millane Trophy as best clubman.

AAP

Tags: australian-football-league, sport, collingwood-3066, vic, australia, footscray-3011, sydney-2000, nsw, perth-6000, wa, essendon-3040

First posted October 08, 2011 09:08:54

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