THE fallout from this weekend will be intense for three of the four Melbourne-based clubs. Only Rodney Eade will escape the searching media focus.
While the finals coaches will have been busy preparing their teams, the dramas at Carlton and Geelong will not have escaped their attention. With four Melbourne teams in the finals race about to be cut down to two, it's not hard to guess where the stories may be next week.
There would have been tension within the corridors of Melbourne, St Kilda and Collingwood this week. For differing reasons, surviving into the second week of the finals — opposed to a first-week drop-out — will add significantly to the year's result.
At Collingwood, Mick Malthouse is front page news should the Pies tumble against the Bulldogs. But the Magpies have risen from 15th, and once the emotion of a loss subsides, it would be seen as a significant performance.
Should St Kilda lose tonight, Grant Thomas would face accusations of not being able to finish the job. Thomas, though, has had to battle a lot of bad luck this year with injuries to key players. He has done another solid job, a point even his critics would concede.
Neale Daniher has the most to lose of all the coaches should he suffer a first-week loss. A finish of seventh or eighth will be seen as stagnation after similar finishes in 2004 and 2005. There is also the question of late-season fade-outs.
Daniher has been a success at Melbourne. Of the nine years he has coached what was a basketcase, the Demons have reached the finals six times. More than that, he has contributed to the rebuilding of the once proud club and has provided a backbone of stability. His position shouldn't be challenged.
Thankfully for coaches, a more mature attitude has developed in the game. It has come as a consequence of club boards now being generally filled with businessmen who understand the vagaries of the game. Emotion is never far from the surface, as we have seen in recent days, but clubs are less likely to act now on such feelings as they may once have been.
Daniher's coaching graph has peaks and troughs, but I think he is close to his best days. He may be the NFL equivalent of Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher, who after 13 years at the helm and many years flirting around the edges, finally delivered Super Bowl success this year.
It takes its toll, though, this business, and eventually the coach can need a break as much as a club may search for a change. After the 2000 grand final debacle, Daniher plotted a new direction. The Demons had been thrown around like rag dolls, so they went and recruited hard bodies capable of standing up to finals football.
Brock McLean, Colin Sylvia, Nathan Jones, Clint Bartram and Brent Moloney are the best examples of this, each boasting an old-fashioned football body able to stay over the ball and hold ground. Sylvia has yet to develop fully into a midfielder, while Moloney has hardly played this season and now Bartram will miss the rest of the finals because of an injured ankle.
Add to this the often misdirected aggression of Brad Miller, and in more recent times Byron Pickett, and you have a group who won't take a backward step in September. The midfield is also young and yet to reach it's full potential.
Daniher has changed profoundly during his nine years. He has a more serious demeanour than either of his three brothers — they all like a laugh and can share a beer and a game of backyard cricket; Neale is more intense and studious.
Those who have worked alongside him talk of his insatiable appetite for planning and preparing, a trait he demands in all who work with him. He is not known to tolerate fools or tardy work practices.
He's had to work on being the Neale Daniher that fronts the cameras, and against his own natural inclination he has become one of the game's best media performers. He may have done this out of necessity for his club, but it has worked brilliantly for him. I also think it has helped him survive.
Leaders are made or lost during times of crisis. When a coach is under the pump, they either shoot themselves in the foot with how they allow themselves to be portrayed or they rise to the occasion and leave us all in no doubt they have the strength and know-how to lead their club out of the mire.
Daniher has done this. No matter how he may be viewed in terms of tactics and strategies, there would be few people who didn't think he had the ticker for the job.
I still feel, though, he does the media sell through a sense of duty and not because he enjoys it. Some coaches — Terry Wallace and Kevin Sheedy are perhaps the best examples of this — love the chance to step up to the microphone and perform, seeing it as a release from normal duties.
While I would never accuse a Daniher of being anything but fair dinkum, Neale still gives me the impression he has to build himself up and steel himself.
His Demons have coughed and spluttered over the past month. A win tonight would be an emotional one and allow him the luxury of not being the media target next week.
