Melbourne coach Mark Neeld under no illusions about where his side sits Melbourne coach Mark Neeld is set to rebuilding the Demons. IF it hasn't dawned on you just yet, Mark Neeld isn't into sweet-talking or sugar-coating. The second-year Melbourne coach calls a spade a bloody shovel and is big on "honest conversations" with his players. What you see is what you get. He could enthuse about the enormous progress the Demons will make this year and inflate the impact of high draft picks Jack Viney and Jimmy Toumpas. Instead, with Melbourne again predicted to finish bottom four, he prefers to tell it like it is. Is his list, the third-youngest in the AFL, still in serious transition? Was a list Michael Voss once said had the potential to be a superpower - and the club itself predicted would be the team of the decade - seriously overrated? Has he done the right thing in turning over 14 players in the off-season, including four top-15 draft picks and six from the top 30? He couldn't be more sure. Neeld is again calling for patience from supporters, but says the Demons are building a list the right way. "We are under no illusions about where we sit," Neeld tells the Herald Sun. We are right back at building blocks stage. We made some decisions to move players on. The thing I find interesting is we finished 15 spots lower than Sydney and yet we only made four more changes to our list, and it's been big news for four months. Sydney made 10 changes, and we finished with four wins and made 14 changes. We made decisions based on what we want and the way we want to move forward. I am not saying we are at ground zero. People say are you rebuilding a rebuild? All I know is this is where we are today. We are very bullish about the future. We haven't brought in 14 people to be here for five minutes, we have brought them in to be here for sufficient amounts of time. The 14 players are split into two categories - the wildly talented including draftees Viney, Toumpas, Jesse Hogan, and Dom Barry, as well as recycled players Chris Dawes, Cameron Pederson, Shannon Byrnes, and David Rodan. Jared Rivers and Brent Moloney left as free agents. The reason many Melbourne supporters were shocked by the number of changes is that high draft picks were replaced by players who spent a lot of time in the VFL last year. Coach Mark Neeld says there are significant benefits from training in heat and humidity as the Dees prepare for an eight-day training camp in the Northern Territory. THE likes of Cale Morton (pick 4), Ricky Petterd (30), Matthew Bate (13), Jordan Gysberts (11) and Lucas Cook (12) are gone - players assessed as not being able to move the club forward. And no one is making apologies. Neeld reasons that when clubs become seduced by the draft pick attached to a player's name, it can only lead to trouble. "When the list management group sits down to go through our list, we put the players' name on the board, a summary of his performances, the results of his endurance and strength tests, a welfare report, and nowhere in all of that is the number he was drafted," Neeld says. If we decide this player is at his ceiling and there is nowhere for him to go, where he was drafted is absolutely irrelevant. When you are analysing some behaviours and actions and results, it is hard not to realise this is the wrong path. We are not saying they are not good people, we are just saying they are taking us down the wrong path here - it's not going to work. He sees Rodan and Byrnes as not only capable of adding spark to his side, but providing the type of infectious personalities desperately needed at Melbourne. Unsaid is the reality Neeld's former club Collingwood was brimming with brash, effervescent figures while Melbourne is too insular and quiet. Guys like Rodan and Byrnes are the types of personalities people gravitate to. They are hard trainers, and they will play in our side. David is that mozzie type. The two of them are like mozzies buzzing around in our locker room. We didn't have that before. So where is Melbourne at? Despite the list cull, there is plenty to like about the players. Consider the backline: elite full-back James Frawley, emerging centre half-back Tom McDonald, the under-rated Colin Garland and the sweeper in Jack Watts. They key stocks up forward are equally impressive with Mitch Clark, Jeremy Howe, Hogan from 2014, and Dawes. THE clear issue is the midfield, with Nate Jones, Jack Trengove, Colin Sylvia and Jack Grimes at the top of a onball unit that is shallower than any other in the league. It is why Neeld has brought in experienced soldiers to help the transition while Viney and Toumpas find their feet. So much depends on Sylvia, a restricted free agent this year who has frittered away much of his talent. Neeld concedes the team needs Sylvia to fire. "The world wants to know how Colin is going because of the physical characteristics he brings to the table," he says. He is quick, he has outstanding endurance, and he lifts weights magnificently well, but he is at the stage where he needs consistency of performance. We will back him in as much as we can to become that performer. I am happy to tell Melbourne supporters we would never question Col's commitment to the Melbourne Football Club or never question that he doesn't realise how important he is. Sometimes it's just the way some people are in the way they carry themselves. Col is fully aware he can be good, or not so good. It's closing that gap. Aaron Davey, also a free agent, has had his first full pre-season in four years, but is another to have had an honest talk with Neeld. Former Brisbane Lions forward Clark, a revelation until suffering a fractured foot, should play in the first weeks. Not happy: Melbourne coach Mark Neeld has questioned why the AFL would want its game to be seen with players falling to their feet in exhaustion because they could not find a respite on the interchange bench. The medical team has told Neeld to compare the injury to a knee reconstruction in gravity, but given Clark's recent training form, the senior coach has no reason to believe he can't scale the heights of early last season. The Demons paid as much as $500,000 a season for former Collingwood forward Dawes, despite his horror 2012. Neeld makes no apologies for paying what the industry considers overs for Dawes, as he did for Clark the previous year. He has been really good, Dawesy. The reality with him is he was a 24-year-old key position player who was on the move and we would have been negligent not to have asked the question. One of the things I would like to see (greater understanding about) is the salary cap. When you use raw figures people go "whoa." But we all have $10 million to spend and with a young list, your first and second-year players are locked in. We have to pay 95 per cent of the cap, and we can't put that money in our back pocket. For Mitch Clark too, what percentage of the salary cap are we prepared to pay? That is different for different clubs. You have to get away from the idea that jeepers, we have paid overs. Viney and Toumpas, the third and fourth draft picks last year, will not have outlandish expectations put on them. We believe there is some great talent in those younger guys, but note to self is to let them find their way. We will coach them, and they have to get fitter and stronger, but gone are the days when you can have kids come in at 18 and have an instant impact. We have to make sure we don't have a third of our side debuting in Round 1. Neeld is excited about the task ahead but aware of his side's limitations. The only rock-solid certainty is that he has arrested what he saw as a worrying culture at the club, and has methodically gone about building the football list in his own manner. It is why Neeld won't put timelines on progress or quantify his goals. "Who knows how long (until we compete for the flag)," he says. We are realistic. We have got 11 guys on our list who have never played before and 50 per cent of the list has played under 50 games. But we have said we will coach you in a certain way which stands up in finals. And I think 95 per cent of Melbourne supporters get that. I want to drive to the MCG and play against the Hawks and say we are a serious threat here. In terms of wins, I believe we can win more than last year, but this is where we are at.