Let's move on shall we?

First things first don't expect any sudden reversal of policy in here. Just because we won, the pre-season is no less meaningless and phony than it was a fortnight ago when we lost. For the sake of the record we beat Richmond at Princess Park, Optus Oval, MC Labor Park, Parkville Miscellaneous Stadium by five goals but until we turn the swine over in Rd. 1 I reserve the right to show no joy whatsoever.

First things first, a memo to Carlton/Storm/whoever is running the ground now. Clean your fucking stadium. For a stand that cost so much money to make you'd think they could at least pay some Ukranian $3 an hour to wipe the dust off the seats. They were caked with filth and as the cultured and posh people we are it was not pleasant to sit there. But like complete morons we did anyway and were duly rewarded with four quarters of meaningless chip and chase football.

We won, and played well in doing it but I'm not entirely convinced that it will translate to the real thing. For a start Richmond would probably have scored a lot more than they did if they could actually deliver the ball inside 50 to a basic standard - they were absolutely appalling at it and we can't expect every team to accommodate us like that throughout the year.

The positives? Never fear there were plenty even if the game ranked somewhere between the Ovens And Murray League Pre-Season Cup and the Diamond Valley Under 13's in importance. From this day Nathan Jones shall officially be known as the New Next Big Thing. If you were totally ignorant about football and you'd never seen a game before (i.e - members of the AFL Rules Committee) you would never know he's only played a handful of games. Brock may be the new king but NJ is clearly his understudy. Pretty much everyone else went alright as well. Yze did nothing and Miller still hasn't worked out what he's doing in the last two weeks but other than that it's looking alright for this year.

And how about Aaron Davey and his goal of the year before the season even started? I don't know if there's highlights or not but I've never seen anyone face the boundary line, slap the ball backwards between his legs a'la basketball then turn around and slot the goal. That was absolutely AWOL, I and the 24 other MFC fans in attendance loved it.

See you in two weeks for something that actually matters.

The meaningless Pre-Season votes

5 - Jones
4 - Johnstone
3 - Bruce
2 - White
1 - Whelan

Apologies to Chris Johnson who was good again.

Next week: It's the pre-season so we've probably got Timbuktu away. Who cares? Let's get on with the real stuff.

UPDATE - Geelong at Skilled Stadium. I was near enough.