Mystery Match Mania

The true Regional Challenge game (i.e nothing played in Parkville or Cranbourne) is one of the great mysteries of the footballing world. You just have to take their word for it that it happened. Usually there will be no photos, scant details from anyone who was actually there and a match report clearly thrown together in five minutes by a cadet reporter who had nothing else on that night.

Not surprisingly I didn't bother going to Cairns to watch the game last night. Neither, by the looks of this, did the Herald Sun. Bendigo was my limit for meaningless practice matches, but by the looks of their website The Age don't even bother reporting that the match happened. Even the Cairns Post - who were presumably actually there - give scant details.

We should just be happy that we won and that nobody suffered life threatening injuries in shithouse conditions. But no, some of us are SICK FREAKS who want to know everything. "Maybe the AFL website will have something" I hear you say. Afterall they are the keepers of this great game and friend to fan and club alike aren't they? Well, it seems that twelve hours later even they couldn't give a monkeys about what happened. See also our own website - strings pulled by the league and no mention whatsoever.

UPDATE - Turns out there is a story on the AFL website. It's just buried under 72 other stories. Sure it pays scant regard to the fact that we won by 6 goals but at least it gives us something.

Melbourne 2.1 6.3 10.3 11.7 (73)
Brisbane Lions 2.3 2.5 4.7 4.12 (36)

GOALS
Melbourne: Newton 3, Petterd, Dunn 2, Jetta, Moloney, Bruce, Jones.
Brisbane Lions: Clark, Brown, Hooper, Dalziell.

BEST
Melbourne: Newton, Warnock, Dunn.
Brisbane Lions: Johnstone, Adcock, Dalziell.

Injuries
Melbourne: Nil.
Brisbane Lions: J Brennan (quad).

Umpires: H Kennedy J Mollison B Ryan.

Crowd: 4,000 approx. at Cazaly Stadium.

Good to see that they suffered our ailment of having one end of the ground where they were completely unable to kick goals from. By all accounts we scrapped it out in wet conditions and there were good signs all over the place. If you've got three hours and want to try and cut through all the bullshit surrounding it this Demonology thread has the best update work you're likely to get for a game like this.

2009 Paul Prymke Plate for Pre Season Performance Votes

I've pieced these together from all available sources. Suffice to say I don't believe the papers when they give the top goalkicker on the ground all the votes even if he had a decent game. So...

5 - Cameron Bruce
4 - Michael Newton
3 - Brock McLean
2 - Matthew Warnock
1 - Lynden Dunn

Leaderboard

Does this have any credibility anymore? Lucky it's the most Mickey Mouse award in our collection.

7 - Warnock
5 - Green, Bruce, McLean
4 - Bate, Grimes, Newton
3 - Whelan, Sylvia
2 - Martin
1 - Frawley, Petterd, Dunn

Yes, Warnock is on the verge of winning an award - and Newton is also a chance. This, more so than the earthquake, is a sign of the pending apocalypse.

Next Week
Footscray at Casey Fields. Now, I've made a terrible mistake and booked myself into something I can't get out of next Saturday so I'll need a guest reporter for this game. Either email me (supermercado AT demonblog DOT com), PM me on Big Footy or @ me on Twitter if you're interested. First come first served.

God help me if my family find out that I'm not going to this game after I blew off a family reunion last week by claiming that it was more important to go and watch John Meesen at Optus Oval.

Round One Watch
Am I the only one starting to get sick fantasies about knocking over North in Round One?