Theme From Cannibal Holocaust

At the risk of getting the CIA involved (immediately doubling the readership of Demonblog to two) July 30, 2011 was my own personal version of 9/11. And just like with America that day ushered in an era where we'd lurch between pointless conflicts while the whole place was flushed down the crapper.

Obviously nobody died on that day at Kardinia Park (other than the MFC careers of Dean Bailey and Emo Maric), but the shocking, brutal events of that afternoon shattered the club into so many pieces that we may be waiting another five years just to get back to the battling mid-table team that we were threatening to become until 2.10pm that afternoon when the walls caved in.

I don't propose to depress you with a look back at that day, but if you're a true masochist you can double your Demonblog by crying along with the memories of the preposterous, over dramatically titled post that I wrote just a few hours later. Much like the 2000 Grand Final and most other posts I've never bothered to go back for another look at it, but the stats don't lie and it's officially the most read page in Demonblog history, which means you're all sick, sadistic bastards.

Due to never having seen any of the highlights - other than the shot of the final goal going in which has appeared in about 12 different MFC Facebook of the Week videos - and refusing to re-read my own (presumably very detailed and scholarly) post what actually happened that day is a mystery to me. At half-time I was angry, then the second half passed in a confused, shocked daze as it just got worse, and worse, and worse. We even kicked four goals in the third quarter and I couldn't tell you about any of them. Maybe it's just me, we kicked four goals this week and I'd struggle to tell you about all of them - I remember Shannon Byrnes over celebrating once and Dawes kicking one from the square but there's not enough space in my brain for all the mediocre memories.

I remember more of the Casey game beforehand, with Fev giving up the chase and leaving his opponent to run riot at the other end of the field while the 'prospective AFL draftee' leant against a goalpost and Geelong won by 130 points. It was at that point that I foolishly tweeted something along the lines of "at least we can't be any worse", tempting fate to a near criminal degree before we were the victim of something which wouldn't have been out of place in a snuff film shortly after.

Other than running into somebody I knew at the train station afterwards, when I was apparently as white as a sheet, and seeing some random using a giant red finger which had been handed out pre-match to sing - not unreasonably - "down down, Melbourne are down" from the street there is nothing else I remember between South Geelong and Southern Cross. A pre-arranged trip to see some rubbish film at MIFF was ruined when I yelled at some beardos behind us because they wouldn't shut up (I was trying to concentrate on working out what had just happened, bugger the film), then I came home and nearly tore this very same keyboard in two with righteous indignation and furious anger. It's all a bit of a daze, but the anger I felt that night puts today into ridiculous amounts of perspective. Maybe too much perspective.

What made that day so much more shocking than anything else was that relatively speaking it came out of nowhere. We'd put in toilet performances against good sides all year but never to that degree. Today it was just assumed that we'd lose by 100 and anything lower than that was basically a win.

It's not been all bad times down there though - just mostly - for instance who could forget the ridiculous scenes of joy and general class warfare that greeted the final siren in Round 20, 2005? I went right off in the spirit of this guy and shouted some shameful things at the assembled locals, who presumably had the last laugh when their side came back three weeks later to gub us in a final that I inexplicably missed by not taking a day off work. And, err, that's it. The draw was another game I missed during my years doing putrid, soul destroying shift work.

I chickened out of going back last year. Our 'disappointing' start to the season and the fact that the place was a construction site convince me to be a complete coward and stay at home, missing what was against all odds our first, and nearly last, reasonable losing performance of the Neeld era. I used the half-time break to do the vacuuming.

Overall going into today I was 1-7 at Kardinia Park, with a points differential of -376 (admittedly much of that from one game), and though it was fairly obvious that we weren't going to improve on that today I still felt that 20 days short of two years from THAT DAY it was as good a time as any to get back on the horse and drag myself back to Geelong to face the music while standing next to a crop rotation specialist from Winchelsea.

The idea of returning to ground zero was hard enough to come to terms with anyway, but at the risk of Mark Robinson leaping out from behind a pillar to order me to 'harden up' I almost did another shameful runner when the mid week weather report suggested it was going to rain. Call me pissweak if you will, but the idea of going 100km to get soaked AND watch us get tonked by 20 goals hardly appealed. Then the Bureau of Meteorology suggested it was just a 50% chance of rain between 0-2mm, and I looked deep within my soul to realise that if I was interested in good times and great classic hits why would I even go to 80% of MFC games anyway. And there was my answer, I was going back whether it was a good idea or not.

With the Bureau having what could only be described as a patchy record at predictions over the years the idea of insuring myself against pneumonia by booking a reserve seat undercover appealed, until I saw that said undercover seat (presumably in whatever their version of Row LL is) cost $67, whereas I could get away with $27.50 if I took the risk and stood. After stand in pissing rain all day I am willing to accept that the 50% chance of rain represented a coin toss, but would like an explanation of what sort of container they're measuring the 2mm of rain in - an Olympic sized swimming pool? The Pacific Ocean? It wasn't as bad as that Foxtel Cup game in Perth during the week, but it was bad enough.

If I didn't know it was all going to go wrong in the end (spoiler alert: it did, in a way) the signs that the day wasn't going to be the fairytale that we all hoped it would should have been there when I couldn't even make it to Kooyong station without being rained on. There I found a Collingwood fan with a voice so plummy that he should (and probably used to) follow us whinging to a child about how badly Travis Cloke was rorted by the umpires last night. After admitting he hadn't even watched the game the kid then taunted him with the theory that Cloke was going to retire at the end of the year. Upon boarding the train 'dad' then proceeded to treat the carriage to his impression of various Australian bird calls, as I exchanged glances with the Geelong fan opposite me as if to say if one of us suggested physically throwing him out of the doors of the train the other one would gladly agree to be in on it.

In comparison the trip to Geelong was downright civilised, and not surprisingly half-empty as people who had obviously looked at a more up to date weather report than I decided to stay in and enjoy the award winning commentary of Dwayne Russell while roasting chestnuts on an open fire.

I'd love to say that your guess about what happened during the game is as good as mine, but due to the vast majority of people being sensible enough to stay home and watch it on TV for once almost everyone reading this saw far more of the game than I did. Apparently Matt Jones got a shitload of the ball. The stats don't lie but I don't remember 3/4 of them. It's alleged that Sylvia 'battled hard' through the second half, but from where I was standing he didn't get a kick. Even the alleged Steve Johnson flying knee drop on Nathan Jones is a total mystery to me. This is all nobody's fault but mine for watching it through sleet, but please be gentle in your "HOW COULD YOU NOT SEE THAT YOU CLOWN!?" abuse.

The one thing I'll say for standing out in the open in pissing rain all day for the first time since Round 13, 1998 (and that was just youthful stupidity considering we had the whole Ponsford Stand to hide in and chose the very front row behind the goals) is that while the rain never stopped at least the wind was reasonable and kept the Kardinia Park comfort index above that of a North Korean prison camp. While standing up in the rain is much better than sitting down (i.e the water just rolls off you instead of pooling around the jatz crackers) I still look forward to paying the price for my stupidity by becoming violently ill in the next few days.

Even before the outrageous lies of the weather forecasters were exposed and it turned out that the match would be played in a duck pond I went in with reasonably high expectations - relatively speaking anyway. If Neeld had still been in charge and we'd not had three reasonable performances in a row I've have expected to be beaten to death by at least a hundred no matter how inclement the conditions. Now the brief but promising Craig era had raised my expectations from NIL to LOW and suddenly I expect to score at least 50 points every week (oops). To have reached the point where 50 satisfies me is outrageous - it should be the god given right of every team to see their side score 50 ever week - but you can't guarantee that with Melbourne over the last couple of years.

At least today they had an excuse. We might not have got to 50 today and registered our equal fifth lowest score since 1980 but you can't help but think that had we still been playing like the shipwreck of six weeks ago we'd have been lucky to even get today's token one goal per quarter.

Coaching is like doing your tax returns in public every week, and Craig has struck a good balance so far. He's being a bit loose and adding a few zeroes here and there but not going over the top - as opposed to Neeld who was so conservative that he probably didn't claim things that he was entitled to and still ended up with a $600,000 payout at the end. Today the caretaker hit a massive hurdle (accountants - insert your own tax analogy), but that's ok - if you'd offered me that margin before the start of play today I'd have gladly taken it. Even after seeing my lowest MFC (or anybody for that matter) score at a live game since taking up this terrible addiction near the end of the 1989 season I'm struggling to get angry. Let's not get ahead of ourselves based on one decent performance against the Swans, this game was always going to be a reality check.

Unfortunately for Neil all the Craigmentum that he'd built up over the last few weeks has probably been washed away - perhaps unfairly - as he inherits the all time record low for inside 50's (since they started counting them in '99). I'd still rank him below Roos and Choco, but it's not his fault our midfield is one of the worst ever to breath oxygen.

I can't decide whether it would have been better or worse if the game had been played in perfect conditions. It might have been more attractive, and we might have kicked 10 goals in better conditions, but they'd have probably booted 25 so let's just pretend that the margin leaves us with a shred of dignity and move on to next week. Somewhere Bailey and Neeld are holed up together in the last days of their intensive counselling course, pissing themselves laughing at never registering a score so low, but Craig will have to go hard to try and match the six 100 point losses those two managed between them. He did, however, achieve something to remember by achieving the first ever Bailey Quarter Grand Slam with one goal in each term.

Other than obscure moments in history like that it's certainly not a day that will live long in the memory for anyone. In fact a few hours later and having watched the last 10 minutes of the replay I'm not entirely sure about 90% of what happened out there. It's all a blur of unheralded Geelong players treating the day as if they were playing in the dry and Steve Johnson gathering 5000 possessions, hitting one target and still being best on ground while our entire side skated around as if on an ice-rink, shattering world records in several categories include the most overhead marks dropped in one match.

In no way do I blame the coach for the overall result given that we were always on a hiding to nothing, but I'm ever so slightly concerned that we didn't take the conditions seriously. Maybe like me they forgot to look at the updated report on the morning of the game, but given the fact that it pissed down all day our forward line seemed to be overly tall and our midfield overly slight at winning the ball. With Casey playing tomorrow they would have had the choice of all three emergencies if they wanted them, and surely McKenzie would have been a realistic inclusion to help us out in a death slog.

It would have been difficult to give Fitz the boot after he'd just played the game of his life, but anyone could tell that if it was going to rain all day he wasn't going to cover himself in glory. I know Dawes hates rucking but for the sake of one game and his enormous salary could he have covered 20% of the centre bounce duties to allow McKenzie or Rodan back into the side just to play for the conditions? I'm all for having Grimes in the centre square, but he's two weeks back from injury - these conditions required bulldozers, and it wasn't entirely important whether or not they could hit a target once they got it.

I'd have preferred we put another midfielder in, but really in the grand scheme of things it was unlikely to make too much of a difference. After a relatively bright start marred only by Trengove's panic kick cost us the first goal we were second class citizens from 10 minutes into the first quarter. In honour of Multicultural Round we played an oppressed minority, brutalised everywhere but on the scoreboard. Everything we got, including a quarter of our goals, came from them getting sick of toying with us or just flat out stuffing up in the wet conditions. They stuffed up a few times, we did a few hundred.

At least one thing you can say is that we had a bash all day. Even this side couldn't fail to lay a decent amount of tackles in those conditions, but the problem was what to do with the ball on the rare occasions we did get it. With homebrand players who sounded like they should be involved in Rugby Union (or the MFC) like George Horlin-Smith carving us up at one end we spent the whole first half playing right into their trap of roosting hopeful long balls towards our forward line for Harry Taylor to mop up with the greatest of ease. How I wish it had been Rivers doing that instead, it would have been poetic.

With the way we were going forward it could have been a 16-year-old kid plucked from the Geelong Grammar thirds and he'd still have run riot. Taylor even got to go forward in the third quarter when the good Scott brother correctly projected that we were about to put in a shithouse quarter with just two inside 50's and switched him to the other end to keep things interesting. At least he didn't double his pleasure by switching ends and kicking six.

Considering we not only suffered the lowest inside 50 tally in recorded history but also the greatest differential of inside 50's (-51) the backline did another mighty job in limiting the damage. It didn't hurt us that they missed a bunch of chances (2.8) to really pork us in the final term but that just made up for the arsey goals they were kicking in all the other quarters. While Terlich and Clisby were all of a sudden looking out of their depth (quite literally at time) the holy trinity - Frawley, Garland and McDonald - were resolute given what they were trying to work with.

Defending was almost pointless considering it would return a few seconds later but they stood up mightily given the conditions. Even Dunn, level with Nicholson as the most 'much maligned' player on field without Rodan  (who seemed to go from 'much maligned' to 'required player' in the eyes of many after being dropped on Thursday night), Bail or Pedersen to choose from, played a great game. I stand by previous comments that he would be a very handy player in a good team.

Frawley especially makes defending look easy under siege when he's on. Somebody needs to explain to him that while he might never win anything at this club we can at least pay him a fortune to go down in our Hall of Fame as an all-time legend for saving us from disaster so many times. If he stays with us until the end of his career he'll walk out the door as the back line equivalent of Robbie Flower. Also thank christ his suspect hammy held out, I don't think I could have handled him getting hurt again.

Down the other end the stats will once again show that whenever we get the ball inside 50 we are actually not bad at converting it into a score, but obviously when you can't get the ball down in the first place there you're not going to put up a decent score - and with barely anything even remotely approaching crumb to go alongside our tall forwards doing nothing we weren't going anywhere fast.

Good luck playing for as a forward in that game anyway. It could have been Dean Cox, Tony Lockett and Wayne Carey and they'd have only had marginally better luck scoring with the sort of delivery at the rate we deliver it. Even Geelong had to spread their goals out across a bunch of players because Hawkins was doing nothing and Pods didn't turn up until junktime. Fair enough if you've got a spread of players to get them through - we only had one mark inside 50 all day and had to rely on Shannon Byrnes to play his first good game against a decent club all year for half our goals. This is not the mark of a league standard club, and thank god GWS have already banked pick 1.

Craig and Co weren't to know that we were going to struggle so grimly in the third quarter, but I'd have thought that if there was ever a time to bring a sub on at half-time today would have been it. Blease doesn't strike me as the kind of guy suited to playing in a torrential downpour, but he can't have done any less to impact the scoreboard than Fitzpatrick or Watts were doing. He didn't do much when he did come on, but at least it added somebody who could get a kick in the middle of the ground, at the expense of Fitz who was flailing around like a giraffe thrown into the ocean off the deck of a cruise ship.

The issue remains the midfield. Even Geelong's centre clearance adverse midfield couldn't help themselves from winning that stat 16-2. We cannot continue to go on like this. While Nathan Jones was one of our best all day those two clearances came from Byrnes and Terlich (!?). I don't give a rats if Geelong are tossing centre clearances out the window and pioneering some new and exciting tactic that we'll pick up in a few years when it's been discredited, they can afford to concede the middle (except for today when they had no choice) and rapidly attack in the other direction because they've got good players out the yin yang.

We cannot go into next year without addressing this. I was really impressed by Toumpas today, but he's a cherry on top player not a centre clearance player. Matt Jones is ok as in bit part role, Grimes is an option but has never really shown much in the middle, Trengove still looks to be not right and Nicholson is Nicholson. Picking another kid is great for the future (we hope) but under what circumstances can we go into next year without doing something/anything to boost our chances of improving on this front. Other than N. Jones - who hasn't even been getting a decent amount of centre clearances this year even when playing well - it's all about Jack Viney at the moment, but he needs some cover. On the week that Cale Morton somehow makes his league debut for the Eagles let's speculate on how many talented kids we've ruined in the past and vow to never run another one into the ground again.

Hopefully our mixed bag of results from recruiting recycled players this year doesn't totally scare off Coach X if there's somebody who can do the specific job of making sure that our players get onto one or two of Max Gawn's 48 hitouts (the equal second most in a game on record for MFC). Scott Thompson is a free agent, let's get him back just to try and right some historical wrongs. Also speaking of free agents can I have Eddie Betts? I know that'll be controversial, but that's instant crumb right there - surely he prefers money and lots of it to being named sub at the Blues.

No matter what we do it's all just pissing around on the edges until we can fix the middle. I feel as if I'll be writing the same thing every week (and probably will) for the rest of the season - the two ends are in reasonably good shape so we've got to throw everything we've got at the middle.

As for the less successful players I'm not sure what Nicholson was supposed to be doing with Steve Johnson, but if he's a tagger then I'm from the Belgian Congo. He was actually reasonable with the ball in hand, but if there's any day to suit his clanger happy style it was when half the ground was mud. Kent did nothing again. He's young so I can forgive him, but he's due another stint at Casey. Sadly Davey was probably the worst on ground. He seemed totally crocked, and I wonder how much longer he's got in the senior team until sentiment and leadership don't get the job done. He just can't get near it any more, and if he's going to stay in the team he might need to go back to being the permanent sub.

So, for those of you who skip to the votes on the "too long, didn't read" rule (I don't blame you) the short story is that we're still stuffed and probably not going anywhere fast despite having a world class defence and a forward line that scores with a high proportion of our attacks. If you can work all that out there may be a job for you in senior coaching, apply to the Melbourne Football Club c/o a dumpster out the back of Montmorency Coles.

2013 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - James Frawley
4 - Nathan Jones
3 - Tom McDonald
2 - Lynden Dunn
1 - Shannon Byrnes

Apologies to Garland, Gawn, Grimes, Toumpas and apparently Matt Jones.

Leaderboard
Those votes have pretty much finished the main award, with everyone other than Matt Jones at least three clear BOGs out of first place with seven games left to play. All other categories still wide open.

34 - Nathan Jones (PROVISIONAL WINNER: 2013 Allen Jakovich Medal)
19 - Matt Jones (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Rising Star Award)
18 - Colin Garland (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Jeremy Howe
17 - Dean Terlich
15 - James Frawley
14 - Colin Sylvia
11 - Jack Viney
10 - Shannon Byrnes
8 - Jack Watts
7 - Lynden Dunn, Tom McDonald
6 - Michael Evans
5 - Aaron Davey, Chris Dawes, Max Gawn (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Jack Grimes, James Magner, Jack Trengove
4 - Jack Fitzpatrick
2 - Rohan Bail, Mark Jamar
1 - Mitch Clark, Jordie McKenzie, Jake Spencer, Luke Tapscott

Crowd Watch
The Geelong Football Club is like Cold Chisel, a group with a good body of work who are let down by their association with dickheads. Having never been to Subiaco, and only to Football Park for a Port game with nobody there going to Kardinia Park is the best way to get that special feeling that only comes around when your supporters are in the overwhelming minority and the locals enjoy the opportunity to actual like they're at the Nuremburg Rally.

The only difference to Adelaide and Perth is that in Geelong they've got three recent flags AND are safe in the knowledge that they only ever have to play home games against teams who will bring 25 fans. One day somebody will forget to rort the fixture and schedule a Collingwood game there - and on that day there will be riots so spectacular that even the AFL won't be able to sweep them under the rug. Until then they'll enjoy lording it over the likes of us, doing as they please.

The crowd's tone was set today when during the (admittedly cringeworthy) 'welcome to country' video on the big screen before the game one of the locals did his bit for race relations by yelling out "Hey, it's the Oonga Boonga tribe!" He and various other simpletons then proceeded to spend the first half issuing 'funnies' that wouldn't have been considered amusing in the vaudeville era - including the worst of all spectating gimmicks, patronisingly pretending you're supporting the other team and cheering individual possessions like they're goals in a grand final. Die in a fire.

On the other hand right in front of us were a bunch of 'boisterous' Melbourne fans who appeared to be absolutely off their collective faces. In fact I'm not even sure they were with us even though one was wearing a comedy MFC wig. It seemed more like a group of locals who turned up just to cause trouble by cheering against the Cats or people trying to win a local radio station promotion.

They were shamelessly offensive, and I wished I could have somehow found a way to move out of the middle and allow them to stand right in front of the yobbos behind us, as it would have absolutely led to fisticuffs which would have made being there worthwhile. Sadly one incredibly foul-mouthed anti-Daniel Nicholson spray later somebody must have texted the crowd behaviour hotline, because all of a sudden these two showed up and 'had words':

Sadly that was it. They argued briefly with the fuzz before it was suggested that they could be quiet or argue it 'outside' (which may have been local code for a shallow grave in the Otways), and that saw an end to some of the worst abuse of all-time at multiple premiership players who have won 75% of the matches in their career while supposedly supporting a club who couldn't win a meat raffle. It was up there with '09 when one of ours (possibly the same guy) stood on the same steps and screamed out that Cameron Ling was - quote - "the worst captain in the history of the league", only for one of the locals to accurately point out that he'd quite recently done something that no Melbourne captain had done in more than 40 years. Game, set and match.

The presence of the law put an end to their fun, and any chance of an all-in with the peanuts behind us, but to nobody's surprise the rozzers weren't as keen on telling off anybody not wearing MFC merchandise for acting the goat. If you were in blue and white say what you like and they'll look over, realise you're one of them and ignore it.

Sadly as everyone succumbed to Chinese Water Torture in the second half the atmosphere in the crowd dropped away, leaving only a few token lunatics yelling random abuse to try and justify standing there being pelted by the rain. We provided one guy who took the 'controversial' boundary umpiring decisions rather badly and spent the third quarter yelling out like a goose whenever the ball went near the line. They gave us some screeching fishwife who was convinced that 'her' Cats were the victims of some outrageous umpiring conspiracy and wasn't shy about telling the world. These people are so bored with winning that they like to pretend they're being hard done by just to get a taste of what other footy fans are feeling.

At one point I'm sure Sex Witch Robin Fletcher walked up the stairs past us, conveniently enough after half time when the cops had pushed off. That was about as good as it got as interest in the game and life itself denigrated even further in the second half while the Demons put in what is statistically one of the most boring performances in modern history.

Most of the remaining MFC fans eventually took to turning around and watching the scoreboard behind them, probably just to use the helpful Fox Footy coverage to see how long there was left before they could go home and curl up into a ball. It was the least Fox could do for us, having interrupted the second quarter to play a highlights package of all the great moments during and after 186.

At least the food was 'good'. Maybe not by community standards, but compared to the MCG their $5 hot dogs were at least edible and you could buy one from a competent, interested adult instead of a surly, hungover 15-year-old.

The only thing that lets the place down, other than the locals, is the 'entertainment', which is even worse than the industry standard Pete Lazar/James Sherry stuff other clubs serve up at the MCG. Every person who was handed a microphone delivered their lines in such a wooden style that it seemed as if they were reading off cue cards while somebody pressed a revolver into their back. At one point we were treated to a 'race' between a giant button and the strangely feminine Cats mascot which - after several attempts - ended in a photo finish which was then "referred upstairs" only for the "video umpire" to decide that the vision was inconclusive. The crowd rewarded this 'gag' with total silence, not even the usual token laughter of children. The good news is that in a piece of forward promotion that Vince McMahon would whop off over a rematch was set for October's Run Geelong event. Can't wait for that, hopefully they can stretch it out all the way to next year's Wrestlemania where the Cotton On Button will win after the Nando's Chicken hits the Geelong Cat with a steel chair.

In a pointless twist the scoreboard also showed the margin at the end of every quarter, for those in the crowd who were unable to subtract one number from another. It's a strange place, but when it's half empty (and preferably dry) it has its charms.

Next Week
If Darwin is supposed to be our second home and all that shit (the late C. Schwab even wanted two games there, which you'd think is off the agenda now unless our new owners shaft us) how come there's already been an AFL and NRL game there in the last two months? Don't blame us if nobody turns up having already exhausted their interest in going to see visiting teams on Bulldogs vs Port and Penrith vs who cares. Are we sure that the A-League and NBL schedules couldn't be altered to get a game up there in the next week to screw us as well?

At least if the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory runs us out of town like the ACT one did we can go to Cairns instead, now that Richmond is flush with cash and can afford not to act like a poor club by selling games to places with names like "Cazaly's Stadium". There's something to look forward to.

If there's anything to be said, apart from the huge financial windfall, from shifting our game to Darwin it's that we're back to playing a team who aren't much chop (though they have just won two in a row, which meakes it a great time to run into them) AND that we've had a week's practice playing with a greasy (or more appropriately 'sodden') ball. Certainly not expecting a win, but another couple of decent quarters like last time we played the Lions would be nice. Knowing our luck we'll probably put in a surprise blockbusting four-quarter performance which causes Voss to get sacked and Roos to sign on as their coach on Monday while we're left with Gary Buckenara.

Without the benefit of the Casey game having happened yet at the time of writing - and no mystery injuries or surprise suspensions having been announced yet - I'd like to keep the side reasonably stable and make just the following changes thanks:

IN: McKenzie, Viney
OUT: Davey, Nicholson

LUCKY: Kent (though odds on he'll get the boot instead of Davey to try and protect our relationship with the Northern Territory government)
UNLUCKY: Magner (FFS), Rodan, anybody else who plays a good game in the 2's.

MFC Facebook Comment of the Week

You'd have thought that after a fortnight where everyone was whistling Zippidy Doo Dah out of their ringpiece normal service would have well and truly been resumed, but either the censors have cut a swathe through the MFC page or everyone's just given up - as the two thread about the game have no more than 50 comments each.

If the public aren't going to bother neither am I. This segment will go into its now traditional end of season recess after next week so get your fill of mid-range nutbaggery while you can. This guy wins for the week just because he posted it in every thread during the day as if he was making some kind of amazing, insightful point that everyone just had to say. Of course it didn't make any sense on press conference threads, but what does that matter?

Yawn. Fire up Australia.

Was it worth it?
In an objective analysis no, not at all. But unlike you I've got a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that makes me nervous and anxious if I'm not at the game when I could be. So in a roundabout way for my mental health yes it was. I need therapy.

Final Thoughts
People are strange. Says the guy who paid money to stand in pouring rain all day to watch a lost cause.