For those of you who are into religious matters, a) isn't it a bit unusual to follow the Demons?, and b) what have we done to be involved in so many lightning stoppages? Off the top of my head, there's the inaugural AFLW game, West Coast nearly running us down, the unnecessary delay to a final round slopfest nobody cared about, and now this game x2. For the sake of the narrative, let's pretend the lights went out in Bendigo and Brisbane for the same reason. And now this. Maybe it's delayed cosmic justice for rorting the draft in 2009.
This was the first time we've had two lightning stoppages, and you could tell from the first shot of the broadcast that there was something evil in the sky. I was expecting more 'unmerciful pissing rain' like the GWS/Sydney game, but I'm not sure there was a single drop of rain during the game. But somewhere within 10km there was lightning, and that was enough to shut up shop. It's one thing packing up on the second delay in a throwaway game like this, but let's have a match not involving us that is stopped three or four times, with scores close enough that there'll be a riot if it's abandoned with the result standing. We won't be involved any time soon, so why not a Grand Final? Fair chance I've called for this scenario in every post linked above.
Who knows what the City of Ballarat paid to host three games over the weekend, like an even worse version of Opening Round, but I bet when the 4pm start was agreed they were more concerned about the traditional pre-season heat than storm havoc. Especially when the stadium's lights were capable of about 1 more lux than your traditional Coles Homebrand globe.
Luckily, there were as many people in the crowd as watching at home so people will still associate Ballarat with Sovereign Hill rather than unseen violent electrical storms. Surely they had better lights at some point and are in the process of installing proper, AFL standard ones as part of the stadium upgrade. It's been 11 years since the ground announcer kept describing the stadium as Footscray's "new home ground" as if he knew something the rest of us didn't. They've only progressed to having a stand under construction now, but the sight of unfinished concrete gave me instant Gawn after the siren flashbacks. To be fair, walking down the street reminds me of that blessed event. The difference was these were on the wing, so instead of aiming the most important set shot in modern history at concrete, you'd have to kick spectacularly OOF to land the ball in the construction zone. If any teams could pull it off, it was Richmond post-dynasty and/or us post-one hit wonder.
I'm happy with our draftees, but a bit sad that Richmond got a guy called 'Peucker'. Rarely do you find somebody who provides a choice of spew or flange references. Such a thing is too important to be left in the hands of Dwayne Russell, so thank god the Peuck wasn't available and we didn't have to listen to Dwayne focus testing 'spontaneous' gags that will 'randomly' crop up later in the season when people are watching. Also, on the claims that a Richmond player is nicknamed "Sizzle", somebody will be hearing from my lawyers. The rest of the commentary team were fine (Brad Johnson lineball, but hooray for Jess Webster being good so we can hang shit on Kelli Underwood and be clear it's got nothing to do with gender), but this guy is going to give me the shits again. I'd still have him over BT, but that's like choosing Smallpox or Malaria. Jason Bennett is a free agent after Channel 7 sacked him for displaying insufficient levels of buffoonery, he'd be a decent balance to Dwayne carrying on like a pork chop.
Speaking of the coverage, which has been a better talking point than our football in recent years, based on the pre-match interviews Steven King may be the nicest person alive. I've come to appreciate that this is a better way to start than fire/brimstone coaches telling players how shit they are, but lets see if he descends down the Misery Index when things get serious. Pre-season performance is not a reliable indicator of future success, but it's hard to know what to believe after playing ourselves, an unofficial game against last year's 16th best team, and little more than a half against 17th.
The first two minutes were good for football and shit for footballers. It started with Gawn sticking the ball down Steele's throat at the first bounce, which was nice, but in the absence of Mihocek (concussed) and Jefferson (midweek foot explosion), our first two forward entries sank without a trace. Then just as Kentfield was about to mark after a fantastic lead he got elbowed right on the top of his head, one of the few spots not previously broken.
Kentfield escaped concussion, but was stunned badly enough to hit the ground like a crash-landing plane and do his knee to a degree unknown at time of publication. There's no such thing as a 'good' knee injury, but it's shithouse timing for somebody who came back from the dead to where he could've easily been given the Jed Adams special taster game post-Goodwin. Then he plays through a recently busted face, took his accidental chance last week superbly, then does exactly what you'd want of him and goes down after copping a slapstick, Three Stooges-style blow to the head. Yes, I am over-correcting out of guilt at suggesting he was a certainty to be delisted halfway through last year.
He joins our growing injury leaderboard, where we're responding to the misleading information about player return controversy by not giving any.
Note: Apparently, the sacrum is "a large, triangular-shaped bone at the base of the spine", not something plum related.
As Kent hobbled off with two trainers, whoever makes the final decision on lightning stoppages was nice enough to wait for Harvey Langford to take the free kick. "I think they're reviewing it", said you know who. Unless he meant the weather report, they weren't. A week after we nearly became the first team to nearly 'lose' (technically) a game after the siren despite being 86 points in front, this was another trailblazing moment. Surely no team has ever had the injury, goal, game stopped trifecta.
So, two minutes into the game it was back to the rooms, where players had to find ways to fill the time so apparently engaged in a Men's Shed inspired discussion group. I bet Amazon Prime saw this and kicked themselves at not starting season two of the documentary in Ballarat.
this is what it looks like when the pre-season is culminating pic.twitter.com/JLsNG1RMrc
— Emlyn Breese (@EmlynBreese) February 27, 2026
It was too dangerous for play to continue, but not for Jack Viney and Ben Dixon to stand one metre over the boundary line having time-filling chit-chat. In the second most profound thing he's said at a Richmond game (after the time he won the medal and said Australia was really good), Jack pointed this out. I'm no lightning expert, but I guess there's more chance of it finding 36 players + umpires than two blokes and a cameraman. Obviously Dwayne was having a whizz when this was happening, because five minutes later he goes "Nobody's allowed on the ground, we better get Dicko off". Mars Stadium is not just a stadium name, it's a fitting tribute to whatever planet this guy comes from.
Half an hour later we were back to defend the 6-0 lead, and soon doubled that when Gawn marked at close range. You'll never guess what the topic of conversation was on commentary, and even after he'd kicked it perfectly they'd barely finished defaming his set shots by the time Richmond responded. We then got the season's first mention of 'Fritz', JVR was called McDonald, and it was said that if we'd "known" Kentfield would be injured we may have played Heath. As well as, or instead of? Because I'd be outraged if we had holy visions of a player getting hurt and still sent him out to play. As we were without a second ruckman, I preferred McDonald as backup instead of van Rooyen.
This game was only marginally more useful than last week for judging the future, but we were on top for everything other than converting chances and stopping Richmond kicking goals from the top of the square. I get the feeling May is never coming back, which is big news for my claims that Petty was his natural replacement. If it doesn't happen I'll be blaming him spending two years as a forward, and he was a bit ropey in his first game for the season but I'm not giving in yet. At least they left him down there after Kentfield was injured, last year Petty would've been flung into attack at warp speed under these circumstances.
After potentially premature claims that our forward line looked dangerous last week, the talls were doing nothing (for now), but enter Chandler, Sharp, and Tholstrup with a nice long set shot. Sadly no "Sellies" this week as I'm sure it cost us Logie Award winning commentary. I'm tempted to say you had to weight this performance against the opposition, but Richmond wasn't that much worse than us last year with an average age of about 15. We're definitely not kicking 7.2 in many first terms this year, but regardless of the opposition and use of the wind you'd be a miserable bastard to complain.
If we're going to be an average side again, I'd rather go down swashbuckling than lose 52-57, but based on limited exposure against rebuilding teams, this could be Baileyball's Revenge. We'll look like the greatest show on earth a few times during the year, and each will be followed by fans gouging their eyes out in a fit of self-loathing. The difference is that Bailey had to build from the lost ruins of an average civilisation with shadowy forces operating around his, while King has inherited a half-decent team which has already been warmed up with recent top draft picks so I don't think it will flame out as badly.
Richmond was taking this seriously in every way except their jumper with the all-yellow front which looked like the sort of generic top you'd buy for $10 from Victoria Market to play indoor soccer in before Temu was invented. They had a good start to the quarter before JVR decided he didn't give a stuff about the wind and kicked two in quick succession. One came from a nice pass by Laurie that the umpire decided hadn't gone far enough about 1m after it came off his boot. Which was false, but the early notice worked in van Rooyen's favour, allowing him to overcome the distance-challenged official and kick the goal. To paraphrase David Brent, sometimes the decisions will be false.
I don't expect umpires to judge distance with military-grade accuracy on the fly, but I wonder if their training ever involves coaches setting up cones in the distance, saying "how far do you think that is?" then telling them how far off they are.
The best way to tell that this was a pre-season game that you should only take half-seriously was that we had a more verstatile forward line than the opposition. Richmond kicked goals from close range, but any shot from more 30 metres out drifted away from goal and into the pocket. It worked once, before our defenders realised what was going on. JVR got a third, this time via a 50 which took him into the square. Seemed like fair reward for having to pluck the first two out of thin air. He then took delivery of a Pickett bullet pass and missed the set shot, but good signs nonetheless.
By half time I'd seen enough to wrap things up and head home, but was open to a second half where we wheeled out a few young players who'd been kept in reserve, tried some wacky pre-season tactical stuff, and left our most important players on far too long. Maybe they'd rented the dressing rooms by the hour, because the same players who had to walk casually for their life earlier in the game spent the shortened break standing in the middle of the ground. That's putting a lot of faith in the weather radar not being a few kilometres out, and as subsequent events showed there was still non-Pickett generated electricity in the air. Fun fact - if there's no weather radar available you're supposed to judge the likelihood of being blown up by methods including counting the seconds between lightning and thunder.
Ready for a lot more of Kozzy to Latrelle in 2026 and beyond 🤝#AFLDeesTigers pic.twitter.com/Aen8RMapM0
— AFL (@AFL) February 27, 2026
Multiple people have tried to tell me this wasn't a free, which is the sporting equivalent of when people will go along with any mad political shit just to support their side.
Let's have a moment for the defender stumbling to the ground in cartoonish fashion as if this sound effect was playing.
Decent finish though, and it saved an otherwise "can't play North Melbourne every week" performance by Latrelle. If his surname was Smith I wouldn't pick him for Round 1, but after trying to lure punters to the first game of 2025 with Irish dancing, multiPickett is an obvious crowd-pleasing choice. If he doesn't play first up, he won't be far behind.
For the second time that afternoon our goal set off the lightning warning. At least this time they didn't wait for somebody to take a set shot before evacuating players for their own safety. Said players were so concerned that they hung out in the middle of the ground having a chat for the next few minutes. I don't know why Gawn and Nankervis didn't just shake hands and agree to depart on the spot, but after Max criticised the new ruck rules he was probably worried the AFL would spitefully charge him for. Instead, it was back to the rooms for several minutes more than you'd think necessary to declare the game off.
The result is irrelevant, but as we were winning I'd like to point out that a game is official at half time. It dudded Thomas (who I will refuse to call 'Tom' in the interests of raising the tone) Matthews out of his first start in AFL company, and Xavier Taylor out of a chance to press for Round 1 selection. Otherwise, there wasn't much more to be gained, but I hope it played havoc with the sort of bozos who bet on pre-season games.
And finally, I'm too old to understand most of what's going on with our social media these days (including the club finally getting into the novelty t-shirt market by flogging something about Jiath skiing for $60), but I appreciate their artistic decision to go directly from Lever carrying on like he's in Full Metal Jacket to him running around flapping his arms like a bird.
Warming up to go run some laps 🤬 Here's what happened after the second stoppage in play.#DemonSpirit pic.twitter.com/7vtFr8eyly
— Melbourne Demons (@melbournefc) February 28, 2026
I don't suppose players are allowed to object to anything being shown these days - especially just as the behind the scenes documentary we willingly signed up to starts showing - but if my work posted a video like that I'd piff admin's phone out the window. Probably doesn't have the slightest impact on the actual playing of football, but I'm here to say "I told you so" when a player eventually cracks the shits and walks out after being made to look like a knob.
2025 Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance
If you thought deciding this award on two games was a farce, what about one and a half games? The AFL Integrity Department has been on the phone, and next year we're definitely doing intraclub votes.
4 - Max Gawn
3 - Jack Steele
2 - Jacob van Rooyen
1 - Tom Sparrow
Jack Steele's MFC welcome basket has an award in it. Sure, it might be the least prestigious one in the game, but you can't complain about free honours after captaining St Kilda. This is the second time a player has arrived from another club and pocketed the Prymke on arrival. Hopefully Jack has a longer, happier career with us than 2015 winner Heritier Lumumba
7 - Jack Steele
Next week +1
If you're new to this, the brackets are the range I think the team will finish in. If you'd rather ruthlessly hold me to exact positions, my score will be updated throughout the year via Squiggle's handy Rate My Ladder. Last year, I scored C grade despite some laughably bad predictions, so follow along as we aim for better.
2 - Footscray
3 - Gold Coast
4 - Fremantle
5 - Hawthorn
6 - St Kilda
7 - Greater Western Sydney
8 - Sydney
9 - Collingwood
10 - Adelaide
11 - Geelong (now watch them regenerate like him from Terminator 2)
12 - Carlton
13 - Melbourne (but a good 13th, if such a thing exists)
14 - Port Adelaide
15 - Richmond
16 - Essendon
17 - West Coast
18 - North Melbourne
C: Windsor, Langford, Langdon
Just as I was going to send this, the conclusion (?) to the long running Steven May saga ended with a negotiated retirement just in time for us to find a replacement. His real and alleged personal scandals are not my concern, I'd prefer to remember the greatest MFC defender in my time watching the game. After a dud first season with us, he was unbelievable from mid-2020 to mid-2024, and the story about playing in the Grand Final with his hamstring on the verge of shredding into a thousand pieces deserves to be club legend. Sure he annoyed Melksham enough to get punched in the head, and had an unnecessary on-field sook towards Gawn, but Christ on a Bike what a player. We're at the point where people can say "yeah but..." and invent any lurid story about him that people will believe, but from a pure football perspective, his run with us was brief but spectacular and I hope whatever's going on off the field won't get worse with 52 weeks a year of free time.
The three longest-running sagas in Victoria are an airport train, fast rail to Sydney, and the MFC's quest for a combined training and administration base. The first one is allegedly happening, the second is on its 932nd expensive feasibility study, and both will be going before we finalise a home venue. The latest is that we're off to Waverley for somewhere between 'a bit' and 'several decades'.
Just let us play Round 1 next week you bastards.
