Every Day Is Like Sunday

2012 Demonblog award betting markets - first draft

2012-01-24T13:10:00.003+11:00

It's that time of the year again, in a tradition that has been going since.. err 2011.. Demonblog officially opens for business for another year - our eighth - with the Australia Day week look at who's a chance of taking home an honour at the end of the year.

We locked top betting luminaries such as Glen Munsie, Gary Davies, Jamie Rogers, Neil Evans, Hayden Haitana, Ryan Tandy and Freaked underscore Out in a room and gave them a simple brief - give our readers opening markets and give them value when you do it. And they did.

Updated markets will appear in the official season preview before the NAB Cup begins. Until then feel free to line up ridiculous side bets with each other based on the numbers below. Full vote counts from each year can be found here. Demonblog.com and its corporate partners will not be held responsible for any losses which you incur from these markets.

Gamble responsibly, throw all pokies into the sea etc.. Last year I had a tenner on Addam Maric to be the first goalkicker, I can tell you about irresponsible gambling.

Allen Jakovich Medal for Player of the Year
5-4-3-2-1 votes in every home and away and finals (god forbid) match. Final pre-season price in brackets.

2005 - Travis Johnstone
2006 - Brock McLean
2007 - Nathan Jones
2008 - Cameron Bruce
2009 - Aaron Davey ($8)
2010 - Brad Green ($4)
2011 - Brent Moloney ($9)

2012 market
In order to avoid having my car bricked driving down Brunton Avenue I should point out that what follows isn't a scientific discussion of who our most important players are or who will win the MFC B&F. I've taken into account everyone's previous performances in the Jakovich as well as their chances of winning after losing votes to similar players (defenders/ruckmen etc..)

Any so as is tradition last year's winner starts favourite, and why shouldn't he? Beamer might have edged out Sylvia by three votes in 2011 thanks to a) a handful of outright belter games and b) Col getting himself suspended at the end of the year but I've got no doubt that with (presumably) increased support in the midfield this season that he won't be up there again.

The Golden Child Trengove is probably too short, given that he only polled 16 votes last season (=8th) but with any luck he won't spend three weeks on the sidelines at Her Majesty's Pleasure for this time around. The Demonblog Betting Exchange is setting him at a low level to guard against the prospect of a swashbuckling third season - watch odds based on pre-season performance.

Grimes represents decent value at $15 but that involves him staying fit for more than ten minutes at a time. At the moment his entire career vote tally would have only been good for equal 3rd in the 2011 count so if you're prepared to wager on him staying fit you'll get value.

Garland and Rivers aren't a bad bet but I'm speculating that they'll both lose so many votes to Frawley that it will put them out of the running. Besides, I think I can speak for everybody when I say that if we have too many games that justify two or more defenders scoring votes then we'll all die of a nervous breakdown halfway through the year anyway.

Jamar's chances hinge on having another injury free season (and smashing the glass ceiling for ruckmen) and the Stef Martin Experience's hopes rest on him having another injury full year. Either way I expect they'll take enough votes off each other to assure comfortable mid-table finishes all round.

Under the $20 mark Davey, Bail, Tapscott and Morton probably represent the best value. Cale is hardly likely to win the thing but you'd have a cheeky fiver at that price just in case wouldn't you? "Only if there was another zero on the end" I hear you say.

So and so forth down to poor old Maximum Gawn who hasn't to my knowledge been put on the LTI list yet so could IN THEORY come back well prematurely David Schwarz style then storm to victory. But he won't so you can have $50k for him if you're really keen.

$3.50 - Brent Moloney
$4 - Jack Trengove, Colin Sylvia
$5 - James Frawley, Jack Watts
$7 - Nathan Jones
$8 - Jordie McKenzie
$10 - Brad Green, Mark Jamar
$15 - Mitch Clark, Stefan Martin, Jack Grimes
$18 - Colin Garland, Jared Rivers
$20 - Jordan Gysberts, Liam Jurrah
$30 - Aaron Davey, Ricky Petterd, Luke Tapscott
$32 - Rohan Bail, Sam Blease, Lynden Dunn
$35 - Jeremy Howe, Daniel Nicholson, Neville Jetta
$45 - Clint Bartram, Cale Morton
$50 - Joel Macdonald, Matthew Bate
$75 - James Strauss, Jamie Bennell
$100 - Tom McDonald, James Sellar, Michael Evans
$150 - Jake Spencer, Jack Fitzpatrick
$250 - Lucas Cook, Tom Couch, James Magner
$350 - Kelvin Lawrence
$500 - Troy Davis, Rory Taggert, Josh Tynan
$1000 - Jai Sheahan, Leigh Williams
$5000 - Max Gawn

Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year
Highest vote getter for a defender. Running defenders who spend too much time in the midfield will be disqualified from receiving the award at the discretion of the committee.

2005 - Nathan Carroll and Ryan Ferguson (shared)
2006 - Jared Rivers
2007 - Paul Wheatley
2008 - Matthew Whelan
2009 - James Frawley ($22)
2010 - James Frawley (2) ($3.50)
2011 - James Frawley (3) ($4)

2012 market
Despite the close run Seecamp last year where Frawley (18), Garland (15), Macdonald (14) and Rivers (11) were all in contention until the last couple of weeks I'm backing Chip to run away with it this year and JoelMac to slide down the ladder as his opportunities dry up. Besides I was clearly the only person in the world who thought JoelMac was any good last year then somehow Rivers finished 2nd in the B&F so what do I know?

Buyer beware on Grimes, Bennell and Martin. The Experience is almost certain to be DQ'ed from the award by about three-quarter time of Round 1 and the other two might not be far behind if they spend too much time outside the defensive 50. As for James Sellar who knows what he'll be doing.

$2 - James Frawley
$5 - Colin Garland, Jack Grimes
$7 - Jared Rivers
$15 - Joel Macdonald
$25 - Tom McDonald
$30 - ANY OTHER PLAYER
$50 - Jamie Bennell, James Strauss
$80 - James Sellar
$100 - Stefan Martin
$1000 - NO ELIGIBLE PLAYER

Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year
The highest scoring player in the Jakovich Medal count who has either played zero AFL games before the start of the season OR debuted in the final four games (not including byes) of the preceding season.

2005 - No players eligible.
2006 - Matthew Bate
2007 - Michael Newton
2008 - Cale Morton
2009 - Jack Grimes ($4 fav)
2010 - Tom Scully ($5) [AWARD REVOKED SEPTEMBER 2011]
2011 - Jeremy Howe ($30)

2012 market
For the first time in a few years it's hard to set a market for this one. No top of the draft recruits who are guaranteed a game means that any of five or six could sneak in or for the first time since Demonblog's first year that rookies could miss out on votes altogether.

I'd be looking at the No Eligible option myself but McDonald starts favourite based on encouraging performances late last year while Cook must surely get a game at some point. I expect this market to swing wildly based on NAB Cup/Pre-Season form.

Mind you with apologies to Jeremy Howe and the permanently crocked Grimes would you really want to win this award considering the fate of some of the players above?

$5 - Tom McDonald
$9 - Lucas Cook
$12 - James Magner, Tom Couch
$15 - Kelvin Lawrence, Troy Davis, Jack Fitzpatrick
$20 - Rory Taggert, Josh Tynan
$50 - NO ELIGIBLE PLAYER
$100 - Leigh Williams

Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year
Formerly the Strawbs O'Dwyer Medal

2005 - Jeff White
2006 - Jeff White (2)
2007 - Jeff White (3)
2008 - Paul Johnson
2009 - Mark Jamar ($3)
2010 - Mark Jamar (2) ($1.50 fav)
2011 - Stefan Martin ($30)

2012 market
The smallest field of all sees last year's surprise winner pushed back down into second place due to the full time return of The Russian. And every time he gets five votes this year we will all stand for the anthem.

$2 - Mark Jamar
$6 - Stefan Martin
$50 - Jake Spencer, Jack Fitzpatrick
$100 - ANY OTHER PLAYER
$1000 - NO ELIGIBLE PLAYER
$5000 - Max Gawn

Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance
2008 - Aaron Davey
2009 - Cameron Bruce
2010 - Brad Green
2011 - Colin Sylvia

No market. Refer to the main Jakovich table for a guide. Votes will be given for the intra-club match on February 17 (any guest reporters? I'll do a lot for this club but I won't ditch work to go to Casey Fields) and both games during the NAB Cup menage a trois. At least there are two more properly competitive games after that.

Hall Of Fame Redux

2012-01-18T21:45:00.002+11:00

In 2001 the MFC instituted a Hall of Fame. It was all very much in the clouds as even though they kept putting people in it as far as I know there were never plans for any actual memorabilia collection or permanent tribute to those who were put in.

Between 2001 and 2008 there were 41 people named to the Hall - 23 in 2001, five in 2003, seven in 2006 and six in 2008 yet our website doesn't acknowledge that it exists other than a list of names that hasn't even been updated to include the '08 inductees. It deserves better, and in a roundabout way that involves tearing it all up and starting again that's what I'm proposing.

Now admittedly that 41 covers pretty much everybody up to this point in time who deserves to be named, but given that the original Hall was generally abandoned in the midst of the disarray which surrounded the switch between the Gardner/Stynes administrations and the far more important task of saving the club I think it's time to start talking about the Hall again. Wasting the last three years on Demonwiki has given me a great appreciation of the history of this club and it deserves to be told to a wider audience, and to allow the fans of today to share in their own piece of it.

And with that I present to you the Demonblog plan for a new Hall of Fame. Firstly it should be pointed out that the idea is shamelessly stolen from the Baseball Hall of Fame and its induction procedures.

First an explanatory note - I'm going to pretend for the sake of what follows that we forget the first Hall ever existed and start from scratch. Realistically de-inducting people (uninducting?) might be too politically sensitive to consider, but equally I doubt anyone, probably including the inductees themselves, would actually remember it taking place anyway. There's scope to start again but this time to include the fans and make a big deal out of it. If we're not going to win anything in the modern era (yet...) let's at least wave around what we have done in the past and the many great figures who have been involved with us.

Plenty of clubs have a Hall Of Fame (unless you're an AFL propped up franchise with ten minutes of history) but how many of them include the fans on the selection process? Time to engage the fanbase with our history rather than just giving them drips of it here and there. So much the better if we end up with some kind of permanent exhibition - preferably at the MCG itself - about the history of the club.

So as discussed the major downside is that to start with a fresh hall you have to empty the original one. I can understand that the club might not want to run the risk of upsetting the living and the families of the dead so I'm proposing that this be labelled as a "Fan's Hall of Fame". The club runs the voting on behalf of the fans but its made clear that they're not really making any of the decisions and that the people inducted into the original Hall are still there doing whatever it is they do when they're in a forgotten Hall of Fame.

Alternatively they could just restart the existing version when somebody is worthy of being let in but I'm going for interactivity here. It works something like this:

- Players, coaches and administrators to become eligible for election five years after they stop playing, coaching or administrating.

- Voting will be weighted 70/30 between members and a special Hall of Fame panel consisting of current administrators, historians, prominent fans etc.. This means that the 'fans' still have the overall numbers but that there are some checks against bizarro voting and mass hysteria.

- All players with over 100 games go on the ballot as well as administrators, coaches and other players at the discretion of the Hall of Fame panel. To ensure quality control on the first ballot the HoF panel will only choose additional names from the 150 Heroes named in 2008.

- All people inducted into the original Hall will appear on the first ballot along with anybody else who becomes eligible at the end of that first year (if it starts at the end of 2012 then the players to have retired or left five years previous with 100+ games are Nathan Brown, Daniel Ward, Travis Johnstone and Clint Bizzell along with Neale Daniher. Nothing to see here as far as Hall inductees I'd have thought but some years will be better than others).

- In October every year all adult members will receive access to a website where each potential nominee will be profiled. They can then cast five votes for their chosen candidates. After the first few years this could increase to five mandatory votes + five optional votes or ten optional votes. To be decided in the event that this wacky scheme somehow gets up.

- For the first five years the top three vote getters will be elected to the Hall. After that it will be anybody who is chosen on at least 75% of ballots based on the weighting.

- After the first five years anybody who gets less than 5% of the vote in a year will be removed from the ballot permanently. There will be no limit to the amount of people who are allowed on the ballot as long as they meet the entry criteria and haven't been excluded for not meeting the 5% mark.

- As a sample lets say that Norm Smith, Ron Barassi and Robbie Flower are the top three inductees at the end of Year 1. They would all be inducted and their names removed from the 2013 ballot to be replaced by Adem Yze, Jeff White and any other players with over 100 games who played their last match at the end of 2008.

- The process continues over the first four years. After the fifth year (2016) anybody who doesn't appear on 5% of ballots is removed, so for instance if Yze's figures went 12%, 20%, 9%, 7%, 3% he would then be removed. There is no limit to how long somebody can stay on the ballot as long as they keep earning the required 5%.

- From the fifth year onwards nobody will be inducted unless they appear on 75% of ballots, this will ensure only quality makes the Hall.

Aside from highlighting three (to start with) of the greatest figures the club has ever had every year it adds something new to the conversation amongst our fans. Is Aaron Davey Hall worthy? Would you vote for Brad Green? At what point did Neitz become a solid gold certainty for induction? It adds an extra layer of debate and buzz around the club and online, the lobbying for people to get their chosen players up and the excitement about the inductees being named.

Feel free to pick holes in this concept, and I don't in any way expect that it will be taken up by the club, but it irks me that we've totally forgotten about the Hall of Fame that does (in theory) exist and anything that adds to the conversation about bringing some sort of recognition back can't hurt.

Demonblog's top 20 footy videos of all-time

2012-01-13T11:43:00.008+11:00

Realistically I just wanted all the classics that I've seen a thousand times in one place for reference without having to log in to YouTube. Seems as good a place as any. If there's anything that needs to be considered for future editions please advise.

20. Jako's karaoke masterclass

What countdown is complete without about 50 Jako videos? Surely the only thing that can lure him out of hiding right now is the promise of a national tour for Trial By Video.

Jako is on from 4 minutes 30 seconds. Watch and you will surely agree that there is no way that the great man went home that night unlaid.

19. Sydney Swans apology

Probably the most smug moment in football broadcasting history. Appeals to me for the sheer random nature of the idea the fact that some poor production assistant was dispatched to work out who had tipped the Swans for the spoon and that moment when we first watched it and thought "where the hell are they going with this?" before the big reveal at the end.

But where was "The Sydney Swans would like to thank Melbourne for throwing the Round 22 game in order to get a priority pick"? We had a hand in that finals run too. Also notice that somehow not one single person connected with Channel 10 gets a run. Did they really all not pick Sydney to finish last or was history quickly rewritten so they didn't look like complete hypocrites?

18. Coach loses it with obscenity laden tirade

Has anyone ever verified that this is legitimate? Still sounds to me like somebody's in the background pissing themselves and the guy screaming even loses it at one point but I want to believe it is.

I especially want it to be real considering that at the start he says he's not going to start ranting and raving and then 30 seconds later he's telling somebody to shove a can of Solo up their arse. So many great lines, so many great memories, let's all go off to St Albans next year.

17. McDonalds Footy Burger

The grab and the catchphrase which was responsible for the crippling of hundreds of children across the land in the late 90's. Deserves a comeback even if the burger in question was really just a Double Cheeseburger after an unconvincing rebrand.

16. Full Metal Barassi

The presence of this video in any countdown is a total conflict of interest considering that I made it (and not very well at that) but, you know, go with it.

What I really wanted was this audio over the vision of Barassi vs Shane Zantuck at Waverley in the early 80's but I couldn't be bothered finding it so this will do.

15. Jako kisses less talented brother

One of the trifecta of great memorable moments of our games against West Coast in the early 90's alongside Jako and John Worsfold having an argument through a fence and Chris Lewis eating Todd Viney's finger for lunch.

14. Comeback against Freo

Viewed in isolation the second half of this game is probably the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. Taken in the context of the era you scream "by christ how did we get nine goals behind in the first place?" and wonder if you should watch through your fingers because it's actually symptomatic of what's been wrong with us for the last five years.

For the purposes of this countdown I'm declaring it glorious.

13. The best of Mark Jackson

Six minutes of highlights of his insane behaviour commentated by the great man himself to a backdrop of canned laughter despite the interview taking place in the middle of the MCG at the hands of somebody called Darren Casey who was probably famous in the 90's.

Features the great segment when he claims Ron Barassi "couldn't coach pigs to be dirty", suggests that Mal Brown was misunderstood, admits to having set Lindsay Fox on fire and declares that John Devine shouldn't have been allowed on the mainland of Australia.

12. Jacko - Me Brain Hurts

Speaking of Jacko it would be simple to opt for the tried and true "I'm An Individual" but this offers so much more. Primative special effects and the Mark "Jacko" Jackson dancers prancing about in a boxing ring.

Not surprisingly failed to do as well in the charts as its predecessor

11. The as yet uncrowned 1991 Goal of the Year

Peter Daicos rolling one in from the boundary against the Brisbane Bears be buggered, this was the real deal. JUSTICE FOR JAKO.

10. Jamar walks off on Andy Maher

Ok so it's another one of mine but how much glee do you get watching Maher standing there looking stupid after the Russian becomes fed up and trudges off. This is the day where Mark Jamar stepped up from ok (having only stepped up from atrocious a year earlier) to being an UTTER BEAST of a fan favourite.

9. 1987 Prelim Final - MFC fan version

Yep that'll do nicely thanks. Roll on '88.

8. Ischenko Ischenko

The track that launched a thousand Moscow Moscow parodies. 998 of them by me.

7. Crows fan has a cry

No matter how low things get never be seen crying on camera. Pour your heart out if you must but don't charge towards a news crew and give them your side of the story because it will end up on YouTube forever and you will be labelled one of history's greatest tits.

The worst thing is the emphasis he puts on "me" as if it's so much worse that they were apparently robbed (and to be honest I've forgotten what happened in that game) in his presence. You're not the Governor General mate, you're a pisshead from Norwood get back across the border.

It's a shame nobody has an audio recording of the Melbourne ran who rang SEN after the Richmond game this year and started crying about how we were rubbish (really? Well done noticing that three weeks after the 186 debacle) while a dog frantically wailed in the background. It was absolutely chaotic radio the likes of which had never been heard before. His voice went even higher than the helium assisted Chris from Camberwell.

6. Hello Melbourne

"Surely nothing could go wrong", thought somebody at Channel 7, "if we got a bunch of footballers to record our jingle". Well nothing if you don't consider the most tuneless bunch of performers in history nervously butchering the track to be a problem.

In the spirit of openness and friendship they even invited an umpire to do a line but it rapidly becomes clear that the only reason he was asked to turn up is because his singing is so much creaky than even the worst of the footy players that he almost makes them look talented.

Look also for a young Gerard Healy extolling the virtues of Melbourne as a city about ten minutes before he took a paper bag stuffed with cash from Geoff Edelsten and pissed off to the Swans.

5. C'mon Demons

Not quite the apex of the 1980's craze for sports teams releasing cheesy singles (lest we forget the Los Angeles Rams telling us that they're going to "ram it all night long") but it's hard to think of anybody in Australia who did anything even remotely comparable. My personal highlight is Strawbs O'Dwyer scaring his own child just by looking at it.

Come on Melbourne FC hierachy, I know you're reading so let me tell you that the people want - nay DEMAND - that this is played on the big screen before a match at least once next season. Admittedly it would probably be better to do it against an interstate side so that we don't look completely stupid but that's ok because the 10,000 of us who are there will love it. Do it now. Is it true that this was written by Chris Connolly? He could do a live performance with Russell Robertson and Olivia Newton-John.

4. Sticks sings Stand By Your Man

It's the way his voice breaks a bit when he sings "sometimes it's haaaard to be a woman" which makes the Carlton premiership captain's rendition of this solid gold country hit far superior to that of, say, Tammy Wynette.

It's incredible that in any video featuring somebody sporting an immense mullet and a handheld microphone that big they would only be the 2nd and 3rd funniest things on offer. I was trapped inside a Chilean mine for 30 days I'd ask that they lowered down a phone with this on it.

Surely there's a version of this somewhere with just Sticks warbling and not some peanut giving us Pop Up Video style tidbits about Justin Madden.

3. The Frustrated Melbourne supporter

Look, it could be a set-up but just suspend your disbelief for a second and see yourself in this man's murderous eyes. If it is a fake then it approaches Trent From Punchy style levels of genius when he does the stand-up dance and declares that "they never fuckin' do anything!"

Several people have suggested that this might be me. Fortunately not but I can confirm that left alone in a house with just the Port Adelaide Round 24 game I was a lot more abusive towards the TV screen and inanimate objects.

2. Warwick Capper - I Only Take What's Mine

With apologies to Jacko and Carl Lewis this is probably the greatest song ever performed by an active athlete. Don't tell the other party but I'm going to come in to my wedding with this playing.

The tragedy of it all is that it didn't make the top 100 anywhere. Not in Melbourne or Sydney much less nationally. This deserves to be covered, and it deserves to be covered by one of the great superstars of the AFL. Shame most of them are as boring as a weekend in Omeo and wouldn't dare do it in case their modelling (or environmental warrior) careers were affected. Fire up you softcocks and be more like the original Wiz.

1. The Jurrahcane vs Alan Partridge

Admittedly this might not mean as much to you as it does to somebody like me who has watched every piece of Partridge related footage about 500 times and even stumped up for his fictional autobiography BUT if you don't like it do your own countdown. Compare if required to the original and then spend the rest of your screaming "AND ANOTHER!" whenever something happens in the office and accusing people of having a "foot like a traction engine".

Hint: I would gain significant respect for our cheersquad if they made banners referencing this video.

Double hint: We want a 2012 edition. Same commentary will do, just more killer highlights required.

New Year Wishlist

2012-01-12T20:05:00.005+11:00

We surveyed the employees at Demonblog Towers (now trading in its 8th different location since the blog started) about what they're wishing for our players next year - as well as for some prominent ex-Demons. In order to spare any legal trouble we won't attribute the comments to the people who made them.

Except the $cully one, I wrote that. Do a hammy you clown.

MFC list

2. Nathan Jones
Improve further on last year's strong(ish) season. Keep kicking goals and become a weapon in the midfield to complement Moloney/Trengove.

3. Clint Bartram
Grasp the concept of kicking to a target.

4. Jack Watts
One break-out year. 30 goals off half-forward and more assists than you can shake a stick at. Reach a point where any comparisons to Nic Nat and Hurley are completely stupid because - as with Nick Riewoldt vs Jack Frawley - it doesn't matter which one is 1% better because they're all guns.

5. Jordan Gysberts
Consistency. Use the increased focus on Trengove to run riot and give us another killer weapon in the midfield.

6. Matthew Bate
Bely the fact that you're the slowest man on earth to make the move to the midfield group a success. Anything that makes you realise going to Footscray is a fate worse than death.

7. Jamie Bennell
Find a spot. Forward, back, whatever. Just find somewhere, make it your own and stop tempting coaches to drag you from one end to the other on a whim like a miniature Brad Miller.

8. James Frawley
Become the out-and-out superstar that you deserve to be - starting with the All-Australian FB slot. You shudder to think how bad we'd have been defensively last year if he wasn't down there.

9. Jack Trengove
Don't get killed by the 'next big thing', 'next captain' talk. Become the gamebreaker that we desperately need. Outshine everything the $2 Million Turd does for the rest of your respective careers.

10. Cale Morton
Either learn to go in for hard balls or return to being the Thin White Duke who ripped out some absolutely bananas games in his first two seasons. It probably doesn't help that there's a collective groan every time he gets the ball but some confidence would help. One free booking with the club psychologist. Surely we have a club psychologist.

11. Mitch Clark
Forget the ludicrously overblown pricetag on your head and the fact that we're pinning our hopes on you being the next big thing as a full forward despite never having kicked 30 goals in a season. Just get down there, throw your body around, take out some good defenders and contribute. If Jurrah winds up kicking 70 goals and you get 30 as the highest paid decoy in league history then at least you got a hundred between you.

12. Colin Sylvia
Go to bed early and stop being a dickhead off-field. I'll suspend the secondary wish of a vicious Mark Neeld right hook to the head until he commits another atrocity.

13. Jordie McKenzie
Smash the all-time record for tackles in a season (202 at 8.08 per game stats fans) and become universally acknowledged as one of the great draft bargains of our time.

14. Lynden Dunn
Shave off that ludicrous bum-fluff, the joke is over. Also find a way to win a permanent spot in the side now that despite two half decent seasons he finds himself sliding down the pecking order amongst our 2000 mid-sized forwards.

15. Ricky Petterd
Watch the video of that Richmond game over and over again. Contribute goals but more importantly contribute pressure. Inform Lynden Dunn that you will not be bumped out of the side by somebody with a ludicrous mo.

16. Jack Grimes
Fitness. My god one full season of fitness. Look at Moloney and Rivers - even if you've been persecuted for years you just need to get on a roll and you can string a few years together without ending up in traction.

17. Sam Blease
Build on your good start, tonk some decent teams. Start with a good run in the NAB Cup so we know you weren't a one hit wonder.

18. Brad Green
To stay captain and stick it up your detractors. Didn't do much for the art of captaincy last year but please explain who would have been able to marshal that burnt out wreck of a side? Unless there are behind the scenes shenanigans afoot I see no reason to spit in the face of a 10+ year servant of the club who - lest we forget - could have been off at Collingwood playing for flags now.

19. James Strauss
No lasting effects from that injury, and to not have the filthy vultures at Channel Seven and Fox Sports show it ad nauseum when you come back.

20. Colin Garland
Stay fit, develop a facial expression which doesn't make you look permanently stoned. Keep doing what you've been doing - it's working.

21. Lucas Cook
If you're going to initially struggle to get a spot in our allegedly star studded forward line at least play consistently good VFL seniors games. Surely we've passed the era where we're just handing out games to anybody these days, so earn your spot with a huge run of good games. Should help now that VFL fodder like Fev and Juice are out of the way at Casey.

22. Brent Moloney
Continual to be a natural leader. Demand improvement and better help from your teammates - tell them when they're not helping. Watch the Best Of The Psychic Friends Connection video compilation and work out how you can use your winning tag team with Jamar to advantage despite every other team in the competition knowing he's going to aim for you most of the time.

24. Liam Jurrah
Just give us highlights out the yin yang. We want another video like this. Sure we'll have to go through the same old whinging and moaning about disinterest in forward pressure but I can take that as long as the rest of them are covering for The Jurrahcane while he plays his natural game and snaps goals out of his arse. Of course "natural game" and "Mark Neeld" do not appear to mesh so whatever he's forced into I hope he can manage it without disaster.

25. Tom McDonald
Be the man who is ready to step in on a minute's notice when one of our first choice defenders inevitably injures himself.

26. Daniel Nicholson
Bring the pace. Be our nominated rookie who can play from Round 1.

27. Jared Rivers
Show everyone, including me, why you deserved such a high finish in the B&F. Exorcise the demons of last year by thrashing buggery out of Travis Cloke on Queen's Birthday when the coaching staff get wise this time and give you some help instead of just marooning you in the square to look stupid.

28. Joel Macdonald
The clock is ticking so you might not play every week, but when you make sure you continue to be an angry bastard. Whatever else happened last year we'll never forget that filthy look for Morton against Collingwood.

30. James Sellar
Win back some respect. Doesn't have to play 22 games, or even 12 games. Just be a big bodied player ready to go if required and if all goes well we go into 2013 having saved your career.

32. Michael Evans
Don't just start handballing every time and then piss off to Hawthorn in order to play in their reserves like the last bloke with that number.

34. The Stefan Martin Experience
Capitalise on a break-out season. Keep racking up the disposals around the ground and providing a handy back-up for Jamar. Also keep drifting forward to kick goals.

35. Luke Tapscott
Become the best kick-in player for the MFC since.. Anyone? (Warning - do not say Travis Johnstone or I'll have you sectioned under the Mental Health Act)

36. Aaron Davey
Go back to the forward line and crumb like buggery. Remember you're the man who practically invented forward pressure in the mid 2000's. Sure there were some great years in the midfield and off half-back flank but it's time to come home Flash.

37. Max Gawn
Get well soon you mammoth, man mountain of a human. May you one day achieve your dream of killing James Bond.

38. Jeremy Howe
Continue where you left off, be one of the pillars in our Multiple Towers of Terror forward line. Either feed off Clark taking the best defenders or free him up to play against the slop.

39. Neville Jetta
A decent run in the side, and not one that involves wearing a stupid green vest every second week. While we're at it how about the abolition of the sub rule entirely so that fringe players like this can get a decent run at senior level without the shadow of having to sit on the bench for three quarters hanging over their head?

40. Mark Jamar
A year of good health. You deserve it. 2010 cannot stand alone as the one year that you became one of Australia's greatest living humans and didn't suffer an injury. And the rest of us deserve another great year because by my count you're still 3-6 considering 2003-08 were so dire.

Also to qualify as Vladimir Putin's running mate at the Russian Presidential election despite not actually being Russian in any way.

41. Troy Davis
I still have no idea who this is.

42. Jake Spencer
Win some respect after becoming somewhat of a comedy figure over the last couple of years (sorry, I think I contributed). Also to avoid going 0-9 and setting a new record for Melbourne matches without a victory. Frankly if he somehow manages to play nine games and doesn't win one of them we're all going to end up having to go under heavy sedation.

43. Rory Taggert
Whatever it is that you do, do it well in the VFL and I hope we're going well enough in the seniors to not require you until 2013. Also I'm hoping for another series of your Scottish detective show.

44. Rohan Bail
A full season. Otherwise just keep doing what you do because you've got cult figure value coming out the wazoo.

45. Kelvin Lawrence
To play 'seniors' during the NAB Cup and smash the VFL en route to a mid-season debut if/when the aforementioned Davey to the pocket experiment dies in the arse.

46. Josh Tynan
See Rory Taggert but without the Scottish bit.

47. Tom Couch
To play good football in the NAB Cup and stake a claim for a Round 1 spot. Also to do one thing without the papers pointing out who your dad is.

48. Jack Fitzpatrick
To play a senior game that doesn't involve the same comedy factor as Round 24 last year. In fact to play another senior game full stop - the last place you want to end your career is on this list.

49. James Magner
Get a game against St Kilda, smash them and wave two fingers in the general direction of their recruiting staff who let you get away.

50. Jai Sheahan
Enjoy having the silliest first name in MFC history. Hopefully en route to playing seniors at some point.

51. Leigh Williams
Make the transition to VFL football comfortably en route to a 2013 debut. Do everything that we wanted Clutterbuck to do before you ~~stole~~ took his spot on the rookie list.

Players at other clubs

Cameron Bruce
Do the right thing for the club who made you by stuffing up the Hawks when we play them. Preferably with a failed dinky kick across the goalmouth.

Darren Jolly
I can't wish him badly but unfortunately as he plays for scum it'll have to be a golden season in a rotten team. Also make Pendlebury look so good that GW$ offer him the most ridiculous contract in history, sucking the Pies into matching it which causes them to lose every other good player on the list and end up in the slop.

Emo Maric
To appear in Richmond's team photo with a broad grin before slowly returning to your normal depressive state as the season goes on and you realise that playing for Richmond is even more soul destroying than playing for us.

Junior McDonald
To be the only player to come out of the Franchise with any credit whatsoever. May you win their Best and Fairest by 300 votes from the Big Setant in second place and then come home to where you belong. The people who didn't appreciate you are gone now, it's safe to come back.

Brock McLean
Play at least one blinder in the ones for the sake of your own mental health. As long as it's not against us. Cause me to cop outright abuse from Twitter again after suggesting you'd be better than half our list in the emotional wake of a disappointing loss.

Bradforth Miller
It's about time Richmond weren't complete gash, and as long as they're not competing with us for a spot in the eight I hope Brad goes off his nut. Still doesn't mean I wanted to keep him, even if he kicks 80 goals, but you can't begrudge him some success. Also for Pia to return to the Melbourne fold just for the hornbags.

Scumbag Scully
A fractured kneecap, caused by your kneecap smashing you square in the face as you collapse the ground after suffering two broken ankles. And to invest all your ill-gotten money in Qintex and/or a Nigerian internet scam.

Scott Thompson
Win the Brownlow. I'm over the proto-Scully anger about him leaving. Hell why not win a flag? If we're not going to win it I could have half a toss which interstate team does (other than the franchises) as long as I don't know any of their fans and don't have to hear about it.

Matthew Warnock
Enjoy enhancing your status as the player with the worst win/loss record in the AFL. Be comforted by the fact you'd have to go 0-18 this year to nudge into the top 20 of all time least successful VFL/AFL players. Did a lot of good work in the 2008-2009 dark seasons and will hopefully stay sane and free of shell-shock long enough to do it again.

Stat My Bitch Up - Demonwiki's year in review

2011-12-29T09:30:00.003+11:00

In the spirit of end of year lists, reviews and all that other self indulgent bollocks that people enjoy writing far more than reading here's a look at the final end of year stats (or near enough to) for Demonwiki.

Thanks to everyone who has supported the site through the last year (and the previous three) and helped pay for the hosting costs by 'taking an active interest' in the many great offers provided down the right side of this page *ahem*.

Next project is to finish doing individual pages for each Reserves season and putting together a proper record of the highest scores/biggest losses etc.. in the seconds. There's a semi completed version of it on this page where you will note that the Reserves managed to a 180 point loss in Geelong many years before the ones did it.

Fans of barely known Reserves and Under 19's players of the 80's and 90's (and who didn't have a sick fascination with Keith Goonewardene in the early 90's?) might also be interested in this list. Then again you might not. Which would be understandable.

Also lost in the archives are my two favourite articles, showcasing the best and worst in MFC related trading card moments (Part 1 and Part 2).

Total pages - 5898
Days online - 1294
Visits to Wiki pages - 2,417,306
Images - 3658

Most viewed players
1 - Allen Jakovich (5461)
2 - Jim Stynes (3965)
3 - Robert Flower (2762)
4 - Garry Lyon (2644)
5 - Ron Barassi (2484)
6 - Carl Ditterich (2430)
7 - Shaun Smith (2116)
8 - Rod Grinter (1923)
9 - Craig Nettelbeck (1906)
10 - Glenn Lovett (1888)
11 - Sean Wight (1871)
12 - Brent Crosswell (1840)
13 - Stephen Tingay (1821)
14 - Darren Kowal (1739)
15 - Todd Viney (1732)
16 - Ray Biffin (1720)
17 - David Schwarz (1671)
18 - Troy Broadbridge (1587)
19 - David Cordner (1578)
20 - Guy Rigoni (1551)

See you next year for another season of nerdly goodness and frantic fat finger poking at keyboard style bloggery. Here's to adding to these two pages at some point next September (or preferably October).

A pictorial history the Melbourne Football Club 1859-2012

2011-12-22T22:29:00.003+11:00

1859-1888

1889-1891

1892-1899

1900-1902

1903-1914

1915

1916-1918

1919-1924

1925-1928

1929-1938

1939-1941

1942-1947

1948

1949-1950

1951-1953

1954-1964

1965

1966-1975

1976

1977-1980

1981-1985

1986

1987

1988-1991

1992-1993

1994

1995-1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004-2006

2007

2008-2011

2012

Stat My Bitch Up - 2012 preview

2011-11-30T01:31:00.004+11:00

As a self confessed sports stats nerd of epic proportions forgive me if I'm a little bit late in making topical references to Moneyball. The book's been out for seven years, I never bought it until about two months ago when the movie suddenly turned up and it's been sitting in the "TO READ" pile since then and despite best intentions to read the actual in-depth stats bonanza in its purest form aside I ended up seeing the movie first.

Good movie it was too, nigh on impossible carrying off the subject matter while not completely alienating 99% of the audience (in this country at least) who don't give half a toss about baseball and couldn't pick Oakland on a map with 50 guesses. Didn't half help that they roped Brad Pitt in, also probably didn't hurt that they went relatively light on the stats. Good news for the general cinemagoer, bad news for the 1% of freaks like me who actually want to hear more about On Base Percentage and Slugging Average in the cinema but you can't fault them for wanting to make money instead of providing entertainment to three people as a tumbleweed rolls through the cinema. That's a job for the Australian movie industry.

Throughout the film I was distracted by the thought that since the first day the book hit shelves managers, administrators and fans must have been trying to adapt the concept to fit other sports. It's often said that recruiters have been extolling its virtues for years, and our own CEO is apparently a fan (though when anybody from Melbourne is quoted talking about 'small forwards who kick goals' you just have to laugh), but does it really have any relevance to our game or is it just a desperate attempt at trying to avoid looking like you're not up with the next big thing?

They say the Sydney Swans have been at it for years, but realistically that's just a case of not putting all their trust into the draft (rightfully so too in some cases) and trading for older, often less fashionable, players to fit roles rather than relying on raw stats as a guide to how they'll fit in. The Swans aren't hurt by having an extended salary cap either, actually putting them into the class (in the context of a league with an allegedly rigorously enforced cap) of the big spenders like the New York Yankees whom Moneyball was designed to tip out. It's teams paying 92.5% of the cap who are our version of the unloved Oakland A's. Even that article is forced to admit in its final paragraph that Paul Roos didn't operate based on stats. They're not stats wizards, they're expert turd polishers, and bless them for it. If we could do the same I'd be thrilled.

It's not to say that there aren't statistical geniuses at work, probably in every club across the league, but good luck really trying to adopt the Moneyball idea from baseball. What other sport has the luxury of statistical information broken down to such a minute level? Who else has a 162 game regular season in which to unleash a theory but still have time to alter course if it doesn't work after an appropriate period of reflection? Champion Data might be pumping away loggine very stat under the sun and making a fortune selling premium packages to league clubs with categories that nerds like me can only dream of but they're still working on a sample size of 22 games, plus finals and a pre-season cup which is played under such fanciful, unlikely rules that it's barely worth using them for comparative purposes.

Bear in mind that before the last Major League Baseball season the Spring Training schedule saw the teams play between 29 and 35 practice matches alone. That's an insane amount for putting together pre-season stats, and enough time to float even the most nutbag of positional or tactical theories and still have time to recover before the real stuff begins - and even then you can afford to get more than ten games behind the leader at the halfway mark of the season and still run them down in the home stretch. On September 1 this year the Atlanta Braves led the St Louis Cardinals by 8.5 games in the National League wildcard race and by September 28 they'd been eliminated from playoff contention.

These guys are operating in another world entirely. A world where this is a player's publicly accessible career statistical record. No doubt behind the scenes AFL clubs have access to incredible packages but as fans this is as good as it gets and that's only by the grace of somebody putting the information together off their own bat and expecting nothing in return. We simply don't put the same premium on statistical information as baseball do.

Maybe there are some geniuses out there with overflowing whiteboards who can give you a formula which shows how to take a team with three Mortons and use them to create one Lance Franklin but I'm suggesting there are far too many variables in our sport to create anything truly meaningful. Baseball essentially comes down to one man piffing a ball very quickly at another who tries to hit it. You can analyse performance of left handers vs righties, you can take into account the sort of pitches that are thrown and if you're really keen you can see one man's batting record against all pitchers who he's hit more than five home runs off during his career.

This is a sport that lends itself more purely to statistics than any other in the world and if you're not yet convinced that they're operating on a different planet let me introduce you to Value Over Replacement Player (VORP). Try and work this out without a university degree.

A statistic that demonstrates how much a hitter contributes offensively or how much a pitcher contributes to his team in comparison to a fictitious “replacement player,” who is an average fielder at his position and a below average hitter. A replacement player performs at “replacement level,” which is the level of performance an average team can expect when trying to replace a player at minimal cost, also known as “freely available talent.”

Multiply the league average runs per out by the player’s total outs; this provides the number of runs an average player would have produced given that certain number of outs to work with. Now multiply that number (of runs) by .8, or whatever level your replacement equations give you; this is the number of runs you could expect a “replacement player” to put up for that number of outs. Simply [Simply? They're taking the piss - Mercado] subtract the replacement’s runs created from the player’s actual runs created, then, and you have VORP. A word to the wise, though: while the replacement’s run total will be park-neutral (by definition), the player’s raw numbers won’t be. Before calculating the VORP, run the player stats through park factors, normalizing the numbers. The resultant VORP should give a pretty good estimate of how “valuable” the player in question is

Baseball is a game decided by one piece of scoring only, and at any given time there are no more than three or four people involved in any transaction. Australian Rules could very well end up with 30 players within five metres of the ball, which can then go in any direction and more often than not despite the best efforts of Demetriou and the *spit* rules committee ends up in a stoppage. It doesn't allow for the random fat porkies of baseball who make up for their uncouth physiques in other ways. It ruthlessly exposes gaps in fitness and skill under pressure.

So, could you build a competitive squad on a fiver based purely on their statistics, discounting negatives such as a injury history or on-field ill-discipline? Not in my book you couldn't, but that doesn't mean that some stats both obvious and obscure aren't still relevant. Here's some areas that I feel we have to address if we're going to improve enough to at least be able to take on non-crap Victorian teams.

(General disclaimers apply about being shit at analysing footy. Publish and be damned. You may violently disagree with much of what follows but please be aware that sending explosive devices through the post is a breach of the Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989)

Centre clearances
Clearances from stoppages in general really, but out of the middle it's so crucial that our inability to get it right consistently was one of the most frustrating things about 2011.

Other than in certain exceptional circumstances (186) our backline is pretty good in repelling attacks but it's tempting fate to continually allow opposition sides to win the ball from the centre bounce and go forward expecting that one of our defenders will mop up the mess before one of their players has the chance to do any damage.

Jamar and Moloney might have been a lethal combination at times early in 2011 but by the time the Russian returned from injury every team in the competition had twigged what they were up to and spent the rest of the year persecuting Beamer at centre bounces. Moloney might still have had the 13th most clearances in a season since 1998 but with precious little backup we were tonked out of the middle again and again. There's a good reason that despite his big numbers we still finished 16th in the competition for total clearances.

Either we have to broaden our options or have somebody with a big body in there who can at least run interfence for Moloney. It's the most basic thing I can think of that we need to improve other than simply scoring more goals - and we're not going to be in any position to be kicking goals if the ball is going constantly going from the centre to the backline.

Disposal efficiency from clearances
When I see clearance stats at the end of a match I want them to remove every one that is just a panicked kick or wild handball out of a pack. They should be, and quite possibly already are, split into "quality clearances" (i.e ones that reach a teammate who has time to use it properly and does) and rubbish clearances where the ball is hacked desperately forward and ends up with an opponent. Then there's the neutral clearances where it either goes to space or leads immediately to another stoppage.

More realistic ball winning options at the drop and players who have the poise to use it properly when they do get it are the key. For instance you wouldn't expect Jordie McKenzie to be delivering huge numbers of quality clearances but as long as he can at least avoid the negatives and still get the ball we should get better. It's your Trengoves et al who are going to be crucial in getting decent use of the ball from stoppages.

Forward pressure
It's become a cliche but at least it's one that makes sense. I'm sure Page 1 of the Neeld playbook is all about forward pressure but he's still got to have somebody to execute it. Preferably more than one, preferably a whole raft of forwards who put the opposition backline under siege every time they touch the ball.

Every once in a while we perfected this last year, for instance Petterd's forward 50 tackling masterclass against Richmond, but more often than not opposition sides rebound the ball out of defence with barely a sweat raised. The ball then goes down the other end where we're subject to utter terror watching our players try and clear it under intense pressure.

It's not just tackling, it's perceived pressure from being near somebody, it's not letting them take easy marks beyond 20 or 30m out from goal. If there's a stat for the amount of time that you keep the opposition inside their own defensive 50 I want us to rocket to the top of the rankings. Wear them down, make returning the ball from a kick-in or a defensive mark close to goal as difficult as possible. Give other fans a taste of what we've had for the last few years when any point conceded is automatically assumed to come back as a 7, 8, 9 point play over the next five minutes.

Rush the ball properly
Where did we rank for rushed behinds last year? Can it be split between rushed as part of a realistic contest and the ones that the umps were too scared to pay deliberate on? My hunch is that no team conceded as many scores as we did from failing to just knock the bloody thing through and take the kick-in. Stop trying to save one point, get the kick-ins right for the first time in living memory and don't wind up copping goals by trying to keep the ball alive.

Speaking of kick-ins...

Kick-ins to a mark
Absolutely crucial that we increase our rate of finding a target outside 50 from a kick-in. Whether it takes one kick or two to get there, and if you're taking more than two something's drastically wrong, it doesn't matter as long as eventually somebody ends up with the ball in their hands and the chance to go forward.

Too often we either kick to the same place time and time again or botch the second kick from the 15/20m line get belted going back the other way. Even when we get away with it it's usually at the cost of a behind, and it's fine to be conceding them at a million miles an hour when you're a rubbish side but if there's any aspiration to start winning close games we've got to save every point we can.

Handball efficiency inside defensive 50 and realistic targets
Nobody wants to see handball in the backline but like death and taxes it will always be with us. It goes without saying that every handball should hit the mark but we've got to eliminate the panic element which seems to go with every defensive handball. They've got to up the numbers in firstly getting it to the right man but secondly in making sure that you're not just selling him into trouble.

Ok, if he's tackled straight away and it winds up in a bounce then it's not the worst result ever but so often they're given the ball with that extra few seconds which oblige them to dispose of it and end up either giving away the free or indulging in another panic handball which starts the chain all over again.

Long kicking efficiency on rebound 50's
Not every defensive rebound is going to be from a score, and many of them are going to involve dinky little handballs and chip kicks that always seem seconds from disaster even when they come off but sometimes somebody's going to work free onto a wing - or god forbid down the middle - and a precise 30/40m pass will have them off towards our goal. Conversely if the kick misses or doesn't hit the target we're on the back foot again.

Tapscott's my number one choice for this but he can't be the only option. Frawley, Rivers and Garland are ok at it but you wouldn't put your life on them, Davey will hopefully be forward, Grimes would have to stay fit for more than 20 minutes and you can pretty much shut the gate on the rest of them so we need to find somebody else down there with the precise kicking skills to hit those targets. Ideally three or four of them. Easier said than done but if we can hit targets moving quickly out of defence it'll help the forwards get to it first. Which brings us to..

Quality inside 50's and marks inside 50
Again, raw stats may tell you that a team is going inside 50 plenty of times but how many of those entries provide opportunity for a scoring shot? If a player picks up the ball in the middle of the ground and hoofs it to 40m out straight into a nest of opposition defenders with not a teammate in sight why do we count it amongst important stats? Fans and journalists love to use inside 50's as the measure of all that is good and wrong with a team but surely coaches are looking for quality only and ignoring the rest.

I guarantee you that if you split our inside 50's into the type that a) either went to one of our players, went to a legitimate contest or into the open insde 30m with one of our players nearby and into the type that was just the ball rolling pathetically to the 49m mark and being run out again that it would be absolutely grim reading.

For once you can't blame the midfield. For most of the last two seasons they either won the ball in space and looked up to find the forward line standing next to them or backing back to the square en masse with no big body to take a grab and nobody half a chance of crumbing. If you've got access to the full stats package can you find out how many leads per game we made in comparison to other clubs? I dare say it would be on the lower end of the scale. We had our moments of glory with this sort of attack, and the odd piece of real leadage from Jurrah or Green, but it's telling that only once from 2008-2011 did we ever play a truly slashing attacking game against a decent side.

The mere presence of Mitch Clark at full forward should at least draw the heat off the medium sized forwards and allow them to move around more - and they'd better because without changing the plan from last year I fail to see how we are any chance of consistenly kicking winning scores against non-crisis sides. If Clark doesn't work consider swapping him with Jamar.

Contested possession
Last in 2011. Cannot be allowed to happen again. That we were 7th in uncontested shows where our heads were at that year, and while I'm absolutely certain that Neeld and Co are targeting this it's up to the players on the park to deliver on it.

I'd love to see stats on CP in the forward 50 to work out if we're any better or worse at it in attack. My gut feeling says worse. It also says that without any decent crumbers who are willing to put their body on the line (or the return of Forward Pressure Davey) that it's not going to get a great deal better other than that the ball should be down there a lot more.

Define the most efficient attacking player
Way back in 2007 when I was still convinced we were just going through a 'bit of a slump' I came up with a stat to measure the overall attacking value of a player.

Goals (6) + Goal Assists (4) + Behinds (1) + Marks inside 50 (2) + Effective disposals forward of centre (1) + effective inside 50's (1) + tackles inside forward 50 (1) minus ineffective disposals (1), Clangers/OOF (-2) and frees/50m penalties (-2)

It's highly weighted towards goalkickers but if somebody boots ten you don't need a stat to tell you they've had a big day it, this is designed to let you hold up a medium forward, a tall forward having an average day and a crumber (should your team have such a thing) and decide which one impacted more on your attacking performance.

So, roll on 2012. We can only guess what Neeld and his cavalcade of coaching have got in store for us but at the moment confidence is high. In an ideal world the natural progression of the squad fits in perfectly with his game plan and we're talking next year as a team who has played finals, in the worse case it doesn't work or the players as they are simply aren't capable of carrying it off. Either way patience is wearing thin so if we don't at least see some real, consistent improvement next year people are going to start cracking the sads. I'll be keeping an eye on the categories listed above to see if anything changes.

Either way it's going to be tense. I can't believe we have to wait another three months to see actual football. Prepare for much more idle speculation before now and then.

Off-Season Updates Spectacular

2011-11-19T10:00:00.006+11:00

Prologue
The following was written in bits and pieces over the last couple of weeks. Like a letter smuggled from a Prisoner of War camp I could only sketch small pieces at work while nobody was looking. It's hard to convince anybody you're doing what you're paid for when the word WONAEAMIRRI keeps appearing on screen.

Eventually it's all been cobbled together so if none of it makes sense, the spelling is atrocious or paragraphs just end halfway through for no apparent reason then you have been warned. It may or may not end up being proof-read sometime before December 31. You may even get to the end of it by then.

Chapter 1
When the final siren went in that Port Adelaide game and we were treated to shots of joyous tooth challenged locals in celebration while Chad Cornes and Dean Brogan were prematurely chaired off into retirement I don't think I'm alone in having wanted to throw myself out the window. Except being on the ground floor at the time

Things couldn't have gotten much lower from there. Dual spoons were fine due to the fact that nobody except me actually wanted to win, but promised more all we got was $cumbag $cully leading us a merry dance and Bailey clawing his way back from the brink twice before finally being put away by the 186 fiasco. Give up football and take up field hockey? Would love to.

But now just 80 short days later, the same it took that idiot to fictionally circumnavigate the world in a balloon, there's a fervour around the place approaching the intensity of an Amway Convention which was doubled booked in the same room as Hillsong. In case you've been in a coma for the last 80 days (and you'd might as well go back into it until cricket season is over) here's what's happened since then.

Take the money and run
Surely by the end nobody expected $cully to stay. His mystery withdrawal from the last game was the final straw and sadly ruined the chances of him suffering a ~~hilarious~~ tragic knee injury in the middle of the Adelaide Oval having (allegedly) already signed with another club.

Throughout the season I tried to be as diplomatic as possible about his future intentions. Everyone knew he was getting offered rude money from the only regime more morally suspect than the Mugabe Government but it didn't seem to stop the likes of.. well, pretty much everybody bar Ablett.. from rejecting it. There was still that minor possibility that he could stay, and after I quite seriously had a dream that a Demonblog post was being waved about at a press conference and cited as his final reason for leaving I was erring on the side of caution.

Then he went for a quick trip to "check the facilities" upon which he found the array of cross trainers and tackling bags at Breakfast Point so attractive that he wrenched the contract from the hands of Dale Holmes (RIP) and signed on immediately, watched proudly by his mother, Big Kev style father (who was next in the queue) and quite possibly his terracotta coloured sister. Hours later he's making videos about how thrilled he is to be there and, just in case you thought he had no personality to be a footballer, how much he loved playing FIFA. I'm here to suggest that he's playing a lot of Vs CPU matches because one of the crucial elements of any two player game is having friends to play it with.

I'm sure Billy No Mates and his fear of being spewed on will now have friends coming out the wazoo. After all everyone loves a millionare and he'll probably end up with his own reality TV show produced and funded, much like GWS, entirely by the AFL.

I'm sure if Tom took the time out from buying an armour plated Rolls Royce to read this he'd shout "yeah, but I've got $6 mil and you haven't idiot" and he'd be quite right. Quite right too, but what you'll never have is the respect of anybody who doesn't work for the AFL or a club bankrolled by the AFL. You might turn out to be the finest player of a generation (though everyone at Demonblog sincerely hopes you turn out more like Richard Lounder) and you'll have more money in your bank account right now than many of us combined but don't expect anyone to ever say "Gee, that Tom $cully. What a top fellow, he's a real rolemodel for my kids".

In summary, here's hoping he doesn't even make Round 13 next year and we don't have to bother creating gigantic offensive banners and hurling foul abuse at him which would be much better suited aimed at Kevin Sheedy or Dean Brogan.

Coaching Corner (Now no longer trading under its former name Koaching Korner since the Kardashians wrecked my joy of replacing C’s with K’s)
So once the Two Million Dollar Turd was off our books and the compensation banked the next step was finding a new coach. Simple enough, but with the dominos falling elsewhere at a rapid rate and "news" outlets like SportsNewsFirst inventing rumours about the coaching moves on a daily basis you could be excused for getting utterly confused about what was happening.

Which is why it was such a shock when not only the club just came out and announced we'd appointed somebody but that 'breaking news' media reports the day before were actually right for once. Let the record forever show that journalistic heavyweight Damien Barrett (just the sort of guy to do a Tim Gossage and Google his own name) stated on The Footy Show that we were all but over the line with signing Scott Burns as coach.

We've already covered the Neeld appointment and initial reaction here so there's no need to go too far into it but even at the time it seemed a bit premature for certain excitable sections of the MFC community (and not just the Facebook nutters) to throw themselves on the ground and wail miserably about the appointment.

Ok, so the old "hiring a coach nobody had ever heard of" move didn't work at the end of 2007 but we're in a totally changed landscape now. Bailey was handed a shit sandwich and expected to extract something from it. His crime in the end was that he could never beat any decent Victorian teams, he'd been dragged into boardroom intrigues, his mystery gameplan confused the buggery out of all of us and the development of some players (we're looking at you Morton) had ground to a halt. On the other hand he is the man who presided over Mark Jamar going from one of the worst players of recent years into a ruck titan who managed to stay injury free long enough to win All-Australian honours.

Mark Neeld, on the other hand, isn't being handed the full Cleveland Steamer sandwich. He's been given something moderately unhygenic that the health inspector might have trouble with but isn't completely inedible. Unfortunately when we sent the 2010 side back to the chef and said "this isn't well done enough" it was used as a toilet but surely now we're on the upswing. Either that or there's going to be a lot of people having to undergo serious psychological treatement in a couple of years time (including yours truly).

There's no doubt that so far he's said and done the right things, and I was more than happy to go along for the ride even before he gave off that serial killer vibe that I've been dying for us to harness for years, but it means precisely zero until we start seeing results on-field. He might still be an utterly naff coach. It's happened before and coming from the side who have just completed their hat-trick of mid-season sackings we're hardly taking the moral highground as one of the league's most stable clubs, but I've a strange feeling in the sub-cockle area that everything's going to be alright.

Witness for instance this picture of the new coaching staff.

You'll note all the other assistants, including the guys you've never heard of before and Brent Grgic second from right, are cracking broad smiles (except Neil Craig who was occupied in a hyperbaric chamber which produces South Australian oxygen) while their boss stands side on, showing off his not inconsiderable arms and looking sideways at the camera as if he’s about to stuff the lens cap down the photographer’s throat. I love it. I hope I still love it in 12 months time.

Speaking of assistants what do you think Bailey thinks when he sees that we've hired all these assistant assistants, fitness gurus etc? If there's even the merest hint of truth to that story being pedalled by Gerard Healy after the 186 debacle that he’d had to whip out his personal credit card in an attempt to pay for the team to stay in Geelong overnight (and I seriously doubt there was) he'd be horrified to see that the moment he goes out the door somebody loosens the purse strings and decides to try and get a decent off-field team together instead of just collaring a few blokes who used to play and hoping for the best.

Now from a point where the coach allegedly had to try and fund our footy department with an AMEX (maybe he just wanted the points? 186 will get you a free trip to Adelaide) just a few months later we've got more coaching staff than you can shake a stick at. In one way or the other they're all impressively credentialled but will it make even the slightest bit of difference? Well it can’t hurt can it?

My favourite non-Neeld moment was signing Leigh Brown about 20 minutes after the Pies lost the Grand Final. When Brenton Sanderson was charging to the fence to hug the Geelong players and coaches there's every possible chance Cam Schwab was leaning over the shoulder of the Collingwood cheersquad trying to get Leroy to sign a contract in the forward pocket.

So with the new uber-structure in place the time came to throw down challenges to the players. We've all got our list of disappointments from last season, and odds are that Davey and Morton feature on 99% of them but to his credit the coach opened fire on the wider crowd and took to Jack Watts as well. He was pretty good last season, certainly ranked highly in the awards on this site, but why not tell him he needs to do much better? It's one thing battering the perceived weak links but didn't you just go a little bit wobbly at the knees when started torching Jack as well? Not that the kid deserves a roast but bloody hell if that's what it takes to boost him from "promising" to an out and out superstar then let's go with it. He should do a Norm Smith/Ron Barassi and take Jack in just to yell at him.

It'll be interesting to see how his philosophy about putting a team together holds up between Round 1 and Round 22. "I have pre-defined roles for my team" he said, "and anybody who doesn't fit those roles will play VFL". Be still my beating heart. The hint is very much that Aaron Davey will end up back in the forward line (and god knows we need CRUMB from somewhere) but in the great man's words if he doesn't fit the required role then he'll be out. Good. And that goes for all of them, I love The Jurrahcane in as rigorous and manly fashion as is socially acceptable but if maniacal forward pressure is the name of the game and he's not into it then we need to talk.

Remembering back to '04/'05 Davey practically invented the concept of forward pressure, and it was glorious. He's had his run as a playmaker, let's bring him home. As long as he we can get him in a frame of mind where he isn't biffing people out of frustration then he's still got plenty to offer. Unless one of Bennell or Jetta is going to go ballistic we've got to have at least one dangerous small forward, and we’ve got scant time to wait for a kid to develop into a dangerous option. Actually we’ve probably got two or three years before it’s really crucial but I’ve had enough of waiting, I want it now.

Trading Places
Trade Week is one of footy's greatest let-downs every year. When they extended it by three days this season I think everyone thought "wow, that's another three days of nothing happening before a wild flurry of action on the last day". Even with a recent record of having ripped Brisbane and Carlton off blind on the Johnstone/McLean deals the week is still immensively overrated. Luckily I was on holidays for almost all of it this year and only managed to check-in to the non-action occassionally instead of being suckered into listening to endless hours of speculation and idle waffle on SEN or Trade Week Radio.

In the end it's a good thing they did extend it, because if they hadn't the closest we'd have got to action would have been the on again, off again, never actually on the cards speculation about Emo Maric going to North. Just in case you thought being involved with North wasn’t the best move for somebody who has cracked one smile in a decade the poor bastard has now wound up at Richmond jumper. If he turns up at Tigerland with a beaming grin, looking like the happiest man alive I’ll be asking serious questions.

There was also the minor matter of flogging Warnock to the Gold Coast for an almost irrelevant pick. Good luck to him, he did do his best work when we were utterly dire and the backline was under siege every 30 seconds every week (instead of every second week in 2011) so he'll fit in well at Gold Coast. Will probably win a flag before we do.

The main event though was the Mitch Clark heist. What began as a speculative mid-week escape into trying to ruin his tearful Perth homecoming wound up with us snatching him from under the noses of the Dockers despite them all but announcing he'd signed. Let's all be entirely honest here, you can say whatever you like about Mark Neeld and Josh Mahoney giving inspirational speeches in Chinese restaurants but the reason he ditched Freo was for big fat wads of cold hard cash.

The revelation that we'd used our vast cash reserves to cause somebody to have a sudden and dramatic change of heart about the city they'd like to live in caused momentary uneasiness for some. Not least idiots like me who broke their stated ban on tweeting footballers to write to our mate Mitch and declare that while I would have liked him to join us it was good to see somebody pick family over cash for once. Effectively it was just another in a long line of subtle digs at the $cully family which will continue for years to come, but in the end it looked rather foolish. Never again.

Whether he's any good or not is anybody's guess. I'm not entirely convinced of his merits as a goal frenzy full-forward given that his career high season tally is 27 set this year and the next best was nine the year before. I suppose it's all about structure and taking the heat off Jurrah/Watts etc.. Also given the situation we're in with our salary cap it's practically a free hit but at least he's young enough for us to get something out of him if the forward thing doesn't work out. Don't forget Jamar is 29 next season. If we need another ruckman in two years or somebody else comes along to kick the goals Mitch will still only be 25. He might turn out to be the most expensive decoy in history for all we know, but as long as it ends in him hoisting the premiership above his head then I'll consider it a success.

"That's just like $cully! You're all hypocrites!" screamed opposition fans when the deal went through. No it's not you peasants. Well, maybe it is a bit but only in the manner in which a decision was clearly made based on Scrooge McDuck style money. The difference is we've given the game 150+ years and GWS have given it about 25 minutes, a recycled nutbag as coach and uniforms that Red Rooster employees would refuse for being too ugly.

But the Northern Filth aren't finished yet. Stopped from ransacking any more of our players (until the rules are inevitably changed to help them more) they've turned their attention on the Southern Filth in an attempt to wrest Pendlebury from Collingwood's grasp. Cue McGuire trying to prop up the ratings on his Nickleback friendly radio show by coming out beating his chest about how it would be "war" if they attempted to poach any of his players. Gee, I'll bet the team which is funded and practically run by the league are absolutely quaking in their boots at that prospect. Face facts Eddie, given the choice between having any of us in their league or having a team in Blacktown the AFL aren't going to choose the Melbourne option. Start your own league or bend over and cop it like everyone else.

Everyone's favourite failed Nine Network CEO even threw in a cheapshot at us, declaring that you can't just steal players from Collingwood like you could from Melbourne. Part of me wants GWS to get Pendlebury just so we can laugh at Eddie, but that boosts (even further) their chances of a premiership, and by extension $cumbag Scully's prospects, so we can't have that. But we don't want Ed to be right do we? Maybe we do. My preferred scenario is for them to get driven into a bidding war to keep him, and for Eddie's ego to make him pay anything Pendles wants, meaning they get to keep him but at the expense of losing other quality players then winding up falling apart like an Iranian airliner the next year, leaving nothing but Pendlebury and his Captain Jack Sparrow haircut as a lonely but rich figure in the middle of the MCG amongst 16 Irishmen and Juice Newton at Full Forward.

Training Updates
Is John Meesen still "training the house down"? (about time that cliche is retired) There are a lot of fantastic training updates on various forums. I assume they’re fantastic anyway because personally the concept bores me so much I mentally tune out and start daydreaming the moment anybody starts talking about it.

Somebody won a time trial, somebody was in the rehab group, nobody's yet been seen sporting a ludicrous +50 number and Dunn sadly hasn’t seen fit to be ironic and get rid of his moustache in November when everybody else is growing one. The only snippet of half interest was an observation that Cale Morton appears to actually gotten smaller since last season. If he's not suffering some form of flesh eating virus then I'm not here. Just concede the rest of the pre-season and send him to the world's best doctors to sort it out before he suffers a Benjamin Button style recession into childhood followed shortly afterwards by death. It would still make him the luckiest of all the Morton brothers.

The nadir of pre-season training fever came the other day when the club invited everyone to go down and watch them have a swimming session at the Cranbourne pool. Riveting stuff indeed. Good on them for giving people the opportunity but I'd love to know what you're going to get out of it other than hanging around with your camera phone waiting for a stray jatz cracker to pop out the side of somebody's speedos. You sick freak.

If anybody wants to write a pre-season training update and can inject even the slightest modicum of life into the subject please write in, you're more than welcome to have a shot. Personally I reserve the right to show not the slightest interest until at least the rookie draft is done and we've finalised our list. Or in February.

Draft Watch
What time is kickoff on Thursday? Because I’ll see you about half an hour after that when they get through Team Golden Child having the first 200 picks. May each one either be the next Luke Molan and never do anything ever or the next Buckley/Rocca and run for their life to a proper club at the first available opportunity.

Surely they're not persisting with the joke of pre-selecting the top ten and doing them in reverse order. They couldn’t could they? It was enough of a farce last year when most of the top 10 was taken up by Gold Coast, but this year it would be one of the greatest piss extractions of all time to expect people to show any interest in a reversed top ten where the teams involved have a combined support of 2000 people.

Of course there's one very good reason to watch from the start if you can make it all the way to pick 36 without booting your TV screen in out of frustration at the rorts, and that’s the startlingly amateur production that Fox Sports usually put on.

I appreciate the fact that they even show it at all (though realistically aren't you just as well off listening to it on SEN?), but in two years they've managed to - in order - cut out after the first round and subject us to interviews conducted by heavyweights like Jason Dunstall then last year place one solitary cameraman in the middle of the recruiter tables, thus forcing the poor bastard to have to find who he was meant to be aiming the camera at in quick succession as every pick was announced. Usually despite waving the camera about like a whirling dervish and providing us with action footage of the carpet he missed showing the pick being made anyway, leaving us with just the audio – and there you are back to listening to it on the radio again.

How do you think they'll muck it up this time? I hope it's by leaving the microphone at our table on and catching the recruiting staff lamenting wasting a #1 pick on a disloyal crunt.

Granted that they'll find some way to stuff it up I'll do what I did last year and cue up SEN then mute it just in case Fox do something stupid or the coverage drops out, but realistically given that our picks will start at about midnight and phantom drafts have been rendered even more useless than ever before I'll have probably given up and gone out for a kebab by then anyway.

I couldn't tell you exactly what sort of player I want, because by the mid 30's recruiting effectively becomes somebody opening fire on a lake and hoping to hit a fish. There might be sliders, there might be bolters and if we’re really unlucky Pick 36 might be an utter hack that you’ll never ever hear from again. Alternatively he could be a superstar - how many times do we need to hear about how Dane Swan was drafted at Pick 1000 before he was a champion player/cleaner beater? – but it's nothing to get excited over immediately. So, working on the understanding that I'll never have heard of any of the players we pick I’ll give you a simple three point plan on the sort of guys I’d like to take with picks 36/52/54. Any combination of the following will do;

a) Players with silly names
b) Snarling, ugly individuals who are less attractive than Mick Martyn (but who aren't off-field dickheads)
c) Batshit crazy insane psychopaths who should by all rights spend more time in hospital with head injuries than they do on the field (but won’t wind up suing us in the end).

Actual being adept at playing football wouldn't hurt either but if there's one thing I've learnt in more than 20 years following this club it's that ability is an optional extra.

Then with no picks in the Pre-Season draft there's just the rookie draft to care about. We've got Paul Couch's son training with us (via Collingwood VFL) which is fine because all our father-son selections have been so shite over the last 20 years that we'd might as well try to get a son from another club and see if that works better than any of Chris Johnson, Michael Clark or Shane Burgmann. Shouldn't be too hard, even if by all rights Jack Viney (and maybe Steven Stretch Jr) should overtake the lot of them just by pulling on the jumper for the first time.

Off-Field
It's money and plenty of it apparently. I've got absolutely no understanding of how finance works but it seems that only a little of it is an actual trading profit and the rest is as the result of the Bentleigh Club merger. Which is fine, I'll take small profit over some of these doomsday figures any day of the week.

What's most impressive is somehow putting roughly $6m of assets on the books by acquiring what I understand to be - having never gone closer than driving past Yawla Street, Bentleigh - the equivalent of somebody's stately manor with a few pokies thrown in. I suspect they'll try and use it as the social club that we've never really had, but it's not much use to anybody who doesn't live on that side of town.

Encyclopedia Titanica
I've been beavering away at Demonwiki over the last few months, adding new features and polishing up pages that already exist. If you haven't seen it already check it out or send the link to anybody who might be interested.

It's up to 5863 pages so good luck finding exactly what you want. I suggest that classic Wiki move of opening up a random page and seeing where it takes you. If you want something more structured try the Players or Seasons sections. When time allows (i.e when not writing epic waffle like this) I'm currently going through the Football Records of the 80's and adding Under 19's scores and goalkickers.

It's not cheap maintaining this helter skelter life of excitement and obscure information though. You can either donate to Demonwiki directly from the site itself (and we promise to use all donations for their intended purpose and not to fund Sylvia style nights on the town) or by 'taking an active interest' in the ads on this page. Take an active interest early, take an active interest often because pretty soon we're going to have to go cap in hand to the club and ask them for a grant to pay for the hosting. Come on, I know you're reading - don't make me grovel just write in with an offer. I promise not to criticise the administration on here ever again while the cheques are rolling in.

Final thoughts
Buy a membership. Now.

Failed competition entries corner

2011-10-18T10:59:00.004+11:00

So, I had a crack at entering this competition in an attempt to scab a free trip to America and failed miserably.

The gimmick was that you had to write about the 2022 AFL World Cup, which was improbably being defender by Japan who had rolled Australia in the previous final. Fat chance but I'll do anything for free flights. There were a bunch of other things you had to include but obviously didn't throw enough fanciful futuristic gimmicks to make the top three.

Therefore I post it here for posterity, and just in case the absolutely farcical scenario in which

Please also note that a) it was supposed to be this long and wasn't just me waffling again and b) it was written before $cully had totally dicked us and become a hated figure so I was at least nice enough to give him the chance to come back to Melbourne after he'd finished rolling around in cash a'la Scrooge McDuck. I was going to change all references to him in this to Trengove for posting here but that killed one of the key gimmicks so stuff it, just imagine a big dollar sign whenever his scabby name comes up.

Anyway, ready? I think I rolled myself by writing like a news story instead of a first person wankfest. Come on I even took the obligatory cheap shot at soccer that they were dying for.

Standing in the centre square of the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the first time Casey Martin, the captain of the Team Canada Wolfpack, admits that he's got a major concern about Saturday's World Rules opening match against Australia - and it's not the prospect of playing in front of more than 90,000 locals.

"You guys don’t worry me" he says, "Nothing an Australian crowd can bring will match The Game".

In Canada the match which the Toronto Vipers midfielder and his teammates won through to their first World Rules is destined to always be known simply as "The Game". Five goals behind the heavily favoured Argentina during the last quarter of February’s match the brilliant midfielder played a last quarter for the ages, racking up fifteen possessions and kicking three goals including the one that gave his side the lead deep into the last quarter.

"The noise was incredible" says Martin, "when I went back to take my kick you couldn't even hear yourself think". It didn’t matter, the ball flew through post high and the surprise packet quarter finalists of the inaugural 2018 World Rules were out. Canada had booked a ticket to Australia along with their fellow North/South American Zone qualifiers the United States and Brazil.

So if the prospect of lining up in front of 90,000 people in the opening match of one of the biggest sporting events in the world isn’t concerning Casey Martin then what is troubling the man who has just led his side to the North American Football League premiership?

"Tom Scully" he says half smiling, half wincing. "I've never played against anybody like him before". The Canadian captain is concerned, and not without some justification because at 2.10pm tomorrow afternoon he might be standing shoulder to shoulder with the three time premiership captain and dual Brownlow Medallist in the centre of the game’s most famous venue.

"[Canadian coach John Paul] Lafitte hasn’t told me where I’ll be playing yet, but they’ve got so many stars he’s only one of 22 worries for us” Martin says.

Scully might be one man of 22 in the Australian starting line-up tomorrow but he is the best and will prove the hardest for the Canadians to stop. The professional game in North America has come a long way in the last decade but even the greatest teams in their league would be lucky to have the combined talent of one Tom Scully.

Casey Martin could be called the Tom Scully of the American league. Both men were voted the best player in their competition last year, and both ended the season holding a premiership cup above their heads.

Scully’s triumph came near the same spot where Martin stands today, his third since returning to the Demons from Greater Western Sydney. His best on ground performance just days after being named Brownlow Medallist for the second time stamped him as the dominant player of the modern era.

Named captain of Australia for the first time during this year’s mid-season series against New Zealand and South Africa, Scully is desperate to atone for his performance in the 2018 World Rules Final where he managed just six touches after half time of Australia’s shock 15.10.100 to 14.14.98 loss to Japan. It remains the greatest upset in the history of international football.

While it was Jack Riewoldt who missed the goal after the siren to hand the Samurais the inaugural championship Scully was uncharacteristically quiet, blanketed by the ace Japanese stopper Taro Tsjumoto who was snapped up by the Fremantle Dockers immediately afterwards.

One of the earliest converts to the international expansion of the game when it began in earnest in 2013, the Japanese have gone from strength to strength since then and now have nine players plying their trade with AFL sides. 2021 Brownlow Medal runner-up Tsjumoto is the most high profile, but the mosquito fleet of running players developed in Japan during the four years before their shock triumph in front of 101,200 fans four years ago, are primed for the fight of their life to defend the cup.

The reaction in Australia to the loss was a united grief never before seen in the 160 years since the first game of what would ultimately become one of the world’s most popular sports.

International expansion of the sport had been slow during the 150 years after Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College first clashed on the grounds outside where the MCG now stands. New Zealand fielded a team in the first interstate carnival, but the game soon dropped away across the Tasman and it took until 1963 for Melbourne and Geelong to travel to North America and play exhibition matches for a US audience. Two matches drew just 5000 fans between them and it was another quarter of a century before Australian Football was played in North America again. A short lived international series in the 80’s failed to capture the imagination of overseas fans and the game returned to being a purely domestic pursuit.

The game’s international profile was given an unexpected boost at the end of the 2011 season when American ruckman Shae McNamara was axed by Collingwood. Unable to break into their dual premiership sides he was thrown a lifeline by Gold Coast and within a year had established himself as one of the biggest stars of the competition. He will coach the American side in this year’s cup.

American cable television picked up on McNamara’s incredible story, and within a year their league which had spent 20 years on the very outer fringes of US sports was thriving. The competition, which until that point had been strictly amateur, was suddenly enjoying high rating TV coverage in the absence of major sports which were undergoing lengthy player lockouts.

The money which flowed into the international game after the success of the North American Football League’s first full televised season saw the game explode in popularity across Europe and gave the AFL a chance to invest heavily into the Pacific region and Africa. Ongoing scandals in the world of soccer gave the game a further boost in countries where the original ‘world game’ was so popular just a few years ago.

Casey Martin remembers the first time he ever saw a game. “I grew up in Hamilton, Ontario” he says, “I was 13-years-old when the game really exploded in North America. Half way through watching my first TV game I was online trying to find a team in my area to play this magnificent new game with. Hamilton is a big hockey and Canadian Football town so there were no existing teams. Luckily for me I wasn’t the only guy at my school who wanted to play so we started a team and hooked up some matches against kids from Toronto”.

The teenagers would alternate between playing games in the neighbouring cities and Martin’s big break came when his future international teammate Alex Franks was signed to play for the Vipers youth team two years later. Asked if he could recommend any other young Canadians for the team Franks’ first suggestion was Martin and the rest is history. The two broke into Toronto’s senior squad within a year and were appearing regularly on international television before their 18th birthdays.

Longtime teammates both domestically and in the international side, Martin and Franks were among the players who suffered an upset loss to Mexico in the first qualifying stage of the North/South America Zone for the 2018 event. A win would probably have seen them on their way to Australia, but the defeat meant that the powerhouse United States were instead joined by Argentina, who defeated Mexico in the final round of qualifiers, and Brazil.

Denied the chance to showcase their skills in front of the world in the 2018 tournament the Canadians missed an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Tsjumoto and American Ricky Sanderson in winning an AFL contract.

Both Martin and Franks have had their chances to become the first Canadian to play in the AFL since rugby convert Mike Pyke appeared with Sydney more than a decade ago, but with league sides sniffing around at the end of last year the two made a pact to stay together until Toronto finally won a league championship.

A loss to the Las Vegas Power in the 2021 Preliminary Final ended their campaign one game short of a Grand Final but both men stuck fast on the deal. They were rewarded when the Vipers ran out easy winners against the Boston Demons in front of 45,000 people in the last month’s nationally televised championship game. Now if as expected they’re both drafted the two will be split up for the first time since they were 15-year-olds, so World Rules gives the friends a last chance to play together in the same club side before starting next year as enemies.

Seeded 15th in the tournament, the Canadians join Germany as the newcomers to the World Rules Finals. The Germans won the last spot in the Europe/Africa zone with a thumping victory over Nigeria in Dusseldorf just days before Martin and his side played their match against Argentina. Germany’s bottom seeding and subsequent match up against the Japanese in Group A might be seen by some as a blessing but the Canadians aren’t so concerned about facing up against the Aussies.

“Realistically we’re aiming for second in the group” says Lafitte, who recently won an extension to his contract with the Montreal Scorpions, “so I’m happy to be matched up against the side we know is the best in the world, not just the one that got lucky last time”. Laffite’s plan for the Wolfpack is for his troops to put in a confidence boosting performance against the Australians and set themselves up for the remaining group games.

The home side, despite their horror showing in the last final, will prove the toughest test of all. With Australian players featuring prominently in all the major leagues around the world the AFL side has the luxury of selecting from over 2000 professional players around the globe. John Paul Laffitte has just 150 players in the North American league and another 100 across Europe and Asia to choose from.

Still, that’s 250 more pros than anyone could have imagined them being able to field a decade ago. With a thriving junior system in Canada the numbers will only increase in years to come.

The Wolfpack have three matches to earn a place in the Quarter Finals but as Martin admits the chances of his side returning to the MCG in the World Rules Final on November 20 are slim so he intends to make the most of his first trip to the stadium. If as expected he is selected by the Magpies with the first selection in January’s International Draft, he’ll make many more appearances at the home of football.

“We’re going into this group as enormous underdogs” says the Canadian captain, “but if we can put in a four quarter effort against the Aussies then we go to Canberra six days later (against Papua New Guinea) knowing that we can match it against higher ranked sides”.

As we walk off the ground, down the race that leads deep into the Barassi (formerly Olympic) Stand, the greatest player that the Canadian game has ever seen asks us to pass on a message to one of the finest Australians to have ever pulled on the boots.
“Tell Tom I’ll see him on Saturday” he says “And tell him that the Wolfpack don’t back down from anybody”.

His coach slaps him on the back and laughs heartily. Confidence is not in short supply in the Canadian camp.

Canada play their remaining Group B games against Papua New Guinea in Canberra on Friday 21 October and India at Kardinia Park on Thursday 27 October.

Neeld In A Haystack

2011-09-17T13:32:00.002+10:00

(Dear Herald Sun, please find above my entry for the 'obscure Neeld headlines competition'. You can keep the prize of a chicken dinner with Andrew Bolt).

When my usual Friday afternoon attempting to look busy was interrupted around 4pm yesterday by SEN announcing we were about to announce Mark Neeld as coach I was, it must be said, unmoved. Nothing against Mark, just that we'd spent the week being fed lies by both 'media' and actual clubs/coaches so why not another farcical rumour which didn't turn out to be true? After all, while Hutchy himself was leaping out from behind a hedge at St Kilda HQ on Thursday night to startle the Saints President, 'Hutchy Jr' Damian Barrett was assuring us that it was a Scott Burns/Neil Craig tag team who were poised to take the top job.

The week started with SportsNewsFirst, the Women's Weekly of AFL journalism, claiming that Ross Lyon was about to tell the players he was off to join us. Cue mainstream media (well, SEN at least) being sucked in and sending crews down there, presumably ignoring every red light between Richmond and Seaford in their haste to get there and to check if it true based on a story which was attributed to 'sources' and which no actual news outlet had heard anything about. Needless to say (Neeldless? This is a golden day for headline writers and hack bloggers) it turned out to be such utter crap that when Ross the (ex-)Boss actually did walk out on them and join the Dockers on Thursday that not only had SNF never heard about it but he didn't even tell the players he was off until he was already singing heave ho while swinging a $cully style bag of cash over his right shoulder.

So, we'd already been told to piss off by Clarko, Malthouse is (for now) holding firm on not coaching anywhere next year, we missed Lyon because he was engaged in arguably unethical shenanigans behind his club's back, Scott Burns had been annointed as the winner by the alleged "newsbreaker" and now SEN - the home of following up wild rumours floated by drunken talkback callers - is saying that less than 24 hours after Garry Lyon had said that we were "very close" to announcing a coach that it was about to happen. On a Friday. What ever happens on Friday?

News media, you can see why we might very well have been confused. With the Harvey Heave-Ho Debacle still less than 24 hours old it seemed too ludicrous that we'd add to the chaos by naming our coach while poor Mark was still trying to work out what the hell had happened to him (O RLY?). Add to that the fact that the only men who hadn't been named as our new coach were Paul Feltham, Dean Bailey and Jock McHale and it was hard to take it seriously.

But there was some air of credibility about it simply because Mike Sheahan broke the story. Now, Mike's not perfect but he's a damn sight less likely to put his name to an obscenely made up rumor than some twats sitting in a bedroom trying desperately to generate hits on their sporting news website so that the on-site ads will pay off and mean they don't have to eat dog food for breakfast. And to Mike's credit it turned out to be true. Within a couple of hours Garry Lyon was on Triple M all but confirming it as a done deal without actually saying Neeld's name.

In the spirit of Michael Roberts going right over the top on the Footy Show and comparing Mark Harvey getting the boot to a) a tsunami and b) having cancer I'd like to compare the footy world since Monday to September 11, 2001. This can't end well but stick with me. If you're old enough to remember that day the moment it became apparent that there was some serious terror action going down and not just some tit in a light plane who couldn't steer the news went into overdrive with every stupid rumor they could find and every tiny piece of information was bent and twisted into something much larger. Hundreds of planes were hijacked, reports of car bombs were going off in major cities, Palestinians holding the Moomba Parade to celebrate etc.. None of which actually turned out to be true. Only Americans would need to embellish the biggest terror disaster in history with additional activities just to keep people watching. Imagine if they'd had Twitter then? Chaos.

For once SEN weren't all that bad in their coverage of the switch, but even then they went through a 15 minute moment of doubt on either side of the 7pm news when they were convinced Rodney Eade was on a plane to Perth to sign on just because they couldn't get him on the phone. Still, once the ship was righted and they were on track SEN thumped the TV networks for coverage. I went inside and, very much against my will let me tell you, was watching the X Factor half an hour later when BREAKING NEWS - ROSS LYON RESIGNS AT ST KILDA TO COACH FREMANTLE came crawling along the screen. 1bil for TV rights and they won't even break into a talent quest for five minutes to cover the issue? That's the future of TV sports broadcasting right there. At least dump an episode of Are You Being Served on 7TWO and cross for rolling coverage. Although personally I'd happier to watch the antics of Mr Humphries than those of Ross Lyon but that's not the point.

So, with the paint barely dry on old Owl Eyes' tombstone in the west and him mysteriously 'being on a plane to Melbourne' (which of course he wasn't as it turned out) the plot thickened. He obviously wasn't coming to us as the process was already, according to Lyon at least (the media one), almost over when Harvey was knifed, but who knew what that meant for Eade/Burns/Neeld/etc.. Nobody was even sure who had been interviewed for our job. Burns/Neeld/?? Viney? Laidley? God knows.

In the end though it was Mike who got the scoop, and that's why he's a major football journalist and not writing tossed off tosh about what friends, insiders and amazed fellow diners had to say as if he's trying to convince us Brad and Angelina are about to split. Neeld was indeed to be the man with a press conference at midday Saturday. Mind you the way this week has gone I wouldn't have been surprised if the doors at AAMI Park had flung open to reveal Ken Judge standing there with a cheeky grin and another 'hilarious' gag about Hitler.

But the ex-Collingwood assistant it was, and the reaction from fans was as you'd expect mixed. Everyone wanted a 'name', but after missing out on Clarko and Lyon the name players were rapidly thinning out and we were in danger of losing the man who was obviously the preferred candidate to either Adelaide or Footscray. Like it or not Malthouse wasn't coming, Mark Williams is quite happy being the real coach of GW$ and Eade/Laidley/pretty much everyone else represented just as much of a risk as a highly credentialed premiership assistant. As much as I would cracked an Ararat at the prospect of Laidley/Williams being involved just to fulfil my own sick footballing fantasies the appointment worked for me straight away without ever having heard the guy say a word.

Of course naysayers say nay. "It's another Dean Bailey!" they scream. And while like Bails, Neeld might not have had much of a playing career I think you may just be overlooking his vast experience as a senior coach at local level (and four straight premierships in a half decent country competition is nothing to be sneezed at) and his stint as TAC Cup coach of the Western Jets before he even got to Collingwood - where he was the right hand man of the bloke that everyone (including me) was desperate to get.

I'd go so far as saying that considering what we'd have to have paid to get Lyon - who we just assume is good because he's taken Riewoldt/Goddard/Dal Santo etc.. to two Grand Finals - I'm deliriously happy. Talk to me when Jay Van Berlo, Justin Bollenhagen and Freo are waving a premiership cup around - until then I think we can afford to go without paying him $cully money. I didn't give god knows how much money to Debt Demolition just to have us spunk it up the wall on the off chance that the only thing wrong with us is the coach.

Also, to all the talkback callers who were pontificating about what complete arseholes we were that we cried about $cully doing a runner and then tried to steal somebody else's coach. In the words of Alan Partridge, "Swivel". I don't expect any apologies from [Name] of [Suburb] will be forthcoming. Besides, the moment the compo came in was there anybody left wailing about the $2m turd leaving? Doesn't mean we have to like him though..

If you'd given me the option of the 'untried' assistants yesterday I'd probably have taken Burns just because he had a long career and was a captain but either way I'd be happy not to see all the hard work to get out of debt wasted by spending zillions on a 'name' coach. But now that I've watched Neeld in action at his press conference I'm even happier that we've gone for him.

If you've been reading Demonblog long enough you'll know that the one thing I've wanted ever since 2005 (and before) is a coach who is a bit of a psycho, and I think we've landed one here. In a good way of course, not somebody whose floorboards need to be taken up in the search for bodies.

In between saying all the right things in his first press conference (and who else other than Mal Meninga doesn't?) he didn't crack a smile once. I love it. In his interview on the club's YouTube channel the only time he half raises a smile for the first seven minutes of it is when his list of achievements as a coach is being read out to him. I love this. You can tell he's driven, and although this mean a great deal doesn't coming from the guy who was convinced Dean Bailey would be a smashing success, I'm more than happy to back him 100% now and then go back and delete this post in five years time if it doesn't work out.

We all swoon when he says things like wanting us to become the 'hardest team to play against' in the competition, but we'll have to wait and see how he intends on achieving that. I'm happy to be along for the ride. If you wanted a coach who you'd heard of, and who you have happy memories of during their playing days, then bad luck but if you wanted somebody who is going to take no shite from his players and will hopefully do a great line in verbally destroying journalists in press conferences around the country then here's the good times, and here's the hill, let them roll.

I also love the twitch in his left eye. He's just ticking every box for me to believe that one day we'll lose and he'll cut a swathe through the press conference with a chainsaw. He's as cold as ice, willing to hack and slice.

It's also confirmed that he'll get his own team to work with, and that's a big goodbye to Josh Mahoney, Bryan Royal, Scott West etc.. The good news though is that Todd Viney stays. Todd seems infinitely more jocular than the man who replaces him but there's no doubt they're both fierce competitors and will hopefully get on nicely. Get Jack Viney in there already.

So, I'm as happy as you can get with a new coach at the moment. Though you just don't know with football. Mark Harvey went into this year looking at top four, was still at least within visible range of it three months ago and now finds himself out of a job. Just don't spaz out and threaten to microwave your (unpurchased) membership just because we didn't get some superstar in the job. And if we go out and get rolled in Round 1 next year don't forward project three seasons, decide he's no good, start sulking and not show up for the rest of the year. It may work, it may not - that's footy. Have some faith that eventually the skies will open, and the god of football will finally point his gigantic cosmic finger at us and deliver what we've all been waiting most of our lives for. Could happen. Probably won't, but as long as we get a few good years of legitimate hope out of it then I'll be satisfied.

Now the question is whether there's any truth to the rumor that Neil Craig is going to be a 'senior assistant' to him. Doesn't look like the kind of guy who would enjoy having a gruff South Australian hovering over him, and I'm still not sure Craig can operate in a non-South Australian environment. Maybe we can keep him in an oxygen tent full of air sourced from Victor Harbour and unleash him at nights only to follow Cale Morton around, leaping out at him from the shadows in carparks and scaring him until he's an edgy killing machine.

Watch this space. Well don't watch this exact space. This is already one more post than I expected to write before the end of the year.

Demonblog's 2011 End of Year Spectacular

2011-09-07T17:41:00.017+10:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Doncaster Over 28's for the third annual Demonblog End Of Season Spectacular. Before any further ado let's cross to Moscow for our opening musical number.

Hi, my name is Supermercado. Thanks for joining us this morning, and let me tell you we invited a sparkling lineup of guests to present awards at this event.

From UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to Prime Minister of Iceland Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir and the guy from the Deep Heat ad they were all on board until mysteriously pulling out in the hours after the Geelong game. Ban Ki cited some conflict in Libya, Jóhanna stopped returning my calls and the Deep Heat coach rang to say he refused to be associated with such a shambolic brand as the MFC but did advise me to breathe.... from the core.

So, instead we asked one of Australia's most loved, and cheapest to book, entertainers to join us - although he would like to point out that he’s got commitments to the Frogsack tour at 8pm and if we’re not done by then he’s just going to walk out.

Ladies and Gentlemen, a man so offensive that if you put him on the AFL Match Review Panel nobody would be able to tell the difference I give you Mr. Rodney Rude.

[enters to muted applause]

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. And ladies, don't you hate it ladies when you work your arse off to finish last in order to draft the next big thing and two years later he ditches you for a million bucks a year to go to a softcock expansion team? I hate that.

Anyway trendsetters, this morning we're gathered to look back at what was a long, difficult and often traumatic season for the Melbourne Football Club. You know, just before the ball was bounced for the first time in Round 1 my grandfather said something to me....

[audience member] "How's your grandfather?"

Oh mate me grandfather's depressed, he's the last man alive who can remember Melbourne being a premiership side.

In fact he's depressed because he's just been in court for stealing two pies at the football. "Were you gonna eat the pies?" said the judge. "No your worship" said my grandfather, I was going to hollow them out and put them over me ears so I couldn’t hear that dickhead playing the trumpet.

But that's enough from you mate. Yeah I recognise you. I saw you outside Gate 1 before the Gold Coast game trying to slurp the Kaiser’s Sausage! So shut your mouth mucus and let's move on to our first award of the evening.

Like handing out an award for wicketkeeper of the year there's only so many contenders who can be in contention for being the number one ruckman in a team. That's why it took us five years to invent this award so we had to come up with retrospective winners for the first few seasons.

Anyway this season two men went to battle for this one, and despite a brief fortnight when the fool who runs this site prematurely declared Jamar the winner only for him to be over-run, the winner for the first time is in fact The Stefan Martin Experience.

2011 Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year
24 - Stefan Martin
16 - Mark Jamar
0 - Max Gawn, Jack Fitzpatrick
DNP - Robert Campbell, Jake Spencer

Honour Roll
2005 - Jeff White
2006 - Jeff White (2)
2007 - Jeff White (3)
2008 - Paul Johnson
2009 - Mark Jamar ($3)
2010 - Mark Jamar (2) ($1.50 fav)
2011 - Stefan Martin ($30)

Congratulations to the SME. And now a tribute to you, the Demonblog readership, as we name our commenter of the year. From that small but dedicated group of people who not only take the time to read the garbage that is spewed out here on a weekly basis but also to write good, bad and often abusive comments we have one standout this year.

Lyall St Kilda we congratulate you. Your rants deserve a blog of their own, and were this not a one man operation run out of a bank vault in Snowtown we'd hire you as a columnist.

However a special place will always be reserved in all our hearts for Anonymous who tore through place leaving comments of such baffling beauty that it’s hard to narrow it down to his top five..

Top 6 Anonymous Comments for Season 2011
1. This may sound a little strange but last night they were like the Hammersmith Flyover, fast, crowded and to the point. Those bobmers crashed down, see the bobmers crash down. (every time I see Essendon play now all I can think of is "see the bobmers crash down" - Mercado)

2. as the chris morris-armando ianucci invented character alan partridge would say they looked like cattle riding bikes from the air

3. after the 20 minute mark of the first quarter they only passed to Melbourne players when they couldn't find a couple of north players in the clear, I really hope there's no betting scandal, inexplicable difference to the first 20 minutes and the garradine swine of the last three quarters.

4. I'm All Right Jack is a 1959 British comedy film directed and produced by John and Roy Boulting from a script by Frank Harvey, John Boulting and Alan Hackney, based on the novel Private Life by Hackney. The film is a sequel to the Boulting's 1956 film Private's Progress, and Ian Carmichael, Dennis Price, Richard Attenborough, Terry-Thomas, and Miles Malleson all reprise their characters from the earlier film. Peter Sellers played one of his best-known roles, as the trade union shop steward Fred Kite, and won a Best Actor Award from the British Academy. The rest of the cast included many well-known British comedy actors of the time.

I am going to watch this on GEM in one hour's time hoping that Sellers uses the phrase "Garradine Swine", otherwise the last thirty years have affected my memory a little.

I predict we will demolish St.Kilda as the odds are against us and there is a lot of cash to win for a reasonable investment.

5. Mr Crossland, a german man, was dining with the Queen Mother when she stated "I always find beans so nourishing, do you grow beans in your native Germany, Mr Crossland" to which Mr. Crossland replied "shut up, don't you know I am a highly intelligent man?"

6. the dees have been twunted by a honda

Enjoy it while you can kids, anonymous comments are out the door next season. Sorry if that sounds rude but..

[audience member] "How rude are 'ya Rodney?"
Ohh not as rude as Melbourne's record against Victorian teams under Dean Bailey.

Shut up mate, I've seen you somewhere. I know where I saw you, you were hanging around Stephen Milne's house waiting for sloppy seconds! I'll be watching you mate.

But enough of that, at this moment I'm very pleased to welcome to the stage the man that the next award is named after. 43 games, 29 goals and one of the few pleasant things ever to come out of Moorabbin. Ladies and gentlemen a big Doncaster Venue 28 welcome for Jeff Hilton

2011 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year
11 - Jeremy Howe
6 - Sam Blease, Luke Tapscott
4 - Michael Evans
1 - Tom McDonald
0 - Jack Fitzpatrick, Max Gawn, Daniel Nicholson
DNP - Lucas Cook, Troy Davis, Kelvin Lawrence, Cameron Johnston

Congratulations to Jeremy who joins a lengthy honour roll of players. One of whom even turned out to be good.

2005 - No players eligible.
2006 - Matthew Bate
2007 - Michael Newton
2008 - Cale Morton
2009 - Jack Grimes ($4 fav)
2010 - Tom Scully ($5)
2011 - Jeremy Howe ($30)

Wait, ladies and gentlemen. We've just got some breaking news through from Sydney. Tom $cully has agreed to join GWS, and the owners of Demonblog have taken the unprecedented step of stripping him of his 2010 award a'la Milli Vanilli at the Grammys.

And so say all of us Tom,

Lucky you'll have your millions of dollars to keep you warm at night. Let's try that honour board again.

2005 - No players eligible.
2006 - Matthew Bate
2007 - Michael Newton
2008 - Cale Morton
2009 - Jack Grimes ($4 fav)
2010 - [AWARD REVOKED]
2011 - Jeremy Howe ($30)

Much better.

Thanks Jeff, feel free to grab a floppy $5 hot dog on your way out care of our friends at Delaware North catering. And how appropriate that Tom will be playing at Skoda Stadium next year, because his knee is about as reliable as a Skoda.

Anyway, back to players who have decided on loyalty over fat bags of cash. Remember, Tom McDonald and Jack Fitzpatrick are still eligible to win next year’s award because they debuted in the last month of the season.

Speaking of young Tom McDonald I was talking to him just the other day. I said "Tom, you're not the first McDonald to play for this club. What McHappened to that other McBloke who used to play for this great McClub?" "McJunior!" he cried, "I never met the McLegend but everybody tells me it was a McFarce that he got forced out of the door by sacked McCoach at the end of last McSeason".

"You’re McRight!" I cried, "these McClowns wouldn’t know the 4.32 footy special to Glen Waverley was up 'em unless it tooted the horn. Who's going to be next!"

"Joel Macdonald isn't looking all that McSecure” he said. "That’s McBullshit!" I screamed back at him, “First Matthew McWarnock demands a trade and now you're trying to push the McMadman from the North out the door after him. That’s McMadness!"

"I know Rodney" he said, "but if I can somehow engineer him to get the McArse that means I'll probably play 20 games next season". And you don’t get better McLogic than that. Just then Anthony McDonald walked in the room and it got so bloody confusing I just let the whole thing go.

And now, on that note it's time for our next award. One where we pay tribute to the defenders, the men who have spent the last five years under the biggest siege since Hitler had a crack at Russia. Men whose feats of bravery and courage during this time are only matched by the thousand yard stares that they’ve developed from having been under attack for so long.

It's time to add another name to the honour roll of great backmen to have served this club. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome to the stage one of the most reported players in Melbourne Football Club history. 89 games, 8 goals, 12 matches suspended - a big hand for Mr. Marcus Seecamp.

2011 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year
18 - James Frawley
15 - Colin Garland
14 - Joel Macdonald
11 - Jared Rivers
6 - Luke Tapscott, Sam Blease
3 - Jack Grimes
1 - Tom McDonald
0 - Matthew Warnock, Jamie Bennell, James Strauss

Congratulations Chip for becoming the first man ever to win this award three times in a row. We look forward to seeing his defensive work at the heart of this team for many years to come.

2005 - Nathan Carroll and Ryan Ferguson (shared)
2006 - Jared Rivers
2007 - Paul Wheatley
2008 - Matthew Whelan
2009 - James Frawley ($22)
2010 - James Frawley (2) ($3.50)
2011 - James Frawley (3) ($4)

And now, back to our glorious proprietor for a look at what we had to go through in 2011.

That was the season that was
Pre-Season Preview - In which I picked us to finish 7th before losing my nerve and changing to 11th by the time of the pre-season update post.

Intra-Club game
A day at the footy.. kinda (by Eskimo)
In which Eskimo cast the first eye of the season over our squad and discovered that at least we could win when we played against ourselves.

NAB Cup Round 1 vs Adelaide/Port Adelaide
THE STREAK
In which we snapped our near ten year filth record at Football Park by winning two glorified practice matches under baffling rules against sides who turned out to be not very good at all in the end.

NAB Cup Quarter Final vs Essendon
Keep Feeling (Agitation)
In which we turned out another in a long line of garbage performances at Docklands and contrived to make Essendon fans feel so good about themselves that they gave a standing ovation to the coach for winning a pre-season match.

Practice Match vs Brisbane
Let the good times roll
In which we lost to early wooden spoon contenders at a 95% empty Princes Park and my blood pressure went through the roof.

Round 1 vs Sydney
It's a weird and wonderful world
In which we were 73 points worse off than our last start against the Swans at the MCG but nobody cared because we still pocketed two points.

Round 2 vs Hawthorn
National Shite Day
In which a premiership contender turned up and put us back in our box with brutality. The sound of expectations bursting nearly deafened large sections of the crowd.

Round 3 vs Brisbane
Cute, Fluffy and not even slightly Ruthless
In which we welcomed the winless Lions to the MCG and faced an almighty struggle to beat them. Better than the practice match at least. Also in which my talkback radio rant about perceived misuse of Jack Watts ended up in the Finey's Final Siren promo, nearly causing me to crash my car on Bay Street, Port Melbourne when hearing it for the first time.

Round 4 vs Gold Coast
Advanced, Forthright, Insignificant
In which I travelled to the Gabba to watch us flog a bunch of 14-year-old rookies and go home disappointed despite winning by 90 points.

Round 5 vs Nobody
In which we sportingly had the bye for the Easter long weekend and I went to Omeo.

Round 6 vs West Coast
Spaghetti Western
In which expectations unfairly raised based on two wins against rubbish teams were burst for a second time when the Eagles unsportingly refused to let us get the ball inside 50 for most of the night. Cue Dean Bailey Media Frenzy pt. 1

Round 7 vs Adelaide
Crisis Management 101
In which the First Media Frenzy was buried in a shallow grave care of a thumping, runaway victory over hapless interstate visitors. Also in which an injury free first six weeks of the season ended and an era of black death style plague was ushered in.

Round 8 vs North Melbourne
Shit Sandwich
In which we belied the injury crisis and played like we were good for a quarter before it all went horribly wrong. Juice Newton seen having the time of his life for the first 20 minutes before regular service was resumed. Injury crisis got worse.

Round 9 vs St Kilda
If you tolerate this your children will be next
When we played the Saints back into form after their horror start to the season. A late flurry of junktime goals made it look more respectable than it otherwise deserved to be. Injury crisis continued to get worse.

Round 10 vs Carlton
Zombie Nation
In which we set up to try and go into quarter time at nil-all and it suprisingly didn't work. Channel Seven executives kill themselves en masse at what we did to their ratings, and in a rare show of solidarity the media supports them by launching Bailey Frenzy II.

Round 11 vs Essendon
Violent Mood Swings
In which Bailey Frenzy II ended in the same timeframe as the original. The wobbling Bombers were put to what counts as the sword for us, yet somehow managed to end the season having beaten Geelong and making the finals. Not that it did them much good. We could have been thrashed just as convincingly by the Blues if we'd finished 8th.

Round 12 vs Collingwood
One Hit Wonders
In which we were briefly teased a 2010 style performance before the inevitable thrashing at the hands of the reigning premiers. We'd almost beaten them twice the year before you know..

Round 13 vs Fremantle
Rollercoaster of Love
In which an injury riddled Dockers side gave us cheek for a half before folding like a house of cards and being thrashed. Misguided excitement suddenly injected back into the supporter base.

Round 14 vs Richmond
Let them burn and we shall all clap our hands
In which we won what was billed as an "early Elimination Final" and suddenly started to think we were a chance of making the finals. Both sides would provide little or nothing of interest for the next month and a half and they'd eventually finish above us.

Round 15 vs Footscray
Dog Day Aftermath
In which we went into a Friday night as favourites, against a side on their knees, ready to consolidate our place amongst the challengers for eight. And were royally thrashed. Another week, another shit team played back into form.

Round 16 vs Nobody
In which we got a week to stew on the fiasco against the Dogs whilst simultaneously shitting ourselves at the prospect of losing to Port.

Round 17 vs Port Adelaide
The thriller in (conditions resembling) Manilla
In which we pocketed big bucks for selling our home game to Darwin and managed to hold on against the worst team in the land despite having to hold quarter breaks in a room usually used to store meat.

Round 18 vs Hawthorn
The light at the end of the tunnel (is the light of an oncoming train)
In which our "month from hell" started in poor fashion. Still, didn't matter because as long as we won our last three we'd made the finals. As long as we didn't totally lose the plot by getting thrashed in Geelong at least..

Round 19 vs Geelong
'In the dark times will there be singing? Yes, there will be singing about the dark times
In which I said "oh dear" and took the V-Line train home with a look of abject shock. This time the Bailey Frenzy lasted about 18 hours and ended up with him getting the boot. Somehow this result won the CEO a contract extension. Work that out.

Round 20 vs Carlton
Bloodsport for all
In which we donned novelty headbands in honour of a new coach and saw another shambolic performance against a quality side.

Round 21 vs West Coast
Shaky minus ladder
In which the game that before the season seemed to be our best chance to get a win at Docklands suddenly became another excuse for a good team to tee off on us. Ricky Petterd's mum featured heavily in the post match dissections.

Round 22 vs Richmond
Be strong, it's almost over
In which we finally managed to lose a game by under a million points. Sadly it was against one of our fellow rubbish teams and absolutely ended any slight mathmatical hope we had of making the eight. Why did we still have any hope?

Round 23 vs Gold Coast
It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again
In which we went far too close to losing to the Queensland Under 18's than you'd like and stayed in the race for a 9th placed finish. Coincidentally the same day that everybody said "why in god's name would you have a top 9?"

Round 24 vs Port Adelaide
Viney's Final Siren
In which we helped welcome football back to the Adelaide Oval by allowing Port to avoid the wooden spoon to the joy of 25,000 yokels and the general despair of my neighbours who had to hear all about it while inanimate objects were smashed.

Thank god that's over. Now back to our host...

Y'know, the other day I got a letter asking me to renew my membership. I wrote back and said "you can do what a duck can’t do, stick your bill up your arse". But even in these dark times there have been some players who have given us joy with their performance. There are also quite a lot who got votes just because we had to hand out five every week.

And so that brings us to the most prestigious award in Australian Rules Football. Like the Brownlow, Norm Smith and Coleman Medals added together, multiplied by the Bluey Truscott and divided by the Liston Medal, it’s time to add another name to the honour roll of great footballers.

And to present this award it gives me the greatest pleasure to welcome the man who you, dear Demonblog readers and sympathisers, helped bring back to prominence by making the day in his honour one of the highest trending topics on Twitter. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Allen Jakovich.

[crowd rises for a five minute standing ovation]

"Even though the club shafted me by not making me one of the 150 Heroes, and even though they've shut up shop on the Hall Of Fame so that I can never be inducted I'm more than happy to be here today presenting the 7th edition of the medal struck in my honour way back in 2005.

There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, and the six men who have lifted this award have had six seasons ranging from magnificent, to pretty good, to just better than the rubbish he was playing alongside.

So this morning, to a man who wore my jumper number as a kid I say congratulations to Brent Moloney on your victory. After party is on Fitzroy Street."

Brent Moloney is unable to be here today, the owners of Demonblog would like to accept the medal on his behalf. We'll put it alongside the other six that have never been claimed.

2011 Allen Jakovich Medal
35 - Brent Moloney
32 - Colin Sylvia
27 - Jordie McKenzie
24 - Stefan Martin, Jack Watts
18 - James Frawley
16 - Mark Jamar, Jack Trengove
15 - Colin Garland
14 - Joel Macdonald
11 - Ricky Petterd, Jared Rivers, Jeremy Howe (WINNER: Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year), Nathan Jones
10 - Jordan Gysberts
8 - Brad Green
6 - Luke Tapscott, Lynden Dunn, Sam Blease
5 - Rohan Bail
4 - Michael Evans, Tom $cully
3 - Matthew Bate, Clint Bartram, Jack Grimes, Liam Jurrah
2 - Neville Jetta
1 - Addam Maric, Tom McDonald

Thanks Jako, and you know Jako I was just hanging around Chapel Street the other day, sipping lattes and checking out the action when I pivoted a bit and who did I see. Another ex-Demon forward, Brad Miller! "Brad!", I said "What's your season been like?"

"Well I’ve got some good news and bad news for you" he said, pulling a copy of the league ladder out of his pocket.

"The bad news is that my team finished one spot above yours on the ladder".

“That is bad" I said "What's the good news?”
“Well Rodney, see my wife Pia?”
I said "yeah!"
He yelled "The good news is I'm rooting her" and leapt onto the Route 78 tram.

Anyway, that's it. The night's over. You can piss off home.

But first I'd like to sing a song that I just came up with. Ready? Here we go.

"I wrote a letter to Chris J**d. I put the address Crunt, Carlton. He got it."

That's all I know of that one. Now, we're finishing the night with good old fashioned Aussie limericks. Who’s got one? Come on up.

There once was a coach from Port Power
The draft for good players he would scour
He played forwards down back
Til the place was off track
Now we’ll never be a superpower"

"There once was a day in Geelong
With everything that could went wrong
The coach got the sack
Schwab was asked to come back
And nobody sang the theme song"

There was a young star named Tom
Who took to the game with aplomb
We rorted the draft
Then he gave us the shaft
Now we hope his career will bomb"

Goodbye tax dodgers, see you again next year.

Viney's Final Siren

2011-09-04T21:59:00.007+10:00

Nothing is ever easy around this place. You know that, I know that and the city of Adelaide certainly knows that because they've been taking the piss out of us every time we've gone then for a decade. Still, even if you started to doubt it as the game got closer surely you thought somewhere, deep in the far recesses of your Melbourne Supporter Depression Syndrome addled brain that this was going to be the day we'd finally do the right thing in South Australia.

First and foremost Port have been utterly shite this year. We were hardly convincing in beating them in Darwin but that was easy to put down to the conditions. Secondly it wasn't being played at Football Park where we might have won some Wobbies World glorified practice matches under invented rules earlier in the year but realistically hadn't fired a shot at for a decade (Chell, if you're still reading I'll save you the blushes of yet another round of talk about THAT goal in '01, suffice to say it's still the best thing to happen in that city since white settlement).

A + B = four points right? Far too easy an equation. I couldn't work out whether or not the fact that they were still a chance of avoiding the spoon helped us or not. Bad news for us that the only good thing the introduction of the new teams has produced, the devaluing of 'winning' the spoon, turned out to be our downfall in the end. As profitable as rorting the draft turned out to be (in getting Trengove and two kids courtesy of the $cully Bequest) it must be nice to actually want your team to avoid the humiliation of finishing last instead of punting it home like the last 100m of the Cox Plate.

For more evidence of why we couldn't possible lose, see also Port's shattering fadeout against the Bombers last week. If that had of been us the whole place would have gone into meltdown and we'd have showed up the next week and copped nine goals to nil in the first quarter. That's what you'd expect out of Port given that they've spent most of the year doing exactly that but of course today they decide to be spurred onto victory in front of a crowd featuring 10,000 people who haven't been to a game all season but decide to turn up just because the match wasn't being played at the Bulgarian government constructed concrete jungle at Westlakes.

You'd have thought that getting away from Football Park would have helped us, considering the absolute spasticity that strikes the entire club the moment we walk through the door of the place but sadly it turned out moving the game to Adelaide Oval didn't help us in the slightest. In fact if you're the sort of person who believes in crowd atmosphere having any bearing on things it probably condemned us. The presence of 29,000 toothless simpletons and bearded ex-dock workers (who Channel Seven insisted on highlighting repeatedly when they weren't bouncing the camera angles around like an episode of NYPD Blue) certainly didn't hurt them in the umpiring stakes.

But you know what, being rorted by umpires who are too scared that some filth is going to smash the windows of his car doesn't come close to explaining why today was so disappointing. I'd love to say things about how GC's wooden spoon and pick four is just another one of their concessions from the AFL, but despite some of the most baffling decisions ever, an umpire who couldn't bounce the ball straight and wasn't even being taken seriously by Port players by the end, we could have and should have still won today - and that's what makes this even more of a dog vomit heavy slopfest than it would have been otherwise.

How's that set of circumstances that would catapult us into the finals looking now? Smash Richmond, smash Gold Coast, smash Port, get knocked out by Carlton. Seemed logical enough but clearly didn't take into account the massive smell of fish that's coming off this club at the moment. It's a shattered lump of a place and unless we either land the coaching or playing free agent signing of the year I'll be open mouth gobsmacked if we don't lose 5000 members. One thing you can be pleased with is that surely this year the AGM is going to be more of a chair throwing battle royale than a gigantic sporting circle jerk like it has been every other year in recent times.

The worst thing is that if I look at our team on paper I'm still convinced they're not that bad, but you're talking to the guy who went into '08 thinking '07 was an abberation that would be corrected en route to an '09 flag tilt. For all the negativity on here maybe I'm not actually critical enough about our playing list? Or maybe they're decent enough in isolation but can't put it together as a team? Maybe somebody shagged a witch during the 1964 Grand Final post match celebrations?

Tell you what I am critical about and that's the inability of this club to win the centre clearances when it really matters. I know that there's no mystical formula that you can apply to suddenly start dominating - or you'd probably be playing a Qualifying Final this week - but for god's sake is there any danger next year that we might at least attempt to put the brakes on other clubs winning out of there so easily? I don't care if they have to lock it up for ten bounces but the amount of times this season that we've won a tap and had it go straight to an opposition player who roosts it forward is a disgrace. Jamar had 40 taps today - between Moloney, Jones and McKenzie we would have had a mere handful of quality clearances.

And there's the problem. 40 taps to Jamar, dominating Brogan and Lobbe in the air and all of Moloney, Jones and McKenzie being amongst our best players but almost every centre bounce, or secondary bounce, saw Port winning the ball. Their massive ineptitude saved us from the sort of total disaster that would have occured if we'd played like that against a good club - and with their slightly vaunted key forwards doing nothing it was the best invitation you'll ever get to steamroll somebody. And we cocked it up.

Butcher, the new Darren Cuthbertson, did absolutely nothing and will probably have to stay at Port now that he's been exposed as a flash in the pan. Ironically he wasn't alone, all their tall forwards were well held (at least until Westhoff dicked us in the last quarter) but that didn't stop them scoring goals while we were botching chance after chance down the other end. Not that our talls were doing much either - Watts and Green barely touched it in the first half and by the time Howe got into the game he spent 20 minutes being ripped off by the tossers who were umpiring.

We might have been in a better place at half time if we'd taken half the chances we'd been offered to run away with it. Don't forget that in the end the difference in the Port game was the first quarter and Emo Maric going off his nut with crumb (doesn't that seem like a long time ago?). We could have done with some legitimate crumb today but it's seemingly still not the done thing at this club - please address this at the draft table for god's sake. As much as I loved seeing Howe snap one around his body that's an additional bonus, not what should be happening every week.

As it was the ball was leaking out of our forward line as soon as it went there - thanks to Port for finally deciding to try forward pressure six months into the season - and even when we did have chances we were muffing them. At the other end they had guys booting torps after the siren. If I'd shaken a magic 8 ball at that point it would have come back ALL SIGNS POINT TO NO.

It was not a day to be Sam Blease. In a year where the "profile in the paper" curse has taken out half the squad (and Daniel Nicholson has never been the same again) it seems that the Rising Star nomination curse has taken another a victim - and it's got The Gizz twice in two years so it's a potent bastard. Poor kid was absolutely pox. It didn't help that he got dropped head first onto a cricket pitch but he was already heading towards a shocker. Eventually got subbed out with five frees against and one behind where he could probably have handed off for a goal. Watch today's tape once and burn it kid, last week was where it's at. Probably doesn't play Round 1 next year but there's a big future there - especially if Grimes necks himself 20 minutes into the season again. Viney said he had a migraine in the press conference, I hope that came from being poleaxed on centre wicket and wasn't there before the game because if so he should either not have played or come on as sub.

Tell you who I did like in the first half - Matthew Bate. Never thought I'd say that again but he was good in the middle and handy around the ground. Drifted away in the second half but for the first time it became apparent how he's been managing to rack up 25+ touches in the VFL so often. I've got a soft spot for Old Bate, and even though he faded away in the second half I hope we keep him - he's never the answer to our chronic issues in the middle of the ground but he could definitely do something off half forward if given a decent chance and not shuffled in and out of the side and played as sub every second week. Still don't know why he got the boot after being one of the few people to come out of the Geelong debacle with any credit but who am I to argue with this mighty football club.

Poor old Sad Panda Morton saw another 50k slashed off his 'wait until the end of the year' contract price. He was pretty good in the first quarter to be fair, and I could have almost worked him into my votes at that point for want of five good players but from then on he was almost completely unsighted other than a couple of hamfisted efforts late in the game. Keep him (under suicide watch) for next season if he's keen but if [new coach] doesn't make his first act to go over and start shaking him vigourously and screaming in his face I'll be very disappointed. Also feel free to sign up a sponsorship with KFC and force feed him some of those burgers where the bun is replaced with pieces of chicken.

Another thing that shit me up the wall about today, and helped contribute as much to our demise as farce umpiring, rubbish forward structure and getting killed out of the centre, is the amount of times the Port players were allowed to run free to take a kick or a handball 20m clear of an opponent. Most of the time they cocked it up because they are not actually any good (I know the feeling) but give them enough chances and they're going to eventually score. Seems like we've been here before in the last five years? About 50 times to be precise.

Meanwhile at the other end we've got Jack Fitzpatrick playing the worst debut game since Isaac Weetra and Tom McDonald hitting the post with one of the shonkiest kicks at goal ever seen on the Australian mainland. McDonald was ok down back, and I'm certainly not expecting him to kick set shots but can anyone explain how Fitz booted five for Casey last week? I know they were slaughtering Preston and even I might have got on the end of one if I'd stayed out there long enough but his kicking style is heinous. It was almost Spencil-esque the way he looked down for an eternity before putting ball to boot, and usually spraying it. Good on him getting a goal in the end but in the spirit of playing at the Adelaide Oval all I will say is Michael Clark.

I'm not putting him in the Weetra/Bode division yet but I'd rather not see him in the ones again until at least halfway through next year. Inauspicious doesn't quite cover it. Why was he playing anyway? Ok he kicked five last week but surely if there was going to be a third tall played we owed it to MAXIMUM GAWN to give him another go. Would have been the perfect time to start Jamar at FF. Don't tell me we're trying to make up for the karma of destroying Casey's finals chances a couple of years ago by removing all of our players by letting them keep Max this week (and fat lot of good that did against the other Port) instead of giving him another vital hitout against AFL players.

A point down at half time and you might of thought it couldn't get any worse. After all we'd ridden the sham umpiring, our own chronic lack of structure, the COMPLETE AND UTTER REFUSAL TO KICK TO A LEAD AT ANY TIME EVER and some absolute skill howlers to be just a point behind. When Jones got that first goal my blood pressure dropped from STROKE IMMINENT to STROKE LIKELY, before going all the way up to AMY WINEHOUSE when they got it straight out of the middle and goalled thirty seconds later. Half a decade of Melbourne style football summed up right there.

In the massive list of things I'm sick to death with at this club second only to not being able to kick-in properly (and didn't "Viney's Vacuum" prove to be the biggest one hit wonder since Tommy Tutone?) is when we spend what seems like hours (and often is) struggling to create a goal and then the other side go straight down the other end from the bounce and boot one without raising a sweat. Then to really rub it in they added another four without even the slightest hint of perspiration. It was almost like we were playing somebody half decent.

In the middle of this madness Howe was denied a mark that would get paid every other day of the week but that was about as good as it got because they were carving us at stoppages, running free all over the place and kicking goals at will.

It's at this point that, confronted with yet another Channel 7 shot of some codger in the crowd and Bruce McAvaney's 93rd anecdote about what happened to Glenelg in the 1968 SANFL Grand Final that I might have punched buggery out of a couch. For the first time. At the end of the game it still had dints in it but don't worry dear owner of said couch they seemed superficial and should even out eventually. All the structural damage was to my hand. Only Trengove's goal at the end saved me from total despair. And wasn't it good to hear the umpire call the Port Adelaide variety "Trengrove". Sack the man immediately. Send Tim Watson with him for calling our one "James". Abusing Bruce would be like killing Bambi but even he managed to call Dan Nicholson at some point despite him being in another state.

We managed to stage a brief revival in the first few minutes of the last quarter but from there on it was pure shambles. Garland's attempt to take on Westhoff and the subsequent dropping the ball decision (surely not holding the ball considering there wasn't a tackle) said it all about the way we're going at the moment. Next thing you know we're four goals down and the sound of people trying to bend their membership repeatedly so that it will snap in half starts to echo across the Melbourne metropolitan area.

Another belated comeback made it half interesting for a minute or so but we'd left it too late. Port avoided the spoon, we continued to be utter shite west of Bordertown and the Melbourne Football Club managed to turn the knife in the collective backs of their fans one last time before shutting up shop. What will the players do if they can't tweet about how disappointed they are, pledging to do better next time?

Bailey would have been at home pissing himself laughing in front of the TV. You have to laugh. Unless you're busy scaring the neighbours by screaming abuse at the top of your voice. I reckon I topped this guy's performance today. Thank god there was nobody there to record it.

2011 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
5 - Brent Moloney
4 - Jordie McKenzie
3 - Jack Trengove
2 - Matthew Bate
1 - Nathan Jones

Apologies to Martin, Howe, Bail, Jamar, Rivers and Frawley.

Final Leaderboard
Congratulations to Beamer who stormed to victory with an undisputed BOG, removing any danger of a 3, 2 or 1 vote performance and the requisite teeth gnashing and guilt about having him narrowly win, lose or draw the most tainted award in AFL Footy. Beware sir, there's a reason nobody has ever won it twice - ask Green what it did to him this year.

Frawley holds on for back-to-back wins in the Seecamp while Howe takes advantage of Blease's horror afternoon and Tapscott's green vest to hang on to the Hilton in his own right.

A word too for McKenzie who managed to finish just seven votes shy in third despite missing most of the first half of the season. Clearly there's a fetish at play here so expect him to poll well next season too.

35 - Brent Moloney (WINNER: Allen Jakovich Medal for Player of the Year)
32 - Colin Sylvia
27 - Jordie McKenzie
24 - Stefan Martin (WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Jack Watts
18 - James Frawley (WINNER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
16 - Mark Jamar, Jack Trengove
15 - Colin Garland
14 - Joel Macdonald
11 - Ricky Petterd, Jared Rivers, Jeremy Howe (WINNER: Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year), Nathan Jones
10 - Jordan Gysberts
8 - Brad Green
6 - Luke Tapscott, Lynden Dunn, Sam Blease
5 - Rohan Bail
4 - Michael Evans, Tom Scully
3 - Matthew Bate, Clint Bartram, Jack Grimes, Liam Jurrah
2 - Neville Jetta
1 - Addam Maric, Tom McDonald

Coaches Corner
There was always something unnerving about Viney coming out on the back of a battling win against the (eventual, thanks to us, sorry about that) wooden spooners and saying that he was considering changing his mind and applying for the job full time. Maybe wait and see if you can beat the worst (eventually second worst, thanks to us, sorry about that) team in the competition first?

It's hardly fair on him that he's been handed a gigantic steaming turd and been told to polish it but when he said from day one that he didn't want the job at the end of the year everyone was willing to sit back and let him go, with the understanding that he'd do his best and stand back at the end of the year.

Surely the job application was put through the shredder this afternoon and he gladly goes back to being the Development Coach (though given that we've gone backwards this year it's anybody's guess how much development is actually taking place) instead of formally applying and almost certainly being rejected. Given the absolute carnage that I'm convinced will be occuring with our assistant coaches when the new guy (whoever he may be) comes in he should probably be happy just to stay.

Not to say he wouldn't be a fine coach with a stable, non-mental playing group and the benefit of a pre-season but at the moment unless everybody else both experienced and senior assistants tell us to get stuffed I don't want to take the chance.

Unless it was some sort of rort in the road to springing Malthouse from the Pies, then I'm for it.

As for who it will actually be who bloody knows. Won't be Lyon (either of them), almost certainly won't be Laidley or Williams, probably won't be Eade and I'll eat my hat if Malthouse somehow manages to get out of the Westpac Centre and to another club without Eddie having him assassinated first. Whoever it is they're going to have a whale of a time trying to sort this mess out.

Ironically tonight I was flicking through the book about the Daniher brothers at somebody else's house, and naturally turning straight to the page marked in the index as MELBOURNE FOOTBALL CLUB it had Cam Schwab attempting to lure Neale to Melbourne only for the then Freo assistant coach to say he wasn't sure because the club was a shambles on and off the field. All was well that ended well, but 14 years later what's changed? Different shambleses, same vibe - and there's no Jeff White + absurd salary cap rorts coming over the horizon to save us next season.

Scull and Crossbones
Take your dirty money and piss off. In a season of unwanted distractions that saga has ranked only slightly below Baileygate in unbalancing us. I hope all the players who were carted out to testify what a fine upstanding citizen he was who, Abraham Lincoln style would never tell a lie, get the chance to belt him once each when we play them next year.

Of course if he comes out tomorrow and announces he's signed the above paragraph might disappear. But wouldn't you be slightly peeved if he put us through that whole year and then just signed anyway? Good thing it's not going to happen thanks to GWS being given the blank cheque from heaven to spend whatever they like, and they don't turn out to get value for money then who cares just go back to the league and ask for another handout.

Just don't take him on any pre-season tours of China in case he sooks it again. And Tom, if you're reading don't come out and say you were thinking of staying until some knob on the internet wrote mean things because we all know that will be an epic lie and [I think that's quite enough of this segment - legal department]

Was it worth it?
In that it gives me something to seethe about for six months yes. Also good for draft picks, but really how desperate are we to be thinking that going four picks in the higher in the mid teens is going to help us?

Final Thoughts
So for the seventh time we come to the end of the Demonblog season - and for the fifth in a row it's tinged with disappointment and/or outright depression. Thanks to all the readers, the commenters, the lurkers, the Twitterers, people who took an 'active interest' in the ads and all the opposition fans who come on here just to piss themselves laughing about what a shambles we are. To be fair I'd probably still be writing this as therapy even if nobody was reading but it's nice to know somebody else has half an interest.

If you're not entirely sick of the whole thing and wanting to forget it ever happened there'll be the annual year in review post on here sometime in the next week and I'll get around to doing a full update on Demonwiki as well.

After that actual posts will be scarcer than a Melbourne centre clearance so keep an eye on Twitter for any wildcard updates around trade week, the coaching change or the drafts and we'll get back into it with gusto again next year.

It's certainly been interesting...

It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again

2011-08-28T17:38:00.008+10:00

Well, we made it. I'm well aware that there's another game to be played, but let's be entirely serious nobody will have any interest whatsoever in the game against Port, so that was the defacto last game of the season. We've made the end of the year without being carted off to a mental hospital. We've gone from hope to disappointment three or four times, taken a detour through utter despair and somehow managed to get another win before the end of the year despite having the wonkiest imaginable run to the finish line.

It goes without saying that had we somehow contrived to lose today that there would have been absolute murder. Maybe not at the ground where interest in going embarassingly off chops is usually reserved for a handful of nutters (and to those people, we salute you) but in the media, on talkback radio and - god forbid - the internet it would have been slaughter. Imagine the nutters on the Facebook page, there would have been enough bizarre comments to keep you going until next season.

But thankfully by virtue of the fact that we were playing a team with an average age of 15, who featured a second game full back with absolutely no idea what he was doing, a rugby player who has half an idea and a full forward who was there as a favour to his brother we got over the line. This despite them fumbling and bumbling around for four quarters and giving us every opportunity to smash them. Somehow despite all this, and the fact that we would have smashed them three months ago with eight minutes left we were still a chance of throwing away a five goal lead at three quarter time.

In true MFC fashion it couldn't just be a simple, comfortable run away drought breaking win against the 16th best side in the competition. Like that guy in the Hawaiian Ironman who lost the ability to run and wobbled over the line like a jellyfish we couldn't have been any less convincing if we tried.

It was always going to be dangerous, they've got kids not only playing for a spot in the team but a spot on the list - and nobody expected them to win so they could afford to play fearlessly. We were suddenly thrust into the unfamiliar role of red hot favourites after two months of being belted by all and sundry with only a battling win against notorious slappers Port Adelaide to show for it. Disaster loomed. If the enthusiasm of 3/4 of their team playing on the MCG for the first time carried too long we were every chance of dropping our bundle and having a nervous breakdown.

Now here's where it gets truly tragic. Forget the result, the chance of being the worst Victorian team or the possibility of dropping back to the foot of the Laughing Stock League for the third time this season, I wasted $10 on one last crack at my five year odyssey to finally correctly bet on the first goalkicker in an MFC match. This was no time to start mucking around and having Tom McNamara at 250-1 so I plumped for the favourite for the first time ever. Jurrah @9's it was. Hey big spender.

Green did his bit to keep it interesting by kicking off with a captain's point before some Gold Coast idiot missed a sitter to keep it alive. Eventually after ten minutes of garbage that you'd be shattered to watch at a suburban game we went from one end to the other in 2010 Baileyball-esque swashbuckle fashion and Watts hit the Jurrahcane with a pass to leave him with a shot that he'd kick nine times out of 10. And of course this was the one he missed.

Another glorious failure, and so we enter the 2012 season with the closest I've ever got being an "Any Other Player" (Lynden Dunn pre-shambolic mo) at $3.20 in 2008 before they started ripping off idiots like me and putting all the players on the board. Remember when I said that I'd given up gambling? Of course that didn't happen because I've got no will power, but you'll be pleased to know it's contained to the footy only and I'm not spending nights playing obscure Asian games involving dice and dominoes in sleazy gambling dens.

Despite the fact that we were continuing the theme of the season in being bashed to death in centre clearances we still managed to kick the first three. So far so good but how many dropped marks did we have in the forward line in the first quarter? Made a mockery of my theory that as long as we could get the ball forward that we'd be right. Cue the Fev bandwagon exploding all over the shop. Probably didn't help that Howe was the sub and they lost their nerve on having Tapscott down there after ten minutes. At least ol' bucket hands Howe can be reliably expected to hold a mark over his head which is more than you can say for any of our other forwards today. May he never wear a silly green vest again.

I'll be the last person to refuse an invitation to climb aboard the Brad Green Caravan of Character Assassination, but no doubt he had an absolute mare of a first quarter and 28 minutes of the second. Before he kicked that goal at the end of the first half I was thinking "oh god, here we go again". Despite my irrational (at times) support it did look odd when he was trying to lead for Bartram's set shot despite being about 11 metres away. We all know Clint can't kick a set shot to save himself but I would have thought expecting him to squeeze a pass to the top of the square with that degree of accuracy was probably the lesser option. He missed of course, but at least he scored which is I'm sure more than we would have got if he'd tried a dinky little pass. No doubt the umpires would have called play-on anyway.

Ahh the umpires. It's late enough in the year that I can ignore my own principles and whinge about them. I wasn't aware that in addition to ripping off every second pick in the 2010 draft and being allowed an uncontracted player from each club that they were also entitled to a truckload of mystifying decisions during their first visit to the MCG. What about the one where the Suns guy jumped into the SME in the ruck contest and pushed him out of the way with the ball nowhere near either of them and still somehow managed to end up getting the free himself? Or any of the 57 baffling ruck infringements, 55 of them which went the other way. I'm surprised Jamar didn't belt one of the umpires a'la Phil Carmen by the end it was such a farce. It evened out a bit in the end but my god feel free to have half a crack at getting it right sometime. Realistically I don't even blame the umpires most of the time, the league keeps asking them to make interpretations based on rules that change every two weeks it's no wonder that they're inconsistent and we look down on them.

I did enjoy McNamara getting away with kicking Harley Bennell in the shins and dropping a fist on him a'la Macho Man Randy Savage in the last quarter. Made up for some of the rorts we were on the end of earlier, especially considering we were right on the verge of cocking it up when he did it. Best inadvertent attack on a sports ground since Zola Budd took Mary Decker out in the 1984 Olympics 3000m Steeplechase final.

After ten minutes of stalemate and another ten of our natural hackery not allowing us to capitalise on their youthful ineptitude we finally got away in the last few minutes. It really was almost the worst game you've ever seen in your life. The guys from the Chinese AFL International Cup side who were watching on must have fancied themselves to be the next Yao Ming and get drafted by us if that was the sort of competition they had - and I think they finished behind Vatican City and Ray's Tent City in that competition.

To be fair we weren't all that bad when we got our hands on the ball, other than the usual slop that we've been serving up for years, and they even appear to have devised the most likely looking system for kickouts that we've had in a decade. The problem was that when the ball went the other way they had players spread out everywhere, running around on their own. It was like we had 18 x Daniel Ward out there, running around 30m off their opponents trying to pick up cheap kicks. The only person who was going anywhere near an opponent was Bartram who was doing a half decent job on Ablett, but good luck stopping that guy without the aid of heavy sedatives or pepper spray.

Run out of the backline was good courtesy of the super impressive, and bloody quick, Blease plus Garland, Frawley and McDonald (good debut, more against real teams please) and for once we were getting it inside 50 more than the opposition but good luck finding a target in a one-on-one, and good luck not having it haemorrhage straight out the middle after every centre bounce. Get the second one right next year or don't even bother showing up for Round 1.

Until Green turned his opponent inside out and marked for his first goal to end a horror half - and springboard himself into a good performance in the end - it was starting to look potentially very, very ugly. For all their failings as a nursery club for talented children Gold Coast have been a good contested possession and good clearance side all year and they killed us on both fronts.

Needless to say there was more than a hint of nervousness amongst the assembled faithful - and the middle deck of the Ponsford was the most overwhelming MFC landslide I've ever seen apart from the guy behind me cheering Gary Ablett on for Supercoach purposes - but the most startling announcement came from my mum who stood up at half time, announced that she'd had enough of football and was leaving. Poor woman managed to make it through almost five years of garbage before finally snapping. That's one less member in 2012 then... "If I don't come next year they'll probably be good" she said as I went in the other direction to stuff my face with the Kaiser's Sausage at half. Interestingly the third quarter almost proved her right at the first available opportunity so maybe I won't try to convince her to come back.

Speaking of the greatest food outlet in footy history I spoke to the Kaiser himself (not, sadly, Franz Beckenbauer) and he said they "should" be there next season. I must admit that in the presence of the great man himself I became a bit of a sweating fanboy. To be in the presence of the greatest caterer in footy history was slightly overwhelming. It crossed my mind to try and steer him towards this page to try and set up a potential sponsorship deal. But when am I going to eat the freebies before 2012? If they could roll their van up outside the Casino at least I could go over the road for a Classic Hot Krainer special sometimes. If you're going to a finals game do youself a favour and lash out $7 for one, I can confidently predict that you will not be disappointed. Unless you're a vegetarian, then you'll get bugger all out of the experience.

Anyway, enough of the Kaiser. Until he Googles himself and we cut a deal anyway. Or we draft a player with a German name and he instantly acquires the nickname. The ok thing about today was that we had players who could have contributed more. Get Watts, Trengove and god forbid Morton into the game, find somebody for Jamar to direct his 39 hits at and play Howe from the first bounce and it's (on paper) instantly better. Still, that's the Melbourne Football Club experience for you - when it all clicks it's glorious, the other 97% of the time it's bloody awful but it always looks good on paper. If you hold it up to a mirror upside down and squint.

The third quarter was certainly worthy. Green got his second in a row and the Experience took the piss out of Bock to kick his second (though I had horrible visions of his dinky little kick crashing straight into the post) and GC couldn't get their hands on it. All of a sudden we were winning out of the middle, using it well and the advantage they had when they got the ball and had 17 spare players wasn't there. So basically as long as we don't let the other team get the ball we'll win. Not exactly the tactical basis to lay an assault at the finals on.

The only downside was Jurrah killing himself in a marking contest - but still taking the shot despite clearly having just stuffed his shoulder, which is the dictionary definition of hungry - but he's got plenty of time to get better. If there's any upside to it at least Howe will get to play four quarters next week and maybe, just maybe my triple threat ruck fiesta might get a run.

Possibly my favourite bit of the quarter, with apologies to Garland bombing a goal from 50m out, was Nifty Nev Jetta running at Harbrow, telling him to piss off and pushing straight through to kick a goal. He wasn't near our best today but I loved seeing him in the middle, I might have a Nev fetish but I'm dying to see him cement a spot in the team. Only 11 touches, but six tackles and things just seem to happen when he's around. Now that I've supported him he will now almost certainly either get traded or never play another good game again.

It looked like the natural order of the world had been restored when we went into the last quarter five goals in front but nothing comes simply to this club. Sad thing is that the side we were playing today, a corporate creation of the league pitched to unborn children and filthy turncoats who change teams in adulthood, will almost certainly win the flag before we will. Everyone will. Gold Coast, GWS, New Zealand, Fitzroy, Ray's Tent City.

No surprises either considering they've been given every advantage just on the off chance that a few thousand people in Queensland and a few Victorians who are trying to be wacky will support the game. Here's hoping that they shed a few players off the list when they're forced to return to normal numbers and that a few of the kids who fall off the back of the truck with AFL experience turn out to be good and that we may nab some decent ones. The other option is to hang around Collingwood on hard rubbish collection night and grab anything they put out on the nature strip as unwanted. The only problem there is that you'll either end up with a Nathan Djekerra who is no good without being surrounded by superstars or Simon Buckley who wasn't much chop to start with.

Before the game I had a feeling that it would end up too close for comfort, and in the last quarter the premonition came true. Just when you thought we'd run away from them, and despite the fact that we kicked the sealer about three times in 30 minutes, the little bastards kept coming at us and with absolutely no ability to lock the ball in the middle of the ground it was only inexperienced bumbling that stopped them from running right over the top of us.

First Ablett did the Ponsford Takeaway when he pickpocketed Rivers to gave Nathan a charity goal. Not so bad. Then Howe comes on and kicks a goal and we seal it for the first time. Cue four in a row by the Suns, absolute hysteria from the kids and turncoats in their cheersquad and collectively tightened sphincters of the other 21,000 people in the ground.

I refused to let myself believe we could possibly cock it up from there, but when the fourth one went in I started clearing a space in my mental horrors wing for a spot alongside the Chris Sullivan Line game and Geelong. They went forward again when it was 17 points the difference, and thank god the umpiring rorts swung around and let McNamara get away with his unprecedented attack on Bennell 40m out as good as directly in front, because if that had gotten back to under two goals there could have been an utter tragedy on the cards.

Thank god then for Jeremy Howe, the man who must never be the substitute again, who booted the second sealer and Moloney who got the third. Talk about relief, the prospect of another low moment avoided and the knowledge that we don't have to leave the house to watch this crap again before next February/March. Some people might take an interest in the annual September exhibition series which other teams play in but I'll be turning my interest to the really important things like getting a new coach, flogging some players at trade week and ruining some more athletic young men's careers by drafting them.

I've never celebrated a win less, and the match did throw up as many questions as it did solutions but looking at it rationally a few hours after the fact I think as long as we beat Port next week then we've done as well as possible out of the fortnight and can go into the off-season conning ourselves that happiness is just around the corner.

What I loved today was Sam Blease and Tom McDonald playing fearlessly with five games total experience. Do it again against good teams and I'll get properly excited but when you compare them to a Cale Morton who just looks terrified every time he runs out on the field, it furthers my theory that the Sad Panda is a mentalist who needs to go onto Prozac. He did have ten touches at 90% efficiency today, but he did it all with a look on his face like he was on his way to get a lethal injection. Cheer up son, you're living the dream.

Blease is just so quick through the ground and uses it really well by foot. I love the way he takes people on and runs through the middle of the ground. Who knows where he fits into our Best 21+1 next year against Tapscott and Grimes but I'm thrilled with the start of his career. Took long enough to get him out there, but well worth the wait.

Also pleasantly surprised by Bennell's last fortnight. Yet again, do it against some good teams and we'll be off to the races but there's no doubt he can do a job storming out of the backline and through the middle of the ground. Probably hasn't helped him that he's been sub three times and has been thrown forward at times but at least he's done enough to show he might provide something of quality next season.

McNamara wasn't in the best, but I was thrilled to see him get another name. Also really happy to see him in the middle at times as well. He looked wonky in the first half but when he settled into the game and calmed his nerves he used the ball quite well by foot. Deserves another run at it next week. Never going to be a superstar but could be handy as a depth player in the future.

So, for those of us not going to the Adelaide Oval next Sunday that's the difficult part of season 2011 over. For those of you who are going feel free to throw a 600ml bottle of coke at the umpires for me.

Somehow I managed to achieve the dubious achivement of seeing every minute of every game in Victoria (+ one in Brisbane to really make a mockery of the year) this year. Didn't that sound like a good idea in February? Will go for it next year but there's no way that three years in a row I can somehow manage to avoid any absolutely critical engagements at the same time that there's a game on.

Sooner rather than later some bastard is going to get married or worse at 1.10 on a Sunday, and the worst thing is that it will almost certainly be somebody with a connection to the other half because most of my family stopped inviting me to things after I ditched the family reunion to go to a practice match at Princes Park.

For god's sake can you all please encourage your friends and family to have weddings, funerals and birthday parties outside of footy season? Some of us don't want to be the one huddled in a corner checking scores or in the car listening to the radio - we just don't want to be there at all.

Anyway, season nearly over. Have the penultimate votes. While we're on the topic I was at the loosest end ever on Friday and did something I've been meaning to do for about three years, going back through the old Demonblog reports to make sure that the end of season leaderboards tallied with the actual week by week votes. To nobody's surprise they didn't and this year was the only one that didn't have at least some minor error. 2005 was an absolute disgrace, clearly because I didn't expect Demonblog to live very long. The only major change that came out of it was that Ricky Petterd lost his half share of the 2007 Hilton Medal because I'd given him one vote too many. Poor guy. In case you care a full run down of the year by year votes are in a spreadsheet here. Stats nerds go off your nut. The rest of you shake your heads in dismay.

2011 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
5 - Sam Blease
4 - Colin Garland
3 - Nathan Jones
2 - Brent Moloney
1 - Tom McDonald

Apologies to Green, Jamar, Frawley, Bartram, Trengove, Bennell and Howe (per capita).

Leaderboard
So, we're a little clearer about the destination of some of the awards. Moloney draws to within striking distance of the big win, the Experience delivers one of the biggest upsets in history to capture his first Stynes medal, Garland stays within touch of Frawley in the Seecamp and Blease temporarily delays Jeremy Howe's Hilton Medal victory lap by ensuring he can at least tie for it if he scores maximum votes next week.

32 - Colin Sylvia
30 - Brent Moloney
24 - Stefan Martin (WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Jack Watts
23 - Jordie McKenzie
18 - James Frawley (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
16 - Mark Jamar
15 - Colin Garland
14 - Joel Macdonald
13 - Jack Trengove
11 - Ricky Petterd, Jared Rivers, Jeremy Howe (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year)
10 - Jordan Gysberts, Nathan Jones
8 - Brad Green
6 - Luke Tapscott, Lynden Dunn, Sam Blease
5 - Rohan Bail
4 - Michael Evans, Tom Scully
3 - Clint Bartram, Jack Grimes, Liam Jurrah
2 - Neville Jetta
1 - Addam Maric, Matthew Bate, Tom McDonald

Crowd Watch
21,000? If that was 100% correct and unaltered I'll eat my "I saw Mark Jamar kick five goals" hat. Where were they keeping the other 6,000? Won't complain considering it probably saved us from paying a "shit crowd" fine but come on, save the rorts for Metricon Stadium where they'll believe anything.

No interest whatsoever from the people sitting around me. A worrying sign was the kid of 7 or 8 sitting in front of me in a Melbourne jumper who when the Suns theme song came on he started belting it out in full voice. Ours came on and he sit there looking disgruntled. There's a kid who has been railroaded into following us by the parents, doesn't enjoy losing and will almost certainly chuck us for the Suns if we don't start winning before they do. Hope the parents refuse to let him watch them on TV for being stupid.

Next Week
I wouldn't be surprised if Fox Sports decide to show International Cheese Rolling instead, but just in the case the game doesn't get cancelled my changes would be;

IN: Fitzpatrick, Bail
OUT: Jurrah (inj), Scully (out of courtesy to his future employers)

Of course we're still enjoying the Cloud Cuckoo Land fantasy that Scully is going to stay so maybe Morton instead? I'm happy to keep the Panda next year based on the fact that not signing a contract mid-season will see us get him at a rock bottom price if he doesn't walk out. Still, he needs therapy.

I see no need to bring back Davey based on the Richmond game, but I suppose they will just to keep the peace. Let's just hope he turns up to have a crack instead of getting sooky la la and belting somebody if it doesn't go well. I'll be filthy if they ditch any of Bennell, McNamara or Jetta to fit him in. Bennell has had his best two games of the year in the last two weeks, T.Mac deserves a second go and I'm gagging to see Jetta in the middle again.

Hopefully Port go even further off the rails after throwing away a near certain win against Essendon. Unfortunately for us if they'd won they'd have almost certainly avoided the spoon (unless Gold Coast beat Hawthorn anyway..) and might have totally given up and played every kid with a name like a porn star (Mitch Banner! Jarrod Redden!) on their list + Dean Brogan. Now they'll probably try and beat us. Here's hoping the South Australia curse ends at Football Park and doesn't extend to the Adelaide Oval.

Next year
Based on what I saw today I don't see how we possibly challenge the top eight next year, but consider that Sylvia, Davey, Bail, Grimes and Petterd will be back and that there's a lot of time for psychotherapy between now and next March and you never know what could happen. Don't cite West Coast as an example though, it's madness to try and compare us to where they were at.

What I want them to go out and get is a brute midfielder who can take the heat off Moloney (and to a lesser degree Jones, McKenzie, Trengove, Sylvia, ~~Scully~~) but good luck finding one of those anywhere.

You've got to be realistic about how many players can be traded/delisted/walk out for big bucks in one year but I'm fairly certain we've seen the last of Warnock, Bate, Maric, Scully and Newton. I have no idea whether Campbell and McNamara automatically get a second year on the rookie list and then there's question marks over THE CELEBRATOR, Dunn, Morton and Sylvia (who we all hope is putting pen to paper as we speak).

That's ten players with AFL experience - five of whom are almost certain to be elsewhere next year - and the only reason I'm not throwing The Spencil in is that I know he's contracted next year. I wouldn't be surprised if we delisted Newton and Campbell, lost Scully to the V>Lines and traded Warnock/Bate/Maric for whatever we can get. Perhaps then THE CELEBRATOR and The Spencil get delisted and redrafted as rookies? As long as we don't neck ourselves and miss out on some decent players in the rookie draft just to clear two spaces on our senior list.

Green and the Stefan Martin Experience are also out of contract and haven't signed up yet. Who knows what happens if a new coach rocks up and Green gets the arse as captain? He might just tell us to piss off and walk out. Then there's the Experience who Richmond would be off their nut not to try and convince to join them for free. I don't want him to go, mainly because it will absolutely confirm that anyone who is my favourite player will never have a great career with this club, but with Jamar and Gawn signed, sealed and delivered we're never going to be able to fit all three of them in so something's going to have to give, if not this year then next year.

Is it too controversial to say that I'd rather try and rip Richmond off into paying over the odds for Jamar and keep the other two? I love The Russian but he's had one great season and two half decent seasons - the other two could be a ruck combo for years, he's got two or three years left in him and might never reach the same heights as last year ever again. Fitzpatrick and The Spencil as the backups. Wouldn't be a popular decision but I'd rather not lose Martin - who lets be fair has only had one good season in the ruck himself - and then have to find a replacement for Jamar in two years time.

Coaching Corner
Apparently Viney has done a Gillard and softened on his "I'll never put my hand up for the top job" pledge. No thanks. I want him there, and I want him to be a big part of whatever the new coaching team is but other than busting out a killer kick-in routine which worked once what's he done so far to make you think he's the man? Hopefully he was misquoted because I'd hate for him to go for it and not get it.

I think we're getting closer and closer to ending up with another untried coach, and subsequently killing the Demonblog/Farceblog cosponsored Choco Williams #chokeyourselfwithatie hashtag dream, which is fine as long as it's somebody who has worked under the best. If we're not going to get Malthouse, and Buckley doesn't want to pull the Victoria Park Screwjob on Eddie and walk out to join us and leave Mick in charge, then I'll take Neeld or Watters without argument.

Somebody give me a run down of who the other next big thing assistants are. Brenton Sanderson? Simon Goodwin? Who else. Whoever it is they'll have to bring a brand new lineup of assistants, because Scott West will go back to Footscray and if Royal/Mahoney are there next year we're collectively on drugs as a club.

Problem is that trade week is about two weeks after the Grand Final, so unless they either get an under the table assurance from Malthouse that he's found a clause in his contract to get out of Collingwood and coach elsewhere, we really have to have somebody in place by then don't we? Even the James Hird hatchet job on Matthew Knights was done by the end of September last season.

So when do we start interviewing? We wouldn't be the first team to snatch an assistant coach during the finals series (remember Bailey managing to miss Port's '07 Grand Final farce by being appointed our coach? Last good thing that ever happened to him) but if we leave it until Collingwood play in the Grand Final and find out we can't get Mick then it'll be a death race to try and get somebody in there before trade week. It's not like we're going into the week with no interest, we're players in it this time no matter how small fry the goods on offer are. Does Viney just show up and start wheeling and dealing in the hope that what he does will fit into a new coach's plans?

So unless there's been a secret nod/wink/handshake deal done somewhere that will deliver Malthouse to Melbourne under the "False Messiah" plan then give up and try to nick one of his assistants instead. See also Ross Lyon. No bloody danger Paul Roos sadly. I wouldn't neck myself if Eade walked through the door but I'd hardly be ripping party poppers and getting his name tattooed down my arm.

Whoever it is I hope they're ready to yell at people. Hopefully including journalists, fans and opposition players. If they could possibly do a bit of this too that would be great.

Moving Violations
Seems that by the time the accursed 2012 season starts I'll have shifted homes again, and so it's farewell to that casual walk along the Yarra from Southbank and the furious trudge home responding to abusive tweets from insane North supporters.

And so we put the Southbank season in the same basket as the Camberwell season (2007), the Richmond seasons (2008/09) and the Cheltenham season (2010) and let's agree that not only do I move houses too much but that it's time we fired up and started winning again. Absurdly the next move after that is already lined up, so the Lower Plenty season has one shot to get it right before the 2013 shift to St Kilda and what will be the eighth - and we hope final - home of Demonblog Towers.

Disclaimer: This constant shifting is not in any way due to legal reasons or due to having grassed on a major crime syndicate. It's just staggering mismanagement of my own life.

Was it worth it?
For the (potentially misguided) belief that Blease will be a star yes. For Tom McDonald, for Jeremy Howe and for Nifty Nev being played in the middle yes.

For creating encouraging thoughts about the future maybe not.

Also worth it because I saw somebody play wearing #55, which is by my count the highest number I've seen anyone wear in a game I've been at since the heyday of Ashley McIntosh rocking #53 for the Eagles and Jamie Elliot wore #54 for Fitzroy. Congratulations Nathan Ablett, you won a premiership to end the first phase of your career and gave me a statistical oddity to end the second.

Final Thoughts
Port can dodge the spoon if they win next week. Have your FARCE placards ready in front of the TV on Sunday. If you don't boot the screen in first.

What time does 2012 start?

Be strong, it's almost over

2011-08-21T20:05:00.009+10:00

Welcome to Demonblog Playhouse Theatre. Tonight we present "An Evening At Deano's", the harrowing tale of an ex-coach watching his former team continuing to slide away into insignificance.

The image of Dean's house is provided by Donald McRonald from the BigFooty MS Paint thread. And now, our story begins.

INT - Stately Bailey Manor, evening

Dean Bailey is huddled in front of a fire, clutching a small transistor radio to his ear. The room is empty but for a milk crate which he sits on. He is holding an empty whisky glass.

The half time siren sounds with Melbourne 27 points behind. Bailey hurls the glass at the wall in disgust

END (he cheered up a bit in the second half but eventually had the last laugh)

So, now we can't even beat Richmond. How well is this year going? The three game winning streak gone. Baileyball's kryptonite like effect on the Tiges gone. The comedy value of their only win against us in three years being from us throwing the match gone. The knowledge that there was at least one Victorian side who we could be confident of beating... right out the window. In fact as the ladder stands right now we're the worst club in Victoria. There's a cause for celebration. The last two weeks should (SHOULD) lift us back over Richmond and/or Footscray but what a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in right now. If I don't finally get an AGM where somebody throws a chair it'll be heartbreaking.

But other than the usual background frustration at following a shit team through a shit season is there any point in getting upset about this loss? Not really. Thank god Sydney had already shut the gate on the sick, perverted fantasy that we could somehow Bradbury into the finals by beating St Kilda and by the first bounce the match was rendered utterly meaningless. I'd have almost gone the vom if the last few 'thrilling' minutes were spent with the people around me trying to do live ladder calculations to see if we could still make it.

The time it takes for you to get over losing a match is the most telling thing about the magnitude of the result. There are some games I'll never get over (The Chris Sullivan Line game, the 2000 GF, Geelong) and some that threaten to explode my keyboard via the furious punching of fat fingers hours after the final siren (most of the last four years) but tonight I was over it by the time I walked past the Kaiser's Sausage (*plug*) van and towards home. I'll admit during the last quarter I was cracking the shits in traditional fashion but the moment it was over I was more concerned about having to wake up and go to work on Monday morning than I was that we'd lost.

Remember a few weeks ago when we played Richmond the first time and it was being billed as an "elimination final"? Since that moment both teams have spent most of the time reclining, with head backwards and a pair of giant, sweaty plums being rested across the eyelids. "Sure we'll lose to Geelong" we said, "but it doesn't matter, because we'll win the last three and probably make the finals". It's been a long five weeks since then.

At least the Tiges had a win last week to give their fans some reason to edge back from the platform and not jump in front of the 4.32 limited express to Lilydale. We've managed to have the entire club explode, sack the coach, renew the contract of the nearly sacked CEO and play a grand total of one quarter of half decent footy in that time. Who doesn't think the Richmond coaching staff were pumping their players up all week with tales of how we think they're easybeats, and how we've been putting them in the same 'certain win' bracket as Gold Coast and Port? The punters weren't fooled and sent Richmond in as favourites.

In retrospect the last couple of weeks had a hint of 2010 about it - remember thinking that if we beat Hawthorn we'd roll over Port and North and storm into the finals? Then they didn't win any of them. At least this time we can be relatively sure that we'll win the last two. If not I hope responsible adults are put in charge of the knife draw in the hours after the Port game otherwise casualty wards are going to be full of people who have had a shot at themselves.

One thing you can say for these two teams is that at least you're going to get a half decent match most times. Ever since they destroyed us in the last game of 2008 there hasn't been a dud clash between them. Even when we beat them relatively comfortably last year at least there was a 13 goal first quarter to keep people entertained.

So, I look forward to another ten years of these matches being played as a battle of the alleged "Next Big Things" while both teams continue to slop around in the mid-card, threatening to be good at some indeterminate time in the future but never managing to string enough good footy together to make a proper challenge. They got us today, but their players will be doing the same thing ours are on Monday 5 September. Hopefully Fev tags along with the Dees to make it interesting. Hopefully he's not tagging along because he'll be playing with them.

At least tonight we managed to break new ground with an innovative move. Shame it was only to be the first club ever to start the captain as substitute. Cue the biggest walk of shame ever as the team ran through the banner and he slowed down deliberately to try and get somebody else to go through it first. I think Jack Trengove stamped his future captain status by just about dead-heating with Green. Have I ever told you how impressed I am at the font we use on our banner? All the other cheersquads seem to be like that annoying guy in the office who likes to use Algerian and Gaudy Stout on posters when a simple font will do.

The awkward question was whether Green would have to show up and toss the coin while wearing the council worker hi-vis clothing, but luckily for him he had the excuse of handing over the job to Davey on the occasion of his 150th game. Unluckily for Davey it was the closest that he got to being in the action for the first hour of the game.

The Worksafe Injury Report continued to be one of the biggest farces in footy as it announced that Scully and Bail were both out for another week. At the very moment Scully was warming up on the field. And would that be the same Bail who was one of the best on ground at Casey yesterday? Mind you Scully played like his knee was completely rooted so maybe Worksafe knew something we didn't? He was on and off for much of the first half having work done on it, so hopefully the papers are signed in Sydney and we can pocket the WorkCover style compo payments. Either way for god's sake pack him away now before he loses a zero off his contract offer. I'm thinking of his financial welfare here, if you're going to make a desperate grab for the cash you might as well do it properly. Not to mention if he hasn't signed and we've offered him something ridiculous he might take it.

Notwithstanding the fact that Richmond have jumped us in the past and we've come back to beat them comfortably I was concerned with them getting the jump on us today because we've not been this collectively mentally ill as a club since the glory days of 2007. Sure we've been shit but at least we've been shit with a clear head, ever since Geelong it's been depression central.

After playing four of the top five in the last month and getting blown away in the first quarter by all of them there was no telling what would have happened if rancid hacks like Richmond got the jump - we might have just walked off the ground and rung up Port to offer a merger with home games to be played in Halls Gap. So, considering that we were on the end of every shithouse umpiring decision under the sun in the first quarter, we were getting murdered out of the middle and half the side didn't have a touch it wasn't such a bad result to go in two goals behind.

The fifty that gave them their first goal was the start of an award winning run of shambles by the umpires. Bartram pinged for going within five kilometres of Dustin "shit neck, bad tattoo" Martin as he played on despite the fact that he was following his opponent. Baffling. But not quite as baffling as Miller spending the entire first quarter taking the piss out of us.

Congratulations to him on joining the "Fuck you MFC" club with Buckley, McLean, Bruce, Cheney and Jolly for ex-players who have beaten us this year (apologies to Paul Johnson and Scott Thompson for leaving them out) but before any Richmond fans who might have stumbled upon this post start getting excited about his performance I can tell you we've all seen it before. There's a strange phenomenon with Bradforth where he suddenly ramps it up at the end of the year and plays out of his skin before winning a new contract then turning in mediocre performances for the next year and a half before contract time rolls around again. He tried it last year by bagging 10 goals in a VFL game but we were finally wise to it. Somebody's probably hammering away a forum post right now saying we should have kept him. They're wrong.

When they got their third, the second courtesy of the umps, it was starting to look rude. Let us be blown up by Carlton and West Coast, but when we get thrashed by Richmond it's time to shut up shop. Thank god then for the combination of Trengove and Sylvia who dragged us back into it. Thank god too for Jordie McKenzie who continues to climb the Demonblog Top 40 Players chart every week. At least he cares. I might actually post the Top 40 (which does not, in fact, exist at the moment) as part of the end of season spectacular post.

Incidentally who else heard Brian Royal being interviewed on the radio before the game? Not only did he say "Trengrove" (and should therefore be sacked immediately) but when asked if we'd win he sidestepped the usual cliches and simply said that we would. A bold prediction. Also a crap one as it turned out. The interviewer asked if he'd (cliche time) throw his hat into the ring for senior coaching jobs at the end of the year. I'd suggest he'd be lucky to even have an assistant job considering some of the slop teams he's been involved with over the last few years. I don't give a rats what his coaching record is like, I'm just keen on a Stalinist purge against anybody employed by our club who says Trengrove. Remember his name, you'll be screaming it later etc...

There'll be a rush to blame the umpires for this result but don't forget that we rode the storm out in the first quarter and got ourselves back into it. Wasn't their fault we stuffed up an 8 point lead in the last quarter and kicked 3.6. Doesn't help to have two goals given away at the start of the game, and even though the two we got from frees were both legit (we would say that..) it still balanced out in the end. The game was ours to win, we cocked it up, we're mental cases.

The second free was probably luckier considering Morton only got it after declining the invitation to tackle the other Morton and then in true family tradition the Richmond one shat himself and handballed it straight out of bounds. Our one hit the pass straight onto Jurrah's chest and LJ got the first of what could be one of the worst three goal performances of the season in which he failed to leave the ground once. Maybe he's like the NRL player who is suffering from vertigo?

Equation for the first quarter was: Umpiring + natural ineptitude = disaster. Even though it was probably his best game of the season (in what is hardly a star studded field) our Morton perfectly demonstrated the way it was going when he won the ball in traffic and instead of giving it off quickly he hesitated long enough for somebody to get a hand on him and stuff it up. I'm convinced the poor guy needs to get on the pharmaceutical grade anti-depressant gear. He and Mitch should have started as subs and had a good together cry for three quarters with Jaryd hanging over the fence joining in. All in green vests.

He did lay a holding the ball tackle in the first quarter which was amazing and hit a few decent passes to free players but good luck finding a target under pressure. Hopefully he gets better over the next fortnight and stays for at least one more, injury free year. You'll get squat trading him now, so unless he cracks the sads (in a malicious non-sad panda way) and walks out it's better to wait and see what a new coach can do with him. After all how many experienced players can you get rid of in one year?

Even if they're not worldbeaters I've seen Bate, Warnock, Dunn, Maric, Morton, Bennell and Newton all written off in various places as if there's no way they'll be with us next year. All well and good but consider Scully going as well and how many kids are we replacing these guys with? For what's it worth I'd be saying farewell to Juice and shopping Bate/Maric/Warnock around but again what are you going to get for them? People are convinced that you can just package up three ordinary players and clubs will give you good picks. Maybe in video games, not in real life.

Considering the umpire giveaways, the shambolic structure and the fact that half the side were giving nothing 14 points wasn't all that bad a deficit. These two teams may never qualify for the finals again but at least they put on interesting first quarters.

We got the first two of the second quarter, with Sylvia running rampant and taking screamers up front, and the natural balance of things seemed to be restoring itself. Then the next thing you know bogan idol Jake f'ing King is bombing torps from 60m out, his horrible shanks are landing in the arms of teammates to goal and Brad f'ing Miller is having a Juice style half where he thinks he's John Coleman.

A moment please for Clint Bartram who is 'much maligned' (and rightly so) and still kicks like he has a prosthetic leg, but defensively towelled up Cotchin for the first three quarters. Not entirely convinced he'd be there if we were any good, and for god's sake don't let him have shots at goal ever but well done on today's performance.

The umpiring was so bad in the first half that Davey could afford to run past Mitch Morton and smack him the head with an elbow directly in front of the umpires without having a free paid against him. There was so much apathy going around that Richmond players couldn't even be bothered punching on with him about it. I know we've all wanted to belt a Morton brother but come on Aaron, you don't actually do it. Given that it happened right at the end of a half when he'd racked up one handball and had enjoyed 'banter' with somebody sitting behind the interchange it was a pissweak attempt to take out the frustration of not being able to get a kick.

Not that Viney et al tried to do anything different with him before he totally lost it. Whatever Brian Royal does other than make stupid statements and say Trengrove was there any danger he could have piped up? Of course not, positional moves and backup plans are not the done thing in these parts. Just keep plugging away hoping everything will be ok. At one point in the third quarter I thought Jared Rivers was going forward and almost declared it the birth of a new era. He didn't, it wasn't. FanFooty is convinced Joel Mac went forward in the third quarter but I didn't see it. Didn't last long if he did. The innovation alarm in the coaching box would have exploded with a move like that and Viney would have found himself out of a job.

Tagged to buggery and not handling it again, Davey could have done with a run in the forward line or across half back but it wasn't forthcoming. Still no excuse to clock somebody with a cheap elbow. Nobody cares that somebody misses a couple of end of season dead rubbers (and come on don't you think Petterd should have belted McGinnity and just taken the three weeks?) but if you're going to be back next year there's no need to be bringing in pesky carryover points. The tribunal will save us from having to drop him but I hope somebody sits Flash down and says "do you really want to be here? If not where do you want to be" and if that's somewhere else then send him there.

The club can lay off sending me scabby emails about me giving them money to pay extra to players if they're going hand out big money when the ones we've got now couldn't give a rats. Tell him to go away, think about what he wants to do and come back at the end of the year to decide if he's in or out. Certainly won't be remembering his 150th fondly, or the entire 2011 season for that matter. He improved marginally in the second half when they finally threw him across half-back but if he's not right physically or mentally he shouldn't have been there today in the first place. It's not like we're trying to run him into the ground a'la Scully so that he's ruined for somebody else, he should have at least another two years in him so if it meant writing off this year before his stray elbow they should have done it. Surely they weren't picking a team for today with the idea that we were still a chance of finals.

So, it's half time and we're going down the tube at a million miles an hour. Aren't you glad we had to wait until 6pm Sunday to get to that position? At least you got to enjoy your weekend before it was ruined by sports. But this is when it gets even more stereotypically Melbourne. All of a sudden they come out and it's sublime brilliance. Seven goals to one, Jamar running riot in the ruck, the Psychic Friends Connection reunited against the odds and Sylvia doing the sort of things that make you swoon and threaten to have money on him to win the Brownlow next year.

Then there was Jones. Now, I've had my issues with the 2007 Allen Jakovich Medal winner this year but if that wasn't the best quarter he has played in about three seasons then I'm not sure if I've been watching closely. You have to close your eyes and think "it's only Richmond, it's only Richmond" because he was brilliant, abnd like Moloney call me when he does it against a good side, but it was at least encouraging and that's about all we've got right now.

Even Green shed his vest and in replacing Howe came on to boot a goal with his first kick. Followed by some slightly over vigorous celebrating that the commentators suggested was a "message to somebody". Who? Viney? Bailey? Malthouse? Blinky Bill? I just think he gets excited when he actually lands one these days instead of kicking a captain's point.

Spare a thought for poor Jeremy Howe, the latest victim of the curse that says whoever is featured in a game day newspaper article will undoubtedly turn in an absolute shocker. It's happened more than once this year - Watts and Sylvia both got it and Dan Nicholson has never been the same since The Age wrote about him in glowing terms before the Footscray match. We could probably have done with him in the last quarter but if somebody down forward had to go for Green to come on then fair enough he was it. Just hope he plays the next two weeks because I harbour fantasies about an eight goal bonanza at some point in the next fortnight. Now watch them drop him for Juice.

Somehow we'd managed to get eight points in front at the last change. Not nearly enough, and unfortunate that we had to stop the third quarter because we were absolutely killing them. Sad then that it had to go backwards so quickly. Sylvia did his best to keep us in it, but we had multiple opportunities going forward and stuffed them up. Two goals at the end made it respectable but we missed our chances to put the game away, Richmond took them better and they got the four points.

Good luck to them. Enjoy that meaningless feeling and we'll see you for another couple of middle of the ladder pointless matches in 2012.

2011 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
5 - Colin Sylvia
4 - Nathan Jones
3 - Brent Moloney
2 - Colin Garland
1 - Clint Bartram

Major apologies to McKenzie, Trengove, Frawley and Jamar. Lesser apologies to Rivers, Macdonald and Blease.

Leaderboard
If Sylvia hadn't biffed somebody and been reported he'd be nearly home in this one. I suspect that if his record means he misses the last two games then Moloney will almost certainly score four or more votes against Gold Coast or Port. Mind you just when you think you've got the answers this club changes the questions so he'll probably get nil.

I should point out at this time that in the event of a tie there'll be no countback bollocks to separate them and they'll share the medal. The equation is fairly simple now, only those two, Martin, Watts and McKenzie can win it. All the other awards are still open but you'd have your money on the current leaders (Martin/Frawley/Howe) holding on from here.

I don't know what the rest of you are doing to get yourself through the rest of this year, but if I didn't have the stats bonanza that is the Jakovich Medal to keep me interested I'd probably just give up.

Note also that nobody has ever won the top award twice, which doesn't bode well for anybody's career. Here's hoping Sylvia is not accepting the award shortly before shaking hands with John Longmire and pulling on a Swans guernsey.

32 - Colin Sylvia
28 - Brent Moloney
24 - Stefan Martin (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Jack Watts
23 - Jordie McKenzie
18 - James Frawley (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
16 - Mark Jamar
14 - Joel Macdonald
13 - Jack Trengove
11 - Ricky Petterd, Jared Rivers, Jeremy Howe (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year), Colin Garland
10 - Jordan Gysberts
8 - Brad Green
7 - Nathan Jones
6 - Luke Tapscott, Lynden Dunn
5 - Rohan Bail
4 - Michael Evans, Tom Scully
3 - Clint Bartram, Jack Grimes, Liam Jurrah
2 - Neville Jetta
1 - Addam Maric, Matthew Bate, Sam Blease

Crowd watch
With every single MFC fan I know refusing to go to a 4.40pm game I used my reserved seat for the second time, and isn't it great to sit somewhere where you get mobile phone coverage for two minutes once every half an hour? Sure I'm a Vodafone customer so I should be used to this sort of thing but it was telling that the moment you walked twenty metres the other way everything worked fine. If you're looking for me next year I'll be back in the Ponsford Stand wondering what possessed me to a buy a membership just because it offered a guaranteed Grand Final ticket if we make it. Talk about throwing good money after bad..

I'm pleased to report there were a few ferals going off their nut in the Redlegs section. We've seen from the MFC Facebook comments that our club has as many complete munter fans per capita as anybody else (tonight's special - why we should trade Watts because he's soft. My god, people put their real names to this stuff) but it's good to see some people doing their block in real life too.

Sadly nothing will ever beat the guy who called SEN after the game and broke into tears about how badly we're going. It was quite incredible. Sadly they cut him off for his own sake and pretend to be sympathetic (although there was somebody audibly pissing themselves laughing when he cracked up) instead of giving him ten minutes to really indulge in some primal scream therapy. God knows what he was like after the Geelong game if that's what a dead rubber thriller against Richmond does to him. I hope the club offer him counselling (get in line behind Maric, Morton, Davey et al) because he sounded as if he was about to crack up. Go wild, throw a phone, kick your dog, slap your kids, do whatever you have to do but for god's sake keep your dignity when you're calling talkback radio. Good thing it wasn't TV or he'd be entering the AFL Hall of Fame with this guy.

Everyone knows half the people calling SEN are doing gimmicks but if that was acting then I tip my hat to one of the great masterclasses of our time. Remarkable.

Back at the MCG I expect the person with the "That Was E-E-Easy" banner in the Richmond cheersquad hasn't heard the news that Clive Peeters has gone tits up and become Harvey Norman. He can't have put a radio on in the last week because all I've heard on the wireless is Gerry Harvey admitting his "big mistake" in buying them in the first place. Probably didn't help that one of Clive's staff knocked off $20m to fund their gambling habit but isn't this the same guy who is always whinging that it's the internet which is putting him out of business? Try not buying so many other companies you rich prick.

But before we leave socialism corner I didn't know whether or not to applaud or be horrified at the guy who stashed a pie in his pocket at half time and walked off without paying. The guy on the counter had no interest in stopping him, presumably because he's getting paid $5 an hour, and by the time the supervisor yelled with exasperation that they'd been swindled the bandit was well gone, presumably getting his money's worth by having red hot 'meat' running down his arm while he bit into a frozen centre.

Part of me applauds him for taking direct action against the ridiculous prices that they charge for goods that cost them next to nothing to buy and which are served by desperately underpaid 15-year-olds and/or grannies. The same part was having the usual guilt at being sucked into handing over $5 for a floppy hot dog in a rock hard crusty roll and wanted to applaud somebody for sticking it to the man. The other side says that first it's stealing a pie and next thing they're putting in the windows of JB Hi-Fi and helping themselves to an Xbox. The law and order side of my brain won out and I was hoping he'd be crashed tackled to the ground by the fuzz and capsicum sprayed, but just like Aaron Davey and the guy who let the pie thief walk straight past him police and security had no interest.

Finally may I just say that after having gone to the Collingwood/Brisbane game Saturday night on a freebie and sat in the Pies members reserves that there are some small mercies in not following a wildly popular, premiership side. The bloke sitting behind us, my god feel free to not say everything that comes into your head and sing songs about players on your own. Also feel free not to start touching me during the game and telling me to fire up when I clearly have NO INTEREST. Congratulations to @amul82 who annoyed him by responding to the question of "Where do you think Mick will be next year?" by saying "Melbourne". It was like sitting in front of the SEN Gladiators of Sport. My worst nightmare.

There was also one guy in a dress and one guy in the most 1991 LA Kings jacket you've ever seen in your life. Like a Sydney fan pining for the return of Lockett you just know that if you sidled up to old mate in his puffy jacket with gigantic stars across the shoulders that made him look like Bret The Hitman Hart the only hockey player he'd know would be Gretzsky. I have no problems with men in dresses, I have massive issues with 1991 sports clothing.

And how the attempt by the Pies to get everyone to respect each other in the wake of the Milne debacle by asking members of the crowd to hug each other in order to win Pies merchandise. In the second round they asked for people to kiss for the cause (!?) and in the only entertaining moment all night the winners were a mixed couple and when the Brisbane guy was handed a black and white scarf he piffed it on the ground. All that money and that's the sort of "fan for hire" James Sherry fronted entertainment they put on? Makes me think Nick McCallum and the trumpeteer are actually cutting edge.

Next Week
IN: Jetta, Bail, Dunn (am I banned from having Tom McNamara as well?)
OUT: Sylvia (susp), Davey (susp), Scully (inj/not committed to the cause).

Somebody else will either get mysteriously dropped (Dunn) or will step into a pothole outside Casey Fields and do their knee a'la every other mystery injury we've had in the last few years. Morton has to play out the season and Bennell needs to be rewarded for playing a half decent game so I'm going to hold on to both of them. No chance Bennell avoids being sub two weeks in a row though.

Lucky there's a high probability of victory (a certainty? Good god no) or there would be 25 people here. Sadly, even if there are I'll be one of them. Something tells me that whatever ends up on here next Sunday night it won't be my entry for the Pulitzer Prize because I am so over this season it's painful.

Was it worth it?
At least we had a fighting loss for once. Shame it was against an equally retarded team.

Final Thoughts
I care not how much he's on and off like a tap, if we lose Sylvia I will end up in a padded cell. Luckily things are looking good on that front.

Shaky minus ladder

2011-08-14T16:53:00.012+10:00

Starved for inspiration for a post title to describe another loss, in another boring game, in what is turning out to an absolute drag of a year I turned to Random Phrase Generator and the above was the first thing that came out. How apt. In a way. I pressed it a second time just in case it really was reading my mind and came out with "OH MY GOD WHY ARE WE ALWAYS SO SHIT?" but instead I got "paperback lacking glance" and stuck with the original.

Today had a big old touch of the 2009's about it (pre tankfest). Everyone knew we were going to lose to a good side so as long as we didn't get absolutely thrashed it couldn't really turn out too badly. How sad it is to find ourselves back in exactly the same place two years later. Next thing people will be suggesting we up sticks in the last two games and lose to Gold Coast and Port just to get first round draft pick 72 instead of 74. Even the 90's aren't fashionable again yet, so how come '09 is suddenly so popular? Next thing The Spencil will be dropping the ball on his run-in, Jamar will kick five and we'll draft somebody who does a runner for massive wads of cash two years later.

The blind belief of some people that we're a chance to win every game is admirable but there's a time and a place where you've got to throw your hands up in the air and say "no, we're shit and we just have to admit it". If you're ever depressed (as a Melbourne fan? Never!) and need a laugh just read the comments threads on one of the MFC Facebook posts. I've got no idea how to link to an individual post but if you can find the one about today's game it's absolutely hilarious. The first 50 posts are of ridiculous bravado about how we'll win and pack the joint, then the next 150 are of nervous breakdowns about how shit we are interspersed with obscene comments about the Morton family. And that's the stuff they haven't deleted - imagine being the moderator on that group, it's the online equivalent of being the receptionist who has to take calls from nutters every Monday morning.

The only surprise from today's thread, which seems to be treated like a live chat room by most people, is that only one person suggested we recruit Fev. Usually that's 80% of what's on there. I don't know why I ever read it to be honest but there's a touch of the masochistic looking at comments on the Herald Sun website about it. You know it's going to be full of nutbaggery but you just have to look and get a bit outraged.

Fev fever isn't entirely confined to excitable Facebook fans though, there's a fair bit of it flowing through the general community. Thank god there's more chance of us getting Darren Cuthbertson and Shaun Smith (who has only just retired from country footy at 42) back so I won't take offence. It's telling that most of the time when somebody suggests it they open with a "call me crazy BUT" or "this is only my opinion BUT". When the list of "buts" and conditions are as long as your arm what's the point unless you're recruiting an absolute star? What did Ben Cousins honestly do for Richmond other than sell a bit of merch and give everyone at Tigerland the chance to pat themselves on the back and pretend they were good blokes for giving him another chance. Also turned the place into a media circus for two years and delivered bugger all on the field.

How many years has Fev got left in him anyway? Do we really need another 'good' forward when we've already got about five of them. Tell me we can recruit Franklin or Jack Riewoldt and I'll slice off a plum to get the deal done but this is just too ludicrous to even consider.

It's not Jamie Shanahan coming straight out of a Grand Final side to shore up a defence which has spent two years under siege. It's taking a massive risk on somebody who even if he doesn't get himself into any shenanigans off-field is no leader, defensively suspect and has been out of the big time for the best part of two years. No thanks. Not to mention that we'd look like the filthiest hypocrites on the face of the planet after carpeting Casey for signing him because it would "ruin the development of our players" only to then take him ourselves. I'd rather keep Juice for another year, and knowing the charmed run he's had over the last few years that will probably happen.

Get the midfield right first. Win some clearances against good teams and stop our defence from having to defend 75 inside 50's weekly then talk to me about going out and getting a 29-year-old ex-superstar forward. Can't believe I'm dedicating so much space to even discussing the idea but it seems people are convinced that he's the answer to all our problems and that's more baffling than Baileyball.

A forward line featuring some combination of Watts, Jurrah, Howe, Petterd, Dunn, Green and Sylvia has a lot to like about it as long as we can feed them properly and not have the ball breaking down 50 times a game before they get the chance to do something with it. Throw in some CRUMB and we're really talking but you can have anybody you like down there and it's not going to help a jot if kicks are getting cut off across half-back or wild handballs are going straight up in the air and landing in the hands of somebody with an opponent riding them like Phar Lap. Feed the forwards, let them know it's Christmas time.

Speaking of forwards is it too early to declare a love for Jeremy Howe which is approaching rude levels? It could all go backwards, and it usually does, but he's been great so far. Should have had four today had he not botched the absolute sitter for the last one but his work around the ground is great and he's got bucket hands which will hold pretty much everything. If we go out and sign some guy who used to be good five years ago and stuff up his development I'll kick buggery out of something. Nobody will ever approach the same category of illicit love as Jack Trengove got after signing a contract extension this week (TAKE NOTE SCULLY. ACTUALLY WAIT, DON'T BECAUSE I'D PREFER THE COMPO) but he's in the same category.

Even happier with Jeremy was @amul82, who not only saw the Pies win a Grand Final in his lifetime but also showed up today just to boost the attendances, got in free and then had twenty on JH for the first goal at 21-1 just because he'd seen a world class Jeremy* (* new readers will be baffled) walk past him on the way to the TAB. Some people have all the luck.

I was happy too considering it took ten minutes for the first goal to go in AND it was us who got it. Problem was they booted the next seven. Welcome to an action 'flashing (R) in the corner a'la World Cup Mexico 86' repeat of last week, in which we played decent, intense football against a top four contender for the first half of the quarter before dropping off and getting smashed after having botched numerous chances to put a decent score up. Even Garland was down there having shots, which was interesting. Shots which put pay to any suggestion that he's the next big thing for our forward line.

"He was drafted as a forward!" they cry, "Don't piss him about like Brad Miller" I reply. Kicked ten in a club game the year before he was drafted. Not with shots like the one he took today I'll bet. Is a worthy defender, just leave him there. The only one I'd even consider trying to throw forward for gimmick value would be Rivers, and even then there's no need for it at the moment because as previously discussed (18 times before today) if we GET THE BALL TO OUR FORWARDS THEY ARE ACTUALLY NOT ALL THAT BAD.

From then on just assume near total domination by the Eagles for the rest of the quarter and complete mental disintegration on our behalf. Fan favourite Morton did his bit to win back the love of the community by totally stuffing up an attempt to roll a fancy shot through the goals when a good old fashioned drop punt would have probably done the job. Unfortunately even though he was given every opportunity to play on the wing and in the middle of the ground he just wasn't good enough again. Snapped a nice goal at the end but the damage was done.

May as well keep playing him considering the season is stuffed but he's going nowhere. Still, what are you going to do. Trade him? All well and good but what are you going to get. It's one thing to cite him as a number four draft pick and suggest that we'd get something half decent but who's going to give you anything for a player who hasn't fired a shot for two years? Especially when you could get him for free in the pre-season draft. I don't want to have to lose him, but where's he going if he stays? Even when he had clean possessions today they didn't hit the target, and that's the biggest issue. I don't expect him to smash through packs, win hard ball and extract it like he's J**d but if you're going to be an 'outside' player then at least hit 30m passes with accuracy. Nobody's falling for one of our mutton dressed as lamb trading coups after the Johnstone/McLean trades. Look forward to him winning a flag for the Pies next year.

Amongst 22 players who can't kick most of the time there's also Jordie McKenzie. But the difference between the two is that while Jordie is ordinary by foot at the best of times his heart is about ten times bigger. He's the one we're expecting to dive into packs, put on tackles, tag people to buggery and extract the ball from the middle by hand. Probably gets paid a damn sight less than Morton too. Given that we all know there's one thing he's not all that good at it seemed odd how many times he was used as the playmaker coming out of the backline today. No bloody wonder we spent most of the first half turning the ball over if he's the guy we're expecting to set the play up. It's clear that his first instinct is to handball every time, so don't expect him to be banging 50m passes to a target. He knows his limitations, now everybody else feel free to join in and play to them.

We were utter balls for most of the first half, and our defenders made their fair share of mistakes with everyone else, but I did like Frawley and Macdonald coming out of the backline. At least they were (wild footy cliche alert) taking the game on. Problem was that they either ran around an opponent and looked up to see nobody or they'd get it to somebody in time for the next kick to end in tragedy. Garland was good too, and although it seems Rivers has become a whipping boy for some people I didn't mind his game either. Don't forget the sort of attack we were against today. Kennedy, Lynch, Le Cras, Naitanui, Nicoski. It's hardly a sloppy lineup. Given that we were killed out of the middle in the first half they did as well as could be expected.

Meanwhile I was surprised at Green as a late withdrawal, and coming in the same week that there was allegedly a meeting during the week featuring 'heated discussions' (aka: doors slammed, kettles swung around the head via an electrical flex and crockery smashed) I expect that a full range of conspiracy theories about his 'soreness' will be all over the net by the time I've finished writing this. Could be that he was legitimately sore, could be that he ended the meeting turning blue in a Todd Viney headlock. Either way you can be sure that footy's greatest muckrakers are currently coming up with some fantastic bullshit to explain it. Hutchy, Caro, Barrett - this is your time to shine.

Suffice to say that when we were seven goals down at half time and looking like we were about to be on the end of another thrashing the mood amongst the Melbourne fans in my section was subdued. There were clearly more than a few people who were wondering why they'd bothered to turn up at that hole of a ground and watch yet another week of stinky garbage football. Dunn tried to start a fight to keep himself amused but nobody was taking somebody with a tiddly little moustache like that seriously and it died out pretty quickly. I'll admit to becoming frustrated at another pissy, unconvincing show of aggression and abusing all and sundry. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody saw/heard it considering it seemed to be "run into people you know" day.

I wish somebody would realise that the perfect time to take out all your frustrations by biffing somebody in the scone is starting to run out. Nobody cares if you get a three game ban now, it's hardly #freetrengove time where we think that we're actually good. Now if anybody does it and gets any more than two weeks they'll have to serve it next year and it's a waste. Sad. Not much chance any of our lot could do damage with a punch anyway. You can show all the Enter Sandman backed hype videos you like of players boxing before the game and I'll still refuse to accept that any of them are going to win in a stand-up fight. And while we're on the subject of novelty music at sports can I repeat my suggestion that the darts music gets played at the end of every quarter? The crowd would go wild. Especially if, a'la the darts they were handed blank placards and could write foul and offensive statements about Stephen Milne on them.

If you're going to play pop music garbage anyway at least play something the crowd (or at least just me) can get into. Atmosphere sorted.

At least we made of a fight of it in the third. When they kicked the first goal of the third it was starting to look very, very ugly but from there we weren't at all bad. Howe's goal from 50 nearly caused me to bar up and despite Nicoski (he's got Mark Harvey eyes) kicking a goal by thumping it straight into ~~thinly veiled carpark roof~~ turf and having it fly through, which says it all about that stadium, Dunn, Watts and Sylvia all kicked goals and we were one goal from behind back in it.

Unfortunately after doing precious little all the day the current leader of the Allen Jakovich Medal could have given to Dunn for another one straight after his first but went for the solo and cocked it up. Bartram missed another one running straight into an open goal 40m out and they went straight from one end to another - as they did so many times today - and kicked a goal which pretty much snuffed out any hope of a ludicrous comeback.

We were at least winning consistently out of the middle during the third quarter. Jamar and The Experience were hardly dominant at any time during the day but they put the brakes on the Cox/NicNat show long enough for Moloney/Scully/etc to start getting their hands on it. West Coast were rattled but too bloody late, we'd already let them get a million points in front so fat lot of good it did. When Trengove kicked that (future) captain's goal after the 3/4 time siren we were still a million to one to win but if it had been the other way around I've been absolutely shitting it.

Have I ever told you how much I love Trengove? Apparently his sister won the City To Surf this morning so there's clearly some unreal genes going around in that family. Who didn't swoon when they read about his extending his contract even when he didn't need to? I know we've killed Brock McLean and condemned Jack Grimes to a lifetime of serious injuries by previous anointing them as the next captain and we're far too conservative to do anything crazy like give a kid the top job but how much would you love to fast forward to the point where he's ready to take it over? I love Grimes and hope he's in the leadership group for many years to come but he needs to concentrate on getting his body right before being considered for anything.

I'm backing a Moloney/Trengove ticket but can you really ditch a captain and keep him on the list? Easier said than done. He might be into it but I can't see a ten year player willingly put his hand up and admitting "I am a rubbish captain". I'm not sure I even think he is. Many people seem to but maybe it's just what he's got to work with? The new coach provides the cover for a change so it'll be interesting to see if they do something radical (and for god's sake say either say NO to co-captains or name 46 of them) or continue 100+ years of MFC tradition and opt for the steady as she goes approach. I think I'm just dying for us to do something bold. Knowing my luck when it comes it'll probably involve relocating to Albury/Wodonga.

Bartram could have upgraded the contest from barely interesting to semi-exciting when he missed another shot at the start of the quarter. God knows how he's kicked 16 goals in his 93 game career but I'm not surprised that six of them were in 2006. He was alright following Kerr around today but skills are deplorable for a sixth year player. Will almost certainly be back next year because he's contracted to the end of 2012 but seems to be treading water massively. He was once fifth in the Rising Star you know. Then you look that year's award up, see they voted for Danyle Pearce over Marc Murphy and realise that the judging panel were at best misguided and at worse on the piss. Andrew Raines was second? I remember absolutely nothing of '06 that wasn't MFC related but that just shows the Rising Star is about as faulty a judge of future potential as the draft.

The Eagles missed three in a row, then Petterd kicked OOF and time was rapidly running out for a shock victory. They boot two of the last three, we lose by almost 50 points and nobody actually cares that much. Expectations have been squashed so flat that half a century seems like a step in the right direction. This club is in a bad way and what I hate about it even more than my own selfish reasons is that Jim Stynes has taken another turn for the worst and is absolutely battling for his life having to watch this. I wasn't expecting us to rampage to the flag in his honour but what a kick in the guts for the guy to watch this trash. At least he's not busting out of hospital to watch it now. Don't even bother with this stuff Jim, just forget football exists for a few months - they're not worthy of your fighting spirit.

Did anything else happen? Chances are if it was on the other end of the ground I wouldn't know. That's the magic of sitting on Level 1 at Docklands. People actually pay more for that you know. Utter madness.

Tell you who I did like and that was Sam Blease. He's quick, he's a good kick and for a second game player who wasn't scared to grab the ball and run with it. Absolutely must play the last three games of this year. If I wait until 4.40pm next Sunday to find out that he's wearing a green vest and sitting in the dugout for three quarters I will not be held responsible for my actions.

2011 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
5 - James Frawley
4 - Joel McDonald
3 - Jeremy Howe
2 - Brent Moloney
1 - Sam Blease

Apologies to Petterd, Jones, Garland, Watts, Dunn, Rivers, Jones and Trengove.

Leaderboard
So, with three games to go we're no nearer to deciding on the overall winner out of the top five, but the Experience is all but home for the biggest upset in history in the Stynes (though given that we paid out on Jamar earlier in the year it's almost guaranteed to go backwards.. and surely the Russian will absolutely feast on Gold Coast and Port). Lucky he didn't get votes playing in the backline today or there might have been a steward's enquiry as to his eligibility.

Frawley and Macdonald have cleared out in the Seecamp, with Rivers and Garland needing at least multiple 5's or 4's in the next three weeks to stand any chance. And with apologies to Tapscott I think Howe should win the Hilton from here in canter given that he's achieved next big thing status. Previous NBT's include Jones, Dunn, Bate and .. oh fuck I am so sorry that I've done this to you Jeremy.

27 - Colin Sylvia
25 - Brent Moloney
24 - Stefan Martin (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Jack Watts
23 - Jordie McKenzie
18 - James Frawley (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
16 - Mark Jamar
14 - Joel Macdonald
13 - Jack Trengove
11 - Ricky Petterd, Jared Rivers, Jeremy Howe (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year)
10 - Jordan Gysberts
9 - Colin Garland
8 - Brad Green
6 - Luke Tapscott, Lynden Dunn
5 - Rohan Bail
4 - Michael Evans, Tom Scully
3 - Jack Grimes, Liam Jurrah, Nathan Jones
2 - Clint Bartram, Neville Jetta
1 - Addam Maric, Matthew Bate, Sam Blease

Crowd Watch
It was looking a bit grim at 12.50 when there were only about 7,000 people in the ground, but my panic that we'd pocket the record for the lowest attendance at Docklands to go in our anti-trophy cabinet with the Geelong debacle didn't take into account that even when there's a handful of people at Corporate Stadium it still takes ages to do anything easy like, say, buy a ticket. As I learnt when foolishly trying to get into one of the other lowest drawing games in the ground's history (Port vs North) you have to get the attention of the woman in the ticket booth first and once she's finished having her conversation with the person in the next booth you might actually get a ticket.

Luckily the crowd 'streamed' in just in time for us to only pocket the 11th lowest. Never fear, we've still got second place locked up. And there's a phrase you're not likely to hear again for a few more years (unless it involves the biggest losses).

You don't need me to tell you what a horrible, soulless, shell of a place it is, but it's even worse when there's nobody there. Usually that's a bonus because you can at least get food, take a whizz, get the hell out of there etc.. quicker than usual but at least when we play an interstate team in front of a garbage crowd at the MCG there's some semblance of atmosphere. Even the Eagles fans couldn't be bothered getting excited when they were running away with it today, and we didn't give a peep until the run in the third quarter gave us some misguided hope of a blockbusting comeback. Nobody cared. Massive end of season slop game.

Speaking of food did anybody else notice the heavy push that they were giving to "Cobs"? No? Well it's entirely likely that I'm the only person who pays attention to this sort of thing. Just when you think the place couldn't embrace any more wanky causes they start trying to encourage you to eat boom foods like corn at the footy. Why? God knows. Suffice to say I don't think you should buy corn futures based solely on the future of Cobs because if the success of the Healthier Foods (i.e only half as deadly) stand is anything to go by the whole enterprise will be shuttered up and in the hands of liquidators by lunchtime Wednesday.

Footy fans do not want corn, they want some mushy indeterminate meat inside a rapidly disolving pastry which will almost certainly explode in their lap, burning them in sensitive areas yet simultaneously being cold by the time it gets to their mouth. For some reason they will pay $5 for this privilege. Nobody's paying for corn. It's like ~~Woolworths~~ Safeway featuring Smith Street hipsters talking about cake in their ads. You can try and be down with the kids all you like but you're still a footy stadium/supermarket. At least they were selling hot dogs again... How I hate myself for giving that place a cent. What a dirty hypocrite.

Truth be told it wasn't too bad where we sat on the wing but the problem when they lie about "improving the atmosphere" by forcing 90% of the crowd onto the bottom level you actually end up losing the one thing that you've got going for you by following a shit team, the option to not have to sit with everyone else if you don't want to. Suddenly it's like you are at the MCG amongst 75,000 people and you've got idiots clambering over you every 20 seconds to get beers and drunken yokels standing at the back screaming random comments. Give me the top deck of Docklands any day.

I know they shut it to save money, and because it will look even worse on TV when 15,000 are spread across three levels instead of two, but I reserve the right to be greedy and totally ignore the financial reasons. We're going to be handing over a substantial amount of cash for today anyway, why not just hire a few Romanian orphans to come in at 3/4 time with brooms and clean the top deck on the cheap?

And did we really need to wheel out the trumpet? The prospect of the jazz odyssey version of our theme song not being played for once was the only thing that being at Docklands had going for it. Imagine if they hadn't ditched the farcical flag raising ceremony after two weeks? I'd have been on the field in London fashion, snapping the flagpole in two by piffing the trumpet through it.

The only thing I did enjoy was the woman they had in the hype video at the start who screamed a lot but managed to get a reference to Docklands as "this desert of a place" past the censors at the start. Watch us cop a fine for that on top of the shit crowd payout.

Also Dwayne Russell walked right past me outside the ground. For those of you who watched on TV I apologise wholeheartedly for not trying to delay him by saving his cat had died ("HORRENDOUS LUCK FOR TIGGER!") or that his car had been set alight in the underground parking lot ("THAT COULD NEED THE FIREFIGHTER!"). Or even just crash tackled him to the ground and defended myself to the police as a sufferer of Melbourne Supporter Depression Syndrome. If people can smash shop windows and steal Playstations while claiming social exclusion surely you could take out your most hated commentator and blame Cale Morton.

Radio Watch + Koaching Korner
Enjoyed Mick Malthouse picking apart everything that was terrible about us on SEN. Clearly his co-commentators had been instructed that he'd walk out if they even jokingly made any comments about him coaching us next year because there were about fifty times that he'd highlight some old bollocks that we'd done and there'd be an awkward silence for a second as somebody caught themselves before saying "So, what are you going to do about that next year?" or ask him if he has Sylvia in his best 22.

He'd be insane to spend what should be his retirement years trying to fashion this team into anything half decent, but god knows if he got to a Grand Final with a team featuring Carl Steinfort, Rupert Betheras and Steve McKee AND almost won then come on down. He can clearly identify where we're shit but let's see what he does about it.

Failing that I'll have Mark Williams just because he's an unhinged nutcase and it will pave the way for #chokeyourselfwithatie to become the next big thing in Twitter hashtags.

Next Week
Good timing for Richmond to snap a six game losing streak with a win over half decent (albeit fading rapidly) opposition today. Should set them up nicely to twat us at graveyard o'clock next Sunday. We were one grade above them the last time we played, and while they might not have gone anywhere since we've been steaming backwards at a million miles an hour so it's a perfect match. Poor Bradforth J Miller, left alone in the queue with Paul Johnson and Scott Thompson as McLean, Buckley, Bruce, Cheney and Jolly all take their turns giving us a kicking. It's his turn next week - one last chance to kick ten. And you know very well that he saves his best work for the end of the season when it's contract renewal time. Be afraid.

If you blindly cheat the ladder predictor (press up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A then start on the opening screen) we can still make the eight but come on don't be silly. Here's what Viney should be saying if any journo is mental enough to ask him about the possibility.

As for in's and out's I'm not going to throw Davey and Morton to the 2011 scrapheap yet but they've got to show something soon or there'll be no point playing them. Davey has got a lot more credit in the bank than the anorexic Maric style emo, and he was pretty good when he did get it today but the problem was that he didn't get it enough. If he needs time to get away and get his head right then give it to him, otherwise he's just got to keep playing and hopefully will finish the year on a high.

There's also not many players who I'm dying to see come out of the twos. Gawn goes
without saying, and given Richmond's putrid defence we might as well pick all three of them next week. Why not throw Robert Campbell in there as well and have a ruckman foursome? After all we did pay $15k to upgrade him off the rookie list for some strange reason. May as well really take the piss and add Jack Fitzpatrick as well. Thrown in the The Spencil rolling about in a wheelchair if you want, just play the Gawn/Jamar/SME trio of terror because eventually we're going to have to pick two of them to go with.

Green/Jurrah are a given (or are they?) and Jetta deserves another go before the end of the year but who else is there? Jamie Bennell has been played time after time and contributes nothing. Bate was one of the best this week but is clearly not wanted in our senior side based on being the sub twice in a row and coming on for the most of the game just to be underwhelming last week. Tom McDonald maybe but Maric is gone, Davis and Lawrence are probably not going to be ready this year and Tom McNamara is a mystery to everyone.

T-Mac was amongst the best on ground for the Scorpions the other day but we can't even play him due to being on the rookie list can we? Makes it even more baffling to me why we upgraded Campbell. The chances of him being legitimately required are 100-1 because it would take dual ruckman injury/suspension debacles within the next fortnight for him to play even one game. McNamara, on the other hand, is a 21-year-old kid who hasn't played a senior game for nearly two years but has shown some decent (if not world beating) form for Casey. He's either got a future or he hasn't and surely one or more of the three slop sides would have been the right opposition for him to play against for us to at least get an idea? Obviously not.

Sucked in if you donated $15k at the Foundation Heroes dinner only to turn on your computer the next day and find out that your hard earned has been used to promote somebody who probably won't play a game. Is it some sort of rort where we've had somebody ask about trading for him but we can't do it if he's a rookie? Surely not. Nobody, not even Richmond, could be that desperate. And what's pick 100 going to do for us anyway? PASS on all fronts. I'd rather keep $15k in the pocket or give T-Mac/Lawrence the chance to play in a meaningless end of season match. Just the usual baffling move that you've come to know and love from this club. Would be nice if somebody came out and explained these things but as we all know now they're too busy behind doors trying to knife each other in the back to have any time for football matters.

Oh, and if you're looking for Lucas Cook he's in the Casey 2's. And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

Was it worth it?
The worst thing was having to hear the Eagles theme song with its killer synth drums a'la the theme from Eastenders.

Final thoughts
The tradition continues. Drape a green jacket across Etihad Stadium and put a red vest on our season.

Bloodsport for all

2011-08-06T17:39:00.006+10:00

Do you fear the force of the wind,
The slash of the rain?
Go face them and fight them
Be savage again.

Go hungry and cold like the wolf,
Go wade like the crane.
The palms of your hands will thicken,
The skin of your cheek will tan,
You'll grow ragged and weary and swarthy,

But you'll walk like a man

Were I any of Todd Viney, Chris Connolly, Garry Lyon or whoever the hell is running our football department these days I'd have written those words out on gigantic placards and stuck them on the wall in the changerooms before the match. It's not too cerebral for your average footballer and surely the point of it is easy to understand no matter how many concussions you've had.

In fact it's so sports bogan friendly that I, as a sports bogan, only heard it in an NFL Films production (track 27). Still, they should make kids read that in school (if it weren't that the command to "be savage" would probably lead to the little dears murdering each other) because everything said within is absolutely 100% correct even though it was written more than a hundred years ago.

After the week we've had, and the well justified kickings from the entire football community over what a complete shambles we've become, the least we could ask from our players was the touch of savagery that has sadly been lacking for many, many years. At least they delivered a sniff of it for the first 25 minutes, but if you were able to walk into the TAB and put a complicated multi on all the aspects that would make up a game of AFL football you'd have been able to put your house on what was going to happen today - albeit at $1.05 it was so obvious.

Your TAB ticket might have looked like this;

LEG 1: Team suffering a week from hell comes out breathing fire
LEG 2: but doesn't last the first quarter before running out of puff
LEG 3: leading to the opposition taking control in dominant fashion c/o superstars
LEG 4: and only missing out on delivering a triple figure beating because they start self-preservation two minutes into the last quarter.

Total payout for a $10 stake - $10.50

That's the only ticket more tragic than the one that was sitting on the steps next to me during the first quarter which read - FIRST GOALKICKER: MITCH ROBINSON. "Oh yes" I thought, "somebody has dropped their winning ticket, I'll do a casual move to pocket this while everyone's distracted and at least I'll get something out of today". Then just as I was about to completely shed my dignity in even worse fashion than the people who wear those oversized OPSM glasses another casual look revealed that the ticket was actually for last week. Even theft and fraud aren't working for me at the moment.

It was two years ago (not quite) to the day when a late season debacle against the Blues with the tank in top gear caused me to totally abandon any pretence of a 'match review' and instead just post a giant picture of Jamar and some votes. Feels a lot like that should be happening again tonight. Except two years ago if you'd told us we'd have only progressed a few tentative steps beyond that glorious day when the Russian booted five I'd have taken action to ensure I never watched footy again.

Two years ago we knew we were rock bottom last and horrible but some of us (guilty as charged) had a childlike belief that things could only get better - to the point where we'd undoubtedly be legitimate finals challengers by the end of 2011. Now here we are, shed of one coach, about to be shed of one top draft pick, owning just a handful of decent victories and with more players on our list going nowhere or backwards than forward. I was doing enthusiasm at the start of the year, and against all odds I was doing it before the Bulldogs game (via numerous ups and downs) but since then we've been served up a giantic, smelly slop bucket full of the Ebola virus. Never again I say, for the fourth time this season.

Ironically we only played one really bad quarter today, which is three better than last week, but it was almost equally as hard to find good players. Nobody was as bad, but there was hardly a standout amongst them. There was all the oomph you'd expect in the first few minutes, but when we had gilt edges chances we stuffed them up and at the other end Carlton were absolutely ruthless. At various times we were even making Brock McLean look good for the first time since the 2006 Elimination Final. In the tradition of making ridiculous comments on the internet may I be the first to say "mature aged recruit?" because you know somebody is doing exactly the same thing as you read this.

No need to watch the game if you missed it, just slap the DVD marked "GENERIC MFC GAME" on and enjoy the sporting magic unfolding before your very eyes. The only difference is that this time we almost broke even on the inside 50's today, for what that was worth.

I was comfortable with a MAXIMUM/EXPERIENCE tag-team combination in the ruck if Jamar really is injured, but sadly they were absolutely massacred. That's not always the be all and end of all it - after all how many times have we dominated the taps and been thrashed? - but when you can barely win a single centre clearance all day (and certainly none when the game is slipping away) you're going to be in a fair bit of trouble when the rucks aren't firing. Then there was Stef's negligent homicide on Tapscott later in the day. Not a red letter day for our young rucks.

For so long our defenders have been the only thing between us copping the sort of pasting that we got last week but it's almost like they're shellshocked now from having to defend so grimly for so many years. They all have their moments but they're not the steel trap combination that at least stopped us from getting belted against good teams every other week last year. Joel Mac and Garland were amongst the better players today (and at least J.Mac takes people on and plays-on WITHOUT there being an opposition player 1cm behind him - please take notes Nathan Jones) but that's based mainly on the fact that there weren't many of them. SPOILER ALERT - With a couple of major exceptions the midfielders and forwards are hardly going to feature prominently in the votes.

One forward who will feature deservedly is Jack Watts, and not only will he go bloody close to winning the Allen Jakovich Medal on here I'd like to have a sneaky bet on him at odds for the B&F as well, because he's put in some decent performances in abysmal sides this year. Unfortunately I missed his pisstake of a blind turn around nobody which left McLean standing there wondering what the hell was going on because I was too busy trying to work out who had injured themselves at the other end of the ground, but watching it online later it's retrospectively the only highlight of the day. This means that there were absolutely none in the two plus hours I was sitting there watching it. This season is really starting to grate on me.

Were I smart I'd go nowhere near Etihad Stadium next Sunday, and would even refuse to look out of my window from which I can see the ground (no, I do not live in the Remand Centre). I am not. See you there.

As for Strauss the less said about his injury the better. I saw it once and that's more than enough for me. I might not have wanted him in the team this week but the poor bastard has absolutely destroyed himself and that's shocking for any player. I wouldn't even wish that on J**d (though maybe Milne could do with a dose). The MCG were polite enough to only play it once, enough for everyone to realise just what a rude injury it was, but the same rules clearly don't apply to the rest of the media outlets. Just look at the vulture scum pretending they're horrified about seeing it, and wincing with fake angst and concern for the kid while they play it for the tenth time.

Funnily enough just a few minutes later he'd done the first thing that really impressed me since he came into the side, hitting Watts with a perfect 40m pass going inside 50, and now he's unlikely to be seen again until at least this time next year if not 2013. Imagine if it had happened to Scully? Kevin Sheedy would have topped himself. It's not to say he won't come back and play good footy but what a cruel thing to happen to somebody that young who is just establishing himself. Best wishes to him from everyone (all one of us) at Demonblog. It's times like this that you realise just how lucky we've been with really serious injuries - there's season enders like Grimes and his foot and then there's shockers like this and we've been pretty lucky to avoid them over the years.

The hat-trick of misses from Watts, Dunn and Green which started from that Strauss kick to the Million Dollar Manchild all but did us in, as if we weren't going to get turned over anyway. Get out the Big Book O'Footy Stereotypes, flick past BULLER, MT and all the humorous gags about us yelling PIP PIP off the ski-lift and go straight to K for "kicked themselves out of it", where commentators firmly believe that a side who are completely outmatched and who are clearly going to lose actually cost themselves the game by not taking their opportunities. It certainly wouldn't have hurt, but look at Essendon/Collingwood last week if you want to see what usually happens when a rubbish side bounds out to a shock lead against a substantially better team.

Fact was Carlton were always the better team by a million miles, and even if we had kicked those goals and taken a 20 point lead there was always going to be a time where they'd turn it on and bang us unmercifully like the low self esteem, confidence free, gang of emos that we are.

We were still hanging on, just there (even though we were winning for much of the quarter) when Strauss had his mishap and after Howe got his goal that was their cue to turn it up and treat us with contempt. From Tapscott bombing one into the square at the 32 minute mark we suddenly managed to concede another three goals - the worst of which saw them deliver the sort of kick-in that would cause grown men to weep if we did it and go down the other end in about 20 seconds flat to kick a goal.

All wasn't completely lost at quarter time, but it was pretty soon after. Enter C. J**d, the man who will only get his name back on this site when [$omeone else] does a runner to GWS for megabucks and loses theirs. He'd been good but not great in the first quarter but decided to turn on an absolute clinic in the second. He wasn't alone either, they barely had one player who didn't cut us to shreds. It was utterly ugly, but at least I'd seen worse in the previous seven days.

Eight goals to nil by the end of it and all of a sudden Watts is roving the backline and it seems like nothing has changed from if not last week (nothing could be worse) then a fortnight ago against Hawthorn. Funny to think that after that game we (i.e me) thought that we were still a red hot chance of playing the finals if things went our way in the last three games. Enough of that talk, we're rubbish and it's time to admit it instead of holding onto the

The one thing that was missed in the furious backtracking by the media who tried to get rid of him after Bailey's classy exit was that the fact we are (probably) going to win more games this year than in 2010 is an horrifically overrated stat. Winning games last year meant something because there were only one or two rubbish teams, and even they had their moments (Brisbane over Collingwood anyone? WCE beating us? Maybe the second one not so impressive) whereas this year you've got Gold Coast, Port and Brisbane who are absolute solid gold certainties for four points.

Despite the far more even competitive league last year (how many 120pt+ wins?) we went into the last weeks with an outside chance at playing finals then as well - and I'd argue that we were far better equipped to play in September then and have gone backwards this season. We stuffed up those three games but at least we were in the third last one against Hawthorn right until the last few minutes, this year they'd have pummelled us.

Injury hasn't helped but there's also obviously intensive mental issues both on and off the field. For instance how many times this year could we have rushed a point but hestitated before finally coughing up a goal. Somebody sit these kids down and say this is what you can do, this is what you can't do and if we get rorted by the umpires on a 50/50 one then so be it. Instead you get mass panic whenever the ball goes down there, almost inevitable disaster and the farce of the one time somebody did try and rush one through they handballed it straight to a Carlton player who would have waltzed in unchallenged if J**d hadn't already (amazingly) been pinged for a throw.

It pains me to admit that the Melbourne supporting junior and latterday turncoat is an amazing player. You don't need to come on here to find that out, but if that's what we're eventually going to miss out on with Scully then I hope the compensation picks we get deliver because what we desperately need now is a natural leader in the middle, with the grunt to get the job done week in, week out no matter whether or not the rest of the side are pulling their weight.

"Moloney's missing Jamar" said somebody around me, and if that's what we're relying on for success in the midfield then no wonder we're so necked. We all enjoyed the Psychic Friends Connection when it was at it's peak, but surely everyone knew that after they combined to thrash the pants off the Crows earlier in the year that opposition teams would twig on it and make sure that they couldn't combine at every single centre bounce. They did, we have no plan B, Jamar has been ordinary since he came back and Moloney just gets slaughtered against good sides - and it's not all his fault, if we could get somebody else in there to give him a hand it would help. Funny that considering we've spent years drafting midfielders, but welcome to the wonderful world of the MFC.

From the third quarter onwards it was procession football, and only their disinterest in hurting themselves before the important end of the year stopped us from another farce and Todd Viney from joining the Dean Bailey Horror Coaching Debuts coterie group. The only moments of note in the second quarter were Green giving away a free and subsequently a goal by jostling with some oaf at the other end of the ground.

It's all well and good that people are whinging about Green being no good as a captain, but please tell me who you're going to replace him with. My first instinct would be Moloney but he's hardly your man if you want somebody who is going to perform week in, week out. Second choice would be Trengove but having already buried McLean and to a lesser extent Grimes by annointing them as future captains I'm wary about doing it a third time.

Either way I wouldn't be surprised if the new coach has a full Gillard style leadership spill when he (or she, why not be innovative if you're going to be shit anyway?) takes over. Let Brad get back to doing what he does best and go for a long term option instead. If he cracks the sads and throws the toys out of the pram over getting dumped then the door is that way. I love Brad (in a mostly heterosexual manner) and defend him to the death most of the time but even I'm starting to think we could with somebody else in the job. Will we have a new captain by R1, 2012? Depends on who gets the coaching job I'd say - if it's a first timer he'll probably leave it the same, if it's a bit of a psycho like Williams/Laidley/Malthouse he'll probably slash and burn. Either way, leadership groups are still the biggest wank in football.

All in all another great day at the footy. Can't for the life of me understand why there were about 500 MFC fans there. Roll on 2012/13/14/whenever.

2011 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
In a slight improvement over last week the top two at least deserve their votes. The next three barely squeeze in but they deserve it more than the four in the apologies. Who would have thought that it would be actually be harder to give out votes in 2011 than it was for most of 08/09?

5 - Jack Watts
4 - Jack Trengove
3 - Lynden Dunn
2 - Colin Garland
1 - Joel Macdonald

Apologies to Gysberts, Jones, Moloney and Howe in no particular order.

Leaderboard
Grandstand finish in prospect between five men who have never won the least coveted award in AFL footy, but does anybody deserve it right now? You know you're in trouble when the guy leading by three votes is getting dropped.

At least if there's any justice in the world the season will end with (at least) two straight wins and whoever does break free from that group to take the medal will have to do it by playing well in a win instead of scoring votes for being the least shit in a demoralising shambles.

27 - Colin Sylvia
24 - Stefan Martin (OMFG LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Jack Watts
23 - Brent Moloney, Jordie McKenzie
16 - Mark Jamar
13 - Jack Trengove, James Frawley (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
11 - Ricky Petterd, Jared Rivers
10 - Jordan Gysberts, Joel Macdonald
9 - Colin Garland
8 - Jeremy Howe (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year), Brad Green
6 - Luke Tapscott, Lynden Dunn
5 - Rohan Bail
4 - Michael Evans, Tom Scully
3 - Jack Grimes, Liam Jurrah, Nathan Jones
2 - Clint Bartram, Neville Jetta
1 - Addam Maric, Matthew Bate

Crowd Watch
Did Carlton win the award for the worst banner ever today? Can somebody please explain what this means.

What I think it means is that they had a competition via Facebook to come up with a poor rhyme for their banner and that was the winner, but I'm not entirely sure because they're a cheersquad and anything can happen when you get people like that together.

If that is the case then their cheer squad are the biggest tightarses ever because then they turned it around so that the competition winner was facing the other way and the players instead ran through a banner advertising Telechoices. Very inspirational. Obviously they didn't need actual motivation to beat us. And further proof, as if you needed it, that Carlton will whore any aspect of their club out for cash. I reckon we'd be the same if anybody was interested in spending money on us. Can't see Outback Jacks having the sort of funding to do that sort of thing, and now that Hankook are walking away from being on the front of the jumper (because the logo isn't in the right place? Weirdos) all we've got is the promise of some mystery company turning up and being a lucrative new sponsor. Cue running through a "BP - WE CARE" banner next year with crepe paper sea creatures covered in West Texas crude oil.

Apart from that I was surrounded by exactly the sort of quality you'd expect at a Carlton game. A small child behind me who was so angry, bitter and twisted that he either had Tourette's or is a victim of abuse, a woman who amusingly had exactly the same voice and range of comedy comments as the abused child and a lone maniac who sat there screaming random comments all day and was still doing "we are getting robbed by the umpires" ironic boos for free kicks well into the last quarter when they were a million points in front.

Then there was the peanut directly in front of me who was delivering some of the worst attempts at comedy in history. At one point when Zach Tuohy (who appears to be better than half our list, hopefully only because he's surrounded by class) ran around somebody with ease he yelled out "THE IRISHMAN! SELLS HIM THE POTATO!" to the genuine amusement of the tossbags he was with. Forget that it made absolutely no sense and that it's practically a racist comment, apparently it was absolutely the funniest thing in history if you're the sort of cockhead who leaps on his friend and starts giving him a noogie at 3/4 time (and presumably a reacharound at the final siren).

Then, as if that wasn't bad enough he sits there and says "Geez, I didn't know whether that line was going to come off.. but it DELIVERED!" and high fived somebody. He didn't look like Dwayne Russell but he had all the characteristics. Odds on he's an ordinary human in his daily life, and double odds on he'll somehow end up reading this and will post some garbage comeback. As long as it's better than his 'classic' sledge of the umpires in the third quarter which consisted of "HEY UMPIRE! FUCK YOU!" we'll all be fine. A tip, if you are going to write in with foul abuse at least make it innovative because if it involves patches on leather jackets or ski resorts you will be doing more damage to yourself than me.

Next Week
I shudder to think what the crowd is going to be like against the Eagles. When they came out before the start of the year and spoke about how our draw was "a great football draw, but a bad business one" I don't think they expected that the two would come together in one apocalyptic battle of disinterest early one Sunday afternoon.

Is the crowd required for a break-even at Docklands 25k? Because we'll be lucky to get 25 full stop the way we're going considering the natural hatred for the place by our fans even when we were good. It's a shame they're shutting the top deck because I'd like to have an entire wing to myself.

Changes? Who cares. Jamar aside it's not like we've got scores of quality players banging the door down to get a game. Sylvia and Jurrah will no doubt come straight back now that they've had the smack on the wrist but other than those three there's not a great deal in reserve. Obviously Strauss is out, they've clearly got no interest in Bate (and for the second time this year he came on as sub and didn't do much) and Tapscott has already been knocked into next week so he might be in trouble too.

Any more injuries and our training sessions are going to start looking like this;

After that..
West Coast murder us, we're no certainty of beating Richmond the way we're playing at the moment, Gold Coast should (SHOULD) provide the platform for a "We Are The World" style win where we pretend that we're not shit and hopefully Port are still last going into the final game and prefer to have the first pick after GWS (Selection 54?) instead of the pride of not finishing last on the ladder.

What a sad, sad way this year is petering out. Having our last three games against garbage teams is starting to look a lot less appealing now than it did a few weeks ago.

Break out the phantom drafts and outrageous invented trade rumours because this year is absolutely finished no matter what sort of rorts you can invent via creative use of the (RIP Dean) Bailey Ladder's Ladder Predictor. God forbid the Eagles bus drives off the Tullamarine Freeway on the way to the ground and we somehow win next week then we'll revist this but at the moment there's as much chance of us beating them in that match as there is of me being asked to provide a motivational speech to the players before it.

Was it worth it?
Murray Wrensted. 1988 Elimination Final. Thanks for nothing you clown.

Final thoughts
If I were Mick Malthouse I'd rather mop the toilets at the Westpac Centre than go out of my way to get the job of coaching this lot next year. See also Clarkson, Al. The only hope we've got of landing a prominent coach is if Eade gets the arse at Footscray.

The Bailey Debacle: Late Update

2011-08-01T22:32:00.002+10:00

All of a sudden the smell of fish is starting to waft out of AAMI Park. Just when you thought we could get on with our lives it turns out that the allegedly brave face and united club forged by Jim Stynes after his ascension to the presidency has turned out to be a bit of a shame and actually every second person at the club hates each other.

Now, if you believe Gerard Healy (and you'll note that he's not getting the same kind of 'come back and save us' push as Lyon..) and his article on foxsports.com.au the following happened since we got rolled by Hawthorn last Sunday.

- Brad Green goes On The Couch and can barely contain the fact that there's behind the scenes issues.
- With Stynes absent Don McLardy meets with Green and players the next day and is "shocked" to find out that "the players" (how many, who, senior/junior - none of this explained) have a serious problem with "senior administrators", whom we can only imagine equals Cameron Schwab because who else could it be if it wasn't Stynes or Don himself?
- Stynes returns to meet with the players himself, and with the clock ticking on Schwab's contract extension option date the board decide to give him the boot
- Bailey is denied the option of taking the team to Geelong on Friday because it would cost too much. In one last (as it turns out) quality act he pulls out his credit card and offers to pay for it himself.

And at 2.10pm Saturday - the apocalypse. Nice way for the players to say thanks for his offer of putting them up (albeit probably at the Norlane Motel, he wasn't exactly on Collingwood money), by knifing him in the back with the second worst performance in league history. He made mistakes in the tactical setup and Geelong were ruthless but is there any realistic suggestion that the players were actually mentally distressed? Unless they were putting a brave face on it during the warmup the players hardly looked as if they were about to run out the door, across the park and into traffic.

So, we all know what happened next - and I'm still in the position of thinking that he had to go, but there's no doubt that the whole thing has been botched. I didn't expect him to walk after that, but I didn't expect the club to axe him either - let alone the next day and via a phone call.

Now that the emotion has subsided - and I'd like to think that if I was on the board of a footy club and not just some fatty with a keyboard I'd probably never have got overly emotional to start with - I'd have preferred them to have him front the board and then tell him that they weren't going to renew his contract at the end of the year. If he wanted to walk then everybody shakes hands and Todd Viney gets the job without Bails having to yank a dagger out of his back. If he wanted to go on then at least they can openly go and sniff around other coaches and not be "out of the race" when it comes to finding a new coach.

It took me until about 20 minutes ago to actually see the press conference rather than just listen to it on the radio, and what struck me was the bush league way they took down the sponsor messages after Stynes/McLardy spoke and left Bailey sitting there in front of a blank wall like he was doing his press conference from a utility room. Ok, so he wasn't the coach anymore so it wouldn't have been entirely apt to have the names up there but why put it up there in the first place then? If Hankook/Kaspersky etc.. wouldn't want their name associated with a depressing moment then it didn't help them that they were up there in lights while a man's death sentence was read out.

Now, explain this to me. If the players convinced Stynes/McLardy that they were anti-Schwab (for whatever reason) and he was effectively out the door based on their recommendation then how does the club getting tonked by 31 goals somehow save him? How does he walk into work tomorrow knowing that he wasn't wanted until some miracle conversion late on Sunday night ended with him getting a one year extension despite the fact that much of the week was spent with the players convincing the President(s) to piss him off?

What happens to him now? Do they pull off some Leading Teams/360/Deep Heat ad style bullshit to try and get everyone to link arms and sing kumbaya before the year is over? They'd better, because he's not going anywhere without a payout now - and if we waste money paying somebody that they could have gotten rid of for free I'll kick something in half. Or is he going to end up the latterday George Costanza at Play Now when he had a job but they didn't want him so they kept putting him in increasingly shit offices to try and convince him to quit off his own bat. He'll know it's not going to end well if the doors swing open tomorrow and his desk has been relocated into Yarra Park.

I don't understand why one of the two had to stay. If Bailey had to go there and then, messily as it turned out, why couldn't they both go if that's what they wanted? Fear that they wouldn't be able to get anybody else half decent after sacking the third consecutive CEO (not to mention coach) in a row? Worried they'd have to see if Paul McNamee could fit us in again during mixed doubles matches at Flushing Meadow. Surely there's a world of businessmen out there who could be our CEO - if that's the case again I'll smash something.

And what about the players? Do they have valid concerns? Are there any rifts in that group? When will they be back on Twitter telling the public that they like honking onto a chicken parma and playing FIFA? If they were all so in love with Bails but for some reason didn't bother to show it on Saturday how are they going to react to the news that the guy they were whinging about is likely to be a fixture at the club for at least another year? Who knew the boring old MFC could have so many different angles running at the same time.

Then there's Lyon on Footy Classified. He's said that he won't be coaching next time or ever so many times that if you want to have money on it happening this year then please call me and I'll be happy to take your cash and invest it in the future hosting costs of Demon Wiki because you'll just be throwing it away otherwise. He's pledged to "help in any way he can" which screams out to me that there'll be a token contribution just to get everybody off his back - perhaps as a stand-in president while Jim takes some time off - but that he's really doing it out of sufferance.

Funny that somebody (you know who you are) sent me an email before the season saying that with the departure of Wellman suddenly Bailey was isolated in a sea of MFC Old Boys and that if it went wrong he'd be buggered. It went wrong and he was.

And now, Dean Bailey. If you're reading (and I know you are. Not really) and want to tell your side of the story in football terms rather than waffle about politics and who hates who I'm here for you. Email me via demonblogger@gmail.com and we'll set it up to ask what the real fans want to know. Why is Juice is still playing for us, would you still have played Jurrah on the wing, what in the name of buggery is wrong with Cale Morton and is Maric really a massive emo? You'll get nothing of quality from the journos, come to us instead and let's do it properly over cafe latte in my loungeroom.

The Tackle: Demonblog edition

2011-08-01T16:28:00.003+10:00

So, it's farewell then Deano and the poisoned chalice is (temporarily) handed to Todd Viney. He'll wipe the blood off it and have a crack for the rest of the year, but for now let us remember the last four years.

Thanks to everyone who tweeted in their suggestions. I've brewed them up with a few of my own, and in a massive rip-off of Mark Robinson's column in the Herald Sun here are ten likes and ten dislikes of the Bailey era.

Once you're done, remember the man via the most fitting tribute of all - the MS Paint thread.

LIKES

Getting the job
There’s something to be said for a bloke who applies through an ad in the paper and cleans up one of the biggest names in footy in the process. The way he has conducted himself off-field since day one has been nothing less than professional, and you can see why he would have been so impressive in his presentation in the first place. Ok, so it didn’t work out but who’s to say Sheedy or Hardwick would have us much further down the road now?

It’s seems so condescending to say that somebody’s a top bloke once he’s been given the boot, but it’s universally accepted that it’s true. When he spoke at the AGM before the start of this year I was almost ready to jump up and crash through a few brick walls. Unfortunately for him the one thing he couldn’t do was get into the Geelong huddle at quarter time and talk them into calming down, and what would have been an extension of at least one year on Friday became media frenzy, board panic and a sacking by Monday.

The end (off-field)
Granted he could hardly thrown a jug of water at Schwab and tee off with blue language without ruining his chances of getting another assistant job elsewhere in the future, but you can't see him being the sort of guy who would anyway.

It's becoming clear that there are some serious political machinations taking place behind the scenes at this club, and for him to come out and deliver a straight down the line press conference where he even found time to mock Tony Jones asking a stupid question was sheer class and he would have won plenty of admirers for the way he handled it.

Doesn't mean he should have been our coach next year, or even next week if you're particularly aggrieved but it was handled badly at our end and he kept his dignity the whole way through.

Player wins
Jamar and Sylvia were going absolutely nowhere when he turned up. Now one of them is a reigning All-Australian and one held in such regard that Sydney are trying to lure him away with a fat cheque.

Sylvia might not deliver every week but he's a million times better than he was in R1, 2008. The Swans might have landed him for a third rounder then, now they’ll have to use their legalised salary cap rorts to lure him north.

McKenzie has been a storming success off the rookie list, and whatever part Bails played in convincing Carlton to part with Pick 11 for Brock McLean he'll at least (hopefully at least, do the right thing Giz and be bloody good) be mentioned in every "great lopsided trades of our time" list from here until the end of days.

Watts vs Naitanui will go down alongside J.Frawley vs J.Riewoldt as a case of both clubs being perfectly happy with who they got.

Shame it rarely all came together on one day at the same time but at least there’s a base for a new coach to work on rather than the rotting corpse of a once decent side that Deano was handed when he took over.

Tanking
SCULLGOVE might be about to split up over the small matter of $5m cash, and some people (like me) might still want to spit every time the last few weeks of 2009 are mentioned but there’s no doubt he did the right thing. Not the "right" thing in a moral sense, but with Gold Coast and GWS lurking over the next few drafts everyone knew that if you wanted to get anything half decent you had to do it that year.

Imagine if we'd beaten Richmond, thrashed Freo a fortnight later then picked Scully only for him to take ye olde Treasure Chest of Blacktown AND we’d still ended up in the same position we're in now? Being the only man in the entire world to have integrity wouldn't mean much when coaching Frankston – so at least he gave himself every opportunity for success.

Treating Essendon and Richmond with contempt
Unless you have an office filled with Port Adelaide fans then there’s been scant opportunity for the last five years to walk into walk on a Monday morning and take the piss out of your work colleagues. Great news then if you work with a bunch of Tiger or Bomber fans, because we've consistently cleaned them up over the last couple of years – each time giving that slim glimmer of hope that there's a light at the end of the tunnel for a few days/weeks until it all collapsed again.

The fact that we're still a very, very off chance of making the finals is irrelevant because it won't happen, but the fact that we were even in that position despite never having beaten any of Carlton, Collingwood, Footscray, Geelong, Hawthorn, North or St Kilda OR won a game at Docklands since R1, 2008 is utterly ridiculous. And this, my friends, is why when the AFL try to sneak in an expanded finals series again next year they should be laughed out of the room.

Beating up on interstate teams at the MCG
It's less fun than beating a Victorian team (for all the rare times we did that), and there is the debacle against the Eagles last year to consider, but we’ll never forget the unholy hammerings dealt out to Adelaide, Freo or the Swans over the last couple of seasons.

Name A Game probably don't even bother taping most games that we're in (unless it's to sell to opposition sides) but I could watch that hatchet job of Sydney last year a million times and never get sick of it. That's when I thought, not for the first or last time, that everything was going to be ok. I was wrong. Again.

The comeback
I don't think I'm wrong to suggest that there were a few thousand people ready to run out of the G and dive straight in front of the express train to Belgrave on the afternoon of Sunday 4 May 2008. Freo 51 points to the good, us winless and looking like we were too shit to win one game that year.

I've got no idea what he said to them at half time or whether it's just that Freo are flaky heave-ho shouting poltroons at the best of times but I'll never forget that win.

Even to this day I've still got the front page of The Age from that Monday at my desk. It’s got Austin Wonaeamirri doing his CELEBRATOR leap with a blond woman going off her chop in the background. "DEE-LIRIOUS" it reads (very imaginative) "Melbourne rolls back 51-point deficit for first win of the season".

What a way to bring up his first win. We were as good in the second half as we were rancid in the first. Matthew Bate played an absolute shocker of a first half coming back for injury, THE CELEBRATOR exploded and Jeff Farmer bafflingly told somebody to "look at the scoreboard" when we were rapidly charging them down. Pav dominated but it didn’t help. We only won two more games for the year, but whatever it was still one of the most memorable matches (in a good way) that any of us will ever see.

Rare public displays of emotion
He always seemed such a calm character – maybe too much for my liking at times, I've got a fetish for coaching psychos after all – but there were a couple of great moments.

One was when we were 50-0 down at quarter time against Geelong and he went off his nut (eventually holding the margin to 117 instead of letting it blow out to.. say.. 186) and the dugout punching, air swinging, "bash that up your arses" celebrations after the Essendon match this year.

It looked a bit odd at the time, and frankly stupid in retrospect, but I loved it. Looks now that it might have had more to do with it than just a football result and that he was probably reacting to intra-club pressure but at the time it was just the outpouring emotion of somebody who had spent three and a half years of being hammered pillar to post by media and fans.

I feel bad now for changing my mind on him every two weeks.

Swearing on Live TV

Nothing better

Being a professional, dignified character for four years
Good luck wherever you end up next Deano. I expect to see you in somebody’s else’s coaches box as an assistant when we're losing a Grand Final a few years down the line. Try not to ruin it all by sticking two fingers up at our entire administration at the final siren. People love talking about who would be a good fit where - can anybody say GWS? At least in one way he might get to continue coaching Scully.

DISLIKES

The start
Nobody expected instant success after he was handed a gigantic, ripe shit sandwich at the end of 2007 (although shamefully I convinced myself that it was just a blip on the radar) but alternatively nobody expected a slopfest the likes of which we were offered in R1, 2008 against Hawthorn.

That they backed up a week later and almost added another hundred point defeat caused the first of many aggrieved people to charge to their keyboard and declare that there was no way he could possibly be any good. One bloke has spent the last four years calling SEN and saying it, seemingly off his nut on helium the voice is so high.

It was a terrible start but it meant nothing at the time. Maybe they were right, but it was the slow burn equivalent of The Ox and his invented 98% certainty over Scully. If you’re wrong nobody remembers, if you’re right you parrot about how you’re a super genius who should always be listened to.

He didn't turn out to be the next Clarko, but at least he had a bash.

Tactical shenanigans
It started with Isaac Weetra given two games despite having absolutely no idea what he was doing, and it ended with Jurrah on a wing against a Brownlow Medallist but there was more than a handful of questionable decisions along the way.

For all the times when our swashbuckling game style reaped handsome dividends there were another three or four when we were completely played off the park, seemingly hoping that by sticking to the same plan for four quarters we'd somehow get out of it alright. Last Saturday was this philosophy's natural conclusion.

Tanking
Yes, it was the "right" think to do (*WINK WINK*) and it still leaves a nasty taste in my mouth but what's done is done and by taking Trengove as well as Scully we at least landed one player willing to put pen to paper and stick with the club instead of nicking off for fat wads of cash elsewhere.

The problem was that the 'questionable' moments at the end of 2008 (How’s Warnock at FF tracking?) would end up either being held up as the most glorious masterstroke of his career or as a sad failure in the forward planning department.

Adem Yze’s tweet about those few weeks being responsible for a "losing culture" is the kind of bollocks that you’d expect from somebody who Bailey sacked once his use-by date was well and truly up, but there’s no doubt that the fans of 17 other teams are going to remember him for just one reason – and it wasn’t saying fuck in an interview.

High draft picks seemingly going nowhere
Morton, Maric, Dunn, Bate – stagnating. Strauss and Blease - not yet convincing.

Here’s to Gysberts, Tapscott and Cook not falling into the same trap.

Rookie promotion madness
Newton’s two year contract extension and Spencil being promoted to the senior list were panic moves on players who weren’t good enough. Neither worked, other than a brief moment in the first quarter against North when Juice thought he was Tony Lockett.

"Competitive"
I’m glad he managed to fit one last mention of his favourite phrase into his final press conference. He must have said it a thousand times in the last four years, and while it might have been the absolutely 100% correct way to describe where we were trying to get to you couldn’t help but think somebody should have run out and bought him a Thesaurus.

There's only so much we want to hear about hanging onto the coat-tails of the better clubs before the coach comes out and sets sights on not only competing with them but beating their brains in.

The inability to land a big name
You couldn’t blame him for missing out on J**d but we've publically aimed at and missed both Shaun Burgoyne and Robert Warnock in the last couple of years (as well as less public nibbles at others) and have been rebuffed every time. No surprises that out of contract players who will command big money will want to go to a club that they’re going to be instantly successful at.

We might have dodged a bullet in not paying a fortune for Warnock in the end but it was proof that we had no profile and not even the lure of decent facilities could entice somebody to come over. Maybe a Sheedy would have been able to use his 'name' to get some better players, but then again maybe he would have redrafted Chris Heffernan and Gary Moorcroft before dragging us to the bottom with a cavalcade of senile antics.

The Junior McDonald debacle
Even Bails admits that forcing Junior out was a crucial mistake. I'd hate to think that if we'd kept him he’d have stopped McKenzie from being so good once he returned from injury but there’s no doubt that throwing him out in the street caused issues elsewhere in the club.

Losing Bruce in part because of it didn't hurt us that badly, but if there was resentment by the playing group that has continued past the moment the ball was bounced in Round 1 this year then somebody, somewhere needs to take responsibility. Maybe it’s the players themselves? Unfortunately you can't sack an entire list en masse and replace them with cut price Irish imports. What you can do is get somebody in who will scream into their faces that they're all weak and should fire up.

Our record against all the other Victorian teams
6-1-44 says it all really. Even the draw against the Pies is tainted by them keeping us in the game with outrageously slop kicking for goal and the presence of Josh Fraser.

Some people try to play the importance of this down by saying "oh it’s not a Victorian competition anymore, you beat whoever you’re put up against". Unfortunately for us, and Bails more often than not you’re up against a Victorian club – and if you’re not there’s every possible chance you’re in Perth or Adelaide where he never won manage to craft a win either.

The end (on and off-field)
Before last Saturday my low point of the season was probably starting the Carlton Friday night game in hyper-defensive mode, trying to keep the damage limited. The time to really defend was when we were about 150 points down at Kardinia Park. He went within a few metres of owning the worst result as a coach in history, and as much as a man who ended his playing career in a 160 point loss and presided over three of them while in charge of us he might be used to the odd thrashing but that's something nobody wants on their resume.

Who knows if the players would have been able to pull it off, but surely the last quarter was the time to try and stem the bleeding, waste time and do a bit of dinky kicking back and forth. He might have survived, at least for a few more weeks, with a 20 goal loss but 30 was always going to clean him up.

And so, the search for a ~~supermodel~~ supercoach begins. Will we pry Malthouse out of his contract with the Pies only for him to turn out like Barassi in '81, or will we be buying the RODNEY EADE - OUR MASTERMIND banner off the Dogs cheersquad and putting a darker blue on it? Or will we end up with somebody else who will work for minimum wage?

Who knows, whichever direction it goes in we'll be here to report on it.

RIP Baileyball - a photo essay

2011-07-31T22:07:00.003+10:00

'In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.'

2011-07-30T23:52:00.015+10:00

In psychology, Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a real paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors; sometimes to the point of defending them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness - wikipedia.org.

Football is a fucking stupid thing to get into. I didn't need to watch the second worst loss in 114 years of league football to realise that, but the angst that comes from following a club who have either been not quite good enough or going nowhere for my entire life has always been tempered with the fact that it could "always be worse". Now we are the worst. Not on the premiership ladder, but in the record books and that's what will be remembered many years after who came 13th or 14th in any given year.

We mock St Kilda and Bulldogs fans for never winning anything ever, we laugh at Richmond for getting trounced then losing to Gold Coast, we look back at Fitzroy remembering them as nothing more than punching bags for the rest of the competition. None of those teams have ever done what we did on Saturday. St Kilda and Sydney won eight wooden spoons between them in the 80's and 90's, and they put in a lot of absolute stinkers but it was never this bad. We've won four wooden spoons in the last thirty years, and today's result was nine goals worse than any single performance of that entire timeframe. This is what rock bottom looks like and it's so ugly I could almost cry/smash the keyboard in a furious mashing of buttons.

We've just dished up the most sickening, vile, embarrassing performance of the national league era and I was there. Never has a worse game been played since all 12 teams were based in Victoria. Retrospectively I'm glad I was there too, because at least I saw it with my own eyes and one day many years down the track when we're hoisting a premiership cup (!?) we'll look back at Saturday 30 July 2011 and laugh heartily at what happened that day. I'll bet they said that in 1979, and right now we're as close to winning a flag as we were the day 12,000 people watched the Lions slaughter us at Waverley.

All week I attempted to justify to myself why it wasn't a completely stupid idea to get on a train, go to Geelong and pay $20 to stand on a cold terrace watching us get spanked. When I woke up with a killer headache on Saturday morning the idea of chucking a sickie and watching the debacle on television started to appeal even more. But no, I hooked into the hardcore pain relief (and packed some for later, which proved handy) and pushed on. 11am train, a surprisingly amount of MFC fans on it and a one way ticket to the greatest farce I've ever seen in my life.

I must have some sort of workplace reputation as the sort of idiot who would go to a game like this without hesitation, because all week people asked me if I was going to go not out of genuine interest but more like "are you REALLY going?". Well, why not. I was there in Round 3, 2008 when we came off the canvas with a terrible team to put in a creditable performance against the defending premier so why not? Who could foresee that just when you thought we'd never trouble the record books for the wrong reasons again that the epic beating we should have suffered that day would finally come to fruition three and a half years later? I'm glad they also managed to fit this in during the second last game of my twenties so that I may start the new decade with a clean slate.

For every single person who cocked an eyebrow in mock surprise and asked "Why?" (up to an including workmates, close friends, family and one significant other) I tried to come up with a different horseshit excuse. Sense of adventure! Belief in an encouraging performance! Something memorable might happen! The last one might have been right, but I was thinking more something along the lines of a goal of the year or something similiar, not the apocalypse.

I'm glad that I ran into someone from work both before the game and at the train station after because the first thing I'm going to do on Monday is ask him for a rendition of what my face looked like walking up the platform at South Geelong station at 5.05pm having capped off a winning day by missing the first train by 10 seconds. In fact it was later kicked even further into overdrive by having an argument with some tart in a cinema who wouldn't shut her mouth for two hours as I was watching a film that I'd made a previous commitment to go and see but could barely take any notice of due to horror flashbacks and the inane chatter from the seat behind. But antisocial rants against ill-manned scum is a story for another day - or for my own radio talkback show - for the sake of catharsis and history I need to write about what I saw at this game or I'll never come to terms with it. I feel.. violated.

In a way what happened should almost be comforting. I have looked into the void and seen true sporting evil, the likes of which will (presumably) never be seen again. The lowest moment that this club has ever had short of voting ourselves out of existence in '96. Surely it can never, ever be this bad again? We'll lose close ones and we'll get thrashed but surely you or I will never, ever see the likes of what we saw today again. I'll bet they said that in 1979 too.

Forget our players, forget the horror that you're going through, the saddest people today are Gary Baker, Ray Biffin, Michael Byrne, Cameron Clayton, Barry Denny, Anthony Dullard, Jim Durnan, Glenn Elliott, Robert Elliott, Laurie Fowler, Graham Gaunt, Peter Giles, Gerard Healy, Greg Hutchison, Tony Martyn, Phil Seaton, Steven Smith, Peter Thorne, Greg Wells, Don Whitford and Carl Ditterich - because today those men went within a whisker of having the weight of playing in/coaching the worst performance in league history lifted off their shoulders. In true Melbourne fashion two of them went on to win premierships and one a Brownlow after leaving us, which as Tom Scully will probably be keen to tell you is the smartest thing you can do if lumped with the misfortune of playing for this club.

Remember the excitement when Port Adelaide turned in that stinker in the '07 Grand Final and shed us of the record for the biggest loss. Maybe this was karma for the perverse pleasure we took in them losing by 20 goals that day? Maybe it's karma for my abusive class warfare style behaviour towards their fans after we beat them by a point in '05? Maybe karma is a load of old balls and it was just a shattered team broken into a million pieces being destroyed by a side who, to their credit, went on with it instead of doing what so many sides have done before and being content with a 20 goal win.

What you did see was probably the closest any team will ever get to that magic 190 point margin ever again, and indeed they had one last roll of the dice going inside fifty which might have seen them beat it. I'm confident in saying that there will never be anything like it ever again - it's the team equivalent of Dunstall's 17 against Richmond or Lockett's 16 straight against Fitzroy, something that came agonisingly close to breaking one of the most cherished records in league football but fell just short, leaving the record unlikely to ever be seriously challenged again.

Must be nice to be where the Cats are at right now. Even the Geelong Advertiser, obviously bored of winning all the time, took time out for a rare feature on an opposition team when they put a picture of Frawley pumping iron on their back cover with a taunt for us to "have a crack". Good thing nobody will ever remember that. Especially for Chip who looked a right tit.

If you were a believer in omens you'd have turned around and walked out when you got inside to find Casey 70 points down at half time. Didn't really matter though, do you really care how they get on as long as none of our players blow their knee out during the match? The moment they signed Fev I lost any interest in how well they do as opposed to how well our players do. Unfortunately we've got neither the money nor the testicular fortitude to tell them to stick the alignment in their clacker and start our own reserves side so we'll have to put up with them for a couple of years yet.

One thing I'm sure of is that Fev himself won't be there much longer, and unless Kevin Sheedy gives in to senility at last and accidentally manages to sign him for GWS while writing his shopping list it won't be for an AFL side either. Apparently he kicked a couple of goals in the first half, but by the time I turned up he was standing inside the forward fifty on his own without a player within a hundred yards when the ball was at the other end. His opponent was down there contributing to Geelong pouring on goals while Fev usually stood leaning against a goalpost or walking around in a 10sqm radius trying to look busy despite the fact that everyone in the ground knew he just couldn't be arsed chasing when his side were a hundred points behind.

They'd kick a goal, the forward line would set up, Geelong would win it out of the middle and the next thing there he was again standing around on his own. At one point I'm sure Maximum Gawn was even yelling at him to go and pick somebody up. He got dragged late in the quarter and walked, not even with the lightest of jogs or Olympic style fast walks, to the bench. Rumour has it that he declined/refused to return to the field in the last quarter, but I'd like to think that he was actually told to pack his bags and piss off up the highway. Somebody make my night by telling me you saw him filling his tank and buying softcore pornography at Little River services even before the reserves game had finished.

Sure he kicked ten against Frankston but they're a village team and Casey deserve beatings for signing him - but they knew as well as anyone that we need them too much to do anything about it. If we're really too poor to field Melbourne Reserves then can we call Frankston and sign them up instead? They're a standalone club who have been absolute junk for years so surely they'll jump at the chance to sell out and get some AFL players down there. We might even be able to rort them into changing their name to Frankston Demons or similar. You might lose access to Casey Fields, which is not exactly a fatal issue now that we've got AAMI Park, but it shouldn't be too hard to continue the community programs in the south east suburbs simply by moving them across to a different train terminus. Let Casey sign all the broken down ex-AFL hacks they want and we'll concentrate on creating some more on our own terms.

One thing I'll say for the Scorpions on-field is that at least they played Morton in the middle. He hardly set the world on fire, and who does in a result like that?, but at least he was more 'influential' (again, relatively speaking) on the contest than he has been in two months of combined matches floating around the back in the seniors. There were a couple of moments where he took on and beat an opponent in 2008 style, but there were also more than a handful of attempted tackles which Geelong players waltzed through with the greatest of ease. Baby steps. I'm not saying bring him straight back in next week and put him on J**d but at least it proved he could play on the ball without being snapped in two.

So, given that I didn't actually care how much they lost by there was a sick interest in seeing just how bad it could get. I've usually got a habit of walking in halfway through a lopsided sporting event, expecting to see something historic and being disappointed when the side who are getting destroyed stem the bleeding. Turn on the Gold Coast at fifteen goals in arrears at quarter time and they win the second, flick on a cricket match with the score 4/3 and somebody will make a plucky middle order hundred or at least guide their side to near triple figures. So naturally I expected the same thing to happen to the Scorpions, maybe it would end at just over three figures, maybe under. Nuh, they were poleaxed and if right then you'd told me that they would turn out to be ten goals BETTER than our senior side I'd have killed us both.

So, my knack of not stopping historical results merely by watching hadn't worked for the Scorpions but let's face it 130 points is almost an average margin over the life of the VFA/VFL. Seems like I spent my whole childhood watching the Sunday Scoreboard on Channel Nine news reporting on Camberwell losing by 250 points while the opening bars ofThe Way It Is by Bruce Hornsby and The Range played in the background.

Could never happen in the AFL could it? Not in this era anyway. Surely Richmond played as badly as any team possibly could in modern times when they lost by 150 in 2007? See also Fitzroy vs Richmond 1996 and they undoubtedly had a good excuse. Well, come quarter time, with the scores multiplied by four pointing towards a 240 point loss the fact that I'd seen the same thing happen a million times (and only a couple of them to us) and nobody had ever seriously pushed THAT record was all I had to comfort me.

Before the match Bailey was on the radio spruiking how important it was that we didn't get jumped by them like we usually do in Geelong. Then from the first bounce of the day they did exactly that. And how. Last week we were five goals down before you could blink but there were at least faint signs of life under the rubble - this was just purely satanic. There's no point even going through it, we were absolutely massacred in the middle, the defence was all at sea and the forwards did exactly what the forwards do when we play badly - wander the back flank.

Geelong's 31.6 in the reserves seems overly accurate but they must have had at least ten of them in the second half alone from simple goalsquare tap-ins and the seniors were obviously taking notice. Not that they were missing many set-shots either, and they had enough of them due to the fact that the ball would rocket out of the centre and straight into the loving arms of one of their forwards with an opponent, as per usual, trailing breathlessly behind losing the will to live. We gave the first goal away courtesy of two dumb free kicks and it was all over from there, but how all over nobody could have guessed. Kick your cat, divorce your wife and move to a shack in Nimbin to take up 'alternative living' over.

The worst thing is that the end story is going to be the massive margin and not the numerous cockups which laid the platform for it. Did the club know Moloney wasn't right before the game and played him anyway? If so both parties are dickheads, Brent as much as the coaching staff for going along with it - that's if it's even true and they're not just covering up something else. Tom McDonald was warming up with the senior side at half time of the Casey match, and as much as I'm thrilled for him that he didn't have to debut in the Abortion Clinic Cup surely he'd have been better value than an allegedly half dead Moloney. Even starting Davey as sub would at least cover for the fact that he's not at peak fitness - surely everybody knew that the game would be shot by three-quarter time anyway so who cares if he doesn't come on and star?

So, instead of that we get Bate as sub. This is a guy who is fighting for his career (with us at least), who played a pretty good game last week, has a track record for taking a while to get into the game and already turned in one shithouse performance as the sub this year. He's also hardly blessed with blistering pace so it's not like he's going to burst into the game at the start of the last quarter and light up the joint even if the opposition have slowed to a crawl.

And then, when you've already banished one of your forwards to the bench, what makes you think that taking your leading goalkicker who is still a raw project player in many ways and putting him on a wing against Brownlow Medallist and world renowned destroyer of men Jimmy Bartel is a sane and sensible idea? Then when it's clear to everybody a minute in that it's not going to work you leave him there. This is what passes for tactical innovation at this club and that's why we're the proud owners of the worst performance in 30 years.

As far as I'm concerned it rates far worse than the Fitzroy game in 1979. Sure, due to being unborn for another two years I wasn't able to make it that day but considering the quarters were longer and the wider expanses of Waverley more conducive to running a rubbish side into the ground this is so much worse. They weren't just kicking around us on Kardinia Park, they were running straight down the middle and taking the piss.

And what a week to fall hook, line and sinker for an epic performance it was. At one end of town you've got Rodney Eade in the gun and his players respond by winding back a 50 point margin to put in a brave losing performance against a top four contender, while over here against the backdrop of the utterly ludicrous suggestion of offering Bailey a one year extension just because we can't get anybody else his side turn in that sort of garbage performance. Whether or not it's the "coach killer" that the media, and quite a few fans, are dying for is anybody's guess but if that isn't I'm not sure what else could push them over the edge.

If I was him I'd forge Stynes' signature now and take whatever he can get, because one year is better than winding up coaching Xavier like Matthew Knights, but what an absolute unprofessional joke of an outfit we are if we even offer it. That sort of bush league shit would make me microwave my membership more than anything that happened today.

At the risk of being that guy I've totally lost faith in the Baileyball experiment now. The violent relationship has hurt me for the last time, I'm going to live at the football refuge. Don't know which experienced coach you're expecting to replace him with though - Malthouse and Roos are all but out, Clarkson will be, as much as I love psychos like Laidley and Mark Williams that's not going to happen and for reasons discussed last week Neil Craig is required to hit a vigilance button every thirty seconds to confirm he is still in the state of South Australia. Surely there's no way they're going to go back to an untried coach now, even if it's got some merit as long as you pick the right man and not the cut price "will work for food" option again.

So, with all of the above either unavailable, unwilling or not to be considered we're left in this bizarre scenario where they were (at least until about 3.30pm Saturday) going to give him a one year extension with the clear message to the world that he was warming the seat just in case Malthouse fancied it. What a magnificent, honourable way to run a club that would be. Then what's the pass mark for him to keep his job? If he makes the finals do we still show him the door for Mick's hostile takeover?

It's been four years, and even though we've arguably gone backwards this year with more wins (perhaps) in a less even competition it's time to either back him or sack him. For all the ego driven bluster by Eddie McGuire about Mick's contract and all that surely if he was legitimately interested they wouldn't be such incredible arseholes to block a premiership coach - possibly two times - from going to a side that is absolutely no threat to them in the short term. I still don't see it happening, and as much I'd welcome a Eade, Roos, Williams or god forbid Laidley with welcome arms I doubt it's going to happen.

Malthouse or not you either ditch Bailey now and go with somebody else (and if it's some sort of one year scam just to warm the seat I'll spew) or you say "ok, we've got more holes than swiss cheese but we're going to give you two years" to get this right, risking full Frawley Phlegm Factor from the fans next year as well as the prospect of having to pay him out if we're really stuffed in twelve months. Maybe stack the second year with performance clauses which means he practically has to win the flag to keep his job, at least he'll collect a paycheck for a while longer.

Maric won't have to worry about the man who called him a cheat suddenly turning up as his senior coach, because by the time Mick has arrived to be the Allan Jeans-to-Richmond style failed messiah the emo will be back playing for Greenvale. What was an endearing hangdog expression suddenly annoys me more than Dunn's pansy facial hair, and now that he's played two absolute shockers in a row and is sitting at about three good games out of 21 I'm not sure he's going anywhere. At least if we get rid of him he can devote himself to his real dream of running Melbourne's top goth club. Hopefully he can take his sunny disposition and his ability to put in good performances against shit teams from South Australia elsewhere and it will serve him well wherever he goes - as long as it's a competition with South Australian teams.

There was actually a period for about five minutes in the first quarter when we looked capable of not losing by 30 goals. Unfortunately due to having our leading goalkicker on the wing, another forward on the bench, Howe taking grabs on the wing and Jack Watts on half-back most of the time there was scant chance of actually kicking a goal. So we didn't and all of those of us who had forked over $21.75 (or more if you wanted a seat) to get in were treated with a SUPER BAILEYQUARTER while at the other end they kicked eight without raising so much as a sweat. The longest afternoon had begun.

Good thing I've saved my ticket, so if you want to do the honourable thing Melbourne (and I know you're reading) you'll refund my $21.75 and donate it directly to the Reach Foundation. I'll send you a copy if you need proof that I was there as well as copies of my psychologist bills. Sad thing was I could have got in free too, unfortunately it was on a donated Geelong AFL Membership and I couldn't be bothered covering up my colours before I went in so I just paid the $21 instead. Money well spent in these difficult economic times. What did I care if they busted me for using the membership? I could have just thrown it up in the air, done a runner and let the guy who lent it to me answer questions ("oh it must have been stolen, terrible crime around these parts, you don't expect that in Geelong" etc) from the authorities.

So you'd think that after an opening quarter where the coach's tactical gambits were exposed as shithouse, we would have been lucky to get one centre clearance, our alleged best player had not had a stat and even the players who were left in the right positions were bowel clenchingly awful that we'd at least see somebody have a go. We conceded 12 goals. Never before have I been witness to a worse quarter of football.

It was pure humiliation with not an ounce of fight in any of them other than whatever Dunn did to Chapman which caused him to lose the plot. It's a sad state of affairs that the man with the twirly little mo which has been neither funny nor ironic since Round 1 2010 is the closest we've got to a toughman at the moment. Says it all really. What also spoke volumes was how when half the Geelong side spent the next ten minutes belting buggery out of him for whatever it was that he'd done, and it must have been good, without any of his teammates jumping in to lend a hand let alone take one for the team and belt somebody. Nobody cares if you get suspended at this point of the year, just whack somebody.

Chris Scott was so confident in his team's casual attitude to dismembering us that he even found time to abandon his coaching post to sit down with Chappy and tell him not to do anything stupid like getting suspended. I suspect his instructions were exactly the same as the old bird behind me who at one point in the last quarter screeched "LOOK AT THE SCOREBOARD!" as if nobody knew they were 180 points in front. The message is clear, if you're going to belt somebody when your side is on the way to a 30 goal loss make it count. Of course somewhere in the middle of all this controversy Dunn managed to kick our only goal of the half. He's been far from our worst over the last fortnight so it'd be a shame if he got rubbed out now, but at least he was having a crack. Now shave that ridiculous bumfluff off, you're bringing us all down.

You know you're in trouble when the Tomahawk starts looking like a world beater and not a porky manchild in a girly bra. Throw in the fact that Cameron Mooney, all but shot of knee and entering the match with a season's goal tally of zero, had five by half time and it was deservedly ugly. Steve Johnson I can handle being slaughtered by, but the other two are just an insult. The Stop Stevie J campaign was hardly helped in the second by the baffling decision to send Watts down there to play on him. He was, unsurprisingly, thrashed but suddenly like the new Brad Miller he's the first person to end up at the other end of the ground when something's going wrong. To paraphrase Dwayne Russell "THAT'S CRAZY STUPID!"

But who wasn't thrashed in the second quarter? Stats show that the possession count was 147-43 in that quarter alone, and Moloney still didn't have a cracker. He must really have been sick (and again, why was he playing if that was the case? Unless it came on at 2.11pm, in that case I apologise to all) because surely if somebody's being tagged to buggery and they're not hurt or sick you at least try to do something to break it - run him through the forward line etc.. instead of persisting with the same thing for the entire fruitless half. Bate replaced him and did pretty well considering, but with much of his contribution coming in the third quarter which we 'only' lost by four goals how much can you draw from it about his future?

Let none of this detract from Geelong's performance. For every murder there is a murderee, and while we played right into their hands with our lifeless squibby 'performance' you can't deny that they were absolutely slashing. A 19 goal lead at half time, the second largest in history, was no more than they deserved for the way they'd cut us up all over the ground. I'd like to say god help the Gold Coast when they play down there next week but everyone knows they'll put in a far more competitive and committed performance - and even if they lose by a hundred they'll be far more value for your money than we were.

All the times I've said "at least that's never happened to us" flashed before my eyes when the siren went for half time with the margin at a casual 114 points and my mobile going off like New Year's Eve with messages mostly reading some variety of "WTF!". There's not a great deal I remember about 1999 due to excessive consumption of prescription medication but I do recall listening to Brisbane rack up a 113 point half time lead against Fremantle in a failed high school girlfriend's flat opposite Toorak Park. That was one of the few times I've ever thought our old friend the 190 point win was going to be bettered. They only won by 114 in the end so there was hope for all of us yet. Docker fanatics will be pleased to know that thanks to us they're now only the holders of the third worst half in history.

Even the record holders, the 1993 Sydney Swans who went to half time in a game against Brisbane behind 124-4 and were out to 161 points behind at the last change managed to lose by 'just' 162. That game should have extended the record margin so far that today was merely a outrageous shambles rather than an episode of Seconds From Disaster yet somehow only one team has managed to really seriously push it - and we deserve to spend the rest of the season rooted to the bottom of the Laughing Stock League (back for the first time in two years!) for it.

It's great when all you've got to hope for is that the other side will give up, start resting their players and will be content to merely bash you by 'just' 20 goals. It looked for a while like they were going to do just that too, the swine, and from when Bate kicked his goal for the next few minutes we were at least not complete and utter filth - just in the general vicinity of it due to the first half. If somebody had messaged me to say that Dwayne had applied the FIRESTARTER tag to that goal I would have bricked the Fox Sports commentary box.

We even kicked two in a row at one point, which was just madness given the context of the game but just when you thought that the slightest bit of respectability was going to be earned Geelong remembered that they were a thousand times better than us and booted the last four to take the lead to nearly 150 at the last change. Heartbreaking. The dreadlocked hippy sitting in front me (why was she at a footy game not leading a picket line of the Israeli Embassy or appearing on Q&A?) responded to my anguished wailings at half time (and invitations to our side to keep walking) by saying with exasperation "It's only the first half!" as if there was something stupid about somebody not being happy with their side putting in the second worst first half ever. Needless to say she didn't offer a similar opinion on either football or the crisis in the Gaza Strip at three quarter time when it was four goals worse.

I don't know whether to be happy or sad that we didn't stack the backline with 18 players in the last quarter. Especially by the time Geelong had kicked five goals to one and the score was creeping worryingly towards the magic mark. Not sure it would have helped the way they were carving through us like a hot knife into butter but if there's ever been a time for all out defence that was it, not before the first bounce against Carlton last (and probably next) time.

The last quarter was just horrifying. Statistically speaking it wasn't a patch on the second, but watching the score slowly tick upwards, first over 200 then higher and the margin creep towards what might have become known as the Tom Hawkins Girly Bra Line it was becoming psychologically damaging. I'm well aware that there are a trillion things worse going on in the world that some dinky football game, but all the kids in the Congo could piss off (or come and play on a half forward flank) as far as I was concerned during that half an hour. Only children are not usually known for their sense of perspective.

I'll admit that as horrified as I was at the end, watching with my head in my hands and arms shaking so badly I could barely hold my phone there was a part of me that wanted them to get that last goal and take the record. After all it's not like we'd be taking somebody else's record loss off them would it? It would have been harsh on Fitzroy to steal the last thing they've got as a club but there's no doubt Geelong deserved it. How many times does a team take the foot off the throat and enter self-preservation mode in that situation? They could have started dinking it around the backline or allowing the ball to run out of bounds but they kept going to the end and were rewarded handsomely. We ran the ball out of bounds and despite being 170 points down they did us for deliberate. Thanks for that.

In the end with them falling just short of the magic mark I was in some sort of shock but at the same time it was so awful that you almost had to laugh. But I didn't. There wasn't much anger though, it was like when you've had so much to drink that you suddenly realise you're practically sober again - your blood alcohol is probably ten times over the limit but you feel perfectly fine. That's what it was like with my stress level as I walked to the station, the blood pressure was probably 37.11 over 7.5 (that's deadly for those of you who aren't medically minded) but outwardly I felt calm. Clearly shock. Explains why I casually walked over the road and let the first train go even though I'd almost walked to the door when it was taking off. At least that gave me 20 minutes to listen to a cavalcade of people called Adam (none of them me) ringing SEN and threatening to do various things to their memberships. Seconded, except I can't do anything to my membership because like a total moron I want to go next week.

One thing you can say for Bailey is that at least he treated the absolutely farcical question in the press conference about whether it was his worst loss ever with the contempt it deserved. Furhter proof, as if you needed it, that most journos are just like any drunkard on the terraces but with a warm, comfy seat at each game and their name at the top of an article. And yes, I would very much like them to offer me a job despite my criminal disinterest in correct spelling, punctuation or a snappy word count.

We could have at least made the margin 180 so the guy from the darts could come out and announce it in charismatic fashion.

2011 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
Not a solitary vote deserves to be handed out today, and please do not in any way take the following five numbers - often handed out in an arbitrary and random fashion based on some arcane judging method which I just came up with - as an endorsement that any of these players were actually good yesterday. It's just that they we're the 22nd to 18th worst.

When looking at future 'all time' Jakovich Medal leaderboards feel free to subtract the following scores from each man's lifetime total.

5 - Jordie McKenzie
4 - Jeremy Howe
3 - Lynden Dunn
2 - Stefan Martin
1 - Matthew Bate

Apologies to nobody - the last three don't even deserve to be in there let alone anybody else.

Leaderboard
27 - Colin Sylvia
24 - Stefan Martin (OMFG LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
23 - Brent Moloney, Jordie McKenzie
19 - Jack Watts
16 - Mark Jamar
13 - James Frawley (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
11 - Ricky Petterd, Jared Rivers
10 - Jordan Gysberts
9 - Jack Trengove, Joel Macdonald
8 - Jeremy Howe (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year), Brad Green
7 - Colin Garland
6 - Luke Tapscott
5 - Rohan Bail
4 - Michael Evans, Tom Scully
3 - Jack Grimes, Liam Jurrah, Nathan Jones, Lynden Dunn
2 - Clint Bartram, Neville Jetta
1 - Addam Maric, Matthew Bate

Crowd Watch
I was offered a gigantic inflatable red finger on the way in, and had to politely decline three times in the face of an Amway strength sales pitch ("BUT YOU CAN WIN AN INTERSTATE TRIP" she screeched. Yes, to watch Geelong) before finally walking off on the girl still trying to thrust this inflatable piece of crap in my hand. The finger did however provide one of the few moments of entertainment all day when at South Geelong station one of our fans ignored the TAC safety message that it was intended to convey and instead pointed it earthwards while yelling "DOWN DOWN, PRICES ARE DOWN" at somebody walking down the road. So apt.

Moderate amusement was had in the first half with the group of MFC fans on the terrace ironically pretending we were good and acting the goat accordingly. Not surprisingly they were unheard of again from about halfway through the second quarter. Still, it helped with the tension for a while.

It was so bad that at half time a woman actually walked up to me, put her hand on my shoulder and said "I'm so sorry". I was too stunned at the scores and the absurdity of getting personal sympathy for it that all I could offer in a return was a half-hearted nervous laugh. Seemed sincere too, rather than a case of "I'll bet you a case of Lemon Ruski [local drink of choice] that you won't go and tell some poor shellshocked bastard you're sorry". If it was sincere then I think I was gracious in accepting it, if not I hope she wrapped her car around a tree on the way home AND catches herpes from a footy player while recovering in hospital.

Next Week
Bailey might have presided over the longest suicide note in history today but I'm still not convinced he won't at least coach out the year. Believe what you want on the rumour mill, and between the time that this is posted and you read it something enormous might have happened, but I've got the feeling he'll be there next week - but it could get Frawley gobbed at ugly if we're even half as bad again - and we hardly covered ourselves in glory against Carlton last time. If he goes on I've got no doubt that for all our fans who refuse to go next week in protest there will be some who will go turn up specifically to spaz out at everyone.

So, assuming that DB is still coach I expect "Coaching Self-Preservation Mode" to kick-in and all the senior players to be recalled along with the debuting T.Mc Mk2 who we hope will be more successful than the first model and not spend the next two years playing for Casey. Davey and Bartram did very little in the second half but this is no time for a coach to thinking two weeks ahead.

IN: Davey, Bartram, Macdonald, McDonald.
OUT: Maric, Nicholson, Strauss, Gysberts (omit)

Funny thing is that I'm actually struggling for outs. The first two are absolute solid gold certainties, Strauss goes just because of who I'm bringing back and Gysberts because he's been balls for weeks. There's a lot of older players who I'd like to give the boot to, but self-preservation mode doesn't lend itself to such grandiose moves when the replacements have just played in a 22 goal loss of their own.

I almost had to suspend Dunn to get Warnock in just because I ran out of kids to drop but we hardly need another tall defender against Carlton when it'll be Betts/Yarran etc.. who are running around taking the piss out of us. Mind you it seems silly not to drop any of Frawley/Garland/Rivers/Tapscott after a day when we conceded 37 goals. THIRTY FUCKING SEVEN GOALS. None of them were any good but Garland was probably worst by a nose.

I'd also love to find room for Gawn who was alongside Macdonald as the only half decent performers in the second half but unless they're going to adopt my controversial Jamar at FF plan it's not going to happen.

Was it worth it?
You know, it almost was and if you're not a Melbourne fan you can have great fun in the office on Monday morning at our expense. Find your local Demons supporter (they'll be the one trying to shred their own face), walk up to them with all sincerity and say "I'm sorry you lost by 130 points on Saturday". They will be forced to admit it was actually 180 and you will piss yourself laughing. Please note - demonblog.com (Trading as Every Day Is Like Sunday) will not be responsible if you're stabbed to death for doing this - and if you work with me don't even think about if or I'll brain you with my chair.

Final Thoughts
Don't be the dickhead who rings the club up on Monday morning and yells at a receptionist.

Take one more look before you go;

Maintain the rage.

The light at the end of the tunnel (is the light of an oncoming train)

2011-07-24T17:36:00.009+10:00

When I used to come on here and moan about our dinky kicking across the backline which often ended in tragedy, little did I know that a few years later Hawthorn would make a tactical artform out of it. The difference is that unlike any Melbourne team since 2006 - and even that's arguable - they're skilled enough to get away with it. Not to mention they're doing it deliberately when most of the time our '07-'09 kicks across the backline were done out of sheer terror.

These days we can generally switch a ball across the backline without completely stuffing it up, although there's moments of near disaster on a weekly basis, but other than that you could have pretty much sat home in the warmth and watched any one of 40 different matches that we've played against top eight sides in the last few years instead of paying any interest in today's game.

Surely nobody with a sub-Winehouse BAC expected us to win today (not to mention over the next fortnight), but with the slim chance of a blockbusting Spirit of '87 style run into September hanging on by a thread it would have been nice to see some sort of indication that we're a chance of at least being competitive against good sides in the near future. Forget watching the same game, I feel like I've been writing the same thing for most of the Bailey era.

Make no mistake, the dramatic finals tilt is well and truly over. Even if we do win one of the next three (HAH!) St Kilda, Freo, Sydney and Essendon have done pretty much everything to shut the door on us, North and the Bulldogs. It would be undeserved anyway, I wouldn't say no to somehow finding our way in by default even if it did mean a thrashing but it shouldn't happen and won't happen. If we do somehow contrive to beat Carlton and West Coast (unless it's due to mass food poisoning or a plane accidentally diverting to Mauritius) and then roll the shit sides in the last three weeks then I'll see you there pretending I was never concerned but there's as much chance of winning top prize on the pokies as there is of that happening.

What it means is that the difference between Richmond style resignation to our fate/misplaced optimism for 2012 and the MCG being in flames with Bailey running down Bridge Road with a lynch mob behind him is the last three weeks of the season. Not many people will be there for the Round 24 game in Adelaide, but if we somehow manage to lose that I encourage you to attack not the beautiful Adelaide Oval (unless it's as part of the reconstruction) but to get in your car and drive 3hrs to Westlakes and do us all a favour by torching Football Park instead. The rest of us will like the Thai redshirt protestors who invaded the airport in Bangkok and shut it down for two weeks.

I didn't for a second attempt to convince myself that beating Port in unconvincing fashion meant anything for this week, but I'm well aware that at some point well into the future we are going to win a match against a good team in a meaningful way so why not today? It has to happen eventually.

Does it grate on everybody else as much as it does me that all the other sides who have been consistently shit over the last few years have had at least one upset win against a Victorian side? Us, we've got the Sydney game last year and precious little else. Every game we lose against a local team, and every game we lose at Etihad Stadium pushes the 21st century story of the MFC one step closer to tragic comedy. That we will almost certainly end this season having four year (at least) losing streaks against seven of nine other Victorian clubs is a sick joke. One day we'll look back on this era and laugh heartily but nobody's laughing at the moment.

The Hawks didn't even have to resort to their sideways, backwards, chippy dinky kicking today. It wasn't required because they could be fairly certain that as long as they got the thing forward quick enough they'd find a backline full of red/blue in complete disarray. No point messing about 'setting it up' in the backline when you can just boot it in there and usually find a spare man. Even if he's on a rubbish angle never mind because he'll inevitably have a teammate either standing on his own inside 50 or one running at him on the lead with his opponent trailing breathlessly behind.

In the spirit of writing things for the 50th time in the last few years, can somebody (Champion Data? Surely you're reading) tell me the difference between the amount of short kicks from a standing position to a mark inside 50 between us and our opponents since - and let's pick a random date here - Round 1, 2008? I'm not talking about wild snaps, missed shots, kicks on the run and panicked boot-meets-ball moments, it's when they take a mark 50m out on the boundary line and find somebody on his own 30 metres out directly in front. If we tried to pass from that position the ball would be down the other end and through the goals within 30 seconds.

The most unsavoury thing about the first quarter was that by the time Hawthorn were five goals in front they'd had six inside 50's. We'd had about ten. The difference was that even though we were beating them in the middle and the forwards were putting on good pressure when it did get down there the quality of the kicks going forward were absolute toilet and gave nobody any chance. With Jurrah out, Green up the ground, Bate useless overhead, Watts already turning in a shocker and neither Jamar or the Stefan Martin Experience allowed anywhere near the goalsquare early on it didn't look like anybody was likely to kick a goal for us.

No such problems at the other end, and how good was their first? Breust's tap down to Rioli was the best thing of that ilk I've seen at that end of the ground since Petterd's flying Wayne Harmes style tap back to Bate against Richmond last year. Hawthorn probably do it every week, we've never done it since. How much would you slice your jatz (or lady jatz) off to have a Cyril Rioli in our side right now? He reminds me of an even better version of classic era 2004-06 Aaron Davey before we drained the creativity and joy of life out him by sticking him at half-back flank instead of finding somebody else who could kick accurately and could free him up to stay where he could do the most damage.

Before you knew it we were 30 points down, staring at a Super Baileyquarter (zero goals) and looking like we were going to suffer yet another heinous belting against a good side. Just when we were all but stuffed Dunn got that wonky free 55m out, and despite having to wait five hours for Gysberts and A. Random to go off under the blood rule AND despite having the jauntiest run up in footy history AND a moustache that hasn't been funny/ironic since R1 last year he sank it. There was a breath of life in us yet. Heroic comeback! Not quite.

We finally got some reward for having played pretty well all things considered with the next two for three in a row, but in true MFC fashion our desperate attempts to drag ourselves back into the match were followed soon after by standing back, allowing Burgoyne to wander through the middle swatting away would-be tacklers in Frawley vs Port fashion before dropping it right on top of Franklin.

Chip recovered to be ok against him until the trash cans came on the field for junk time in the last quarter, but he was rubbish in the first. Not that it mattered, because even if Franklin was likely to kick 20 who else were we going to put on him? Surely they're never going to butcher Rivers by putting him one-on-one with a big bastard ever again after the Travis Cloke debacle? It worries me that Warnock seems to be on the way out because if Frawley gets hurt again we'll have nobody who can play on the monsters. Good thing there's not many of them going around, but if we suddenly get the rest of the side right and then see the defence destroyed with one injury you can queue up behind me on the edge of the cliff.

I liked Dunn and Petterd in the first quarter and despite recent abusive comments about Lynden's 'offensive to minorities' facial hair and suggestion that his flying kneedrop in the North game was the beginning of the end I'm all for keeping him - as long as he shaves that bloody growth off. Just doesn't seem to me like we could fit both in week in, week out but, as people are always willing to point out in the comments, what do I know.

Given the choice between the two with apologies to Das Tash I'm taking Petterd every time. Ever since he came back from Casey with license to play in the midfield he's been good. How much did you love the smother at the end of the first quarter? It helped that the Hawthorn bloke took Riewoldt in the Grand Final time to kick it but it was still a cracker of a dive coming from nowhere. Saving a goal that would have taken us back to pretty much the same place we were at when they were five goals to zip in front was good enough, but can you imagine any of our other forwards doing that? I know that in the Baileyball era most of them spend half their lives wandering around the backline but still..

Any danger they might attempt a similar plan with Morton and try to tweak his role? Unless they've totally given up on him staying next season they've got to try something different. Would help if Casey ever played in that farce of a competition rather than having the bye every second week. What exactly I'm not sure, because the horse has bolted on playing him up front but that's what Bailey et al are getting paid for. I still reckon they should throw him at the drop of the ball for the first bounce and if he gets torn asunder by six opposition players then at least he'll have died a hero's death.

The Petterd sprawl kept us within striking distance. Considering the big difference in the first quarter was that Hawthorn were ruthless going inside 50 while we were just hoofing it in that general direction and hoping for the best it should have followed that if we stopped them getting it out of the middle and easily into the forward line that we'd at least be able to stay in touch long enough to keep it interesting. So then they decided to start smashing us out of the centre as well. Which was unfortunate.

The first goal said it all, a shit kick floated inside 50 but David Hale and his ridiculous synthetic hair were a mile clear of any sort of defender and it just landed in his arms. Then after luckily marking it his kick was shithouse yet still went through and that was the Petterd save completely wasted. When he had another shot from the exact same spot a few seconds later it was nearly time to break out the toaster/fork combination and look for an AC power socket but thankfully that time justice was served and his rubbish kick missed.

All that did was hold back the tide for a few minutes. Even though we were on the end of a few dubious decisions which had the people who voluntarily wear brown bleating like idiots they were just too good and we were a complete shambles going inside 50. It took Sylvia's All Valley Karate Tournament style attempt to kick Kyle Cheney's face off which cleared the way for Howe's second to get us on the board.

Sylvia was lucky not to get pinged for a free due to the Cobra Kai style karate kick, but that was the least of the Hawk fans worries that quarter - how about the near riot when they got pinged for the deliberate? And the multiple times they did the "oh we finally got a free" bronx cheers? When they were five goals in front. The moaning gits were as bad as the people who have nervous breakdowns about not getting a free when their side are 80 points in front 30 minutes into the last quarter.

When Bate kicked that goal late in the quarter to at least keep us in touch I was confident enough to go out for something to eat, but by the time I was down one small flight of stairs, picking a floppy chemical hot dog out of the famed Delaware North bain marie the TV was showing the Hawks going straight out of the middle and scoring. WHY DOES THAT ALWAYS HAPPEN? I was tempted to throw the hot dog across the walkway like a rock solid, expensive hand grenade but it's not worth wasting $5 to make a political statement when you've already had one Kaiser's Sausage (PLUG! GIVE ME FREEBIES!) before the game. Any wonder why I'm such a porky? Apparently stress keeps you thin, but you wouldn't know this year given that we've had about 15 straight matches that have been thrashings one way or the other. Could the Round 1 draw have been any less of an indication of what we'd go through for the rest of the year?

We weren't terrible in the first ten minutes of the third quarter, and when Green ripped off Sylvia by marking his kick as it was going through to boot his second of the quarter we were just hanging on. I distinctly remember the same sort of thing happening the other way in Round 2 shortly before Hawthorn put us to the sword with extreme prejudice. Shame then instead of us turning the tables more of the same debacles which afflicted us in the third quarter of that game were just around the corner.

At least this time we managed to get our hands on the ball, and sadly in the case of Luke Tapscott on his opponent. He must have thought he was well in the clear to throw Michael Osborne to the ground 100m behind play with the ball travelling into our forward line but unfortunately for him there's a little something in this era called the "non controlling umpire" and he was looking straight at them. We should have had a free in the contest in front of our goal, then when Martin quite rightly asked the umpire what the buggery was going on they added a 50 to it as well and we ended up on the wrong side of a two goal turnaround. Game well and truly over. Then to really take the piss Sylvia did that horrific kick coming out of defence (not half as good as the one on Cheney) and gifted them the easiest goal ever. Game even more over. They weren't quite at the Chris Sullivan line but if you saw us winning from 3/4 time you were probably also seeing dragons flying on rainbows over your head - because you are a drug addict who should be sectioned from the community.

Last quarter was full of junk but at least there was nothing as farcical in it as Nicholson's attempt at a shepherd to 'protect' Stef Martin during the third. That's where I almost walked out. You could argue that it was the Experience's fault for taking him on and expecting Nicholson to block for him, but if Nicho had put on even the slightest touch of pressure he'd have slowed Bailey down long enough for the Experience to be off to the races. As it was he almost got away with it despite Bailey running around Nicholson like a witches hat and giving chase. It was rubbish. He's fallen victim to the 'story in the papers' curse in a massive way.

Not saying he won't be good but I don't think he's a walk up start in our best 22 at the moment. Still, I'd rather him than Strauss or Bennell - both of whom fill me with dread every time they go near it.

Not sure if I was the last Melbourne fan in the ground when the siren went but there was very little excitement in the junktastic goals we got late. Petterd was rewarded for a good game and Howe got his third, but we were frighteningly devoid of four quarter players - as we seem to be in every single loss we have had in years. Everyone went missing for at least one quarter with the possible exception of the Experience who at least battled on and thumped a few kicks out of the middle.

Just your average depressing day at the footy then. I've given up having kittens about Bailey and the coaching panel. No point kicking the cat based on a loss to three top four sides and fifth, I'll save it for the very real chance that Richmond learn from their mistakes of a few weeks ago and turn us over at 4.40pm on Sunday 21 August. That's when I'll chuck a sickie and sit here thrasing away at the keyboard for a week, wailing about how terrible everything is and how we're going to end up playing against Fitzroy in the amateurs.

Still not convinced that they're going to give him the boot anyway. Tell me who I can have instead (and be realistic, no Mick Malthouse because it's simply not going to happen) and I'll tell you if I'm interested. Who's the next big thing in assistant coaching these days? Is Brian Royal firming up at the prospect of finally fulfiling his NBT status from a decade ago? You wouldn't have thought so, but given the amount of money we're probably going to offer he could almost find himself on the shortlist.

As far as current coaches go Clarkson and Ratten will be off the agenda by the time the season ends, and Neil Craig is so South Australian he'll explode if he doesn't enter the state at least once a week, so find me a 'safe' option that isn't some old mate who wants to work for minimum wage and can apply through an ad in the papers a'la Bailey '07? I've got a Dean Laidley fetish which has been boiling for years but I can just see half of our fans having an aneurysm if he even applied. Personally I'd be having a stroke.

2011 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
There's not much that deserved here. I promise that this isn't some kind of scam to get The Experience into medal calculations but at least he had a crack for four quarters which is more than you can say for most. The fact that Green comes second despite two of his goals being steals from other players shows what a farce the votes are this week.

5 - Stefan Martin
4 - Brad Green
3 - Jeremy Howe
2 - Jordie McKenzie
1 - Jared Rivers

Varying degrees of apology to Jones, Petterd, Dunn, Moloney and Frawley.

Leaderboard
As for contenders I'm closing this off under Jamar unless somebody storms home. The Seecamp remains close while Howe is now contending for the Hilton.

27 - Colin Sylvia
23 - Brent Moloney
22 - Stefan Martin (OMFG LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
19 - Jack Watts
18 - Jordie McKenzie
16 - Mark Jamar
13 - James Frawley (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
11 - Ricky Petterd, Jared Rivers
10 - Jordan Gysberts
9 - Jack Trengove, Joel Macdonald
8 - Brad Green
7 - Colin Garland
6 - Luke Tapscott (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year)
5 - Rohan Bail
4 - Jeremy Howe, Michael Evans, Tom Scully
3 - Jack Grimes, Liam Jurrah, Nathan Jones
2 - Clint Bartram, Neville Jetta
1 - Addam Maric

Crowd Watch
39,000 and I reckon 30k of them were Hawthorn fans. Incredible disinterest from our supporters on a day where they were likely to get rained on and watch us lose at the same time. It's another huge win for the Big Book O'Footy Stereotypes.

I can see where people who stayed at home were coming from, don't know why I bother myself sometimes. Am holding on desperately so that when the good comes I can say I was there in the bad and actually mean it. While wearing a Meesen Magic cape swirled around my neck.

Other than when they were bleating at umpires the Hawthorn fans where I were honestly looked as if they couldn't be bothered. Remember that feeling? I think it was the game where their members got in free so at least they weren't paying for it but they could have shown the slightest interest. Even when the rest of the stadium was oohing and ahhing over the antics of Cyril, and rightly so too, the ones around me were just dull. The guy in front of me didn't applaud once all day. Is that what happens to you when you've seen premierships? Well worth it I reckon.

If Richmond broke the world record for the most balding women in one stadium a few weeks ago, surely the Hawthorn fans in the top deck of the Ponsford Stand today cracked the Guinness Book for the most people with mis-shapen heads. It was like a Crash Test Dummy convention. Gigantic fiveheads as far as the eye could see but at least they were civil. I have a feeling that we few insane types who go to Geelong next week won't get off so lightly.

Next Week
If people are going to ditch on an MCG home game imagine how few opposition fans are going to turn up to Kardinia Park in the future when every game is live on TV? No issue for the Cats, they'll continue to pocket their $600k a game based on the locals alone. What a wonderful world.

As appealing as it sounds to have the opportunity to drive/catch a train for more than an hour and pay $20 to get in despite having an alleged home and away membership THEN freeze your tits off standing on an exposed East German constructed terrace surrounded by toothless simpletons watching a match you know you're going to get thrashed in I think I can live my life without doing that every couple of years.

All that plus toilets that are practically slop troughs and I don't think I'll be wasting time and money on going there from next year. Sadly that's all in the future and I'm committed to being there next week where I will go Hercules like through all of the above trials before realising the futility of it all halfway through the third quarter and walking out to listen to the rest on the radio.

Players who I'm not particularly interested in seeing next week include Bennell, Maric, Strauss, Nicholson and Bate (see also Morton, Cale) but undoubtedly there's going to be some survivors who don't deserve it. It seems like Casey have the VFL bye every second week so we won't even get an indication of who's worth coming in. Does it matter? We're going to get humped.

May as well throw a few surprises in the mix so how about picking Gawn to play in the ruck and sticking Jamar in the forward line all day. I know Essendon discredited the three ruckman theory with their hamfisted application of it earlier in the year but if we're going to only get scraps of inside 50's while getting thrashed we'd might as well try something different. At least it would take the heat off the fact that everyone has finally realised that the Psychic Friends Connection are a killer ruck/rover combo after two years of them combining from the middle ten times a game. Please note I do not in any way support this if it leads to Jack Watts spending most of the day standing on Manbreasts Hawkins in the backline.

I've got an irrational disinterest in Strauss so we'll get rid of him as well (do you think I could coach?), and even though Nicholson has been ok considering where he's come from it's time for him to go back in the interests of rotation. As for Bennell I just can't get interested in him, he just seems to wander around getting a few touches here and there and not actually contributing anything even when he plays four quarters.

Maric did his usual trick of following up a good game with an absolute shocker but for god's sake can we at least give him one more week before dumping him again? Fine if they don't want him then give him the My Chemical Romance vest permanently and drop him but if they've got any interest in keeping him next year - and his trade value can't be sky high after a handful of decent performances over four years - they might as well play him. Somebody has to at least pretend they're into crumbing even if he didn't go near it once today.

Bate wasn't bad but I get the feeling he's just treading water until the end of the year. He's just not getting any better or more damaging, what's the point? May as well keep playing him for a few more weeks at least just out of courtesy but I'd be open mouth shock surprised if he's on our list next year. Shame because I'm quite fond of him in a non-creepy middle aged man way but with Watts (shit game today notwithstanding), Howe, Cook, Jurrah, Dunn, Petterd etc.. all in the mix I don't see how he possibly plays regularly for us next year. This is where he goes to another club, looks good by association (Cheney! Buckley! Not McLean!) and wins a flag.

IN (from): Gawn, Jurrah, Davey, Bartram, Macdonald (is he still alive?), Blease, Jetta
OUT: Strauss, Nicholson, Bennell

Next Year
The draft is all well and good, and if you're lucky you get players who can walk in and play from Round 1, but for god's sake can we go out and find some mature aged rookies who can either crumb goals or are big bodied and can scare some opposition midfields with their mere presence? Unless we're going to take ourselves out of the rookie draft by dropping senior list players onto it (The Spencil? THE CELEBRATOR?), that would make me a Morton-esque sad panda.

We've been getting bullied for years, and for all the guys like Moloney, Sylvia and Jones who you'd think would be able to give it back nobody ever does - is there any wonder that nobody takes us seriously? Any wonder that when it comes to tough, contested footy games we get murdered every time.

Not every match can be a free flowing, festival of swashbuckling end-to-end football and it's not. That's why every couple of months we go to a match - usually against an interstate side down on their luck - and are wowed by the amazing slaughter that comes when a bunch of nobodies that have never been heard of on the eastern seaboard let you run riot.

Unfortunately we're living in a glory era for Victorian teams topping the ladder, and unless we get somebody hard bodied into the midfield or god forbid find the mythical monster full forward we're just going to continue to have the piss taken out of us. Year after year, month after month.

Scull and Crossbones
Sick of the saga, have almost lost interest in keeping him. Doesn't deserve what he'd be getting paid, and if we're still frontloading contracts just to get to 92% of the salary cap I'd say that indicates we should be trying to offer ridiculous money to some proven out-of-contract players rather than a kid who will almost certainly be bloody good but could also be thwarted by a dodgy knee. Take the compo and run, the deal is getting too good to say no to.

No, he never accepted the treasure chest. You can take your prized possessions and love songs back. His loss, now his Ferrari will have an empty boot.

Final Thoughts
I'm starting to understand what it feels like to be a Richmond fan.

The Thriller in (conditions resembling) Manilla.

2011-07-17T17:44:00.008+10:00

You didn't have to be a clinical sufferer of Melbourne Supporter Depression Syndrome to have your reservations about what was going to happen on Saturday night.

When you've spent five years being utter toilet going into a match as the favourite is tense enough, but what about when you're playing a side who just hours before have gone rock bottom last in the league? You don't need to be a Richmond fan stuck halfway under the 5.32 express to Upper Ferntree Gully to know what it's like having success torn from your hands and replaced with a steaming great turd - we've gone through it about five times already this year.

Still, this was Port. Remember them, they used to be good. Ironically just when they replaced their vile playing strip with something quite nice they went from being a side who played half decent football to one reeking of rancid garbage. A team so horrible to watch that they're alleged to have 36,000 members yet have to cover half the seats in the stadium with advertising tarps to make a buck. Their last home game got just under 17,000 people. We've all been there and it's not pretty. At least nobody has to listen to that Broadway song and dance theme song. The good news is that come Round 24 if you make the trip to the Adelaide Oval you'll get to listen to the Power Funk Squad, which sounds great if your idea of fun is watching 16-year-old girls prancing about (in which case you may be an AFL footballer or Gary Glitter).

Yes, this was Port. So what if we were tonked by the Dogs a fortnight ago just when we thought the corner had been turned, so what if we were coming off the bye - something which has mysteriously butchered half of the league this season. Everything else (where everything = Port being a shit team who should be relegated to the SANFL to play against themselves) pointed to a victory which would keep the feint heartbeat of our finals aspirations alive.

Unless of course it was being played at either Football Park or in abnormal conditions which would dramatically close the gap in quality between the two sides. For let there be no doubt with the exemption of Gold Coast who have an excuse, we're further in front of Port right now than we have been of any side since Essendon at the end of 2006. In '06, '07 and '10 we lost to the eventual wooden spooner (twice in the case of '06 for god's sake) and in the other two years we won it ourselves, so you can see just why a debacle wasn't completely off the agenda.

We didn't need to play inside a sauna to cock it up against Carlton x2, Richmond and West Coast so you'll forgive me for sweating up a bit myself at the prospect of playing a contender for the worst team in the competition in a city where the conditions are so oppressive that players are rotated off the ground and straight into the sort of room usually used to preserve meat.

Sitting in the loungeroom of our visiting Brisbane correspondant @amul82, I discovered what would become the number one prop of the evening a Nintendo Wii gun which, when it wasn't being jammed into toasters for photo opportunities, was waved around my head in angst or aimed at the screen whenever something went wrong.

During the last quarter I forgot I was even doing it such was the stroke-inducing angst that they were putting me through. When Stef Martin banged through the sealer I realised that I was sitting there like an idiot waving a plastic gun around like Tony Montana. It stopped me from throwing something across somebody else's loungeroom.

Thankfully despite all the ingredients for a shambles being on hand we managed to get it right in the end. We are not Richmond and generally save our humiliations for when we play good sides. Mind you for a match where we were never less than two goals in front at any time after the five minute mark of the first quarter it was all a bit too close for comfort.

From the first bounce it was obvious to everybody that we were the better side by a million miles. Or if you wish the distance between Darwin and Yuendumu, which you wouldn't know was almost the same distance as between Melbourne and Brisbane for the amount of effort the commentators spent trying to talk up how the Jurrahcane was playing "at home".

One thing you could say for Jurrah's "home ground advantage", other than the fact that he'd once kicked 7 in a local game there, was that at least you could be sure he'd be unconcerned by having his plum region sweat up like the insides of a greenhouse. Who knew about the rest of them though, and as we were reminded every 20 seconds Port had spent the last month running their players through intense sessions in Bikram Yoga style hot rooms to prepare them for the top end conditions. Must have been a big help for the other three games in the last month when they were playing in freezing winter conditions. Did that one come from Dean Laidley across Skype shortly before he did the (poolparty) logo and went off to do something more fulfilling than be involved with Port.

At least for all of Laidley's internet based assistant coaching methods he wasn't insane enough to try and take the senior coaching job. Poor Matthew Primus. He's sitting there in the coaches box, next to Matthew Bishop of all people, wondering if he's going to go down in history alongside Peter Rohde (coincidentally now working as the Football Operations Manager of... Port Adelaide) as the most unfortunate caretaker coach of the last 15 years, and not only does he look like he's about to jump out the window with depression but then he's got Tim Lane trying to convince us all that he's some sort of dangerous freak who's about to commit murder.

The evidence for this claim - pushed for the entire first half before they once showed Bailey, Scott West and else somebody who was obscured by a partition - was that he was shown once in the first quarter banging the phone off his hand with the barest of force. Given the position that he's found himself in, coaching a skint club with players like Mitch Banner (who?), Cameron O'Shea (WHO!?) and Ben Jacobs (surely they're taking the piss?) you'd forgive him if he stopped coaching and started kicking holes in the dinky little room that they had him in. But who'd notice if he stopped? And who'd pay the cost for repairs when Port go bust and offer their creditors five cents in the dollar. At least the stadium is sponsored by an insurance company.

Now, we all know Channel Ten are tanking even more furiously than the Melbourne Football Club circa 2009 but how many times did you think about furiously ramming your boot through the TV set? My highlight was Tim Lane, still smarting from Carlton's loss, suggesting Port were "morally in front" about 30 seconds before we kicked five in a row. Ridiculous statements about moral victories belong on rank amateur blogs like this, not by people who do this stuff for a living.

Almost as helpful was longtime Demonblog nemesis, and author of the worst article ever written, Luke Darcy declaring us all but home shortly before Port started storming home. I'd have thought that as a commentator you'd have reviewed what happened last year and would realise that Port put in a blistering comeback in identical conditions and were every possible chance of doing the same again. Apparently not. Would have thought that would actually have kept people watching instead of turning over to the golf. Apparently not.

I suppose it's rude to complain about the commentators when realistically we should have been watching Fox Sports and listening to Dwayno gurgling about firestarters, shortings and the breaking out of hundreds and thousands. In the North vs Bulldogs game on Sunday he prematurely screamed that a shot on goal late on game was "THE KILL SHOT!" before it missed, and instead of packing away his latest attempt at a shithouse cliche he awkwardly did it again when North really did deliver "THE KILL SHOT!1!!!!" a minute later. Next to him Darcy is practically Richie Benaud.

Sad for Channel 10 that they'll have to go back to showing repeats of The Spy Who Loved Me ad nauseum on Saturday nights next season and that they're going out being forced to show minority interest matches like this, but you can't say from their performance that they didn't deserve it. Surely even before the start of the season when West Coast were projected to be garbage again and everyone had come to terms with St Kilda being as boring as batshit they'd have thought that a game between Melbourne (8th best supported side in Victoria) vs Port Adelaide (stop! stop! stop! top! top! top! At least one of the two..) wouldn't draw much of a TV audience at 8.30 Saturday.

Either way I don't know what it rated but if it was less than a double episode of Cops they got what they deserved. At least unlike Port, Cops has a classic theme song.

You'd not expect much about the match itself on here would you? Google any of tedious, lacklustre or insignificant and you'll get a full replay of last night which you can go right ahead and ignore. Name A Game might sell a copy to Mitch Banner's mum or the Emo Maric Fan Club might buy a copy to watch on the steps of Flinders Street Station but realistically it was that awful combination of a rubbish team dragging a mid-range side down to their level with the added bonus of half the players dying in the arse from the weather halfway through.

I could tell it was going to be a good night for me at least when Petterd and Maric got the first two goals. With the exception of the Stefan Martin Experience, who I think everyone else is on board with now, and Green who is admittedly up and down like the proverbial I've not been as worried more about anything this year than my thinly disguised love for Ricky and the Emo ending with them both out of the side and going nowhere. It happened a few weeks ago and watching them both cut it up for Casey I almost had to join the Morton family anti-depressant discount theme to cope.

When Maric was named I expected him to be the sub but obviously they thought he might do self harm if forced to don the green vest again this year and he started. Thank god for that too because he was great. Both of them can crumb, both can push up into the midfield, both will probably put in a shocker next week, get dropped and walk out at the end of next year. Let's hope they give Maric a decent run this time, he was stiff to get dropped after the Carlton game considering in the three matches before he'd had 31 touches, three goals and two goals. He plays one ordinary game, Mick Malthouse calls him a cheat and suddenly we don't see him for two months. Rubbish. If you dropped every one of our players who put in a shocker you'd have to turn over half the side some weeks.

Meanwhile look what I found on Google images, proof that in 2008 he was absolutely thrilled with life. This is what our club will do to a young man, don't let Scully see it.

Howe was sub, and on that note I've been made aware of a new trend where gentleman who are batting massively above their average are being referred to as a "Jeremy". Not because our man couldn't walk into any garbage suburban nightclub and clean up with the birds, but because it's a corruption of "how(e) did he get her?" I'm getting behind it, especially because in the various times during the match when I lost interest in what was happening on-field we switched to picking out Jeremy's in the crowd instead. There were hundreds, which was impressive considering how few people were there.

Despite Jurrah getting overly excited at playing in front of his "home" audience (#statmybitchup distance fact - he was as far away from home as Seattle is from Los Angeles) and hitting the post trying to do a dinky rolling kick into an open goalsquare we were all over them. Four goals to nil, and with Port's delivery inside 50 absolutely putrid I was nearly reaching for the record books to find the last time we kept an opposition side scoreless in the first quarter (Round 10, 1994 apparently) when Gysberts turned it over going forward and Port got one on the rebound.

For all our domination early it was Comeback Week all around the league, and based on what happened in the final term last year the last thing we needed to do was run ourselves into the ground dominating them for 15 minutes without making it count. Thank god then for Port's rank goalkicking and their habit of missing sitters. At the other end Petterd was snapping them out of his arse, Jones was hitting set shots from 50 and Nicholson was booting them on the run from outside 50. Finally a game where things go our way, any danger this might happen against one of the eight Victorian teams we've never beaten in the Baileyball era.

When Jurrah got the first of the second quarter it probably looked to the casual observer that it was as good as over. We knew better. He could have had another one 30 seconds later and even though he missed we were running all over them. The way we were running out the backline unchallenged, often accompanied by Chip Frawley storming through a nest of Port forwards, swatting them out of the way with minimum effort, and going through the midfield with no teal clad future SANFL superstars within the same area code we'd have won by 150 if Lance Franklin had been down there. If Jack Riewoldt was sitting in Cairns Airport watching it on TV he'd have screamed obscenities at his teammates and ask why they couldn't give him that sort of service against the league's easybeats.

We didn't have the tools to really smash them up front, but they didn't have much quality anywhere. If Jurrah had nearly ended it, Green might have made it even uglier and given us a buffer that would have guarded against the inevitable humidity induced fadeout. Then came the runner debacle. Was that the first time you've ever seen us give away a runner free? I'm sure we've never had an interchange infringement, and I can't remember us ever having a runner stuff up before either. We've certainly never had one where the runner was lagged out by the captain. Poor Brad, he just saw somebody in fluro sprint past him and automatically assumed it couldn't possibly be one of ours. Surely the umpire would have noticed anyway, but Brad's captain's accusation didn't help his cause.

They could have made us pay from there if they were any good. Reminded me of so many times over the last few years, especially in the dark times, where we were in the same situation - hanging on and looking half decent but not good enough to make it count. Not like they weren't getting it forward either but more rubbish kicking for goal cost them. They finally got it right and put together two in a row and we might have been in even more trouble if Jurrah hadn't used his local knowledge (London to Budapest, Johannesburg to Lusaka, you get the idea) to take a huge grab just before half time. He provided further insulation against a fiasco by casually steering it through in traditional Jurrahcane fashion.

The backline was holding up well enough but apart from Frawley and Rivers it was more luck than skill based on the rubbish their opposition were serving up. Garland had an ordinary night, Strauss was good in 'defensive' situations but still scares the shit out of me when he's disposing of it and Morton.. well he was Mortonish.

I'll admit when he flew through for the holding ball in the middle of the ground early in the game I thought that the corner might have been turned, but just like the Carlton game his piece of quality pressure at the start of the game was followed with 3.5 quarters where he looked lost and confused. I feel sorry for the guy but surely the time has come where it's clear that he's not about to burst back onto the scene with vengeance. Who knows if he's going to be there next year, and I hope with a full preseason and a truckload of Prozac and KFC Dinner Box meals stuffed down his gullet he will be, but he's offering next to nothing at the moment and as there's clearly no interest in trying him in a different role then there's really no point playing him.

I'll tell you this, if he's in the team in Geelong and ends up going forward and kicking goals at Kardinia Park again then the next week he's a a flank fluffing handballs I'll go around to the coaches box and brick it. Having the second worst win/loss record of any player in the comp can't be easy (and if you need proof ask the only person in front of him, M. Warnock of Cranbourne) but surely it's time to turn the corner with everybody else. If you see him in the streets give him a big hug for me.

Given the conditions the third quarter was probably about as good as we were ever going to get. While Channel 10 continued to try and convince us that Primus was going straight out of the ground and into the outback to abduct backpackers the Emo got the first to generally wild celebrations (don't be stupid, the celebrations were all mine) then Port kicked themselves out of it for a second time. They did get two in a row to keep it within reason, but when Emo Fever reached its crescendo with his third goal the floodgates were open and we were out to 45 points (nearly #chrissullivanline territory) before they got the last one of the quarter.

Still, 39 points. At the MCG you'd probably allow yourself to get excited over that sort of lead, but in Darwin? Bugger that. Last year it was 32 points and that ended with Colin Sylvia taking centre bounces and an exhausted Jamar conversing with Leigh Colbert in seated position after the final siren. Don't forget, as we were reminded every five seconds whenever they weren't linking Primus to September 11, Port had spent the last month in a hot room. Rumor has it Port are already onto their third final notice for the electricity bill so that won't help.

The prospect of a soul/property/plastic gun destroying comeback wouldn't have been an issue if Petterd had kicked the first, but he'd been so good elsewhere I was willing to forgive. How much did you love the blind turn picking the ball up on half-back flank in the 2nd quarter? He's never going to win Brownlows but he's the kind of guy who will be an absolute star in a good side. Now to produce the good side for him to star in.

Then as predicted Port made it interesting, very interesting and then far too interesting for my liking when Cassisi kicked their third in a row despite me shamefully, and pointlessly, yelling "CHEWY ON YOUR UNBORN CHILD" at the TV screen during his run-in. Two more and it was officially more interesting than a chicken dinner with Stephen Hawking.

Still, even though there was more than enough time for them to run over the top of us with ease the only time I was properly concerned was when they cut to the coaches box for the 50th time and Bailey was sitting there doing disco finger motions at Scott West. I don't know if he was describing a piece of tactical genius or bragging about cleaning up at the Chevron but whatever it was worked because just seconds later we were down the other end with the Experience running into an open goal to seal it. And what a path it took to get there, poor old Hamish Hartlett managing to kick out on the full with the ball only travelling about 3 metres off his boot.

Stef was mighty in the last quarter. Even as one of three people in the world with his number on their jumper I didn't think he was capable of some of the shit he's pulled off this year. In all senses of the word he's a guru and long may he reign. I'm not legally allowed to suggest that when your Census form arrives on August 9 that you should write your religion as THE STEFAN MARTIN EXPERIENCE but it would be appropriate. We have come a long, long way from last year's corresponding fixture where The Spencil was a late withdrawal and Jamar was run into the ground with only failed cameos from the triple towers of Dunn/Sylvia/Miller to give him any help.

That was pretty much it for Port. They didn't fire another shot after the SME ripped their hearts out. Primus didn't knife anybody in the spine with an icepick, Bailey and West never decided which nightclub in Darwin they were going out to after and the Channel 10 commentary team showed such distain for having to be in Darwin that they were nearly cheering for the lights to go out again.

All's well that ends well, we got the four points and instead of jamming a fork into the toaster I did the sensible thing and made toast instead. We still had bits of rock solid, charred bread left over to hurl at the TV when Andy Maher and Matthew Lloyd came on for the 5th Quarter.

2011 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Ricky Petterd
4 - Colin Sylvia
3 - Stefan Martin
2 - James Frawley
1 - Addam Maric

Apologies to Trengove, Green, Moloney, Jones, McKenzie and Jurrah.

Leaderboard
Sylvia retakes the lead and opens up a handy gap, but all the action is in the land of the giants where in the biggest upset since Richmond's last shock loss to an expansion team the 30-1 pre-season shot Stefan Martin Experience has nudged in front of Jamar in the Stynes Medal count. Rumour has it the same guy who dropped a mil on Geelong is down another mil if the Russian doesn't get up.

27 - Colin Sylvia
23 - Brent Moloney
19 - Jack Watts
17 - Stefan Martin (OMFG LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
16 - Mark Jamar, Jordie McKenzie
13 - James Frawley (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
11 - Ricky Petterd
10 - Jordan Gysberts, Jared Rivers
9 - Jack Trengove, Joel Macdonald
7 - Colin Garland
6 - Luke Tapscott (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year)
5 - Rohan Bail
4 - Michael Evans, Brad Green, Tom Scully
3 - Jack Grimes, Liam Jurrah, Nathan Jones
2 - Clint Bartram, Neville Jetta
1 - Jeremy Howe, Addam Maric

Scull and Crossbones
Tagged to buggery again, subbed at 3/4 time with a back injury (insert quotation marks if you're doing conspiracy theories) and then apparently unseen when the song was being sung. I missed the last one because ceremonial toast was being prepared but we'll put the tinfoil hat theories to one side (for once) and just assume that his injury meant that forming a circle and belting out a tune wasn't an option. Never a dull moment when this kid is involved.

For those of you who joined in the Tom's Treasure Chest frenzy during the week and held out hope that Velocity Sports passing the link onto him meant that he'd come out, grab the TIO Stadium house mic and announce that he was so moved at the offer of a karate kid style headband found in a charity bin in the Solomon Islands that he'd agreed to stay on a five year contract I am sad to report that we haven't yet heard back from him or his management.

Perhaps the most moving aspect of the entire campaign was this specially written love song which is destined to storm the Aria Top 40 at any minute.

Anyway, despite the best efforts of the MFC internet community we're no closer to knowing if he's off to pocket a fortune or staying to pocket a slightly smaller fortune. What we know now is that deserved or not we get a pair of first round picks if he goes. Given how we'll get bugger all out of the draft next year, presumably won't be finishing in the lower rungs of the ladder afterwards and have stuffed up enough late first round picks to fill Manuka Oval you'd rather keep Tom for his third year with a full pre-season under his belt, but if he's that keen on going north and beating Richmond then life will go on. Maybe the prospect of playing for a side that sells its home games to Canberra and not a Swedish sauna will appeal? In all fairness I'd probably be bitter if I stayed for $300k less a year and then got told I had to go and spend half my night running around in 70% humidity and the other half gingerly riding an exercise bike in a hastily assembled cool room.

Tom, if you're reading just scroll back up and have a look at the Allen Jakovich Medal leaderboard. If you personally accept the Treasure Chest you'll get a free 20 votes which will put you within striking distance of the most prestigious prize in football. Have you noticed how all the MFC awards are named after great ex-players? Trophies named after legends of the game in West Sydney include... err... anybody... May as well call it the Andrew Demetriou Medal, nobody will ever do as much for them as he has.

Crowd Watch
Very ordinary turnout, but what do you expect from the provinces when you keep sending unpopular teams there? If you really want to pack the joint out send Collingwood there. Of course that's never going to happen.

Corporate Corner
The selling of games is a necessary evil but is there any chance we might start flogging them somewhere with a climate that doesn't resemble Bangkok? All the good spots in Australia are taken, but could we make a buck out of New Zealand? What could lift their shattered national spirits more than a visit from the Experience?

Surely you'd get more than the 7500 that showed up Saturday night if you could find a ground to play on without making it some sort of farce with 40m lines and fences directly on top of the boundary line. We are 1-0 in Wellington....

Next Week
OUT: Morton, Strauss (omit), Scully (inj?)
IN: God knows. Would have thought Blease was a natural but was apparently very ordinary during the Fev show at Casey. Bartram and Dunn must be pressing, though I'm not sure what Dunn can do with Petterd and Maric in front of him. Davey and Macdonald would have to be a chance if fit. Either way there's nothing surer than if Morton plays he's either delivered a "play me or I leave" ultimatums or has incriminating photos of somebody.

I reckon there's some danger of Bate for Howe as well. Not exactly thrilled by the prospect but I won't start a picket line outside the MCG if it happens, Bater deserves another chance before the end of the year and better he gets it next week than at Geelong when all 22 are going to look like spew.

Psychic Psentral
I've been on the Bailey Ladders Ladder Predictor and the bad news is that if everything goes as expected it's the Bailey Ladder that predicts Bailey might be in trouble.

I've got us losing the next four, winning the last three and finishing 11th, a game out of 8th. Switching the result of the West Coast game gets us in as long as we have decent sized victories over both Gold Coast and Port. Pointless exercise really, because how often do all the results go as expected? What it tells me is that if we've got any interest in playing finals we're either going to have to crack the everyone but Richmond/Essendon hoodoo or the Etihad Stadium hoodoo.

Still, I stand by my prediction that whether you, me or the rest of the internet nutbags and the media like it or not Stynes won't sack Bailey if it's a lineball decision. If we miss by half a game, percentage or similar they're going to err on the side of caution instead of pressing reset and hoping that [insert name here] is going to come in and have instant success.

Ask me again when we get exposed multiple times in the next four weeks and/or lose to Port in R24 but I'm not entirely concerned if he goes on again next year. Issue is do you sign somebody for two years knowing that it'll get ugly if we don't make the 8 next year or do you sign him for one year and send the message that we don't really have any confidence but we couldn't get anybody else.

The North game will come back to haunt us. Injury crisis or not we had the boot on their throat in that game and didn't put them away. I can brainwash myself into believing that we ran into St Kilda and Footscray just as they were coming back into form, but there were no such excuses against North. Losing Bail and Garland didn't help, but we played a shite last three quarters when we should have already had the game won. It's not like we were even close to winning any of the other games that we've lost this year (notwithstanding Jurrah's junk time rampage against St Kilda) and if anything should have lost to Sydney so the North game could very well be the difference in the final equation.

I'm expending a lot of psychic energy working out ways to sneak into the eight where we will presumably get belted in the first round (possibly in Perth) but as long as we don't get thrashed next week I'll keep dreaming until at least the Richmond game. If Hawthorn murder us next week and we lose any important players to injury in being thrashed by Geelong and Carlton how can we possibly hope to win three of the last four to even be half a chance? Just close your eyes and pretend there's a way.

Roll on 2012 when we can afford to get really snippy/start microwaving memberships if things go wrong.

Was it worth it?
In that I didn't have to run around for two hours in 70% humidity and got to eat celebratory toast at the final siren, yes.

Final thoughts
The next month concerns me.

An open letter to Tom Scully

2011-07-13T16:18:00.015+10:00

Dear Tom,

I speak on behalf of 37,000 Melbourne members and thousands of people who don't want to see you ruin your life, no matter what the money on offer is, by moving to Sydney and playing for a team who will have such an ugly jersey that even V-Line employees of the 1980's wouldn't have been seen dead wearing one.

As you would no doubt be aware the Greater Western Sydney Giants, a team whose contribution to the sport of Australian Rules Football currently stands at exactly nothing, have made a substantial bid for your services which amounts to approximately one million (presumably Australian, check the contract just in case) dollars per year.

We believe that although our beloved Melbourne Football Club has made a substantial counter offer there is still a significant financial gap between the two and that you would stand to score an extra $2 mil over five years by leaving us and joining the Giants.

Notwithstanding the fact that they have a rubbish American influenced nickname and will almost certainly have the worst theme song in the competition which we want to save you from having to sing, it has become apparent that shady J**d style deals will be needed to make up the difference between the two offers. Adrian Anderson and Andrew Demetriou have said no third party deals will be allowed, but we believe that even they won't be able to deny you when you get a look at the swag on offer below.

I took the liberty of asking a number of MFC fans and concerned citizens who already hate GWS before they've even played a real game what they would contribute to a third party scam, err package, to keep you at the Dees.

What you're about to read will make your decision to stay with us a lot easier. On acceptance of this deal and the signing of a new contract with our football club the individuals and businesses named below have offered you the following Treasure Chest;

From Demonblog - 20 free votes over five years in the Allen Jakovich Medal to be cashed in at your discretion, a Beware The Rhino t-shirt (size tbc), one weekend for two in the historic Northern Victorian town of Omeo, my signed and framed Phil Read trading card (sorry, the glass is busted) and a 1998 MFC jumper with half a number one on the back.

@thefarceblog - A shiny new $2 coin + a 1994 team poster mounted on a board and signed after the team's visit to Hanging Rock Winery + a 2002 Footy Record signed by Luke Molan.

@givemethecure - A discount on buying his car + 10% AT LEAST off at his dad's sports shop + Tom's pick of used novels from his personal collection.

@Jizzlobberz - A 1987 Semi Final Football Record - Melbourne vs Sydney /w Sean Wight on the cover + an ultra rare Melbourne 2000 Premiers cap which survived being destroyed at half time.

@Portsidenews - One free Intralot ticket at Portside News on Bay Street, Port Melbourne (note - this could actually make up the full difference between the two offers)

@amul82 - Free fish and chips at the Plenty General Store, 119 Yan Yean Road, Plenty.

@maesy5 - A "10th coffee free" loyalty card with two coffees already ticked off.

@benno_76 - A VHS copy of the C'mon Demons music video featuring Ricky Jackson climbing out of a locker.

@thomasmperry - A karate kid style early 90's bandana found in a charity donation bin in the Solomon Islands. We would also like to ask you to wear this during a game a'la MFC greats Ditterich/Viney/Schwarz.

@emdowell - A plastic encased playing card of David Schwarz.

@hibbyhibbert - A vintage Coca-Cola yo-yo.

@deesie22 - Landscaping of your yard courtesy of the boys at JScapes (offer only valid if the address is in Melbourne) + a signed, framed poster of Brock McLean.

@philmcgil - $50 straight out + further garden landscaping and labour work.

@jamethmurphy - A photo of the 1999 team signed by Peter "Whopper" Walsh.

@bmcgeorge - A signed copy of Garry Lyon's "Demon Within" + an unopened copy of "Hotter Than Hell 1998" featuring Todd Viney's live updates from inside his kitchen + a set of original WEG Premiership posters (because never forget, we've won premierships)

@melbournefooty - For comparative purposes, a copy of Melbourne FC Since 1858 - An Illustrated History and a blank page to represent the history of GWS.

Demonwiki - $50, one edition of the Football Record from 1956 and a round of golf with Darren Kowal.

@gnaight - The chance to personally fire the MFC trumpet player.

@bentyers - A 2005 membership scarf and a cap signed by Andy Lovell.

@pickle2401 - A bumbag with the slogan "Demons, that's my team!" signed by Rod Grinter.

@doddas - An expensive quantity of felafel and bananas

@roydevers - A sherrin football signed by Rod Grinter and Allen Jakovich + a cap signed by Shaun Smith.

@harcourt666 - A copy of Dan Harrington's "Harrington on Hold 'Em" poker book (Volume 1: Strategic Play)

@dalev34 - A 1994 playing jumper with a badly stitched on #5 signed by David Schwarz.

@mikesarg - An unopened bottle of Shane Woewodin 2000 Brownlow Medal Commemorative Port.

@cjpelican - A collection of $1 and $2 notes.

@frakturedbliss - 1 x 1984 Melbourne Little League Premiership Medallion.

@deeeShow - 1 x "Ron Barassi teaches you Australian Rules" book and a badge featuring Nigel Kol.

@hardtack52 - 1 x vintage LP copy of "Footy Favourites", featuring Robbie Flower singing Macho Man.

@jake_hatt - 1 x 2005 edition of Sydway featuring the streets of Western Sydney ablaze + a set of unused flashing demon horns signed by runner up in the 2004 B&F - Nathan Brown

@jesse_hogan - 1 x slightly tattered poster of Brent Grgic from The Demon magazine

@alexcmssargeant - 6 x signed MFC jumpers - 2 x Stef Martin and 1 x Brad Green, Jeff White, Adem Yze and Luke Tapscott.

@darren_spence - A counter meal at the Burvale with Rod Grinter and Wayne "Moose" Henwood

@biggestred47 - This personalised MFC tackle bag (his name is Jack)

@weeping_wall - A Cam Bruce playing card and a badge to commemorate Jim Stynes' 244th consecutive game.

@mattjfitzgerald - 1 x signed Meeniyan-Dumbalk United '1972 Finalist' football. Even better, they're called the Demons.

@JRRivett - A delicious recipe for panfried Brussels sprouts in butter.

@richhuges - An incredible love song

Also offered non-Twitter users are a football signed by 1975 West Perth premiership player Laurie Heal - son of the 1941 MFC premiership superstar + a pair of lucky jocks + a star to be bought and named after you.

So there you have it Tom. Lloyds of London have conservatively estimate the above cash and prizes to be worth at least $1.25m so the gap really isn't that much when you think about it. I expect you won't be that keen on the fried food and the booze but that's ok, because it means you'll never have to buy anybody a christmas present ever again.

We're also waiting on SEN to respond to our call for donations of Premium Watershed Wines, a free win on the Run Home name game, one of Andy Maher's Daryl Somers-esque jumpers and a chicken dinner with the Gladiators of Sport. Please consider all of these when you're weighing up the above offer.

Remember when everyone talked up the special nature of the number 31 jumper handed to you by the great Ron Barassi at the end of 2009 (please ignore the fact that it was also worn by Donald Cockatoo-Collins and Peter Garratt)? There's more than a hint of irony in the fact that Barass went on to leave us for fame and fortune elsewhere, but that's ok because he also played in six winning Grand Final teams. Sure there might have been a few jumper burnings and posters torn from walls at the time, but everyone has forgiven him based on what he gave us before he left for greener pastures.

So let's look instead at the esteem that one Robert Flower is held in by MFC fans. Many times throughout his career he could have walked out on the then penniless, broken down Melbourne Football Club to make massive money elsewhere but he stayed and is rightly considered to be one of - if not the - most respected and beloved figure ever to pull on a red and blue jumper despite not playing a final until his 270th game.

Tom, you will play many, many finals before your 270th game wherever you go, but only one set of fans is going to properly appreciate it. I know this isn't the 1980's anymore and there's a lot more money in football than there ever was before, but consider just what $3m means. It's entirely possible that even if you take the 'low' offer that Melbourne are putting up you'll still get paid more in the space of a few weeks than Robbie Flower did in his entire 272 game career, and you won't find him lamenting that he didn't take huge money to go to Sydney during the early 80's.

Surely $3m has got to be good enough for anybody, so sign on the dotted line, pocket the prize pack above AND a contract offer that still means you'll earn more than more of the people who are listed will (unfortunately) in their entire lives.

Become an instant legend of this 150+ year old club instead of a big fish in a disinterested pond where nobody gives a toss.

The papers will be waiting here whenever you're ready...