Chasing AAMI

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This post brought to you by the letter "A"

A is for Adelaide Airport. The place where I finally lost the plot and had to admit that my addiction had gone too far.

Wasting god knows how much money to go there despite almost certain defeat was one thing. It's what we do. Failing to realise that the place is as big as Ballarat and turning down to an early flight to end up sitting in the airport for 5hrs is another altogether. Especially when you're sitting there questioning the closest thing you have to a religion. Let me tell you, Adelaide "International" (no, really) Airport is not the place to be having an existential crisis. It's a good thing they don't let cults recruit at airports because I would have been tempted to sign up, run away to a compound somewhere and never be seen again.

Before we go anywhere else, here's what I learned over two days in "Sensational" Adelaide;

a) It's a nice enough place for a day, but I wouldn't want to live there unless I was 72 or in the Witness Protection Scheme.

b) No matter how inexpensive and 'right in the middle of the city' it is never, ever, book a hotel directly opposite two night clubs. It's hard enough to sleep in strange rooms with 1972 decor, no fire escapes and a lift that asks you to close the door behind you without having to listen to Lady GaGa until 5am.

So it's no surprise that I was already in a foul mood before the game even started. Given the choice between a direct bus to the ground full of opposition fans, or the stopping all stations variety I opted for the later to try and avoid being dragged into awkward conversation with yokels. Somehow, despite specifically asking to sit with Melbourne fans I ended up in a sea of Port supporters three bays to the right of the cheersquad. I learnt once in Brisbane that sitting in the cheersquad is never a good move, so I stayed put and braced for the inevitable four quarters of 'good natured' abuse from the locals. Surprisingly this never arrived, which is a shame as I was hoping to recycle my favourite geographical commentary of all "I'd rather support a shit team than live in Geelong Adelaide". Never works in Sydney, but great cut through in rural markets.

The week's action started at the selection table where the man, the myth, the Meesen finally got a game. Six weeks ago he was a figment of our imagination and now here he was in front of our very eyes. All it took was the worst team in the world to have an injured ruckman and an inauspicious debut for a rookie. I instantly pledged to buy a cape and write "I SAW THE MEESEN MAGIC" on it if we won. Nice idea, but frankly I wasn't calling my cape maker to whack in an order.

The other incident of note was the mystery hamstring ailment that kept McDonald out. First Garland walks off one week never to be seen again, and now this. Somehow, somewhere we've been cursed - right back to popular media buffoon Schwarz doing his knee in Albury in front of 92 people. At least when you saw Robbo blow his foot off (unless you're me, heard it in a Singapore internet cafe and swore loudly) you could understood what happened. It makes sense. But how do you get your head around not knowing until 5.20 on Thursday that your captain is rooted? He'll be back soon, but who's next?

All I'll say is that if I were driving and looked over to see Jared Rivers in the lane next to me I'd slow down in case his car spontaneously flipped over and caught fire. I have a theory that when Jakovich ALLEGEDLY did his back porking in the back of his car after training that he actually shagged a witch.

The game? Oh, must we really? You saw it on TV, you've got a better idea of what happened than I do.

Meesen Magic went straight into the centre at the first bounce and was - to be honest - beaten, but at least unlike Spencer he was getting some hitouts and somewhere near the ball instead of waving wildly in mid-air as if he were playing an imaginary Theremin. They're not going to start stocking the MM Capes in the Megastore anytime soon, but in light of Jamar's injury and Johnson's rubbish start to the year he might score a few more games.

Speaking of disappointing draft picks I'm officially over Sylvia again. His main contribution for the day was getting sucked into dropping Josh Carr, giving away a 50m/certain goal and being reported. I'm already playing Fantasy Trade Week where he's concerned and wondering what we'd get for him. If old Laser Disposals Johnstone (who now has more hair on his face than head) was worth 16 and Meesen 32 then what do you get for a #3 pick who has ever so briefly flashed genius and spent most of the time getting into trouble? Split the difference and take something early to mid 20's? Nobody's giving that up a year before the Gold Coast come in to wreck the draft for everyone, but surely we can sucker the likes of Freo into continuing our ongoing talent exchange scheme. They love an average recycled player so he'd probably slot straight in as captain. Presumably we'll trade him and win a flag, but that's the luxury of having cover from a good team. Look at Chris Johnson - the mad bastards at Carlton have even got him kicking in.

The first quarter was deeply reminiscent of last week. They wiped us out in the centre, got a couple of goals on the board early and looked as if they were going to smash us. We had our opportunites up front but still looked unlikely to score even when we went inside fifty. Every time the ball went up there for the first fifteen minutes the Port defenders would spoil, th eball would hit the deck. Then nothing. Miller and Bate were trying hard but the complete absence of crumb murdered us. Nifty Nev got the first but never seemed to be at the drop of the ball, and the less said about Petterd's day the better.

Davey was cutting in the cheap possessions department down back and even though he's one of the few people you can rely on for clean and crisp disposal most of the time I still think we need to sacrifice this to inject some sort of forward line pressure into the mix. In the absence of Wonaeamirri we've had absolutely no chase there. As much as we will welcome the returns of Robertson and Maric somebody has to put the blowtorch on opposition sides rather than letting them casually dink the ball out of the backline and set up their own attack. God forbid even the much maligned Newton showed more grunt in the pre-season than anyone else has this year.

Eventually we managed a couple of goals and went into quarter time a respectable - though arguably undeserved - 8 points adrift. Once again it reminded me of the Pies game - occasional flashes of run and carry gold mired in a sludge of poor decisions, sliced kicks and dysfunctonal delivery inside 50. At least last week we could rely on Travis Cloke to be terrible, but yesterday Port's forwards always looked likely to spark up and go bananas at some point.

And lo as it was written it happened. We matched up with them respectably for the first fifteen minutes of the quarter, with the margin staying around two or three goals but you could see trouble brewing. We would work our arses off to get a goal and then they would win it out of the centre and get it back 45 seconds later. The Stefan Martin Experience battled against Ebert but the rest of the Jurassic Pack were comfortably stitched up. Tredrea, who hadn't kicked a goal yet this season, was doing as he pleased and Warnock/Rivers/Frawley were powerless to stop it. The defence wall was shaky at best but it didn't help that apart from Jones and Moloney nobody in the midfield was doing anything to keep the ball from going down there.

Then in the last ten minutes of the half the wall not only fell over, but it fell over a cliff and was washed out to sea. Suddenly the midfield completely lost interst and Port blasted us out of the contest. How can we have drafted so many midfielders in the last few years and still see so much failure? 4.1 to blot in ten minutes put the game away without us appearing to ever get our side of halfway once. Even at the end of the quarter as they were chipping the ball around trying to waste time they managed to find time to crumb a goal. Crumb? Never heard of it.

Also losing interest was Peter Burgoyne who mysteriously decided that he was Bam Bam Bigelow and wanted a couple of weeks holiday by dropping the big knee into Davey's back. Speaking of tribunal matters, is it wrong that I was secretly hoping that one of our players would liven things up by going the biff in a cheap Grinter-esque violent assault of an opposition player?

We were being put out of the contest with extreme prejudice but you'd never know it as a neutral. I've rarely seen a crowd - all 21,000 of them - celebrate with as little passion. Forget cheering, as we were being put to the sword in those last ten minutes half of them couldn't even be bothered to clap. It was bizarre. Even Carlton fans showed more appreciation for goals on that night that they all wanted to lose.

One incident from Q2 that I'm interested in was footage that was shown on the big screen of Morton seemingly doing a runner when somebody tried to biff him. I assume it was taken out of context and he was actually trying to get to the ball, but it looked like a Benny Hill chase scene. Cale is far too placid - he needs to biff somebody. For added effect he might as well start on his brother next week.

It's no wonder they're struggling for inspiration if the half-time
entertainment was anything to go by. If a round of Timberlake's "Sexyback" set to footage of fetid old ladies going ape and young children eating hot dogs is your go then back away from the screen and seek professional treatment. Or move to Adelaide. Deviancy aside the only other continuous motif throughout the day was Farmer's Union Iced Coffee. As far as I can tell that stuff is bigger than Jesus in South Australia.

The third quarter offered up more of the same junk but in even fouler qualities. To be honest I spent most of it with my head in my hands so your guess is as good as mine as to what happened. In the first 14 minutes they tacked on a casual 3.4 to a point and suddenly we were staring straight at a 100+ point massacre. From what I can remember these few minutes can be summed up fairly simply;

* Port wins from the centre
* They try desperately to turn it over but we don't want it
* Eventually they get it forward and score
* If it's a point we clear it but somehow manage to bugger it up in the middle anyway.
* Rinse and repeat.

Late on we got a couple to keep it respectable, but frankly we were lucky to only be 61 behind having been smacked from pillar to post for the best part of 45 minutes.

The last quarter was pure and simple junk time from the first bounce. We got the first three of the quarter when Port gave up and farcically there was a ripple of panic throughout the stadium. It was at this point that the fans actually fired up - why? They're a special breed of people, even the curtain raiser took place after the game at 3.30.

Basically I just sat there roasting like a Christmas turkey in the mid-afternoon sun and wondered why the fark I get so worked up over something that is - effectively - meaningless. There were more important problems in the world to consider. War, hunger, AIDS and the fact that my flight home wasn't for another five hours. Tragedies one and all.

Later that night I saw the team in the airport. They looked exactly as you'd expect. I just wanted to run up, leap on somebody and tearfully yell "WE STILL BELIEVE" before falling to the floor and curling up in a foetal position before being removed by security, but I thought it might have been considered a bit uncouth.

Following us at the moment is like supporting the Australian Democrats. You wonder what the point of going on is when you're being continually slapped by all comers and there's no light at the end of the tunnel. At least we have a charismatic leader (Stynes that is, not professional Robocop impersonator Bailey) and can rebuild through the draft. They're just rooted. Maybe we should institute a merger and start our own political party?

Crowd Watch
Graveyard timeslot, 1240 on Easter Sunday against the bottom side but 21000 was still a toilet turnout.

As previously mentioned it was a funeral atmosphere for most of the day. Not once was I, the lone and defenceless opposition fan, heckled or abused. The only time they really fired up was in the last quarter after we kicked a couple of goals, then you couldn't shut them up. 32 minutes into the last term and ten goals in front and these peasants are crying about umpiring decisions. Despite this they were, undoubtedly, the most boring and passive crowd ever invented.

The only lunatic of note was the guy who greeted every touch we had in the final term by yelling out "COMANCHERO!" for no good reason. Let's hope for his sake he doesn't end up getting shot in his driveway like the real Comancheros. I'm calling for a more loving local touch involving a bank vault and a barrel.

2009 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes

5 - Brad Green
4 - Aaron Davey
3 - Nathan Jones
2 - Cameron Bruce
1 - Matthew Bate

Apologies to Bennell, Miller, Martin and Moloney and anyone else who wasted money to going to see this slop.

Leaderboard
9 - Aaron Davey
8 - Brad Green
5 - Kyle Cheney (LEADER: 2009 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year and LEADER: 2009 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Nathan Jones
4 - Matthew Warnock, Brent Moloney, Stefan Martin
2 - James McDonald, Cameron Bruce
1 - Ricky Petterd, Matthew Bate

Talking Box
Dear Dean Bailey,

Enough of being calm. Just go absolutely ape already.

Cheers,

Adam

Kasey Korner
They must be stoked to have joined up with us. Just the casual 100 point loss to our former underlings Sandringham today. By all accounts Maric was BOG (STRAIGHT IN!) and Jurrah kicked a couple of goals (why the fark not?) But the real news is that Watts will play for them next week. HOT HOT HOT.

Regrets?
I've had a few

Next Week
Richmond at the MCG on Sunday at 2.10. Now this is an interesting one. We knew that we didn't really match up with alleged premiership contenders North or Collingwood, and you could be fairly sure Port were going to beat us but pending a major upset in today's game then next week becomes an 0-3 Bottom of the Harbour clash between the two teams considered the worst in the league. I have concerns that they're not as bad as they seem, and will have followed a similar path to us last year in playing three of the better sides, but if they completely outmatch us then we are in really, REALLY big trouble. Especially given that two weeks after that comes Geelong, and if we don't fire up considerably they will absolutely disembowel us.

If you were in the "throw games and get draft picks" camp you'd be loving this, but I ask do you really think we actually need to try and lose to get four wins or less this year? Under what circumstances does anyone see us going 5-14 over the rest of the year?

Final Thoughts
I'm so very sick. All I want right now is 2.10 Sunday. At this point replacing football in my life with I.V drug use seems a healthier - nay more costly - option. Collapsed veins, or collapsed dreams? We report, you decide.

One Is The Loneliest Number

So, it's welcome to another season. Before I start maybe we need a disclaimer for anyone who hasn't read Every Day Is Like Sunday (as it's not popularly known) before this year and doesn't understand what the hell is going on.

Point 1: Match analysis is not my strong point, or frankly something I'm even moderately interested in. By reading any post on this website you agree that you at least have a working knowledge of the game being described, and can fill in the gaps or alter any chronological errors yourself.

Point 2: I may tend to be ever so slightly negative once in a while. Send your leftover anti-depressants on a postcard to the usual address.

Point 3: Updates other than match reports are less frequent than a Melbourne train. Subscribe to the Demonblog Twitter feed for an update whenever a new post goes up.

So let's move on shall we?

You can find out all you need to know about today's game with one simple statistic. The 22 players who took the field today took the lowest number of contested marks since Champion Data began tracking the stat. One solitary contested mark, taken by a first gamer. You wouldn't take offence but given that 95% of our kicks are to contests it's a worry. In fact it's more than a worry it's what journalists refer to as a DAMNING STATISTIC. Hamish McIntosh alone took more. One of them just fell into his arms in a marking contest, but that was how it was for us today.

The annual golden era of pre-season optimism is over and starting from the final siren on Sunday we have entered the land of cold hearted reality. It's not a nice place. It's a place where we have to realise that 2007 and 2008 weren't flukes and that we really are a bottom two - at best side - at the moment. Things can change, and there's nothing to say there's not some miracle over the horizon ready to catapult us into the top eight but the way we played today is making a mockery of every one of us who said "I think we'll finish last but..." Don't worry about those who went onto Big Footy (or alternative internet forum) and boldly declared we were back in town and would be pushing for the 8. They're currently being cared for (e.g electric shock therapy/having to watch Scott Chisholm's greatest hits on repeat) in a psychiatric ward.

North were all over us from the first bounce. Having to face McIntosh with an under performing midfield beneath him wasn't the best scenario for Spencer to be facing on debut, but he just couldn't get to it. I lost count of the number of wild mid-air leaps he took that didn't go anywhere near it - I guess he was trying to take McIntosh out of it, because that was all he could do to avoid getting beaten to it every time. Given that our ruckman couldn't get first hands to it, it became increasingly difficult for our midfielders to get a hold of it and North burnt us in the clearances. Even with a bunch of secondary bounces we were more often than not left clutching at thin air as they cleared the ball from danger. I can't find the clearance stats anywhere at 11.50pm on a Sunday night but I'm guessing that they'd be as depressing to read as the contested mark stats.

When North got the first couple it looked ominous. Took us a good six or seven minutes to get anything happening in our forward line, and a wonky Jetta kick that hit the post (I think) opened the scoring. Sadly as this was his first kick he failed to enter this so-called "exclusive club" of players who have goaled with their first possession in AFL football. Some exclusivity it seems that everyone who isn't a defender is in it these days. Do they have meetings? Is Andrew Lamprill the Chief Executive? And can Nifty Nev start his own pressure group for people who have hit the post with their first kick? And why do I remember Lamprill kicking a goal in Round 2, 1992?

I'd had Bate to kick the first goal, and while it was destroy all tickets when North got the first couple he did get our first and looked very lively early on. Unfortunately he then proceeded to not go anywhere near it for the next three quarters. Didn't help that nobody could deliver a ball inside 50 without having gone halfway around the world first. Davey and Moloney added goals and suddenly we were in front. Say what? Didn't last of course. Though at least we broke even and managed a draw.

Jetta did eventually get a goal with his third kick in football (another exclusive club), and Petterd slotted an early contender for our goal of the season (who can we name that award after?) to keep us in front. Ricky was handy up front and kicked a couple of goals but he's not going to be anything other than a bit part player up there while we wait for the return of Robertson. One of those solid, performances that look good in a bad side but the likes of Geelong and Hawthorn would spit on.

North went into halftime seven points in front and while not looking exactly 'comfortable', they certainly should have been further in front. In fact for a second or two they might have had an even smaller lead. For one of the few times all day we got a sequence of play happening where it all went right and didn't once go backwards. 29 minutes into the quarter and I thought "this has got siren going off while we're deep in attack written all over it". Lo and behold the ball dropped into Green's arms half a second after the siren 50m out directly in front. He made a manly attempt of trying to pretend he'd marked it but was never going to get away with it.

So, neither side looked particuarly good in the first half. We couldn't win it out of the centre under any circumstances - though we looked a lot better with Johnson in the ruck than Spencer - and even when we did get it the ball would be butchered with extreme prejudice. With Bate, Miller and Johnson all MIA inside 50 we were never going to kick a winning score if it kept going as it was. North would craft goals and we'd fluke them, then give one straight back out of the middle. Frustrating, but what else were we supposed to expect? Excellence? Good luck with that.

When North got the first two of the third quarter I was ready to write the whole thing off as an experiment and go home. Petrie missed a gettable shot which would have shut the gate ten minutes into the quarter and we hit back with a double salvo through Petterd (the aforementioned GOTY contender) and Green. Miller had a shot to close the gap to a point, but refective of a day where nothing went right for him, he missed it and it went down the other end for a goal. Morton - who had his worst half ever for us in the first - goalled to drag the margin back but like every other game in the last decade we wasted our hard work by allowing them to kick an easy goal.

The amount of goals and scoring opportunities that came from turnovers was one thing. What really got to me was the amount of times that they'd have a loose man inside 50 who would be on the end of a short kick. Is it because we're so bad that this never seems to happen to us? Nobody ever allows Aaron Davey to wander to 40m out straight in front and have a pass dropped right in his hands.

So, still in it at 3/4 time but in the end the class difference reared it's ugly head and by ten minutes into the quarter we were out on our feet and taking serious punishment. Four goals to one in the last quarter and the North fans were going bananas like they'd beaten somebody half decent. Everybody loves a win, especially in round one but I'm of the opinion that when you beat a rubbish team that you shake hands and look towards the next opponent.

I put it down to the fact that the fans were keen to do some celebrating after having to sit through an astoundingly tedious cricket calendar and unbelievably plastic and contrived soccer season. Good luck to them, but unless they tune up a bit they'll be sitting with us at the top end of the draft come November.

Positives? Well, we're not last yet so unlike 2008 we're not going to spend all 22 weeks of the season (quite literally) rooted to the foot of the table awaiting relegation to the Diamond Valley League. Thanks to Richmond, and the fact that we've already got a lifetime achievement award, we're not the biggest laughing stock in the competition at the moment.

We weren't that bad, but North allowed us to look better than we were. You're not going to get the same courtesy from everybody - and we can expect some fearful hidings if we don't get it right in the midfield. The defence is still our best asset at the moment but there's only so much you can do if the ball is down there most of the game. Warnock has been a revelation, Cheney was excellent and while Rivers and Garland didn't have their best games today they are solid contributors. Once you tag Whelan in for Bennell and - I suppose - put Wheatley in somewhere it looks even better. Now to make it so they don't spend four quarters under siege.

Negatives? Well there were heaps, but most of them are either obvious or have already been mentioned. Morton was putrid in the first half but redeemed himself to a degree later and McLean was almost completely absent. Our forward line was completely impotent (new sponsor: nasal delivery technology from AMI) but that's as much to do as the failure to get clearances as anything else. Even when we do win the ball we wait so long to do anything with it that the opposition flood back and completely plug us up. Sounds painful and it usually is.

Injury Watch
A few niggles here and there, but nothing serious. For those of you who have taken the 1.01 on offer for Rivers or Moloney to be the first players to be seriously injured you're still in the mix. Either of them, both the unluckiest men this side of Mark Webber, could spontaneously combust at any moment.

Rookie O Rama

Cheney - BOG for us. Great debut.

Jetta - Extremely lively but might be forced out by the return of THE CELEBRATOR.

Bennell - Looked a bit out of his depth for now.

Spencer - Needs more time in the 2's. I'm not one to bury somebody for their debut (oh ok, Weetra - but that was it. Oh, and and Chisholm but that wasn't his first game ever) but he was pretty awful today. Will get better but frankly I'd prefer to see what Meesen can do right now so we can decide whether or not to persist with him. If the Meese comes in and plays a handful of shockers we can stash him at Casey, cut him loose at the end of the year and pretend the whole thing never happened. If we don't even bother playing him now what are we learning? Nothing.

Bag Johnson's performance all you want but he got twice as many hitouts in a quarter of the time in the middle. Spencer's disposal is currently reminscent of an even less capable Jamar - and you know when you start hanging for the return of MJ halfway through a game things must be going horribly wrong.

Crowd Watch
Seemed to me like there were heaps of North fans there, but that's probably because I believe the world begins and ends at the Ponsford Stand. The ones around us were going absolutely feral over the umpiring as well - more on that later. One especially exciting character was the gigantic fat and bald guy with no neck who spent the whole game turning red. Bless.

Kevin Bartlett Tribute Rules Kommittee Korner
I have to admit it but the rushed behind rule doesn't look too bad. It's not often that I'll put my hand up and admit that the AFL might have been right but it certainly made for a more interesting clash today. Of course it's absolutely no help whatsoever to our defenders who struggle to get a clean possession away under no pressure, let alone in a crowd, but it definately stopped us going for the cheap option every time.

Speaking of umpiring, can we get one thing straight here. This applies for all teams at all levels. Just because the free kick count is 'lopsided' does not mean there is a gigantic conspiracy against your team - especially when you're winning by five goals. Sometimes team are more disciplined than others. Sometimes teams have players who get caught holding the ball much more than others. Some have idiots who roost the ball out of bounds on the full with every kick. Looking at raw numbers and sometime determining bias is complete madness. But what do you expect from sports fans?

While we're on the subject everyone loves the good old fashioned bronx cheer after getting a free kick for the first time in twenty minutes but - and I'm sure this is written in the constitution somewhere - you are only entitled to do it ONCE. You do NOT bronx cheer every free kick you recieve for the next two quarters you retards. We're as guilty of this as anyone, it's just that we've got less people to do it.

Talkback Lunatics Division
Thanks to the clown who rang up SEN to tell them that "Melbourne members and supporters have, to a man, lost faith in Dean Bailey". Was I consulted on that? Talk for yourself or shut your mouth. I have my questions about things that go on with the club but I always think back to Alistair Clarkson's first season at Hawthorn when knee-jerk retards were calling for his head. Bailey was handed the biggest shit sandwich in history and expected to turn it into a four course gourmet meal. It's not going to happen overnight. If we're playing the same in Round 1 next year then I might start

A Talkback Lunatic Division spotters badge to anyone who heard the guy who always rings SEN up to talk about us and sounds like he's going to cry. Managed to ask Anthony Hudson et al about 102 questions in his 30 seconds on the air.

Koaches Korner
As per the last section I have a few questions regarding Bailey (Buckley as a clueless defender? Spencer hung out to dry in the ruck?) but I'm willing to accept that he's getting paid to do the job and is hardly likely to come here looking for tips so I'll let him get on with it.

However, on the other side of the coaching divide my love affair with the Junkyard Dog Laidley has ended. No reason, it just ran it's course. I hope we can be friends for the sake of the children.

2009 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes

Difficult one this. Nobody really stood out, and of Moloney's 29 touches 20 of them were handballs so Cheney shades him for the 5 votes in the absence of any other massive performances on the strength of his high disposal efficiency and taking our one solitary contested mark. Congratulations to Cheney on jumping to an early lead in the Hilton and Jakovich, and Warnock who has continued his excellent late 2008 and pre-season 2009 form to lead the Seecamp.

5 - Kyle Cheney (LEADER: 2009 Allen Jakovich Medal, 2009 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year and 2009 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
4 - Brent Moloney
3 - Matthew Warnock
2 - James McDonald
1 - Ricky Petterd

The Demonblog statiscal analysis department informs me that this is the first time a player has ever taken maximum votes on debut.

Apologies to Bartram (decent tag on Harvey, ordinary stats otherwise), Frawley, Green and Jones.

P.S - Did Bruce really get 22 touches? I only remember one. Refer to disclaimer #1.

Announcement
I would like to announce that as much as I love Rivers I'm jumping on the rags-to-riches Warnock bandwagon and declaring him my new favourite player. This will not influence the votes throughout the year - if I couldn't manage to rig it so Phil Read won an award how can I do it for anyone else?

Supercoach Watch
Piss off. This is the only website in the world that won't be discussing it. Buy who you want, make Presti your captain and good luck to you. I support playing it, but I'm sick about hearing about it everywhere and seeing live updates halfway through a quarter. As if our players need any more bloody encouragement to overpossess the ball. God help us all when Wheatley comes back.

Next Season
First person to suggest throwing games to get picks 1 and 2 will be stabbed in the face.

Next Week
Collingwood at the MCG on Saturday. Presumably they'll be going nuts to avoid an 0-2 start and I expect that they'll flog us by at least the same margin as today BUT wouldn't it be hillarious if we somehow managed to get up? Don't hold your breath waiting for it.

And isn't playing our supposed traditional rivals (where tradition = nobody who matters having cared since 1959) in round two something of a let down? I'm happy to play them twice a year but even being the unsentimental cold hearted realist that I am looks forward to the Queen's Birthday game. Can't we play them at the end of the year instead? Think of all the fun we had when we almost beat them in 2007 - you know, when Ben Johnson hit Daniel Bell so hard that he dislodged the part of his brain which allowed Bell to play good football.

Are you still excited? You can't start a fire without a spark.

How 'Bout That Drought

Guest review by Jane, Andy and Gabrielle who braved Hurricane Bertha to go to yesterday's game while I was being slaughtered in the weather on the other side of town

Casey Fields
The first quarter of this game was a bit of a blur, largely due to us being on the South Gippsland Highway at the time. Has anyone noticed how far away from anywhere not in Gippsland Casey Fields actually is?

Due to the weather (more on that later) we’d been hoping there’d be eight to twelve other people there, but apparently Dees fans (or bored Cranbourne residents) are a hardier bunch than they’ve been made out to be. The carpark was packed and they were directing cars to a field somewhere out in Berwick. For once, we wished we were real Melbourne fans – y’know, those Range Rover driving ones.
If Jim Stynes had a grand plan of diversifying the fan base when he put his weight behind the Casey move, he knew what he was doing. This was not your usual Melbourne crowd – of the 5000 plus people there, about three-quarters were Dees fans (weird in itself), and of those about three-quarters would punch you if you offered them a Chardonnay. Lucky we’d brought our own, as the Casey Fields bar sells only two drinks – beer, and beer.

Actual Football
Dear weather, thank you for raining all over our notes and giving us a legitimate excuse for having done such a crap job of recording what actually went on in the game [Nature's way of making sure there has never been a real match report on here - Editor].

Here’s what we managed to piece together out of the soggy blur we were left with:

First Quarter: got there about five minutes before the siren. Things were looking pretty even, Melbourne had kicked a goal and the Dogs were just ahead of us. Jetta went on to kick another (isn’t Jetta tops? If this correspondent had been in charge of the voting he’d have got at least one point, but this correspondent wasn’t, so he didn’t. But it’s ace to see a Melbourne player who puts in a second effort every single time. Nothing shits me more than players shrugging their shoulders and going ‘oh well, can’t do anything about that now’ when they mess up a tackle or a mark). At the end of the quarter it was Dees 2.1.13, Dogs 2.7.21.

Second Quarter: A good quarter for us. This is partly guesswork, but it looked like there were goals by Green, Newton, Davey and McLean. Brock’s was a cute little grubber from somewhere near the boundary line. Bennell (I’m told this guy really does exist) used the Sherrin well when he got his hands on it, Martin did some great tackling, spoiling etc., Warnock got in a bit of a scuffle with someone late in the second, but the umpires didn’t seem to care (was this the point where the guy behind us said ‘looks like the umpires are having a practice umpire too’?). Score at half time was Dees 7.3.45, Dogs 5.10.40. Dogs clearly not so good at the kicking.

Third quarter: So much for good quarters for us. The Dogs came out strong and kicked three goals (including one from a soft free for a ‘rushed’ behind: Garland, the alleged rusher, was involved in a marking contest when he ‘rushed’ it through…guess the AFL changed the rule again and forgot to tell anyone except the umpires). Things weren’t looking all that tops – we seemed to be having real trouble getting anyone forward to kick it to – but the Dees rallied towards the end, with Green kicking 2 and Jones 1, one of Green’s largely thanks to Morton. Score at three quarter time: Dees 63, Dogs 67.

Fourth quarter: Melbourne took the momentum they’d developed at the end of the third quarter and dropped it somewhere down the back of the sausage sizzle stand. The Dogs kicked a couple of quick ones right away, after which it started absolutely pissing down and we lost interest in anything much but keeping small portions of our skin dry. The entire game happened down the other end of the field, and with no big screen to turn to for all the far away action, it’s hard to give a good account of what went on. All we can tell you is the final score was Melbourne 10.3.63, Dogs 14.17.101, and Krispy Kreme was giving away free donuts. Apparently playing in a cyclone last week was not enough to prepare us for the Weather Wrath of Cranbourne.

Fashion Watch
Brock McLean no longer has a haircut. It seemed implausible he could get less comely, and yet, here we are.
The rain produced all kinds of fashion faux pas, like the chubby bloke wandering through the crowd whose white shirt had become transparent enough for us to see his nipple hair. We tried to see if Brad Miller’s white jersey had suffered the same fate, but thanks to the complete lack of action in Melbourne’s forward line in the fourth quarter, we were unsuccessful.

Dickhead Watch
It would have been nice if Colin Sylvia could have been bothered caring about football, as he would have been rather useful. He’s been doing pretty well at the whole marking caper, and by the fourth quarter that was something we really needed. Maybe we could trade him for someone good, or at least someone with a more interesting brand of misbehaviour, or even a case of beer.

Injury Watch
Nothing. That’s right, no one was injured, not even Rivers.
[Err, not quite. But at least it doesn't seem all that serious. - Editor]

The good, the bad, the 2009 Paul Prymke Plate for Pre Season Performance Votes

It’s been a long time since Melbourne took home a medal for consistently good kicking-in, but all that may be about to change (depending on whether anyone gets around to inventing such a medal). Garland messed one up, but other than that we were really pretty good.

Our tall forwards did not much at all. Juice got a goal (perhaps. Our notes are inconclusive on this matter), but other than that hardly touched it, and neither did Bate, Meesen (who had a brief stint up front) or Miller (whose tan was, by the way, out of control).

Jetta, as we might have mentioned earlier, really looks like he loves playing football and is a treat to watch. One-third of us think Davey should be taking home some kind of commemorative gift for consistently running his arse off during the pre-season, though another third of us think he’s bulked up too much and it’s slowing him down.

5 – Cameron Bruce
4 – Aaron Davey
3 – Stefan Martin
2 – Brad Green
1 – Brock McLean

Final Leaderboard
10 – Bruce
7 – Warnock
6 – Green, McLean
4 – Bate, Grimes, Newton

Finally, for those who are downhearted by our return to poor form, please take solace in the fact that Collingwood were thrashed by 12 goals the previous night.

Mystery Match Mania

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Umpires: H Kennedy J Mollison B Ryan.

Crowd: 4,000 approx. at Cazaly Stadium.

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

2009 Paul Prymke Plate for Pre Season Performance Votes

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

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

Leaderboard

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

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

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

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

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

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

50 Ways to Lose A Match

UPDATE: Find out whenever a new post has been made by signing up to the Every Day Is Like Sunday Twitter feed

#34 - Break even for the best part of three quarters with a decidedly better opponent but fail due to dismal kicking into the forward line.

And thus, as it was spoken it happened. It's been a long, long time since we've seen the boys live in action against real opposition and those who braved the half demolished, and completely filthy House "That Corruption Built" at Princes Park this afternoon probably wished in equal measure that this game had come sooner or had never happened at all.

Today we saw both the best and the worst of what Melbourne have to offer at the moment. We have a few strengths, and we have massive limitations and in four quarters today both of these were exposed for the world - all 2500 of them who were there - to see.

In a moment to make panting internet fanboys and forum users all over the world rise to applaud Meesen started in the ruck, and while he won everything early the Swans controlled around the ground. However, even with Hall looking dangerous they didn't have anything else going for them up front and within a few minutes we took over. Grimes, McDonald and Petterd were particuarly impressive earlier and "The man who nearly died" (TM - the media) set up the first goal wit a running intercept and laser like pass into the waiting arms of either Newton or Miller (one of the above). Ricky was easily our BOG in the first quarter. We went into the quarter time break a couple of goals to the good and looking ok.

A word, if I may about Newton. I know we've all had a crack at him, and I'm still waiting to see if he can get into the AFL Hall of Fame for being the one person whose sole lifetime contested possession was the mark of the year, but he has gone absolutely nuts in the defensive intensity stakes this year. He's chasing, tackling, bumping and generally making a nuisance of himself to the opposition Sure, it's one thing being a defensive cougar if you're an offensive kitten but he's getting there. At least if it doesn't work out for him in footy he can join the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Then there's the ruckmen. Now, I don't want you to think that the next thing I write is purely for shock value, to be controversial or to incite hatred amongst the internet community but Meesen was actually good today. He really was. I'm well aware that the Swans had a rugby player rotating through the ruck today, but Meese held his own against both Pyke and Jolly and even got a few decent touches around the ground. Spencer, on the other hand, might have beaten Pyke but got smashed like a guitar when he took on Jolly. He gets a bit of it around the ground but still looks incredibly unco and will do better for his experience against AFL ruckmen in the pre-season and at least another few weeks at least in the 2's.

I'm not sure what they're thinking about with Johnson but the first time he went into the ruck was in the 4th quarter and he was left up front for the rest of the time he was on. I think I'd still rather Jamar/Johnson as the R1 combination, but it's going to be interesting to see what they do if, in the absence of Robertson, Watts etc.., they sacrifice Johnson to the forward line full time. Is it Meese time? Tell you what, there will be partying in the street when he runs out onto the ground for the first time. Don't burn your Luke Williams #26 jumpers yet, there's still time to get some value out of them.

Err, anyway. The game. It's hard to write in much detail because we had barely any standout players in the second and third quarters - though Grimes was good - and the game was largely played in the centre. It was the same sort of scrappy shit that you expect from Sydney, but we simply didn't have the tools to combat it. McLean, Green, Moloney, Sylvia, Jones and McDonald (after quarter time) barely saw the thing. Bruce and Morton were getting it and doing nothing with it and while the likes of Strauss, Bennell, Bail and Jetta were getting touches they're not experienced enough to be relied on to deliver every time.

And delivery was the issue. The Johnson/Miller/Newton forward line were rarely given real chances to shine due to the pathetic quality of delivery they were recieving. I know the days of kicking to contests are gone, but is it really so bad to do it if you're kicking to the goal square? There's too much marking the ball 60m out and trying pissy little lateral passes that we're simply not good enough to pull off. This usually ends in Miller marking the ball 45m out on the boundary line where he is simply NOT SUITED to kicking goals from. I don't pretend to know anything about football but would he not be better suited playing from the square and having it kicked long to him? I'd love to throw Davey back in that forward line but he'd just be wasted by the fact that most of our inside 50's consist of spearing 19m kicks to somebody's feet.

Speaking of Davey - Jetta may very well be the 2.0 version. Some of his sidesteps today were great to watch. THE CELEBRATOR is going to be a handy goalkicker, but Jetta is the man most likely to deliver the goods when it comes to flair manoevures. Bennell also showed a bit today, especially when he gave it to Goodes in the 3rd quarter.

Another piece of tactical mastery that I couldn't understand was Bruce getting the ball 55m out 24 minutes into a shortened quarter and motioning to slow it down before going backwards to the wing. What school of tactical genius says that you don't at least put the ball deep into your forward line in the last few seconds and try to get a score. Would have been bloody handy at the end in the context of the game, and if you're so shit that the other side can rebound and kick a goal within the last 20 seconds of the quarter well then maybe it's time to go back to the drawing board anyway. This is the problem I have with the introduction of a countdown clock - sure everyone knows that the players get told how much time there is left, but it's fine to tell somebody there's a minute left but when they know there's precisely 12 seconds to go then that's the kind of shit we're going to get served up. Anyway, god forbid we managed not to turn it over whilst playing that intricate piece of footballing chess and went into half time a couple of behind.

This was mainly thanks to the work in the backline of Warnock, Martin and to a lesser extent Garland. Martin played a great defensive quarter, and on more than one occasion a certain Sydney mark was spoilt by one of his massive octupus like arms dropping it and punching. All three of these guys can punch, mark and dispose of a ball properly. Contrast that with your Nicholsons and Carrolls of the world who could win a body on body contest or stick a mitt in to spoil but were fairly well rooted when the ball landed in their hands. The winner of the "2009 Peter Walsh Lookalike Competition", Kyle Cheney also looks impressive, and when you throw Whelan and (god forbid) Rivers back into the mix our backline is easily our best asset.

The 2nd quarter also featured Brad Green's WORST EVER kick for goal. It was indescribably rank and missed the lot from 40m. The guy behind me declared "oh this is a certain goal" shortly before he kicked it. Well, I suppose the odds were in his favour. Green was everywhere again in the first half today but was off most of the second half.

Speaking of the 3rd quarter I suppose you want to know something about it? I hate these games where I can't just assume that you were either there or saw the replay and spend 4000 words make obscure Sylvia Plath references instead. The Swans dominated early on and it looked like they were going to turn us over handily, but as Sylvia got into the game and kicked a nice goal we started to wrest back the momentum and keep ourselves in it. We were destroyed in the clearances, but that was sadly the story of the day. Spencer was murdered by Jolly in the ruck early on but whenever Pyke came back into it we got back on top.

Interesting moment in the 3rd when Barry Hall started losing the plot and trying to slap people like the Ivan Milat-esque nutbag he is. Absolutely nobody stood up to him. Not one person ran over and gave him a nudge. Very interesting, and a bit disappointing. I'm not suggesting that somebody Stakerizes him and stands over the lifeless corpse yelling "HOW DO YOU LIKE IT?" but a bit of physicality would have been nice. Even Morton, who he had almost lifted off the ground without any trouble, just walked away.

So, the 4th quarter. Johnson into the ruck, Valenti into the centre for the first time and Hall off the ground having been taken to the cleaners by Warnock. We continued to get murdered out of the middle and the Swans kicked away. Even the Canadian bloke managed to kick a goal to great acclaim - which made up for the fact that the poor bastard was a mile out of his depth for the rest of the quarter. For us Sylvia suddenly came alive and was everywhere. On the strength of his first half my notes say "does not deserve to play Round 1" but he showed exactly what he can do in the last quarter and - not that my opinion counts for anything - saved his spot in my best 22. He is still to #3 draft picks what the Spruce Goose was to aviation. Cheney also continued to show promises.

The highlight of the fourth was undoubtedly Davey's full length smother in our forward line late, which could very well have been rewarded with a free after 12 people jumped on top of him. We got nothing out of it in the end but it was a great effort for a meaningless pre-season friendly. Shortly afterwards, with the margin three points, Johnson had a wild snap from 40m out that rolled across the face of goal for a point. They went up the other end, goalled and it was pretty much over. Then it really was over and we'd lost another tight one.

I'm not nearly as upset as I was last week. Sure we were playing another second string lineup, and we could have won it again but it doesn't feel like we deserved to win it like we did last week. We broke even with the Swans for most of the game, but we never dominated them like we did Hawthorn. As I said earlier our forward line isn't good enough to deal with the substandard delivery that they are getting. Fevola might have been served up crap on a plate for years at Carlton but he rose above it because he's a quality that the likes of Miller - sadly - will never be.

A big hand to Miller today for his talk through. He was just going nuts at every centre bounce. Maybe you just hear it more because there are less people there. Even the guys constructing the new dirty money Visy stand behind the goals stopped while the match was on. But since when did builders need an excuse to stop working?

I hammered Miller for years but I can see now that he wants to do well, and actually cares so I'm right behind him. Let's just not start having any sick fantasies about him winning a Coleman anytime soon.

Pen and Paper Corner
You can't take notes at a game you're at with other people without them thinking you're a lunatic. Thankfully my family were having a 'gathering' elsewhere today that I refused to go to because of this and was able to write whatever I wanted. Unfortunately I then proceded to forget to take a notepad and was forced to write on the back of an old Telstra bill I found in my car. Undoubtedly the most useful thing those pricks have done for Australia in years.

The Tactical Analysis Centre
Usually I don't give a stuff about tactics, trends or what 15 of the clubs in the competition are doing but it seems that all of a sudden low scores have become the in thing in the AFL. People seem to be blaming Hawthorn for this, but I'm not sure exactly how a side that had two guys kick 170 goals between them in a season can be said to have turned the game into a defensive stalemate.

Now, I'm sure the clowns running the AFL will - in their infinate drug induced wisdom - come up with rules to encourage open and attacking play soon enough but it looks to me like this new trend will actually benefit us in some ways if it continues into the new season.

We have a decent backline. We saw that again today. However on the other hand we have a below average forward line which is hampered by abysmal service from the forwards and a game plan that is starting to mystify. Therefore - low scores suit us down to the ground don't they? At least if we're going to get thrashed all over the park and lose by 10 goals we know that it would have been 20 goals any other time.

Kommentary Korner
The guy sitting next to me in the first half was one of those people who says everything that happens and effectively talks to themselves in rhetorical questions for the entire game. As the exact opposite - somebody who shuts the fark up and just goes nuts once in a while - I couldn't stand it and moved for the 2nd half to a much more civilised spot where the two guys behind me spent the 3rd quarter talking about getting blind tonight and cracking onto chicks.

Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance Votes

From what I've seen the following differs wildly from what everyone else thought, so take it with a grain of salt.

5 - Warnock
4 - Grimes
3 - Sylvia
2 - Martin
1 - Petterd

Leaderboard

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

Well, that didn't sort much out.

Next Week
No idea, but I hope we don't end up playing North because I'd rather choose to believe that we're a chance against them in Round 1 instead of having that notion blown out of the water three weeks before the season actually starts

UPDATE - Brisbane in Cairns apparently. Suffice to say that unless there's some sort of collection taken up I will NOT be there. PPPfPPP votes will either be taken from eye witness correspondant reports, or god forbid, the papers. Cue five votes to the only five players they know.

UPDATE 2 - This post will be updated further when I have more time to proof read it and/or remember things that actually happened.

New Season, Same Team

For the last two hours I've been trying to tell myself that the pre-season doesn't matter. That nothing today counts for anything during the home and away season. But fuck that I'm absolutely fuming. In the last decade I've seen us lose two first round pre-season games by more than a hundred points, and a semi-final by 1 point and I've never been more ropeable before Round One than I am right now.

I'm sick of this "it's only the pre-season" bullshit. From 2007 to today we have won ONE pre-season match - and look how well we've done during the season. This isn't some Paul Roos styled Sydney scam where you play Canadian rugby players and (allegedly) tell people not to kick goals in the last few minutes of a tight match. This is a sign of ineptitude. I wasn't the only one to try and convince myself that 2007 was some sort of abberation and that we'd bounce back - then we went out and fell apart like a house of cards in every pre-season game we played last year. Ok, there was the excuse of having about five fit players but anyone who saw the North Melbourne and Footscray games knew that on both occasions we showed glimpses of being a real club but ultimately couldn't get the job done and got embarassed.

So, to Launceston for a clash with a side carrying the same name as the reigning premiers. Without nine premiership players.

And our side. Well, you wouldn't pencil it in as the best 22 by a long way but it was hardly the sort of experimental lineup that you're used to seeing as this time of the year. Bail (named as a substitute under these bullshit NAB Cup rules), Spencer and Cheney were the only players without experience to take the field. Rivers, Robertson, Moloney etc.. and all the draftees except Bail were out but on the balance of things we were still lining up with a far more senior team than the Hawks.

Was looking forward to seeing Meesen and Zomer play but disappointing neither was named. ZOMGer's absence was especially irritating as not only did he kick 4 goals in the intra-club game last week, it is a genuine fact that our forward line is shithouse and desperately needs new blood to shake things up. If the idea was to have a win and rack up a few members and - god forbid - a major sponsor then I can see where they were going, but if the idea was simply to play as close to a best 22 as possible just because we could then somebody needs to give themselves an uppercut.

The game? Oh do we have to? It's just another chapter in the tale of thwarted ambition that we've been force fed for the last (insert your age here if you're under 45) years.

Spencer started in the ruck and did a good job early. For the first few minutes we were all over the Hawks and they almost looked shellshocked. Sylvia and Morton both missed opportunities early, but eventually Bate opened our account before Green finished off a passage of good play and slotted a goal from the boundary line. Down the other end Roughead was taking marks, getting cheap free kicks and slotting goals from ludicrous angles on the boundary line but was getting absolutely no support elsewhere. In between his first and third goals Bartram got his first and Bate his second to give us a handy twenty point lead approaching quarter time. Then the two late goals cut the margin to five. Still - we were winning a game at quarter time. There's something that doesn't happen too often..

In other notable first quarter moments Paul Johnson copped one of the worst reports of all-time. Not only did the Hawthorn player not actually get hit, the bump that he did have put on him wasn't even by Johnson. It's wonderful to see that the government are finding jobs for homeless drug addicts as AFL umpires. Would almost warm your heart if it wasn't so tragic. Ordinary performance all over the ground by the umpires today I thought. We got away with a few, and got stooged for a few as well.

The second quarter was a classic arm-wrestle (FIRST CLICHE OF THE SEASON!) with neither team scoring for the first ten minutes, until Roughead missed his easiest kick at goal of the day. Hawthorn briefly took the lead but when Bate got his third we were back in front at half-time. What do you say about a quarter like that? We got a lot of the ball and more often than not actually used it decently. McLean was all over it, and even though his disposal was a bit meh it was good to see him involved without breaking something. On the other hand Jones and McDonald were nowhere to be seen.

The third quarter was where it all started to come together and make you believe that we weren't the worst team since Fitzroy 1996. Suddenly Johnson was thrown into the forward line and looked more dangerous than anyone other than Bate had all year. He took two strong marks inside 50 for one goal and when Bate added his fourth, McLean his first and Bartram a 9pt goal we had opened a break of more than five goals going into the last break.

Now, what had impressed me the most to this point was the way that we'd kept the Hawks to five goals - and three of them had come from the boundary. We were denying them anything in front of goal and the likes of Frawley, Garland, Warnock etc.. were doing a handy job. More importantly Whelan, Petterd, Grimes and the running defenders were rebounding confidently. Even when they weren't racking up possessions they were doing positive things. Witness, for instance, Whelan throwing himself at his opponent's feet to force a turnover and a goal.

Having said all this wasn't it always destined to go wrong? Surely Clarkson and club came to and realised that they were being flogged by the worst team in the competition and that they had better fire up or risk looking completely shithouse.

Now this is where it really went wrong in the fourth quarter. I've been a huge supporter of Bailey for the last couple of years but I can't for the life of me work out why after he was our sole decent target up front for three quarters (other than five minutes of Paul Johnson) that he [Note from years in the future - I'm assuming that it was Bate being referred to here but it would have been helpful if that had been made clear at the time] played the fourth quarter up the ground while Newton, Sylvia and to a lesser extent Miller embarassed themselves inside the forward 50.

At first I felt bad for Newton today. He was tackling hard, leading out and getting shithouse delivery. Then in the last he got his chance and absolutely botched it. My blood pressure is already too high without cataloging his crimes against humanity. If Meesen is supposedly the complete athlete but clueless on a football field can't we at least try and turn him into a forward instead? At least he's got athleticism going for him. Newton took Mark of the Year and has never done one decent thing since.

Then there's Sylvia. My god. All I will say is that if there's not a significant improvement on today's effort in the next few weeks then I wouldn't even bother picking him for Round One. It was all well and good dropping Yze and White last year when they weren't performing but at least they had a decade plus of runs on the board. Sylvia on the other hand has played a handful of good games in four years and simply does not deserve to play at the moment. Get your Cranbourne line timetable out and go down there and get some form then come and talk to me. Of course given that we have very little innovation or sense of adventure I'm sure this won't happen and instead we'll be treated to another season of mediocre performances before he's inevitably traded away for pick 30 and goes on to win a Premiership elsewhere.

Miller was alright for the first three quarters but completely cracked in the last. What we need is somebody who can take a mark and kick a goal. Pretty simple eh? Cross your fingers and everything else you've got that Watts is going to come on and be the man, and that Robertson can drag a couple more seasons out of his body because otherwise it's going to be a long, long year.

The fact of the matter is that we had multiple opportunities to seal the game in the last quarter and botched them all. We got what we deserved. Sure if Roughead didn't have his hand on Garland's back at the end them I'm not here - but that's neither here nor there given that we should never have been in that position anyway. If you expected a correct decision in the context of what they'd been dishing up throughout the rest of the game well then frankly you were on drugs.

If they'd bothered to send me my membership yet I would have at least pulled it out of my pocket and waved it around with a few empty threats about burning it, but as it was I picked up the item closest to me - a shoe - and lobbed that across the room instead. Then I went to a driving range and tried to smash my frustrations out, however my talents with a golf club closely mirror that of our forward line kicking under pressure and it was a complete bust.

Kommentary Korner
Dwayne Russell is a knob of the highest order. When you're commentating a Hawthorn game with Dunstall - who is ON their fucking board - and still come off as the caller with the least credibility then you've truly achieved. Here's to being able to watch Fox Sports games with the radio turned up and the mute button firmly pressed down for the rest of the year. Shame too because most of the other people involved in their coverage (Dunstall/Colbert etc..) are fine to listen to.

Fashion Week
Why did we wear the white jumper today? How does our regulation jumper clash in any concievable way with the gold and poo brown Hawthorn jersey? In fact doesn't introducing white into the mix cause MORE of a clash? It's not such a bad jersey but we should not wear it if we don't have to.

Unless of course somewhere the real jumpers are having a sponsors logo added to them... Hah, yeah right.

Votes and Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance leaderboard

5 - Green
4 - Bate
3 - Whelan
2 - McLean
1 - Frawley

Apologies to Davey, Morton, Bartram, Grimes, Spencer, Miller, Cheney, Garland and Johnson.

Round One Watch
If North are anywhere near as bad as they were last night, and we are anywhere near as good as we were in the third quarter today it could be interesting. One thing's for sure, if we go out and get flogged by them then we're rooted this season. And the first person to suggest 'tanking' to get the priority pick gets stabbed in the face. First things first, if last season was anything to go by we won't need to try to lose most of the games.

Next Week
God knows. One thing I can tell you for free is that it won't be Carlton at Telstra Dome Etihad Stadium on Sunday night. If the Herald Sun are to be believed it will the loser of Sydney vs Port at either Princes Park or Football Park. Presuming, as always, that the Swans will find new and innovative ways to avoid progressing in the pre-season cup, that will mean a clash next Saturday afternoon with them. See you there if you've honestly got nothing better to do.

Disclaimer
If this is your first visit to Every Day Is Like Sunday and you're wondering where the actual matchday analysis is then you might want to turn around and back away now. For the rest of you, strap yourself in and call your doctor to see if there have been any new anti-depressants released since September 2008.

Pre-Season Preview Spectacular

So, the first pre-season match is out of the way with a few handy performances, a number one draft pick as a runner and the amazing snapping man Jared Rivers injuring himself again. The Demonblog TAB is open for business.

Now, I apologise if you're of the head in the sand "everything will be alright if I believe it will be" persuasion, but there's no predictions that follow which have us making the finals. You have been warned - stop reading now if you're the sort of teenybopper/Uri Gellar-esque spoon bender who believes in negative energy and all that gash. I believe in honest realism and I'm writing, so deal with it.

On that cheery note, let's boogie.

Allen Jakovich Medal for Player of the Year
Previous Winners
2005 - Travis Johnstone
2006 - Brock McLean
2007 - Nathan Jones
2008 - Cameron Bruce

Now, I don't want to say Demonblog is on everyone's lips but have you noticed how every year the winner of this award doesn't do quite as well next year? Are opposition coaching staff scanning these match reports for the sort of accurate in-depth analysis you don't get from the newspaper journalists who just make up their votes based on whoever got the most touches? Probably not, it's hardly the Madden Curse, and McLean's poor 2007 had a fair bit to do with busting his foot in the first quarter of the first game of the year but it's worth keeping in mind if you're going to back Bruce to repeat.

$2.50 - McLean
$2.90 - Green
$3.50 - Bruce, McDonald
$5 - Jones
$8 - Bate, Moloney, Davey
$10 - Morton
$12 - Miller
$15 - Buckley, Wonaeamirri
$20 - Garland, Whelan
$22 - Rivers, Sylvia, Robertson
$25 - Johnson
$30 - Bell, Petterd
$35 - Dunn, Bartram
$40 - Grimes, Martin
$50 - Wheatley
$60 - Maric, Warnock, Frawley
$100 - Newton, Jamar, Valenti
$250 - Watts, Jurrah, Blease, Meesen, Strauss, Spencer, Zomer
$500 - Bail, Bennell, Cheney, Jetta, McNamara, Hughes, Healey, McKenzie

This is not to say that I think the likes of Johnson will have middle of the road seasons, but past analysis of the Jakovich Medal voting from the last four years shows that I'm unwittingly harsh on ruckmen and generous on defenders.

Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year

Previous Winners (Most votes for a defender in the overall tally. Must play the vast majority of games in the backline to qualify.)
2005 - Nathan Caroll/Ryan Ferguson (and we made the finals. Hillarious!)
2006 - Jared Rivers
2007 - Paul Wheatley
2008 - Matthew Whelan

Now, this is an interesting one. We've had a big split over the years between running and key position defenders winning, so there's seemingly no bias one way or the other but you'd think it would be easier for a running defender to get noticed by an amateur hack in the outer like yours truly. There's also likely to be a larger focus on the backline when, like in the last two seasons, they spend all day repelling attacks rather than when we're playing well (remember that?) and all the action is at the other end.

$3.50 - Whelan
$5 - Garland
$9 - Rivers
$12 - Buckley
$15 - Wheatley
$18 - Petterd, Bartram (both ripe for disqualification though - BEWARE!)
$20 - Bell, Warnock
$22 - Frawley
$50 - Any other player

Paul Prymke Plate for Pre Season Performance
Previous Winners
2005-2007 - No Award
2008 - Aaron Davey

No votes for intra-club matches. Bad news for THE CELEBRATOR Wonaeamirri, but a clean slate for everyone else starting next week against Hawthorn. Then it's off to either Adelaide or whatever Optus Oval is called this week for a game against Port Adelaide or Sydney

Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie Of The Year
Previous Winners (Highest player in the overall tally to play their first game that season OR to have played only in the last three rounds of the preceding season.)

2005 - No players eligible
2006 - Matthew Bate
2007 - Ricky Petterd/Michael Newton
2008 - Cale Morton

Good news if you're Jack Grimes - your solitary appearance in a meaningless Round 22 clash will no longer cost you a chance at winning the award. From this year on anyone who played their first game in the last three rounds of the season before will be eligible to win.

$4 - Grimes
$8 - Jetta, Jurrah
$10 - Spencer
$12 - Blease, Strauss, Watts
$16 - Bail
$20 - Cheney, Bennell
$25 - Zomer, McNamara
$30 - Hughes
$30 - Healey, McKenzie

Strawbs O'Dwyer Medal for Ruckman Of The Year
Previous Winners
2005 - Jeff White
2006 - Jeff White (2)
2007 - Jeff White (3)
2008 - Paul Johnson

While Jamar is servicable in the ruck he does bugger all around the ground, and that's where the votes are coming from. Spencer will play against Hawthorn next week, so he could be an outside chance - but at 203cm I hardly expect him to be galloping around like a gazelle and racking up possessions everywhere. And Meesen? Well, it's anyone's guess what will happen there - could be value if you're brave.

$1.90 - Paul Johnson
$3 - Mark Jamar
$10 - Jake Spencer
$25 - Meesen
$30 - Any other player

Top Goalkicker

Miller
Wonaeamirri
Robertson
Watts
Jurrah
Davey
Bruce
Green
Zomer

Take your pick

First Long Term Injury

$2 - Any played not listed
$5 - Rivers, Moloney
$10 - McLean
$14 - Whelan
$15 - Robertson

First Suspension

Yes, the NAB Cup counts. Even if somebody had done a Big Setant and kicked their teammate in the clacker at Casey Fields yesterday they would have won.

$2 - Any played not listed
$6 - Moloney
$9 - Miller, Whelan
$12 - Garland
$15 - Green, Jones, Bate
$18 - Davey
$25 - Meesen, Jurrah
$100 - Watts

First Win of the Season

Round 1 vs North Melbourne ($4)
Round 2 vs Collingwood ($9)
Round 3 vs Port Adelaide ($20)
Round 4 vs Richmond ($14)
Round 5 vs Adelaide ($12)
Round 6 vs Geelong ($20)
Round 7 vs West Coast ($18)
Round 8 vs Footscray ($17)
Round 9 vs Hawthorn ($20)
Round 10 vs St. Kilda ($15)
Round 11 vs Collingwood ($13)
No win before Round 11 ($20)

Last Win of the Season

Round 12 vs Essendon ($30)
Round 13 vs Brisbane ($32)
Round 14 vs West Coast ($15)
Round 15 vs Port Adelaide ($15)
Round 16 vs Geelong ($30)
Round 17 vs Sydney ($18)
Round 18 vs Richmond ($12)
Round 19 vs North Melbourne ($10)
Round 20 vs Fremantle ($4)
Round 21 vs Carlton ($9)
Round 22 vs St. Kilda ($8)
No win after Round 11 ($30)

Number of total wins in the regular season

$3 - 3-4
$8 - 5-6
$30 - 1-2
$50 - 7-8
$75 - 9-10
$200 - 11-12
$300 - 13-14
$600 - 15-16
$700 - 17-18
$800 - 19-20
$1000 - Zero, 20-22

Major Sponsor

$1.01 - Any Other Sponsor
$1000 - Ray's Tent City

There might be a post before the game next week, but I think I said that in October as well and we all know what happened next. Your predictions on the winners of the above categories in the comments please.

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