In the last twenty years I've watched Melbourne in four states and one territory. I've seen us win by 120 points, lose by the same, blow a 47 point lead in the last quarter and come back from 51 down at halftime. However I can confidently say that what we saw tonight was the most bizarre match I've ever witnessed.
Seriously, that shit was like an episode of Twin Peaks. 3.5 quarters without a solitary goal and then at the 17 minute mark of the last quarter we're in it up to our necks. Explain that? I sure as hell can't.
Usually, I sit there for four quarters stressing and ignoring minor details such as what's actually taking place, so the goals act as mental cues to fill in the blanks of any particuarly interesting happenings. That's not going to happen for obvious reasons. In fact I'm not sure if anything particuarly interesting happened all day. They told us it was going to be Hurricane Katrina-esque weather conditions, and even though it was colder than a witches tit the rain didn't come in any noticeable fashion.
Sadly, nobody bothered to tell the players who proceeded to serve up one of the most anonymous, pointless and god damn it nearly awesome games of footy for years. You would have understood a 51-34 scoreline if it had been pissing down with a force 10 gale, the sort that sends sailors to their deaths, blowing across the ground but it really wasn't. In fact other than the temperature issues it was a pretty perfect day for football. When the Meesen Magic jumped like a gazelle in the opening bounce and put it straight into the hands of Moloney (or was it Jones? Nothing came of it, so Jones is a suspect) who whacked it inside 50 I thought that we were set for something special. We weren't.
Let the future record show that our scores at the end of each quarter were as follows;
0.1, 0.3, 1.6, 4.10
This is our lowest score of any sort since we racked up a casual 3.9 and got Neil Balme fired in 1997. The last time we went so low in Victoria was R16, 1996 in Geelong. Stats fans rejoice, though, that it's not our lowest score at the MCG in the last 50 years. Step forward the R12 1989 debacle vs Geelong when we racked up a big 2.8.20. Before that you have to go back to R16, 1971 for a 4.10.34 against the mighty Fitzroy.
However I'm willing to bet that none of those games featured us goalling at the 17 minute mark of the last quarter to be within striking distance. To say the Adelaide fans started to get a bit nervous was an understatement. They didn't quite wear the same look of abject terror that Freo fans had when we turned them over last year, but another goal and it would have gotten interesting.
Frankly I can't even be bothered trying to remember what happened tonight. From memory it went a bit like this;
* Scrum in the centre
* Ball goes towards our forward line
* Ball is rebounded under very little pressure
* Ball hangs around in the middle for a while
* Adelaide kick a point
* Everyone dies a little inside.
It took the forgotten man of the forward line Lynden Dunn to get our first two goals, and just as he was scrounging for the record books to find out how many people had been their sides only goalkicker, McLean added another to ruin his fun but make things interesting. Newton missed his second sitter and Jetta an easily gettable chance before McDonald slotted one to drag it back to within three goals.
Unfortunately after briefly threatening glory the forward structure once again fell to pieces and the Crows managed to lock it down for a win. Of interest to Meesen fans was his flying shot from 50m out which didn't make the distance, or score, but bore a distinct resemblence to the one and only shot on goal I ever saw Jamie Shanahan take.
Once again we were stooged for a lack of a forward line. The defence is still our strongest point, and the midfields and ruck division aren't losing out TOO badly (except Johnson who has been pox) but what's the point when you've got nobody to kick it to? Miller and Petterd are trying their arses off but getting nothing, Bate has been disappointing recently, Jetta needs time in the 2's, Sylvia has played his one good quarter for the year and put the queue in the rack and Newton is just shit.
Robertson kicked five in the 2's today. He's hardly the future, but at the moment he could be the difference between competitive and uncompetitive up front. If nothing else he'll take the heat off Miller. Surely next week it's Robbo and THE CELEBRATOR in - Jetta (omitted), Newton (shot dead).
There was a lot of "we're being rorted by the umpires" feeling going on. I'll admit there were a couple of slightly dodgy ones, but I don't think it explains Newton the tit missing two sitters and McLean hoofing the ball into the hands of the opposition at every opportunity.
Finally I don't usually care for the opposition, even to the extent of learning who half their players are, but Adelaide aren't particuarly good are they? Everything else is going to overshadowed by our floppy forward performance, but it's not just me who thinks they weren't very good today is it? Granted our defence played well, but all over the place they were just ordinary. Restricting a slopfest to a tiny score is one thing, but can they really hang their hat on it given the abysmal state our forward structure is in?
That's it. I have nothing more to say.
2009 Allen Jakovich Medal
5 - Brent Moloney
4 - James Frawley
3 - Aaron Davey
2 - Jared Rivers
1 - Lynden Dunn
Buggered if I'm giving votes to Turnover Machine McLean. Everyone else will, but 28 possesions mean nothing when kicks are in the minority and hardly any of them hit a target. Eight tackles are great, but they don't get you in single handedly. See also Jones, Nathan.
Leaderboard
12 - Aaron Davey
9 - Brent Moloney
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, Brock McLean
4 - Matthew Warnock, Stefan Martin, Brad Miller, James Frawley
3 - Ricky Petterd, Colin Sylvia, Cameron Bruce
2 - James McDonald, Jared Rivers
1 - Matthew Bate, Lynden Dunn
Crowd Watch
14,000 my arse. That's the dictionary definition of 'seasonally adjusted'. Imagine if the weather had turned out like it was supposed to? The place would have been empty.
Chief nutbag of the day was the woman behind me who spent all four quarters yelling "COME ON CROWS [pause] COME ON!" every five seconds. By full time she'd become a cult hero.
Armoured Personnel Carrier Corner
Fact: I'd rather win five games than four.
Fact: We're not good enough to win five anyway.
Outcome: Pro and anti-tank factions are happy even if they do want to cut each other's throat.
Numerology Corner
In case you're wondering Stefan Martin isn't the only person ever to change to a higher number during their career (excluding people who changed back to a previous number like Farmer in '99). One of Sydney's cavalcade of nobodies in the 80's tops everyone.
1985 - #46
1986 and 1988 - #12
1989 and 1990 - #33
1991 - #50
Now, Darren McAsey was hardly likely to be anyone's favourite player anyway but imagine trying to keep up with that on your jumper?
Incidentally if you're old enough to remember the 80's and early 90's but want to completely confuse yourself just look at some Sydney teamsheets from that time. You are guaranteed to see names that you've never seen before in your life. I'm not talking about cult figures like Sanford Wheeler and The Indian Rubber Man Jamie Lawson - I'm about Brett Page, Aldo Dipetta and the briefly glamorous Jim West. Speaking of briefly glamorous - Shane Fell - 1 season, 30 goals and goodbye. That's odd.
Perhaps the hapless Brisbane Bears of the late 80's are more your go? Try 1992's Adam Kerinaiua, or Rudi Frigo? How about 203cm monster Ian Kidgell or his svelt 60kg colleague Corey Bell? Me, I'm a Richard Umbers man myself.
Can't decide? Then Matthew AhMat is your man - 8 games, 8 losses spread between both great teams.
Mind you, let's be honest, does anyone other than a Melbourne fan have the slightest idea who Scott Simister was. And what exactly did Haydn Robins do for two seasons before he was flogged to Richmond as part of our ongoing 'talent' exchange scheme (Chris Sullivan, John Howat, Michael Pickering, Clay Sampson, Strawbs O'Dwyer, Phil Egan, Simon Eishold, Ross Funcke et al)
See, wasn't that a great deal more educational than anything you saw (or didn't) at the game today? Forget this season, how about a sponsorship from Name a Game to write reviews of early 90's matches instead?
Next Week
God help us all it's Geelong at the far more sensible time of 2.10 on Sunday. Make no mistake, they won't be as charitable as the Crows were in keeping the scores down. In fact they're likely to slap the living bejesus out of us. Remember 1 billion to nothing at quarter time last year? I guess if that's all you have to beat then it shouldn't be too bad a day.
If I was playing Fantasy Selection Committee it would be (*drum roll*)
IN: Robertson, Maric, Spencer, Wonaeamirri
OUT: Jetta, Newton, Sylvia, Johnson
Maric didn't play in the 2's today, but I have a feeling that might have been as cover in case Bartram didn't come up after losing his dad yesterday (RIP). Showed enough at the end of last year to warrant a decent run of matches now, and what better time to come in then when we're face-to-face with the apocalypse? That'll be dandy for him.
Final Thoughts
That was nice. What time does the real game start?
Saturday, 25 April 2009
Sunday, 19 April 2009
Bring Your Quarter To The Slaughter
Jubilant scenes on Brunton Avenue, 4.59pm
I don't need to tell you this, but the weight lifted off the shoulders by realising that you're not going to go 0-22 is amazing. The fact that it came against a unit imploding like a condemned building is not entirely important right now. Neither is the fact that if we'd played another two minutes we'd probably have lost. Like a horse that bolts to a massive lead in the Melbourne Cup and almost dies in the last 100m before winning by a nose it's the result that counts.
It's sad that it's come to this, but before we go any further I have to point out one important stat. That was the first game we have won in the first month of a season since 2006. Even then we had to wait until Round 4. You remember, Rivers copping the worst 50m penalty of all time in the longest 4th quarter EVER and we eventually made the 8. Today the 50's were deserved, the quarter was short as and we certainly won't make the 8 but it was still satisfying.
Let's be quite honest, the first quarter was one of the biggest slopfests you would ever have seen in your life. We gave away the first goal before the first bounce after Warnock biffed Morton, but other than that - and a couple of early misses for the Tiges - the story of the quarter was that the players of Fitzroy 1996 would have been hanging their heads in shame at some of the mistakes. It was absolutely comical football. Not only was the ball being butchered by almost everybody with extreme prejudice but even when we did get it forward we managed to hit the post four times. In a row. After he and Moloney both rushed shots they should have snaffled, Miller got the first to give us the lead going into quarter time.
The obvious lowlight of the first quarter was Brad Green's injury. Crunched in a perfectly fair contest (read: the AFL will probably issue a 92 week suspension) he looked at first like he was dead, then seemed ok. The radio called it concussion, then it was scans at the Epworth, then he was going for surgery for a broken jaw and is out for 8 weeks. Fark. I know I said it's easier to understand an injury when it takes place during a game but did it have to be to one of the few people we have who actually knows what they're doing? It seemed that he and Moloney were the only ones who could hit a target early on and I thought that without him we were rooted. Not so.
Unfortunately due to watching Green being carried from the ground many may have missed one of the more amusing errors in recent times. The Richmond guy (who? As if I care) picks the ball up in the centre, turns around and drops a 20m handball right into the hands of Jamie Bennell who doesn't have a Richmond player in the same postcode. Welcome to every blooper reel for the next ten years whoever you are.
The second quarter was like masterpiece theatre compared to the first. The Tigers continued to pile on absolutely comical errors and we managed to drag ourselves back to normality on-route to an eight goal quarter. For all my angst about him I have to admit that Colin Sylvia played an unbelievable quarter. Two running goals from outside 50, clean disposal and chase like a madman. He was making a mockery of the D-Grade reserves style stuff that Richmond were serving up. Suddenly as he kicked his second we were 34 points up 13 minutes into the quarter, and we were either set for a memorable victory or a heartbreaking capitulation.
Then they invented some sort of forward line structure and threw Richardson down there to take a few marks and got a few in the middle. You thought "oh god, here we go" but late goals for Bate - pretty much his sole contribution - and a last minute snap from Miller about a second before the siren gave us back a handy advantage.
As usual I don't pretend to know anything about football but tell me they wouldn't have gone a lot better had Richardson been playing up front for the whole four quarters? We were doing whatever we liked before he went up there and provided some sort of a target. It's very cute having him rumble around the wings picking up touches and almost winning the Brownlow but that means fuck all if your key forwards are for the tip.
Incidentally it was our best second quarter against Richmond since 1993. A game I remember extremely vividly because;
a) It's the biggest win I've ever seen us have
b) Jakovich and Andy Lovell (!?) kicked 8 apiece
c) A bird shit on my hand in the bottom deck of the Ponsford during the 3/4 time break. Very traumatic for a 12-year-old.
Other than Green's injury things were looking pretty positive. Bate didn't get near it until he kicked his goal and the Tiges started to look a million times better when they got their forwards right, but 31 points is the biggest half time lead we've had since Round 10, 2006. In a game we only won by 13 points (he says for dramatic foreshadowing purposes).
Then, after what surely must have been the biggest spray of all time from the soon to be unemployed Wallace, the Tigers came out and... copped the first goal. Their skills were indisputably better than they had been in the first half, but when Davey snapped one after about eight minutes and we were 38 in front it looked like party freaking time. Alas something must have snapped in their collective brains as they suddenly realised the gravity of the situation and started having a massive crack. While Richo still looked like their only truly dangerous forward we started to miss tackles and butcher the ball going forward and they took advantage of it with a couple of goals.
The enigmatic Newton missed a sitter from 25m out on a slight angle and then backed up thirty seconds later by kicking a goal on the run from 50m out to keep our lead at just under five goals. He's an interesting one Newton - in a way he played a great game today but is it wrong to expect more? His kicking for goal is generally shite, but do you take that for the surprisingly decent defensive intensity and the two goal hauls? Could have some sort of a future if he, and Miller, were packed off to the Self Confidence boot-camp but in reality there's a sign on his car space saying "RESERVED FOR J WATTS". Does he go for Robbo? At what point does Jurrah push for his spot? I was relatively satisfied with his game today - other than that miss from right in front - but he's got to crank things up a bit if he wants to be there next year. At least if he gets the arse he can join another Melbourne delistee Nick Gill in forming the "Awkward Tall Forwards with Mixed Returns" coterie group.
The last quarter was what you would officially describe as "nerve shattering". Only one down on the bench, but you'd think we'd had no rotation since the 2nd quarter as everyone stopped dead. They butchered their chances early on, but even with Warnock and Johnson double-teaming Richardson you just had the feeling that he was going to sink us. However, before that could happen Ricky Petterd basically saved the game with a heroic passage of play that should be on all sorts of highlight tapes. He threw himself backwards into an absolute meat mincer of a marking contest, hit the deck and still managed to lay a huge tackle on the Richmond bloke for holding the ball. Duly converted and a little bit of breathing room.
Ricky was good today. I still dispute the idea that he's the answer to small forwardry, but overall he's been quite good down there this year - and his kicking for goal is much better than expected. Interested to see what happens when Robertson comes back though.
In the end it turned out to be absolutely crucical as we really did stop dead after that. Deledio showed up and goaled after doing precisely nothing all day and Richo managed to get one on target to cut the gap back to 16 with about six minutes left. Cue arseholes the size of manhole covers in the stands - forget the distraught Richmond fans I think throwing it away from there would have caused me to neck myself. Richo botched another one (thanks son) and both Jetta and Newton had chances to ice the game but missed. 26 minute mark and the margin is cut to nine with a goal. There were only thirty seconds left (fuck countdown clocks, take a radio if you really want to know how long there is left) but when they went forward and Morton snapped at goal you just visualised somebody giving a free kick away out of the centre + 50 and having us lose the game. Happily he missed and even though the umpire chose not to pay the biggest dropping the ball IN HISTORY against Frawley in the dying seconds it wouldn't have mattered as we had it locked up.
Siren and wild scenes, tempered by the fact that we know we beat nothing, and a massive weight off our shoulders.
Crowd Watch
Strangely subdued performance by the Richmond fans in the top of the Olympic Stand. The wild comeback probably saved them from a bit of blood in the streets treatment on the day, but there's no telling what random animal waste is going to end up on the doorstep of Punt Road tomorrow morning.
The only person of interest was the guy sitting a row over from me who had obviously hit his frustration limit and spent four quarters abusing Richmond and calling for Wallace to be executed. A particular highlight was the tuneless rendition of their theme song with "Tigerland" replaced with the words "Gold Coast". Not sure exactly what it all meant but I could kind of feel where he was coming from. He was only about 30 so it's not like he can take any pride in Premierships won when he was 2 years old.
Other than that it was a look of shell shock all round. Poor bastards.
2009 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
So hard this one. Throw a blanket over most of the teamsheet, put it in a blender for three minutes, serve cold andcome out with this...
5 - McLean
4 - Miller
3 - Sylvia
2 - Petterd
1 - Bruce
Could have gone anywhere really. In fact on Big Footy I used my 12 votes on 12 different players. So, enormous apologies to (in order);
Davey, Dunn, Meesen, Newton, Moloney, Johnson, Frawley, Bartram, Bennell, Warnock, Rivers, Morton, Martin.
It's cruel, but it's good in the weeks where it's hard to even fill five spots. Which, let's be honest, happens far more often than weeks where there's too many to fit.
Pretty much everyone except Green, Bate and Jetta were major contributors. I was impressed at times by Nifty Nev - especially his spin out of traffic - but another 53% efficiency tells me he needs to develop more. At least he was responsible for our solitary front-and-centre crumbed goal of the year.
Leaderboard
With Green gone, and Cheney having dropped out of favor after a fast start the field is well open for the Jakovich and Seecamp. For those of you who give a rats the winning scores in the past have been;
Jakovich
2008 - 29
2007 - 34
2006 - 47
2005 - 38
Seecamp
2008 - 14
2007 - 16
2006 - 19
2005 - 10
Hilton
2008 - 17
2007 - 5
2006 - 10
2005 - n/a
No votes yet for the Strawbs O'Dwyer for ruckman. Johnson won with 13 last year, but nobody has come close to polling until the Meese today.
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, Brock McLean
4 - Matthew Warnock, Brent Moloney, Stefan Martin, Brad Miller
3 - Ricky Petterd, Colin Sylvia, Cameron Bruce
2 - James McDonald
1 - Matthew Bate
Kasey Korner
Lost by 4pts to Port Melbourne in a random night game. Unfortunately I couldn't go, but by all accounts Robertson continued to get better. Still don't understand why Maric isn't playing seniors for us, and Jurrah continued his development.
More importantly in the 2's the Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah Watts made his debut. Allegedly solid and kicked a goal. Straight to the VFL 1's I say. It's pearls before swine having him play against thinly veiled suburban hacks in the reserves.
Next Week
Adelaide at the MCG in the absolutely bizarre timeslot of 4.40pm. Say f'ing what? No problems for me as I live next door to the ground and - frankly - have nothing better to do with my life but it's not exactly family or country supporter friendly. When is anything other than a Perth game scheduled in that timeslot? Another big handout from the twats at the AFL.
As for the game itself you'd think that even having just been bitchslapped by Geelong at home that they'd be too good for us, but we've got a good record against them at the MCG. I'm not going to put my house on a win but I would expect us to continue our good work from this week in preparation for the Geelong game.
Here's a visual representation of what that game will look like;
Cue our new forward line;
Final Thoughts
It's not the journey, it's the destination.
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
In The Event of a Major Disaster The Season Management Plan Will Swing Into Immediate Action
In order to avoid Demonblog being added to the Federal Government blacklist of tasteless and offensive websites I choose to focus mainly on the first quarter and a half of today's game. For the first few paragraphs anyway, then it's on for young and old.
To be honest I spent most of the second half with my head in my hands anyway, so expect even less than usual. I'd watch the replay to relive the fun but in a moment of rare quality control my television committed suicide rather than show it.
Any mention of today's first half must be prefaced by saying that Collingwood were sloppy and allowed us to do pretty much whatever we wanted - but my god it looked good when we did. Despite getting rumbled out of the centre from the first bounce we looked great running with the ball and were cutting the Pies midfield to shreds on route to *gasp* half decent delivery into the forward line. We comprehensively dominated the first ten minutes and there's was nothing they could do to stop it. Goals to Miller (on the second go) and Green put us 13 points in front and by quarter time we had not only kicked five goals in a first quarter at the MCG for just the second time in a year and a half but were looking like we were up to it as well. Traditional MFC style cock-teasing, or a beautiful glimpse into the future? You decide.
The Stefan Martin Experience (featuring Matthew Warnock) consistently rebounded the ball out of the defensive 50m cooly and calmly. Having seen the way they (and poor Col Garland) have played over the last couple of seasons depresses me that one of them wasn't around when we were good and relying on the likes of Nicholson for defensive 50 possessions. I'm dying to get Whelan back in there as well. Said it last week, will hopefully say it for the next five months but our backline is our best asset at the moment. It could all come crashing down, but a few fairly cut price selections have come off which is just the sort of luck we could do with elsewhere.
There was even a brief flash of centre bounce dominance where Spencer and Johnson started getting taps and winning the thing. In fact for the first fifteen minutes of the second quarter it looked as if there was some danger it was going to continue. Somewhere deep inside I was even warming up for a bit of GOF at the final siren. Even Collingwood's goals came mainly from our errors - if we'd been cleaner we'd have restricted them even further.
The best statistic was the one that had damned us so much the week before. 6 contested marks in the first quarter alone represented an increase of 5 on the entire four quarters of last week. Those marks, as much as anything else, contributed to the strong position that we found ourselves in early. SME fans rejoice, he top scored with two.
Unfortunately when you're in our position while you expect to give up a few goals from bad play, you've got to take your own chances sometimes to even it up. Nathan Jones ran to 50 just before the end of the quarter, after the Pies had gotten a big error-assisted run on, and sprayed it. Petterd had one in the forward line where he did everything he could despite being criminally outnumbered but didn't have any support whatsoever.
And that's where the joy ends. Summary - we spent a great deal of time playing a top 8 side off the park. Stop reading here, because after this it all goes horribly wrong.
Repeat - If you are of the persuasion who prefers to think that every sign is a good sign then you might want to look away now.
6 contested marks in the first quarter, 4 more in the next three quarters. Suddenly after we'd botched a couple of chances to get a mini-break in the 2nd quarter, and Cheney had sliced a kick straight onto Didak's chest to level the scores it all started going horribly, horribly wrong. Or more to the point it started going very right for the Pies.
Everyone knows they're a much better side than us and suddenly they decided to play like it. The first 45 minutes reminded me of the 2007 Queen's Birthday game when they sat back on our notoriously dodgy kick-ins all day and let us do whatever we wanted - resulting in a bag of 7 from Robbo (remember him?) and a shock victory. They weren't going to make that mistake again. Suddenly the pressure was turned up and we couldn't handle it. Possessions were flying everywhere and the backline was under siege. Ten minutes into the third quarter we were officially stuffed and looked out on our feet.
Once again it was the backline that saved us from a fearful massacre. The usual suspects were doing their best to keep the inevitable at bay, and Davey added another layer of calm to the defensive effort but like every other week of the last couple of years there's only so many times you can keep a superior team out before they make you pay. It's ok if you've got some sort of decent forward line, or can get the ball down there (think how badly Carlton and their toilet backline would have been in the last few years without Fev?) quickly and accurately. When the Pies started manning up and we lost the motivation to go quickly inside 50 we were stuffed.
None of Bate, Miller or Petterd can claim to have had a great day at the office but I refuse to actually blame any of them (except maybe Sylvia who was shite) because they were trying to deal with wonky delivery, being outnumbered and rarely - if ever - having somebody there to mop up the crumbs. As much as I liked Davey's game in the backline and midfield this is exactly the role he needs to be playing in the absence of Robertson and THE CELEBRATOR. It's all well and good to play well defensively but unless we kick a decent score that's not going to count for much. And, as in today's case, eventually the pressure on the midfield and defence will be too much and the other team will smash you.
The last quarter was an absolute disgrace, but what is there to write about that? We barely got hands on it enough times to do anything worth talking about. You knew that the world had turned on it's axis when Travis Cloke - a player so shit that I'm surprised we didn't swap the #1 pick for him - started kicking goals. Did that man seriously win a Best and Fairest? I can take the likes of Anthony and Didak cutting us to shreds, but when the bloke who has an accurate goalkicking record only because they don't count the 30% of OOF's and shots that didn't make the distance, starts strutting around like he's single handedly won the thing then it's time to pass the bucket around for a spew session.
I've almost hit the wall after the last two and a half years. Just two weeks in and footy has already becoming exceedingly depressing. Now I know what it's like to be a Richmond fan. I'm fully aware that we've got the likes of Grimes, Strauss, Blease and Watts to look forward to - as well as a couple of super high draft picks next year - but when you watch the likes of McLean and Sylvia go around does it give you any faith that we're going to find a genuinely game changing superstar anytime soon? Today was one of Brock's few bad games - and last week was another - but can we finally admit that Sylvia is never going to be anything special?
Heartbreaking to think that even if you traded some of these people for picks that we'd probably draft somebody even worse.
Speaking of Richmond I hope that somebody takes notice of their performance at Skilled Stadium today. Much like last year when we went down there in even worse circumstances and put up a credible fight, they played Geelong as a laughing stock today and came out with some credit.
In conclusion... at least we kicked accurately?
Rookie O Rama - Week Two
The (sometimes) Fantastic Four had their second starts for the following results;
Cheney - Not so great. Obviously had signficantly more respect paid to him by the Pies and struggled to get clean touches. Retains his place for now but could be in trouble when Whelan and Wheatley are back in the frame. Definate future though.
Jetta - Rotten day, highlighted by his failed attempt at a fingertip mark right in front of the oncoming Miller. Needs to go back to the 2's and work on things. Is a certainty to be dropped for next week if Wonaeamirri is right.
Bennell - Surely out for Whelan. Didn't do.. much? Hard to judge so far due to almost complete anonymity.
Spencer - Better than last week, but still got monstered in the centre. Sure he's lively around the ground but after a couple of botched kicks last week he has seemingly given up and taken to handballing it all over the shop instead. It won't happen but I still want to see if Meesen does any better. Needs time in the reserves to hone his craft and we're not exactly going anywhere that means we shouldn't at least try somebody else.
Johnson wasn't up to much either. I'd say a ruckman is going to be top of the shopping list at the end of the year.
2009 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
Difficult again due to there being a big fat cluster of 'decent' performances and no standouts. Davey comes out of it on top due to the fact that he kicks the bloody thing rather than constantly indulging in handball circle work like everyone else.
5 - Aaron Davey (24 kicks, 4 handballs. Will be instantly dropped for this serious breach of discipline.)
4 - The Stefan Martin Experience (I heart old octopus arms. Had novelty and junk time goals kicked on him but there should have been plenty more)
3 - Brad Green (Potentially the only player on the list good enough to waltz into any other team in the comp)
2 - Nathan Jones (Gets a heap of it, actually used it well occasionally. Needs to stop getting done for holding the ball every five seconds)
1 - Matthew Warnock (Reliability plus)
Apologies to Morton and Bruce who got a bit of it, and didn't butcher it too shockingly BUT hardly created any excitement.
Leaderboard
5 - Kyle Cheney (LEADER: 2009 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year and LEADER: 2009 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Aaron Davey
4 - Matthew Warnock, Brent Moloney, Stefan Martin
3 - Brad Green
2 - James McDonald, Nathan Jones
1 - Ricky Petterd
Crowd Watch
I can, under oath, state that there were officially a significant amount more Collingwood fans there today - and not just in the spaz heavy top deck of the Ponsford either. We did seem to have the run of the bad decisions today, and didn't we hear about it? Chief critic was the guy two rows behind me who never actually managed a complete sentence and communicated in grunts and random words. When we got given the most obvious deliberate OOF in history you could hear the veins nearly burst out of his forehead.
Psychology Central
What we've seen from opposition fans in the last couple of weeks has been fairly typical of the position we're in. You can dredge up as many stereotypes about them as you like, but the fact of the matter is that we've got as many nutbags as anyone - the difference is that people really lose their mind when they play the percieved (actual in our case) worst team in the competition because they're scared to death of losing. Don't deny it, in the odd times when we've been good we've had the same feelings. I remember playing the Sean Charles led St. Kilda when they were at their lowest ebb and feeling like I was going to hurl for three quarters because they were beating us. There is a terror of being beaten by the bottom side that causes otherwise odd people to turn into raving monsters.
Sponsor Watch
Now that the Russians are on board how about a bit of this? Or a taste of this for opponents. Embrace the Russian lifestyle comrades.
Next Week
Port Adelaide at Football Park. And my, what a magnificent record we have there! Your correspondant will be live in Adelaide to see the horror unfold first hand. Never once in the history of this website have we won a game there - we haven't even got within 50 points since 2003 for gods sake.
UPDATE - A few hours later and with more time to think about the game I think that I've reached the "brace for slop" level already and will comfortably ride out the season in a wave of depression.
Of course everyone else knew that this would be the case before the start of the year but for some stupid reason I tried to convince myself that we were going to pull off a miracle and not finish in the bottom four. Now it's clear that we will and I'm just... shattered.
But sometimes what happens on the field pales into comparison with what happens off it.
THREE Collingwood fans were arrested for allegedly bashing a Demon player's father outside the MCG after the game yesterday.
Witnesses said they were sickened by what they described as an unprovoked attack on Brad Jones, the father of Demon Nathan Jones, as he was leaving the ground with son Zac, 14, after the Magpies' 53 point win.
Witnesses said the Collingwood supporters were abusing Melbourne fans outside the ground before allegedly punching Mr Jones in the face and upper body as Zac watched on in shock.
During the brawl one of the attackers lost his shirt as Mr Jones tried to defend himself.
Police arrested three men at the scene about 5pm.
A crowd gathered to watch the arrest and Pies and Demons fans swore at the men in disgust, witnesses said.
The sad thing is you're only reading that because of the connection to a player. That sort of shit shouldn't happen to anybody but it does. The sooner that spastics of all variety are cleansed from the football community the better. They certainly need to have a look at the way they serve alcohol to all comers.
To be honest I spent most of the second half with my head in my hands anyway, so expect even less than usual. I'd watch the replay to relive the fun but in a moment of rare quality control my television committed suicide rather than show it.
Any mention of today's first half must be prefaced by saying that Collingwood were sloppy and allowed us to do pretty much whatever we wanted - but my god it looked good when we did. Despite getting rumbled out of the centre from the first bounce we looked great running with the ball and were cutting the Pies midfield to shreds on route to *gasp* half decent delivery into the forward line. We comprehensively dominated the first ten minutes and there's was nothing they could do to stop it. Goals to Miller (on the second go) and Green put us 13 points in front and by quarter time we had not only kicked five goals in a first quarter at the MCG for just the second time in a year and a half but were looking like we were up to it as well. Traditional MFC style cock-teasing, or a beautiful glimpse into the future? You decide.
The Stefan Martin Experience (featuring Matthew Warnock) consistently rebounded the ball out of the defensive 50m cooly and calmly. Having seen the way they (and poor Col Garland) have played over the last couple of seasons depresses me that one of them wasn't around when we were good and relying on the likes of Nicholson for defensive 50 possessions. I'm dying to get Whelan back in there as well. Said it last week, will hopefully say it for the next five months but our backline is our best asset at the moment. It could all come crashing down, but a few fairly cut price selections have come off which is just the sort of luck we could do with elsewhere.
There was even a brief flash of centre bounce dominance where Spencer and Johnson started getting taps and winning the thing. In fact for the first fifteen minutes of the second quarter it looked as if there was some danger it was going to continue. Somewhere deep inside I was even warming up for a bit of GOF at the final siren. Even Collingwood's goals came mainly from our errors - if we'd been cleaner we'd have restricted them even further.
The best statistic was the one that had damned us so much the week before. 6 contested marks in the first quarter alone represented an increase of 5 on the entire four quarters of last week. Those marks, as much as anything else, contributed to the strong position that we found ourselves in early. SME fans rejoice, he top scored with two.
Unfortunately when you're in our position while you expect to give up a few goals from bad play, you've got to take your own chances sometimes to even it up. Nathan Jones ran to 50 just before the end of the quarter, after the Pies had gotten a big error-assisted run on, and sprayed it. Petterd had one in the forward line where he did everything he could despite being criminally outnumbered but didn't have any support whatsoever.
And that's where the joy ends. Summary - we spent a great deal of time playing a top 8 side off the park. Stop reading here, because after this it all goes horribly wrong.
Repeat - If you are of the persuasion who prefers to think that every sign is a good sign then you might want to look away now.
6 contested marks in the first quarter, 4 more in the next three quarters. Suddenly after we'd botched a couple of chances to get a mini-break in the 2nd quarter, and Cheney had sliced a kick straight onto Didak's chest to level the scores it all started going horribly, horribly wrong. Or more to the point it started going very right for the Pies.
Everyone knows they're a much better side than us and suddenly they decided to play like it. The first 45 minutes reminded me of the 2007 Queen's Birthday game when they sat back on our notoriously dodgy kick-ins all day and let us do whatever we wanted - resulting in a bag of 7 from Robbo (remember him?) and a shock victory. They weren't going to make that mistake again. Suddenly the pressure was turned up and we couldn't handle it. Possessions were flying everywhere and the backline was under siege. Ten minutes into the third quarter we were officially stuffed and looked out on our feet.
Once again it was the backline that saved us from a fearful massacre. The usual suspects were doing their best to keep the inevitable at bay, and Davey added another layer of calm to the defensive effort but like every other week of the last couple of years there's only so many times you can keep a superior team out before they make you pay. It's ok if you've got some sort of decent forward line, or can get the ball down there (think how badly Carlton and their toilet backline would have been in the last few years without Fev?) quickly and accurately. When the Pies started manning up and we lost the motivation to go quickly inside 50 we were stuffed.
None of Bate, Miller or Petterd can claim to have had a great day at the office but I refuse to actually blame any of them (except maybe Sylvia who was shite) because they were trying to deal with wonky delivery, being outnumbered and rarely - if ever - having somebody there to mop up the crumbs. As much as I liked Davey's game in the backline and midfield this is exactly the role he needs to be playing in the absence of Robertson and THE CELEBRATOR. It's all well and good to play well defensively but unless we kick a decent score that's not going to count for much. And, as in today's case, eventually the pressure on the midfield and defence will be too much and the other team will smash you.
The last quarter was an absolute disgrace, but what is there to write about that? We barely got hands on it enough times to do anything worth talking about. You knew that the world had turned on it's axis when Travis Cloke - a player so shit that I'm surprised we didn't swap the #1 pick for him - started kicking goals. Did that man seriously win a Best and Fairest? I can take the likes of Anthony and Didak cutting us to shreds, but when the bloke who has an accurate goalkicking record only because they don't count the 30% of OOF's and shots that didn't make the distance, starts strutting around like he's single handedly won the thing then it's time to pass the bucket around for a spew session.
I've almost hit the wall after the last two and a half years. Just two weeks in and footy has already becoming exceedingly depressing. Now I know what it's like to be a Richmond fan. I'm fully aware that we've got the likes of Grimes, Strauss, Blease and Watts to look forward to - as well as a couple of super high draft picks next year - but when you watch the likes of McLean and Sylvia go around does it give you any faith that we're going to find a genuinely game changing superstar anytime soon? Today was one of Brock's few bad games - and last week was another - but can we finally admit that Sylvia is never going to be anything special?
Heartbreaking to think that even if you traded some of these people for picks that we'd probably draft somebody even worse.
Speaking of Richmond I hope that somebody takes notice of their performance at Skilled Stadium today. Much like last year when we went down there in even worse circumstances and put up a credible fight, they played Geelong as a laughing stock today and came out with some credit.
In conclusion... at least we kicked accurately?
Rookie O Rama - Week Two
The (sometimes) Fantastic Four had their second starts for the following results;
Cheney - Not so great. Obviously had signficantly more respect paid to him by the Pies and struggled to get clean touches. Retains his place for now but could be in trouble when Whelan and Wheatley are back in the frame. Definate future though.
Jetta - Rotten day, highlighted by his failed attempt at a fingertip mark right in front of the oncoming Miller. Needs to go back to the 2's and work on things. Is a certainty to be dropped for next week if Wonaeamirri is right.
Bennell - Surely out for Whelan. Didn't do.. much? Hard to judge so far due to almost complete anonymity.
Spencer - Better than last week, but still got monstered in the centre. Sure he's lively around the ground but after a couple of botched kicks last week he has seemingly given up and taken to handballing it all over the shop instead. It won't happen but I still want to see if Meesen does any better. Needs time in the reserves to hone his craft and we're not exactly going anywhere that means we shouldn't at least try somebody else.
Johnson wasn't up to much either. I'd say a ruckman is going to be top of the shopping list at the end of the year.
2009 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
Difficult again due to there being a big fat cluster of 'decent' performances and no standouts. Davey comes out of it on top due to the fact that he kicks the bloody thing rather than constantly indulging in handball circle work like everyone else.
5 - Aaron Davey (24 kicks, 4 handballs. Will be instantly dropped for this serious breach of discipline.)
4 - The Stefan Martin Experience (I heart old octopus arms. Had novelty and junk time goals kicked on him but there should have been plenty more)
3 - Brad Green (Potentially the only player on the list good enough to waltz into any other team in the comp)
2 - Nathan Jones (Gets a heap of it, actually used it well occasionally. Needs to stop getting done for holding the ball every five seconds)
1 - Matthew Warnock (Reliability plus)
Apologies to Morton and Bruce who got a bit of it, and didn't butcher it too shockingly BUT hardly created any excitement.
Leaderboard
5 - Kyle Cheney (LEADER: 2009 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year and LEADER: 2009 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Aaron Davey
4 - Matthew Warnock, Brent Moloney, Stefan Martin
3 - Brad Green
2 - James McDonald, Nathan Jones
1 - Ricky Petterd
Crowd Watch
I can, under oath, state that there were officially a significant amount more Collingwood fans there today - and not just in the spaz heavy top deck of the Ponsford either. We did seem to have the run of the bad decisions today, and didn't we hear about it? Chief critic was the guy two rows behind me who never actually managed a complete sentence and communicated in grunts and random words. When we got given the most obvious deliberate OOF in history you could hear the veins nearly burst out of his forehead.
Psychology Central
What we've seen from opposition fans in the last couple of weeks has been fairly typical of the position we're in. You can dredge up as many stereotypes about them as you like, but the fact of the matter is that we've got as many nutbags as anyone - the difference is that people really lose their mind when they play the percieved (actual in our case) worst team in the competition because they're scared to death of losing. Don't deny it, in the odd times when we've been good we've had the same feelings. I remember playing the Sean Charles led St. Kilda when they were at their lowest ebb and feeling like I was going to hurl for three quarters because they were beating us. There is a terror of being beaten by the bottom side that causes otherwise odd people to turn into raving monsters.
Sponsor Watch
Now that the Russians are on board how about a bit of this? Or a taste of this for opponents. Embrace the Russian lifestyle comrades.
Next Week
Port Adelaide at Football Park. And my, what a magnificent record we have there! Your correspondant will be live in Adelaide to see the horror unfold first hand. Never once in the history of this website have we won a game there - we haven't even got within 50 points since 2003 for gods sake.
UPDATE - A few hours later and with more time to think about the game I think that I've reached the "brace for slop" level already and will comfortably ride out the season in a wave of depression.
Of course everyone else knew that this would be the case before the start of the year but for some stupid reason I tried to convince myself that we were going to pull off a miracle and not finish in the bottom four. Now it's clear that we will and I'm just... shattered.
But sometimes what happens on the field pales into comparison with what happens off it.
THREE Collingwood fans were arrested for allegedly bashing a Demon player's father outside the MCG after the game yesterday.
Witnesses said they were sickened by what they described as an unprovoked attack on Brad Jones, the father of Demon Nathan Jones, as he was leaving the ground with son Zac, 14, after the Magpies' 53 point win.
Witnesses said the Collingwood supporters were abusing Melbourne fans outside the ground before allegedly punching Mr Jones in the face and upper body as Zac watched on in shock.
During the brawl one of the attackers lost his shirt as Mr Jones tried to defend himself.
Police arrested three men at the scene about 5pm.
A crowd gathered to watch the arrest and Pies and Demons fans swore at the men in disgust, witnesses said.
The sad thing is you're only reading that because of the connection to a player. That sort of shit shouldn't happen to anybody but it does. The sooner that spastics of all variety are cleansed from the football community the better. They certainly need to have a look at the way they serve alcohol to all comers.
Monday, 13 April 2009
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 inGeelong 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.
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
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.
Sunday, 29 March 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, 7 March 2009
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?
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?
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