Trading while insolvent

The Melbourne Football Club as a whole should face investigation from the ACCC for breaches of Trade Practices Act. Club my arse, it's a lurching shambles. Everybody from the top down should be forced to testify at the enquiry, excluding only the poor lady who has to answer the call and the guy who has to read all the kooky nonsense (copyright Ricky Petterd) that people write on the Facebook/Instagram/Twitter pages.

To have gotten out of that game with just a 23 point loss is almost laughable. It was up there with the Essendon match in the all time top ten list of matches in which the opposition found new and innovative ways to stuff up goalscoring opportunities in an increasingly comical fashion. Unfortunately unlike that other great night we couldn't keep the total score low enough to take advantage of it, and eventually handed them enough chances on a silver platter that they couldn't help but take advantage.

What Richmond shows is that with a core of consistently 'good' players you can get away with seven changes, your spearhead kicking like he has a wooden leg and half a team full of players nobody's ever heard of and at least contend for the eight. They might not make it, and on today's performance I'd be surprised if they did but at least they're one or two surprise wins away. We're one or two surprise seasons away. Of course if anybody knows about your team getting within touching distance of meaningful progress and before turning into a pumpkin at midnight it's us.

If you can say anything for our army of coaches and assorted hangers on today it's that they learnt their lesson from last week and didn't waste everyone's time with wacky experimental moves like Watts vs Riewoldt. Instead they put Dunn down there and he opened up the debacle by giving away the most blatantly obvious push in the back free kick of all time. Funny what happens when you play your defenders in the forward line and your forwards in the backline. Forget Baileyball, Neeldball might be the next big thing come Round 23. Still on his side but I'm convinced he's just taking the piss now because he knows we're absolutely stuffed no matter what he does.

The Tigers were good enough to botch numerous chances, but it wasn't like we were making them pay in any way - meaningful or otherwise. Just letting them reload and have another go. Had that been us we'd have spent the first five minutes attacking viciously, got no reward and then given up. Like the third quarter. They persisted before breaking through the scant resistance and then proceeded to kick the shit out of us for the next 25 minutes until like so many other times this year the match was over by quarter time. Just like the Collingwood game we got back into it eventually, and nudged close enough to make it interesting, but had necked ourselves so badly with the start that it was too much to overcome.

Not that it deserved to be overcome the way we were playing. Before Blease kicked another one of his trademark 'from arse' goals on the boundary line I was scrambling for this list to find out the last time we'd gone into quarter time on nil - forgetting that it was just four years ago for god's sake - especially after the Stefan Martin Experience celebrated the fact that he'd shown up with Morrissey's haircut by taking the (to that point) most miserable shot on goal we've had all year, missing the lot when even a point would have done.

In the end, even allowing for the cavalcade of junk time goals in the last quarter, we were quite productive when we got it inside 50 but good luck getting it there in the first place. If you removed the garbage, blindly hoofed inside 50's from our total it probably shows that the attack was quite 'potent' but what's the good of that when they're all standing down there looking glum while everybody else shanks it straight out of bounds on the full or misses the simplest of targets by foot? Garland even led, marked and goaled at one point - which is basically the holy trinity for me - but he spent most of the day standing around doing diddly while his ex-chums in the world of defence shat themselves under a midfield assisted barrage.

It's no surprise that the defenders are going to cave in eventually under that sort of pressure (have I written this every week for five years?) when your 100 game backmen are playing gallant but ultimately fruitless cameos in the forward line and several forwards are 'plying their trade' (CLICHE) for a VFL team whose results we realistically couldn't care less about. I ask you what harm it would have done to put Lucas Cook out there today, even if a month ago I wasn't sure he was real. Nobody expects us to kick big scores, and unless it's against a franchise we don't, so give the guy a go and hope for the best. Can't have been any worse an option than Magner. See also Watts - especially when the game was completely lost anyway.

Now, I'm all for Magner don't get me wrong but if you're not playing him in the midfield then why are you playing him at all? For the last two weeks he's done chuff all up front, not even managing to nick a junky goal to pad out his stats a'la Bail. For my own sick, nerdlinger reasons I'm thrilled that he's cracked the record for most games ever played in #49 for the MFC but time to give somebody else a go. Maybe even the internet's BFF Couch just so people stop waffling on about him at any given opportunity despite probably never having seen him play.

About the only thing Magner did was play his part in the controversy of the day, another in the long line of fiascos involving the accursed video review system. Whether it was a goal or not I have not the foggiest, but the fact that the goal umpire was receiving advice from everybody in the stadium rather than making his own decision was comical. As was the replay which showed absolutely nothing of any benefit other than that the ball and Ivan Maric were somewhere in the same area code. Last year they'd have paid it one way or the other and we'd have all gotten on with our lives, but the fear that there'll be another outrageously bad decision when it counts a'la Hawkins in the '09 Grand Final means we have to go through multiple repeats of footage which proves nothing and ends up with them making a guess anyway.

Given that we're no hope to be in it and I don't give a rats about ruining the game for future generations it is my last remaining hope and dream of this season that somehow one of Carlton, Collingwood or Essendon are robbed blind out of the premiership in a similar scenario and their outraged fans ransack AFL House. Or anyone really, but best if it's not an interstate team or they'll never shut up about how there's some Victorian conspiracy on.

Anyway, revenge fantasies and hastly introduced rules backed by shit technology aside the decision was most unfortunate because it robbed us out of what would undoubtedly have been the worst MFC goal of the modern era. The only one I can think of that even compares is Nathan Carroll's single career goal which was a wonky helicopter from 30m out directly in front after he'd been given a fifty. Magner's foul kick had that covered about ten times over, and having righted the ship somewhat at that stage we could have done with six points, but somehow it almost got through untouched. Or maybe it did, who knows - not the umpires that's for sure. Having said all that the decision process might not have been an issue had he kicked it properly in the first place. Or not pinched it off Rivers who was about to mark it and who has proved against all odds to be a half decent set shot.

Luckily they stuffed up three more chances between then and the end of the quarter or Magner - and everyone involved in the video farce - would have copped it even worse. Thanks then to Shaun Grigg for putting in his own contender for worst kick of the century by missing from the sort of angle that we all fondly remember Ben Holland for and keeping it respectable.

Sadly that Hollandesque miss was nothing more than charity considering they were clearly not going to do the morally correct thing and roll over for us. The only thing it did do was stop half the crowd from self-immolating while the Auskick game went on. How typical of Melbourne to tickle the balls (or lady balls if you prefer) a bit and make you keep watching with wide-eyed, childlike optimism only to be disappointed in the end.

Despite Martin and - god forbid The Spencil - doing a decent job in the middle it was all for nowt considering that only Jones and to a much lesser extent Sylvia were going anywhere near it once it left their hands. Starting Moloney as the sub was interesting to say the least, and I'm absolutely certain he should have come on at half time and the damn the consequences if we copped an injury, but as long as it gave him time to get on the phone to his manager and try and cut a new contract elsewhere his time wasn't entirely wasted. Unfortunately for him his price is spiralling like the Greek economy, and the only option he might have left is to accept a bailout package from the MFC and work next year for peanuts. Either that or go and be a bit part player in a good team and look a million dollars again like most of last year.

One thing I'll say for the Spencil is that even though he's up there with the worst disposers of the footy in history at least he has a red hot bash every time he's out there. His flying tackle on Nahas was a cracker. It must come from the fear of living on the edge of oblivion, unlike the likes of Watts, Morton and Travis Johnstone who know they'll be given a trillion chances to try and justify their hefty price. He's still not worth a spot on the senior list but I grew to love The Spencil a bit today. If he'd somehow managed to pull down one of those marks in the last quarter and kick a goal I might have even snuck him in for a vote. How about a delist/re-rookie job? If we leave him until the last pick I doubt anyone else will jump in first, and if they do then good luck to him. Needs to develop a kicking style that doesn't involve looking down at the foot before dropping the ball - but Jamar has proven that you can turn into a decent ruckman without kicking it more than a handful of times each game.

I welcome the return of Jamar next week (and there's something suss about his claim pre-match that he almost played against Brisbane but didn't so he's out this week as well. Eh? Long service leave?), and it might be outrageous, filthy bias towards my favourite player but I almost prefer Martin at the moment. In tandem they should be one of our few bright spots, but the Experience holds his own at the bounces (and what's the point of winning 50 hit outs if nobody gets them anyway?) and is far more damaging around the ground. With apologies to Gawn, Puttin on the Fitz and The Spencil this is the combination I want to see for the next few years. Gawn is next cab off the rank but he can work on his game, and stopping his knee from exploding at the drop of a hat, with cameo appearances until Jamar pulls the pin in three/four years time as he alluded to in a pre-match interview.

One other bright spot was Blease upping his tackles from an average of one per game to seven. He didn't get much of the ball, and when he did he more often than not botched it, but he's getting there. Now wait for him to walk out on us to play Tubbs to Scully's Crockett at GWS.

I'd like to say god knows how we were still within 40 points at the last change, but I know exactly why - because Richmond's kicking for goal was rude. Knowing almost exactly what it feels like to follow a team of their ilk I'd be taking the four points and running a mile without too many complaints but they'd have to be at least a bit distressed at the wasteful nature of it all. Especially Jack Riewoldt, who still had seven shots on goal despite being relatively well held by his nemesis Frawley, but took them with the air of somebody who would much rather be elsewhere. The good news is they're playing Gold Coast next week (who they lost to last year let's not forget) and he should be able to turn up half-hearted again but good luck with those kind of shenanigans when the finals race gets tight. At least he'll be there.

There was token resistance in the last quarter, but how Melbourne is it to scrape desperately for five goals in three quarters and then 'pile' on six in the last quarter when the opposition have lost interest? Emo Maric might have been kind enough to give us the first via a comedy turnover, and Tapscott might have turned up for the first time all day to kick another one a couple of minutes later but in an even more cliched MFC move the very next time the ball was bounced Richmond went straight out of the centre, Nahas made Nicholson look silly by running around him in witches hat fashion and the match was re-sealed. At least after the next goal we managed to hold them out for a couple of minutes rather than just bleeding the clearance and replying goal. Then they got it anyway. Token "don't drop me" performances can only go so far.

And that was that - we won the last quarter but big deal, what does that mean other than mass disinterest amongst the opposition? It certainly doesn't mean a spanking first quarter is on the cards against Freo next week. If I had my way it wouldn't matter because half the players wouldn't be appearing next Sunday, but more on that later.

Finally it can't pass without comment that the umpiring was shit for most of the day, but anybody using that as an excuse is kidding themselves. We were on the wrong side of more coin toss random decisions, but if you're a good team you can rise above that sort of garbage and still put in a decent performance. It's not the fault of the umpires or the ridiculous rules they're supposed to interpret that our players can't hit a target by foot (or increasingly by hand) to save themselves and usually run around like they're all mentally ill.

2012 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Nathan Jones
*THE DAYLIGHT OF A MILLION SUNS*
4 - Colin Sylvia
3 - Stefan Martin
2 - Jordie McKenzie
1 - James Frawley

Apologies to The Spencil, who other than his comedy capers kick across goal exceeded my remarkably low expectations. Nicholson can have the next lot of apologies as well as Blease for his tackles. Everyone else can cram it, because I expect better from them.

Leaderboard
And with that I see no reason not to declare a provisional winner. Even if disaster strikes, and like Goldmark it's usually just around the corner, he's got enough distance on the pack to stagger unsteadily over the line. It's more likely that those around him are so bad he'll set a Fred Fanning style record in this award which will never be beaten.

43 - Nathan Jones (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Allen Jakovich Medal for Player of the Year)
20 - Jack Watts
19 - Mitch Clark
14 - Jeremy Howe, Jordie McKenzie
13 - James Magner (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year)
11 - Stefan Martin (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
10 - Jack Grimes (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Jared Rivers
9 - Tom McDonald
8 - Matthew Bate
7 - Colin Sylvia
6 - James Frawley
5 - Clint Bartram, Sam Blease
4 - Jack Trengove, Brent Moloney
3 - Mark Jamar
2 - Daniel Nicholson
1 - Rohan Bail, Sam Blease, James Sellar

MFC Facebook Comment of the Week

Let me guess, before I even open this page - (1) sack Neeld, (2) where's Tom Couch, (3) play the Casey seniors instead, (4) burn Bate like Joan of Arc (5) I'm never paying to watch this crap again; and (6) one outrageous spelling error of a player's name.

Unfortunately they've taken a bit of air our of the nutbags this week by only doing a single pre-match post directing people to live chat on the website. God help us all if a transcript of the stuff people were trying to get through the moderators on that ever comes out but between Facebook and Twitter I reckon we can tick all six of these off. Here we go;



Ding ding ding! All without even having to resort to Twitter. Thank god. Tempting to leave the names unblocked due to the fact that it's in a public forum anyway, but the last thing I want is another fuckhead writing in with a complaint about my Twitter feed and CCing the MFC in on their threats thinking that it was somehow run by or on behalf of the club. Save yourself the trouble of writing a furious email that will be deleted by two parties, send all your complaints directly to the Demonblog legal department c/o the dumpster behind KFC Swan Street.

Crowd Watch
In a rare moment for a Richmond game there were no women plagued by baldness or thinning hair. There were about 45,000 people tormented by a tragic recent history, but at least more than half of them can delude themselves into thinking their side is going in the right direction. Like we were at this point last year. It's like in The Spy Who Loved Me when the two guys get in the helicopter and shake hands, thinking they'd gotten away with it only for the thing to blow up.

Appropriately this week marks a year (same round anyway) since we went into that Friday night Bulldogs game expecting to walk all over them and ended up getting humped by ten goals, setting us on the path to 186 (randomly enough via the bye and a win) and the tremendous mess we're in now. And what a mess it is. Sometimes you've got to laugh or you'd be caught trying to jam a fork in the toaster.

Next Week
No doubt Casey will get pummelled by Port Melbourne, so I'm not even bothering waiting for that match OR putting any stock in anybody's performances during it. Doesn't matter anymore, just make a statement that being mediocre AFL players isn't good enough and try something else.

Of course the chances are you'll be reading this Monday morning once the game has been completed, and either half our listed players would have turned in absolute filth shockers or done an ACL so circumstances might be drastically different BUT let that not detract from the fact that the senior side were balls and lucky to get away without being thrashed. This is no time to get seduced by the margin, or the fact that we won over the last three quarters, it's time to machine gun everybody.

IN: Jamar, Petterd, Cook, Gysberts, Strauss, Davey, Green
OUT: Trengove ('injured'), Bail, Bate, Spencer, Magner, Bennell, Tapscott (omit)
LUCKY: Dunn, Macdonald

Obviously people will be smashing the door down for Couch as usual, but given that he's gone back to the rookie list call me when he's actually available for selection and we'll talk. And has played a decent game for Casey recently. Other than that it means the only ones I'm opting not to bring in are Davis, Jetta, Sellar, Morton, Tynan, Green, Fitzpatrick and Williams. Add a couple of them to the discussion too if you want, it's not going to happen anyway. As usual conservatism will mix with some baffling decision and Petterd will get screwed.

If by some tremendous stroke of miracle my picks come off or I'm invited to do work experience on the selection committee and the everyone else is taken out by a Smallpox pandemic on Thursday afternoon, leaving me alone to pick the squad it will be impressed on Davey that he might be under contract but if he doesn't fire up or retire gracefully as a champion of the club we'll force him out by using him in ridiculous scenarios a'la George Costanza at Play Now. At least at his best he can hit a target by foot at some decent sort of rate - and that's more than you can say for most of the rest of them. If he can do that through next year he might go some way to being worth the rude money we're paying him.

We can at least be heartened by the possibility that Ross Lyon will turn up intent on playing his usual brand of 'exciting football' and that will mesh with our unintentional brand of 'exciting football' to cause a low scoring game which we might accidentally take advantage of. More likely that I'll be sitting on my own with 20 empty rows on either side despite the top level being closed, watching us get royally fisted in the traditional manner.

The rest of the year
Strangely enough it's only two Victorian teams out of the last eight games, and assuming we're not going to beat North or St Kilda (which we aren't) that will be the full five years since we've beaten any Victorian club other than Essendon or Richmond (and we can't even beat them anymore).

That's right, the last time we beat any of Carlton, Collingwood, Footscray, Geelong, North or St Kilda we had the likes of Ryan Ferguson in our side AND the other team were trying to lose. They even let Jace Bode kick two goals, which is up there in the Hall of Fame for blatantly trying to lose with the Warnock to FF Bailey move against Richmond. Bate, Dunn, Green, Jamar and Jones are the last players left from that night. The rest of our list has never played in a win for the MFC against the above named clubs. And that's just sad.

Final Thoughts
We may be in for many more years of this if they're not careful. If we somehow get away with paying peanuts for Viney (and there's a lot of talk about the intentions of GWS when it's blatantly obvious they're going to finish last and not risk it, so why aren't we focusing on Gold Coast?) they'd better hit on at least one out-and-out superstar on the other first round picks because we've had enough of good ordinary players - you are never going to win anything with a team half full of them and half full of VFL fodder. Also can we get an NQR street thug with face tatts similar to those sported by Dustin Martin's dad in the rookie draft please. Just for my amusement.

Signing Garland, McDonald and McKenzie to new contracts is great (and there goes my controversial Garland trade theory) but that's not the vanguard of a new, successful era. They could all play a big part in it, but not without more than one big hitter coming in - via the draft or from another club a'la Clark. If not they'll play out their careers (or eventually dick us via free agency and go somewhere good) for nothing and we'll be going around in circles forever.

The fun never stops at this club. At least until the first bounce.

Taking the clunge

Now that the carnival (of hate) is over it's comforting to welcome back the Melbourne Football Club I remember so clearly. One that allows the opposition to run free all over the ground with their players 20m clear on their own inside 50, features 'forwards' (makeshift or otherwise) never, ever, EVER lead for the ball inside 50 and who only crack 50 points due to junktime slop goals. They had better start to get this right soon because there's not much longer where you'll be able to mark down wins against the 'new' sides as almost certain victories.

The good news is that if you're keen on hiding behind excuses we had an ok one today in the loss of Clark and Davey during the week and Jamar/Jones before the match. If you're going with that defence then you've got my best wishes because you do have a point BUT in the interests of looking towards next year and the near future I'm choosing to gloss over that and concentrate on the fact that even when they were in we were carrying at least half a team of players who aren't capable of helping drag a club to its feet and that has next to no obvious depth now that injuries have started to bite.

Of course we were all foolishly seduced by a handful of encouraging performances, if you didn't take any good sign you could get as a footy fan you'd end up banging off the walls in a mental aslyum, but surely we were insane to think that the loss of Clark alone wasn't going to pitch us back into the bottom division of the Laughing Stock League. Then take out our only proper ruckman and best midfielder (by our standards) as well and we were always going to be back above only the heartless corporate franchises in that famous league. Back where we belong I'd say.

At least Jones is allegedly only out for a week (how many times have we heard that and not seen the person again for six months?) but it's going to become very obvious, very quickly if it hasn't already how much Clark's mystery foot injury is going to damage any chance we've got of putting together decent scores or springing anything but the most unlikely of upsets for the rest of the year. Not just because he's the only decent forward we've got and our best crumber (which reflects more poorly on the rest of the list and recruiting than anything else) but also our next best option as a ruckman. Which is fine when Jamar's playing, but when he's one of the mystery outs then the fact that Mitch is everything to everyone becomes even more evident.

We were also denied the sub-plot of the Clark return to the Gabba after that brief, financially driven unpleasantness last year but I don't expect Lions fans would care that much considering he was leaving anyway so what did they care where he ended up? More likely that Freo fans would be booing if they hadn't set themselves on fire at having to put up with Ross Lyon's coaching. Either way it wouldn't have had any of the entertainment value of the carnival of hatred last week, but I guess old mate with the $6 mil in his bank account had the last laugh there as well when fate's sniper bullet whizzed past him and hit the other 'controversial highly paid recruit' instead.

So the man who does it all (including often turning up in the backline when all else is lost) is gone and we mourn his loss for the rest of the year with a river of tears, but it's no excuse for everyone else to give up as well - and that includes the coaching staff. Ok, so you've got three absolute first choice players out of the side and another who had just put in a decent performance - albeit against a team 78 points shitter than us - and you've been forced out of necessity to play The Spencil for the first time since Round 14, 2010, four games off a serious knee injury but what in the name of dutch buggery were they doing with Watts in the first quarter?

I don't know whether I'm getting everything arse around, and this is one of the times you'd love to be able to fire a few questions off at the press conference, but are we grooming Watts to become a killer, key position full back anytime soon? I wouldn't have thought so. I thought he was just down there because a) he was learning how to play as a forward or more likely b) because he's the only 'defender' we've got who can be relied upon to hit a target by foot more than 50% of the time - not because we're about to throw Frawley into the 'forward line' (or what we pass off as one) experiment and need Watts to line up on Jack Riewoldt next week.

I'll be charitable and say that it was a genuine attempt at some sort of tactical genius, and that both the mystery outs were legitimate rather than the product of realising we could finish about Footscray if they keep playing like they have been for the last month but I doubt others will be so kind. Doesn't really matter if it wasn't because you can get away with murder in this competition and nobody will bat an eyelid - but you'd want to watch out that you don't give the league any chance to take your draft picks away and give them to Gold Coast to try and prop them up for a few more weeks.

With a couple of minor exceptions I've been an unashamed Neeld fan from day 1, and the Watts vs Brown debacle is going right up there with Clark into the ruck when we were in the game against Hawthorn at the top of the list of things he's done to give me the shits in terrific fashion. That's fine, life would be very boring if you agreed with everything the coaches do, but I'm cracking the sads about it now. Everything else about the game was so boring and forgettable that I expect I'll have forgotten by this time tomorrow.

Assuming everything pre-match was legitimate you can't blame the coaches for some of the circumstances. They couldn't help three key senior players going down before the match, including your best midfielder and only proper ruckman, and they couldn't help that Tom McDonald became the latest victim of the MFC Media Attention curse five minutes in the first quarter but fark me to a standstill who thought playing a non-defender on Jonathan Brown was a good idea? It was up there with Fev on Fraser Gehrig without the all important element of being designed as a humiliating punishment. And was about equally as successful. Ironically enough the day that happened we played and lost at the Gabba and I went out afterwards and got absolutely off my tits with a complete stranger.

The shambles of a matchup was hardly Watts' fault, considering that's not where he's meant to be playing and nobody else seemed very interested in giving him a hand, but those last two goals of the first quarter absolutely knifed us after we'd scrapped so hard to get back into the game in the middle of the quarter. I don't care if we're rubbish this year, any benefits he was going to get for the future from being beaten up by a gigantic man are negligible compared to the chance for the side to play properly and get some more confidence into the side. Our chances of getting out of the bottom three are almost nil if Footscray can win one more game so let's be serious.

And what a scrap it was to get back into it. Nothing gets done easily around here. Even when we were doing alright moving the ball around, which didn't last long, the whole quarter's attacking effort was just hoofing it to the top of the square and hoping that a forward line including three (3) defenders and more often than not The Spencil would somehow prevail. It didn't. The fact that we got in any way 'back into it' midway through the quarter was a testament to the fact that they we got it in there so many times, not to having any decent targets to kick at OR the ability to kick it decently at the non-decent targets.

You're never going to beat any half decent side playing like unless they have the foulest of off-nights and forget how to kick straight like Essendon. It now appears that Brisbane are actually quite good (well, better than us at least) and crucially were taking their chances when we laid them out on a platter so none of the elements for an upset were present and from when that last goal of the first quarter went through the result was only going to go one way.

I'd have thought that the grim struggle that was our attempts to kick goals might have convinced them to give Watts another go up front. We were certainly never going to win spending ten minutes pushing forward towards our line like trench warfare only to bleed goals out of the centre 45 seconds after kicking one. Watts was still pretty good for the rest of the game and is a far better competitor than anyone who doesn't follow us gives him credit for but they've got rocks in their head if they think that first quarter shambles did anything for his 'development' as a forward - and that our barely functioning forward line was doing anything for the confidence of the players in it or the ones kicking at it.

We all got a bit excited by tonking some rubbish last week but clearly it's not as easy to get a run on against a real side as it is against a bunch of kids and broken down ex-stars - and for all our dominance in the middle of the first quarter it can't be hidden that the goals came from Blease hoofing one from distance, a scrambled goal by noted non-forward Jordie McKenzie and finally a Sylvia mark totally outstretched over his head rather than from any sort of decent kick/lead interface. If we couldn't score with that much service when were we ever going to? So why not try a guy who has previously taken a few good contested marks up forward, and has been taking them in the backline for the last month, up front and see what happens? Once you're five goals down you're not going to win without kicking goals so when you get to that point and it's obviously not going to be a high scoring shootout let's tear open the famous Plan B envelope.

Considering who we were missing it was hardly the recipe for a high scoring game anyway but any danger of making it interesting? Obviously not when they blew us away in the second quarter in the face of token resistance and a forward structure which seemed to expect Magner to be taking huge pack marks as if he was Jeremy Howe while everyone else who could possibly play the role of a marking forward (e.g Jeremy Howe) was strung out around the ground being run off their legs by Brisbane players.

Just the two behinds in the second quarter then. Another exciting day for the dwindling contingent of Melbourne fans everywhere. Garland and Rivers tried hard up front but neither of them is going to kick more than one or two goals a week against sides who aren't absolute garbage so unless we can find some other options it's going to get ugly as the weeks go on. There will be a queue of people from here to Mildura to kick Matthew Bate for not getting a touch in the first quarter, and that's fine but how good were his contested marks at the end of the game? Could he not have been played at FF at some point? He's never going to kick ten but at least unlike Rivers it's his natural habitat - same with Dunn who was just wandering around down back doing nothing in particular when he's one of the few players we've got who, on his day, can lead out and kick goals. Surely he's a better option than Tapscott? There's been experimental and there's being too experimental. Even if Tapscott did rort the umpire into giving him a terrible free in the first quarter he did very little else, and if there's no spot for him in the backline then he's got to go back to Casey. He's young, he'll get many more chances.

But why would you have anybody who can lead in our forward line? They'd feel well out of place. It's no wonder that on the rare occasion somebody does get out on a lead that the ball is booted over his head, because nobody ever expects them to be leading in the first place. Either that or they're leading out to the boundary line and either marking 65m out on the fence or having it kicked out on the full at their feet. If you're going to have bandaid solutions like Bail and Magner down there they have to lead because they're not going to take huge pack marks - and there's no bloody point booting it on top of their head with two defenders all over them.

Rivers and Garland too might have had their successes over the last few weeks but they're fill-ins at the moment. Garland is probably more chance of playing down there long term than Rivers, and probably will for the rest of the year, but unless we can develop some other options OR find another way of creating chances then we'll be back to kicking five goals a week for the rest of the year and maybe racking up a couple of decent scores against GWS and Gold Coast if we're lucky.

The fact that we had more inside 50's and had our score doubled should scare everyone. Imagine what happens on the days we play really good teams and can't get it forward? If the rest of this year is anything to go by there's only one thing we're doing if it's not scoring - and that's conceding. Ok if you're comfortable with ten goal losses but there are a lot better teams than Brisbane going around and we could concede a lot more, a lot more quickly if we're not careful.

We got the first goal of the third quarter to at least stay within miracle distance but in true MFC fashion that drought breaking goal - our first since 20 minutes into the first quarter - was followed by one at the other end seconds later. For the second time this year Pearce Hanley was taking the piss out of us kicking goals on the run and generally playing like the sort of fully developed, quality footballer that we can't even find within Australia let alone plucking from far away lands.

It can't hurt Brisbane's kids that they're surrounded by the likes of Black, Brown and up until this year Luke Power - champion players who will perform week in, week out even as all is crumbling around them. We just don't have any of those and no bloody wonder that the fringe players struggle to do anything in that environment. You don't have to have won a premiership to achieve that status, and you don't have to be an absolute champion of the game like Matthew Pavlich, but oh for one lone superstar who can inspire those around him to better things or just do it himself if nobody else will. How do Collingwood get away with playing Jamie Elliot, Simon Buckley, Jackson Paine, Marley Williams and Caolan Mooney in the same side? Because they're surrounded by champions. If you put those five (actually I don't want Buckley back, make it four) into our side they'd be wandering around looking stupid and hoofing it straight out on the full with every touch.

No shit we haven't got the senior players to carry kids and hacks and still win ten in a row but have we got senior players who can carry anything? Not without Clark, Jamar and Jones in the side and with Moloney still suffering a mystery drop in form of epic fashion. We all hope that Watts, Grimes, Trengove, Jack Viney and [compensation picks x2] will do it in the future, but if they don't then we'll be having the same conversation in five years time while the club slowly bleeds to death.

Back in the present junk time was duly declared halfway through the third quarter and truth be told I lost complete interest in what was going on. Sat there watching the whole thing but it was just so terrible it was hard to take an interest - the only legitimate highlight of the last three quarters was the The SME roving his own tap in the centre and going forward in a fashion that would have made the commentators whack off openly if he was Nic Nat.

He was bloody good too The Experience (relatively speaking anyway). I'm not just saying this because he's my favourite player but he was one of the few proper winners we had this afternoon. The quicker we can team him up with Jamar again the better because not having that proper second option has killed us this year, and he's just a smart player. No superstar by any stretch but he knows what to do when the ball is around. Certainly a better option as a ruckman than The Spencil, who might try his heart out but is just not good enough and will almost certainly be given the boot at the end of the year. I'd rather have gone with SME/Sellar as a stop gap combination and, god forbid, picked Bennell instead.

Watts was good too once he was played properly (i.e not on a power forward), you can at least rely on him to have a go in the backline when its under siege for most of the game and the ball is coming in without the slightest bit of pressure on the kicker. What he is not though is the kind of guy to back into a pack with Brown/Franklin/etc.. bearing down on him at a million miles an hour. No drama with that, not everyone is going to be.

There weren't many other winners to be honest. I was happy with Blease's performance coming on as the sub and Nicholson was pretty good too given that he's a fringe player who can run quickly but not kick it properly but most of the others were decidedly average. How many of the people playing today are going forward in their career, how many are standing still and how many are going backwards?

I don't know what's wrong with them other than that too many of them just aren't good enough or are carrying some sort of mystery ailment (physical or mental) which is affecting them. You can't blame a guy like Spencer who was really there a'la Nick Smith in the Freo final because we were perceived to have nothing else but they've got to work out what's wrong with Moloney, because at the moment he's not doing anything that makes him worth signing again even if he wants to stay. I'd love to keep him but they won't be able to justify paying him anything decent, unless it's a one year golden handshake to get us up to the minimum salary cap when we miss out on signing a gun free agent. If he needs to pull out of this year and get himself right to play for us next season then do it, there's nothing to lose. Alternatively if he's going to go then he can keep driving his price down on a weekly basis for all I care.

Trengove also keeps just hanging on. Love the guy with all of it but reckon he'd get dropped if he wasn't captain. Not the first young player to have a drop in form but I'm not even sure what role he's supposed to be playing at the moment - while we're so keen on 'experimenting' for better or worse how about playing him out of the middle and if he gets battered so be it. There's no point just having him wandering around a half back flank doing nothing like he is at the moment.

What a bad week. It hurts when you have all your key flaws exposed at the same time. Plenty of work to be done before next Saturday or Richmond are going to shamefully flog us. Let's move straight onto that one and forget this ever existed. Just like how Geelong have probably forgotten half of the wins that got them to the point they're at now (allegedly about to topple, though we've heard that before) this gets filed alongside so many other disappointing games during our dark ages - another loss when we weren't expected to win, another day with only a handful of highlights by which to remember it. Burn the tapes.

2012 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
Yet another week where ten players could have scored a vote but none could really honestly say they deserved it.

5 - Stefan Martin
4 - Jack Watts
3 - Colin Sylvia
2 - Daniel Nicholson
1 - Sam Blease

Apologies to Jordie McKenzie (next cab off the rank) then daylight to the next level apologies for Macdonald, Bate (last three quarters only), Sellar, Garland, Rivers and Frawley - none of whom went anywhere near getting a vote.

Leaderboard
Watts closes the gap on Jones to just under five BOGs but the leader isn't going to be out forever so I can see the Jakovich winner being provisionally crowned in the next two weeks at this rate. The only thing missing the game has done is stuff up his chance of smashing the all time record for votes in a season.

Elsewhere it's cruel for Jamar to be leapt over in the Stynes voting by the Stefan Martin Experience after one performance but as has been pointed out many times before, the best way to take home one on the minor awards on this site is to be the least worst in a shit performance a couple of times rather than the sixth best in a cracker. It's not fair, but if life was fair Murray Wrensted would have kicked the goal that put Melbourne out of the '88 finals and I'd be following another side right now.

Also Rivers is officially DQ'ed from the Seecamp for playing forward too much so Grimes takes the lead despite the fact that tonight he couldn't have hit the side of a barn by foot or hand.

38 - Nathan Jones
20 - Jack Watts
19 - Mitch Clark
14 - Jeremy Howe
13 - James Magner (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year)
12 - Jordie McKenzie
10 - Jack Grimes (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Jared Rivers
9 - Tom McDonald
8 - Matthew Bate, Stefan Martin (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
5 - Clint Bartram, James Frawley, Sam Blease
4 - Jack Trengove, Brent Moloney
3 - Mark Jamar, Colin Sylvia
2 - Daniel Nicholson
1 - Rohan Bail, Sam Blease, James Sellar

MFC Facebook Comment of the Week

I'm no bloody good at using Facebook anymore (too old, too many changes to the way it works and timelines can piss right off) but it seems like they didn't even bother to open a thread for people to whinge in today. I'd turn to Twitter for the madness but really other than the people who write to @melbournefc as if it's Mark Neeld reading it and not some poor, underpaid club employee people weren't saying anything that I haven't - just with a few more obscenities. So, for this week I suppose the nutbags have won.

Crowd Watch
I stayed home and yelled obscenities at the television on my own. It's the only way to watch a game if you're not at it, but my god is there any danger that Channel 7 could provide coverage that doesn't look like you're watching from the Canary Islands with a coat hanger for an antenna? Was there something wrong with my television? I've watched a lot of games on Channel 7 this year and don't remember any of them being that unwatchable, especially from long shots where it looked more like a Commodore 64 game than a 21st century sporting broadcast.

It was as watchable as the one and only time I've resorted to an illicit internet rebroadcast of one of our games - with the difference being that I was watching it on an HD TV and not through a browser window with randomly pop up ads for casinos and porn sites.

The quality of the picture was so bad it deserved a commentary team featuring Dwayne Russell and Tony Shaw or the Channel 7 version of horror featuring Hamish McLachlan. We got Bruce/Dennis and Leigh Matthews and they duly delivered the appropriate level of slop by sleazily talking about 50 Shades of Grey (note for future readers, a soft porn paperback beloved by housewives) as if they were panting, raincoated perverts hanging around the Shaft cinema.

I don't blame them for losing interest in a terrible game but maybe something had been said in the AFL Media Association hot tub during the week because in the two quarters I watched of the Geelong vs Port game Dwayne was not heard to scream one foolish catchphrase or declare any inside 50 to be a 'chaos ball'. Which is a first. Maybe they cut a deal that for one week only Bruce and Dennis would talk about anything but football and Dwayne would actually call a game. Apparently the BT/Luke Darcy self-promotional team of terrific wankers weren't involved in these discussions because they carried on last night like pissheads sitting in a shed regardless of the fact that 300,000 odd people were watching.

Next Week
Casey were absolutely flogged on Saturday so I suspect - not having actually been there - that nobody's an absolute certainty BUT even assuming the three mystery injuries become mysteriously uninjured and that McDonald is still driving back to Melbourne next Saturday afternoon (stopping at the Holbrook submarine) I must have Lucas Cook in this team now even if he only half deserves it.

Chances are Richmond are still better than us even if they're not the next big thing that everyone thought a month ago, so let's not get too horny over the Rivers/Garland experiment when there's a potential future player waiting in the wings. He might not come in and dominate straight off but it's hardly a comedy selection a'la Tony Notte for the Eagles that time we thrashed them at the 'G and Morton went wild (hey kids, both these things actually happened). Given that we're playing for 15th at best the time is now. If Jamar can't come back for any reason at least the Experience can play first ruck and Cook can have a bash at being a target. Odds are he'll storm off 20 minutes into the first quarter after having had 50 decent leads ignored a'la Watts when he played forward last year.

Otherwise I'm not particularly keen on anybody else. As much as I'd like to bring back Petterd, if Gold Coast aren't ringing him up every week and suggesting that he comes home then they're even more stupid than originally thought. Still a great man but I've all but given up on him coming back for more than one or two more token matches before we get a third round pick for him. Wish him all the best in his future endeavours, may he smash us like a guitar at some point.

IN: Cook, Davey, Jamar, Jones
OUT: McDonald (inj), Spencer, Bail, Tapscott (omit)

Final Thoughts
Circumstances are conspiring against the stirring second half of the year revival that we're all hoping for (well I am at least) but a lot of players are going to have the proverbial papers stamped in the next few weeks. You can't get rid of everybody but you can play a lot of them in the reserves every week until their contracts run out.

Fear and Loathing in the Olympic Stand

This post is dedicated to Mitch Clark's foot, news of which came through during its preparation. Only we could find a full forward who is also our best crumber and then lose him for half the year anyway. Now we've got two spots for replacements to fail in.

Additionally this post is very much unedited and as such may contain foul spelling, appalling grammar and the now traditional randomly ending paragraphs. List errors in the comments, on Twitter or via email and I'll fix them eventually.

And now, a massage from the Swedish Prime Minister...

What were the odds that the one day in over 20 years of watching this wretched club on which invective (great word) and outright hatred (of a sporting nature, which is far more gentle - in this country at least) were going to 'distract' me from the game even more so than usual that I would end up suffering a debacle with contact lenses that would render most of the game beyond the forward 50 at the Punt Road end so much of a blur that to properly make out what was going on I had to follow it on the big screen. I imagine that's what it's like to be one of these people to show up pissed off their nut after sampling every pub in Richmond before the game but it wasn't for me - even if I spent most of the day yelling out any sort of random shit as if I was actually some cheap wino in an SME jumper.

Usually I listen to the radio, but given the choice between trying to follow exactly what was happening or just concentrating on hurling mostly unjustified abuse at a 20-year-old I opted for the latter. God forbid the grandkids ever read this (or have it read to them? Hey kids, want to hear a bedtime story about Round 19 2011? You'll NEVER guess how it ends) I would like to stress to them that as a responsible adult that the futility of it all is quite clear. But as a significantly less responsible 30-year-old it was one of the great days out.

To be entirely honest instead of trying to follow what was actually happening I just yelled out the word FILTH a lot, heard some kids swear far more than I did and went spaz whenever we kicked a goal. For that reason this may end up as the most disappointing Demonblog post since the day Jamar kicked five, causing me to enter a state of shock and just post a photo of him alongside the photes BUT does anybody really give half a toss about the method of victory? I'm prepared to sit down at some point when I have a couple of hours free and enjoy the replay for analytical and crowd shenanigan purposes but the overwhelming emotion is relief that we got the four points and avoided adding yet another moment of shame to the long, terrifyingly bleak history of the Melbourne Football Club (including pretty much everything from the 1880's to now with the exception of the 25 years between 1939 and 1964).

It could very well have ended in disaster though. I'll freely admit that when they kicked those first two goals I was not so quietly shitting it about the prospect of people called Whiley (who?), Darley (WHO?) and Hombsch (you're taking the piss) chairing $cully off the ground as he triumphantly turned the tables on fans by stuffing money down their throats and laughing heartily like he was Ted DiBiase and/or Scrooge McDuck.

But they'd done this before, and as previous identified they'd put in their two worst performances of the year against sides well down the ladder. Mind you if there's any club standing ready, willing and able to botch it against a makeshift side it's us. Nevertheless with that in mind, and the fact that their second halves are scientifically proven to be even worse than ours (and whisper it quietly we've still only won one final term this year), I could handle running away with it in the second half after giving them a start. If I absolutely had to. Thank christ then for Mitch Clark (*sob*) and Rivers who kicked a full house between and almost single handedly broke their resistance.

For this was not just a matter of winning or avoiding an epic debacle my friends, but it was a life and death struggle to avoid giving that two faced turncoat the chance to run a lap of honour at the end of the game waving two fingers above his head and crying with laughter as he hands over $1500 for a $900 fine and tells Demetriou to keep the change before they join their respective fortunes together in order to buy a controlling share in The Age.

Sadly when there's a guy going home with $6 million in the bank (and guess what AFL members, you're helping pay that) then it doesn't really matter what the result on the scoreboard is because he's beaten us all. But at least we can delay the inevitable rubbing of our nose in the pile of shit he's left behind for a few more weeks/years.

For there is no doubt that the GWS Giants will eventually go supernova. Even if Cameron, Coniglio et al don't turn out to be capable of getting the job done and commentators whopping off over the chance to scream "THE GENERAL!!!1!1!" every time Patton walks within 50km of an AFL venue becomes a distant memory there's not much chance the league are going to let their prized investment flounder without giving it every possible to succeed via every loophole and rort in the book. If it's too remarkable a plan to pull off without looking shonky they'll put it to the clubs and strongarm them into voting for it or be given 11 home games at 2.20 on Wednesday afternoons. In Cambodia. Democracy will get the Giants over the line one way or another.

Somebody's going to have to take the role of responsibility of slaying this dragon, so who better than us? After all Sheedy and one of their marquee players already hate us so why not introduce some element of success into it, even if by then Sheeds will realise his headset isn't plugged in and Choco will be revealed to be the man pulling the strings the whole time while the ex-'coach' is carted off to an asylum for people who were famous in the last century.

What it will take for this to occur is for us to break the habit of a lifetime and draft some quality with the - admittedly over the top - compo that we've been given c/o that kid who everyone hates. At least if they turn up and are actually good we'll have something tangible to see as the result of wasting two years and a bunch of medical bills on that kid when he had NO INTEREST. He'll always be filth but while his wallet is keeping him warm at night the best revenge we can have is to live well.

It's a shame they had to give over half the league to these new teams because usually I'd much rather see some interstate club was no local fans winning flags so I don't have to hear about it. I don't hold the $cully debacle against them personally because it was very much the obvious thing to do but I really think either giving them half the draft + all these 'mini draft' scam inventions would have sufficed without opening up the uncontracted player smorgasboard as well. So stuff them, until which time they're the Canberra Giants and the Tasmanian Suns I will consider it a grave insult to the club to lose to them at any time.

So basically if we'd have been done over yesterday I'd have spent the next hour with my head on the seat in front of me openly crying like the MFC supporting, apparently private school tie wearing ponce that I am. So yes, thank the good lord for Clark (*sigh*) and Rivers (!) who made up the most bizarre but successful forward combination in history. Admittedly they were playing against the team who let Harry Taylor kick six so maybe Riv was a bit under par but after four goals in eight and a half seasons (one of them last week) I'll take it.

When it was looking decidedly ropey early on it was no surprise that you know who was playing out of his skin. As you would in that scenario with the best part of 20,000 people questioning your parentage (as in "haven't you had enough to eat sir?" #obligatoryfatgag) and no house mic to grab and remind everyone in attendance that he could have us all killed and still buy half of West Sydney. He wasn't alone either, once we got the ball into their backline they had absolutely no bloody idea how to cope with it but it was a matter of getting it down there in the first place.

The cruellest aspect of the Clark injury (and where in the name of dutch buggery did the foot go?) was that the way he was going he'd have kicked at least, AT LEAST, eight or nine. We have been denied a decent bag for so long (and correct me if I'm wrong but has anyone kicked even six since Neitz got eight against St Kilda in '06? Certainly not seven. And eight is just a pipe dream around these parts. CORRECTION DULY MADE - I forgot about Robbo kicking 7 against the Pies on QB 2007 and having a beer can piffed at him from the crowd at the final siren) that it wouldn't have mattered if it came with a gigantic asterix that directs you to a footnote reading AGAINST A TEAM WITH NO INTEREST IN WINNING. It would still have been glorious. Now all of a sudden he's finished for the year and we're left with the prospect of Garland and Rivers as our 'experienced' key position forwards for the rest of the season. No doubt they'll have a good old fashioned bash but it's hardly Franklin/Roughead '08 is it? It's barely Miller/Wonaeamirri '08.

At this point in the chronological order of the game though Clark was still wandering free and smashing down defenders like Godzilla rampaging through Tokyo - and thank christ we eventually started getting it down there enough to make a difference. After kindly letting Mr X wander around and do as he liked for most of the first quarter he finally copped the J. McKenzie treatment and was - to glorious catcalls - forced to spend the rest of the game doing dinky little handballs and never standing still long enough to give the crowd the chance to call him a scumbag en masse.

Conceding five goals in a quarter to this lot was a worry, but the proof was there that even after giving them the start we could still manage six - and any team who cops six goals from us in a quarter without it a) being junktime or b) the prelude to them running over the top of us out of revenge is not going to hang around long enough to make things interesting. Of course nothing ever happens around these parts easily though, so once we had settled the nerves and re-taken the lead our glorious rampaging victory was again thrown into question by conceding the next three goals.

And what easily scored goals they were too. Shit marking inside forward 50 didn't help, nor did the fact that nobody could hit the target by hand to save themselves while they were running around with all the enthusiasm of a bunch of kids let loose on the MCG for a casual kickaround - which is a pretty accurate summary of what they're good for at the moment.

My theory that they had/have absolutely no interest in winning this week/finishing above us was starting to look shaky, even after it had been made absolutely bloody clear via the move of 'resting' Cornes and starting Power as the sub. Were we about to cop the same sort of treatment as when Gary Ablett doesn't play for Gold Coast and they almost win only for him to come back and have the team get flogged? Hardly, nerves at the prospect of being involved in a sad, shameful moment aside the whole thing was so well scripted that Vince McMahon should have been made their inaugural chairman.

Not playing two 'older' players is obviously a perfectly sensible move if you're looking five years down the track, as they should, but it's football suicide when you're in a very much winnable game against a team who are psychologically just holding on most of the time. Any interest in taking advantage of our wayward nature to open up a two game break on the Suns? I seriously doubt it when they could roll on through the next few weeks, get to Round 20 against the (surely not) winless Suns and suffer a shock loss them which drops them to the bottom on percentage and delivers the #1 pick. It would hard for a Melbourne fan to point the finger at anybody else for draft tampering so good luck to them if that's the plan - it helped us get a morale boosting four points and with any luck they'll accidentally draft some total mental case who causes the whole place to cave in via his insane, possibly drug induced antics.

Anyway, back to the present. Which is to say back to late Sunday afternoon, in a timeslot beloved by none other than TV executives. It reminded me of another poorly scheduled Sunday game ruined by Channel 7, when we played our first game against Gold Coast at the Gabba. Luckily I was there and didn't have to wait for the delayed telecast (nevertheless, you're all bastards) but it was a lot like what we were served up at the MCG. The order of which quarter they ran the white flag up in might have been different but the overall concept was generally the same - "Plucky" young team gives plenty early, we all panic prematurely, before the good guys ease away to a 'huge' win which is nice at the time but you know you'd never have gotten against the 15 real teams in the competition. You take it and move on while the media are frantically trying to spin new ways in which to tell us about the coming of the glorious AFL approved franchise era.

We still weren't operating much better than one park team beating another but thanks to Jamar getting on top and the midfield finally managing to get some clearances two goals in the first three minutes of the second quarter pretty much did it. All of a sudden they're the ones playing like Melbourne and shitting themselves whenever the ball goes inside their defensive 50, and for once we were taking advantage of it. How very much like us to bully a team down on their luck before presumably being smacked upside the head next week.

While it appeared that the now traditional 2012 GWS third quarter collapse had come early it was no time to start taking the piss. At least until we'd crossed the fabled Chris Sullivan Line, but try telling that to Garland and Jamar who botched near certainties by playing on after marks in the square. Surely even they can kick it from there? At least the umpire absolutely lost his mind in almost criminal fashion and failed to call play on after the Russian turned around and took an air swing so vicious it was heard from here to Vladivostok. If that had happened against us the internet would have melted. He's got form too, I remember him trying to play on from a foot out against Hawthorn once in the same goal-square and stuffing it up.

By half time it was, thankfully, all but over and we could relax. We might never beat them again so you've got to enjoy it, and the only silver lining to the Clark injury was that Blease was forced to come on which negated any chance of him pulling off the heel turn of the millenium by tearing the green vest off without permission, charging into the middle of the ground and calling for a head count before taking his MFC jumper off to reveal a GWS one underneath before warmly embracing $cully as the MCC Members collapses under the weight of people charging to the fence to throw things at them.

Not only did he resist the urge to 'go early' on his projected GWS turn but he also decided to up his asking price by a few bucks by kicking the third in his career trilogy of outrageous goals on the run from the boundary line. Before he goes (and no doubt that you're reading, so may I say you are more than welcome to stay) let's just have one normal goal? Imagine if Nic Nat had kicked those three, they'd be erecting statues down the streets of every major city in Australia. Unheralded Melbourne players, on the other hand, can boot them out of their arse at a 100% career strike rate and it's TS for them.

It might have taken us more than five minutes to score, thus not adding to our frankly shithouse 2.4.16 in the opening minutes of Q3 this year (but at least we didn't concede either..) but from there on it was party time. Old mate with the bulging bank balance was absolutely nowhere to be seen, Junior McDonald kept running past us and receiving deservedly warm applause and for the first time since R8, 2006 (which is not quite as historically impressive a gap as I'd hoped) we kept a team scoreless for an entire quarter. At least $cully hasn't lost that one trait that is burnt into the soul of almost every Melbourne player of the last five years, going completely missing when the team starts to fall apart.

Let's not be too harsh though, you'd hate to judge a top draft pick in his first fifty games would you you? Unless you're the media or any other living organism (yes I've been involved. ONCE OR TWICE) and the subject is Jack Watts. In that case swing for the fences. He was good again, and this time it looked like it was more than just floating around the back picking up cheap ones. On a day where even Lynden freaking Dunn was taking kick-ins (and what a kick in it was) we didn't even need him to get us out of jail after a point. Mainly because they didn't kick any for about an hour. How good were his contested marks? He just knows where to go, and while I hope he can go forward and kick a few goals again at some point I'd be equally happy if he just became a contested mark wrecking machine across half-back with above average ability (adjusted for MFC players) to be able to find targets. How good was the kick to Trengove? It's all got the AGAINST SHIT TEAM asterix against it still but I'll take it for now - one wonky performance against Collingwood aside he's done it well against good teams too.

Speaking of Dunn it was nice to see both he and Bate freed from the horrors of wearing the green vest 'o doom and given the chance to play four quarters. Neither of them may do anything against decent sides but at least they were given the chance and delivered on the day. This is what I loathe about the sub rule - how can we properly assess these fringe players if they're either coming on or going off halfway through games every week. Either that or running around desperately trying to save themselves so they're not the next ones subbed out and on their way to Casey.

I don't give a toss about heavily massaged injury figures or the league's desire to sell every last aspect of the game to sponsors - I want to see the players who are selected play. Sadly it's here to stay, and we'll be lucky if it's not greatly expanded just to give them more opportunities to sell advertising, but for better or worse I'll go to my grave despising it and the people who forced it upon us.

There might be an upside though, and that's when the sub has been completed and guys like Bate and Dunn are no longer looking over to the bench every twenty seconds to see if the red vest is being prepared they can play fearlessly. I really enjoyed Bate's game - he doesn't really do anything that damaging with the ball when he gets it but I just love the way he's always in there trying to make something happen. Of course he might be doing it because he's fully aware that he'll be off at the end of the season and is trying to build up a nice highlights package for other clubs but even if it just benefits us in the short term I'll take it - and I'll be legitimately sad when he leaves and there's no longer a dead ringer for the Demonblog mascot in our team.

In a way it's sad that we failed to really ram home our superiority in the last quarter and bring up a triple digit win (I suspect the calls for 187 around me at three-quarter time weren't obscure rap references) but it wasn't for want of trying. Nobody really took their foot off the gas any more than you'd expect and we kept getting it down there only for foul kicking and the absence of somebody guaranteed to skittle everybody in a pack en route to a mark stopping us from belting them.

Speaking of wasted chances can somebody sit Jeremy Howe down and show him a video of the set shots in his first few games? Because since halfway through the West Coast McGinnity vs Petterd match at Docklands he's had the ghost of Earl Spalding hovering over his head. He's come ahead in leaps and bounds in every other aspect of his game this year but he's got to get that right, we can afford to scrub chances in rubbish games like this but one day it's going to come in crucial.

All in all a good day out. The players were chummy with you know who after the match but that was all to be expected so it couldn't ruin my enjoyment of the day. Also the sight of $cully smiling broadly (no really) with Sylvia after losing by 78 points would have sent Luke Darcy running off down the street in tears so that's a good thing as well.

What a shame then that the day was tainted by such foul and disgusting crowd behaviour. Which brings us neatly to a segment that has been promoted above the votes for the first time in history:

Crowd Watch
Forget everything that happened above, that was just contractual obligation stuff, the real action was off field and can I say that was absolutely proud as punch at the amount of effort our lot put into the theatre of the Carnival of Hatred. There's not much time before free agency ushers in an era where we'll expect players to lie to our collective faces so at least we got to give it to one treacherous dog before everybody becomes one.

Given that the target of the Carnival probably didn't even know it was taking place at least we proved in a small, insignificant way that not every Melbourne fan is a pip-pip style Scotch Old Boy (in fact there's been no sign of that stereotype being true since we wheeled their band out at Queen's Birthday) and that there are actually, god forbid, passionate people who care about the club and want to make a statement. It was, however, a nice touch that they did get some teenage hooligans waving legitimate 50's around so that it is perfectly clear to everyone else that we're supported by future captains of industry.

Also let it be noted that nobody visibly went over the top and disgraced themselves or the club. A couple of banners got the arse, old mate with the cash stapled to his jacket got harassed by security and more than a few people probably swore like a sailor for the first time in their life. The Giants coach (road, actual or Sheedy) didn't get bricked, nobody ran on the field and tried to crash tackle the star of the show and none of the banners just flat out called him a crunt. Also despite the best efforts of SEN caller 'Harro' to try and discredit us by claiming that he'd seen somebody gobbing on the Giants players in the race nobody was seen by the million cameras hocking a giant loogie at them. And rightly so too, we might have been having our big day out but there's no need to cede the moral highground of not being a bunch of scumbags just yet. Save some up in case you need it later.

If I missed anyone's antics let me know, but for the historical record there was at least the following

- "Tom Scully #1 PRICK"
- The one about him saying he hadn't signed
- YOU LIED TO JIM over the race at the end
- Old mate and his dollar bill suit
- Custom money being piffed around
- Legitimate money being waved about

and last but not least all sorts of foul abuse - often delivered by children which was heartwarming. What a huge week it must have been for manchester sales. There were a couple of signs being hoisted in the outer too but I couldn't read anything unless it was written in large font on a bedsheet.

In the interests of fairness the MCG were good enough to zoom right in on a kid holding up an "I HEART TOM SCULLY" sign before the match just to try and make us look bad for slaughtering a little kid's idol. Shame the kid was probably handed it two seconds before the cameras were turned on.

Oh, and there was also this.


Mum will be so proud, it's taken a decade but I've finally beaten my record for closest to a Herald Sun front page (record previously set at page 14). At least this time the family name wasn't disgraced with me being named as responsible for writing something scandalous online (no really. Nothing to do with footy either). If you remember me for nothing else once I'm gone - presumably stone dead in my seat after we lose a Grand Final by a point - let that picture frame your mental image of me, caught doing what I loved best, abusing $cully while paying silent tribute to obscure 90's wrestlers and holding up the end of somebody else's banner while a poor baffled man and his kid wonder why the photographer is taking shots of them. I'm glad for his sake they cropped him out in the paper so he didn't get banned by the wife from ever taking the kid to a game again.

I'm more than aware that I ended up looking like an absolute plonker, including to the TV audience apparently, but it's better than having everybody you know tell you that they saw your on television making an arse of yourself. Happy to admit it was me, happy for you to see my face any other time if you're particuarly keen but let's keep it off of the historical record for now shall we?

Thanks to the great Biffinator off BigFooty for providing said banner, and for allowing me to claim it as the new crown jewel in the burgeoning Demonblog Hall of Fame and memorabilia collection. I also came home with this one, which I assume was just abusing his dad for being a fat porky. Which is ok because I'm one too, and us people should stick together - possibly at Sizzler.

I didn't even know what it said when I hoisted it so thank god it wasn't tremendously abusive. Either way both are safe with me in the Towers and they'll be ready to be dragged out and looked at in the future. God knows what I'll do with it until then but maybe if we win something someday we can get them out and have a good laugh. Maybe $cully will sign it once he's come out and apologised and we're all friends? Don't hold your breath.

It was truly a joyous day, but the irony can't have been lost on many that the AFL - on the day where heartless capitalism was firmly annointed as the norm in their code - booted the Auskick kids off the ground at half time for a 'demonstration' of the modified nine-a-side game that they've invented to try and flog the sport to Concerned Of Campbelltown who is terrified that little Jimmy will have his ears torn off in a rugby scrum.

Unfortunately I missed most of this exciting exhibition due to being in the bathroom trying to take a whizz while being told off for it having no meaning by a guy in a comedy red and blue dreadlock wig. Hardly the sort who should be pointing figures at pointless fashion gestures I'd have thought.

Sadly if the kids sitting next to us were anything to go by, the payoff for cancelling the Little League was to buy three rows for the jilted children, load them up with sugar and tell them to go wild for the Giants. Good for them, I'd probably have done the same at that age if you'd offered me a free Cornetto, but somebody at the AFL should have sent a memo to the parents to make sure the kids - conveniently parked next to the TV cameras - didn't all turn up wearing Carlton and Collingwood hats which made it look even more contrived than it actually was.

The antics of the children were understandable enough, at least kids don't know what dignity is so they're more than happy to throw it away for a couple of choc-tops and a seat on the fence. Anything they got up to wasn't even half as contrived as the peanuts masquerading as the GWS cheersquad. Here's the ultimate in a picture telling a thousand words:

Not the guy at the front who is probably the only legitimate supporter the Giants have and is quite aware that his team is 70 points down. Upon closer inspection it might actually be Joel Macdonald.

Now, I am WELL aware of the irony of claiming others had forfeited their dignity when I was sitting on the other side of the ground in a Mexican wrestling mask but let's treat that like a political statement just to suit our own needs. Besides, you can be damn sure that if we'd been 70 points down there would have been no such shenanigans - let alone carting an entire street threatre dickhead patrol around to every Giants match in Melbourne.

I'm not against fun at the footy (for instance on Sunday I had plenty) and in my old age I've come to terms with the cheersquad as a concept but if that lot are in any way legitimate fans and not either a paid troupe of performing buffoons or idiots who follow other clubs and have just decided to turn up and be wacky due to the assumption that the Giants will have no other fans then I'm not here.

I was surprised at how many Giants fans were there. Not that there were many but I expected perhaps two on top of these fuckheads. Good for them, if they can live with the shame of switching sides for no good reason as a grown adult that's their business - just don't come around swinging champagne bottles at my place when 'you' win a flag. People who saw which way the wind was blowing and followed it shamelessly are one thing - and would make good politicians - is one thing, because in a way I can almost understand the assumption that they're an absolute cert to win a flag sooner rather than later but I refuse hide my disgust at that cheersquad.

Imagine deliberately leaving the house dressed like the Dalai Lama and then proceeding to dance around like a Hare Krishna on national television with your face exposed. You would have to be either self employed or unemployable to let yourself be seen either dressed like that. Not to mention that whether they're supposed to be Buddhists, Hare Krishnas or what it's the equivalent of turning up dressed like Mahatma Cote and doing jokes about eating a curry. Thank god the Giants didn't opt for black in the uniform or they might have turned up in blackface a'la Al Jolson.

I don't remember the nine Brisbane Bears fans in Victoria throwing inflatable bananas around the crowd while our fans were holding their banner up at the MCG in the late 80's, and at least the handful of Gold Coast fans who turned up when they almost rolled us last year were polite enough to follow tradition, act properly and stick to (team name) *clap* *clap* *clap* style chantage. This is just an insult to actual footy fans who bleed for their team both physically and mentally week in week out. Get serious about your team's plight or fuck off back to watching club rugby. I take it they have real cheersquad members who must feel the shame of being associated with these clowns - my respect for the whole club will rise tenfold if one of the real ones is pictured telling these tourists to piss off.

Anyway, enough hypocrisy from me over acting the goat - let's get back to the Carnival Of Hate. And what a magnificent carnival it was - the only downside being that none of the action in the crowd got the reception it deserved in the ground. How #1 PRICK didn't get the reception of the millenium is a mystery to me.

At least, having not yet watched the replay, it seems that the TV stations couldn't help themselves. I suspect they treated it the same way as when there's a soccer riot and the commentators fall over themselves to condemn the horror of it all while simultaneously pumping their fist in the air at the chance to run the footage 20 times plus reverse angles and slow motion.

It was marvellous. It annoyed commentators, it annoyed opposition fans, it even annoyed some of our own fans. The person it was intended to annoy remained stony faced throughout like the emotionless robot that he is, but we'll meet him again - and while you may very well be over it I am not. CUE DRAMATIC MUSIC.

2012 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
This is harder than it should be because there weren't really any standouts this time. If it was an Under 10's game - and parts of it certainly deserved to be - they'd write TEAM EFFORT and move on. But somebody has to get votes, and in a draw just conducted at Demonblog Towers the top four came out in the following order.

5 - Jack Watts
4 - Jared Rivers
3 - Tom McDonald
2 - Nathan Jones
1 - Matthew Bate

Bate just in front of Clark who was unlucky to have only played one and a half quarters, but what a one and a half quarters. Could almost have snuck in for a vote based on that alone. The only man ever to get a vote for playing half a game was when Bate got one at 186 because there really wasn't anyone else left.

Funnily enough when you look at the stats every touch Clark had which wasn't a score was a clanger. Does he have some kind of gourmet injury which still allows him to roost goals from 50m out on the boundary but not hit any other targets? If so give him a walking frame and put him in the square because we're rooted without.

Also unlucky in no particular order Dunn, Garland, Jamar, Macdonald, McKenzie, Nicholson, Sellar and Sylvia. Most others not terrible either.

Leaderboard
With Clark not to feature again this season Jones extends his lead to just under five BOGs over the next contender Watts, and with the Jakovich all but in his keeping for the second time we now turn to his race to top Brock McLean's 47 vote record set in 2006. He's already got the sixth most votes ever in a season with just under half of it left so I dare say that the record is a formality at this point barring a fiasco.

Garland is officially suspended from the Seecamp now after three in a row up forward (not that he's scored any votes in it anyway..) and Rivers is one game away from being banned too despite having just tied for the lead. Clearly I never thought we'd have a coach who would put key position players in different spots and therefore never came up with a rule to cover what happens in the case of a defender getting votes for kicking goals. Jamar still winning the Stynes by default - whither the Stefan Martin Experience and another shock victory?

38 - Nathan Jones
19 - Mitch Clark
16 - Jack Watts
14 - Jeremy Howe
13 - James Magner (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year)
12 - Jordie McKenzie
10 - Jack Grimes, Jared Rivers (CO-LEADERS: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
9 - Tom McDonald
8 - Matthew Bate
5 - Clint Bartram, James Frawley, Sam Blease
4 - Jack Trengove, Brent Moloney
3 - Stefan Martin, Mark Jamar (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
1 - Rohan Bail, James Sellar

MFC Facebook Comment of the Week
I didn't bother making more than one about us winning so for the second week in a row there's no video to be had. So first enjoy one last look at some fantastic lying...

Then listen to this slice of genius (not mine sadly) and wonder why it didn't go #1 in the ARIA singles chart this week while you steel yourself for some world class nutterism.

Or not as the case may be, considering that as usual everyone is (relatively) happy about the win and that the MFC social media team have gone through and done a forensic sweep of stupid comments by opposition fans. There were a couple of people crying over the Carnival of Hate but that's Melbourne fans for you, always somebody ready to fit the stereotype of being a group of tremendous softcocks. It was to be expected I suppose, but what I never thought I'd see is this outrageous statement:



Nah, our fans never 'barrack'. They just sat there for the first eight weeks of the season stone silent. Hey everyone, listen to NAME DELETED we should all take absolutely no interest in the fortunes of the club we allegedly support and instead cavort around the stands like a bunch of escaped mental patients no matter what the score in order to support the game. I really hope people don't read this sort of stuff and associate all Melbourne fans with it.

Facebook are really missing the chance to fire things up by allowing a reply to function on these comments. It's no good trying to pot somebody 500 comments later, you just end up looking like an even bigger nutbag than you do for posting on there in the first place.

Next Week
Given that the Gabba is just about the only place outside of Victoria that we can win it's a shame that the Lions are not entirely terrible anymore. Not that they're much good either but certainly better than us - and have proved it once already this year.

Clark out is a disaster for the rest of the season, and in the short term I'm not sure how we're going to cover him effectively. He was the only reason we didn't win by 150 this week, and by sheer weight of numbers the job was finally done but Rivers and Garland aren't going to combine for seven every week - especially against good sides - and neither Howe or Jamar can kick straight enough any more to be match winners - so unless there's at least one dangerous aerial option down there for the full four quarters we'll be back to scoring 6.8.44 again if we're not careful.

Nobody really banged the door down to come back at Casey (though I must admit I only watched the first quarter and relied on second hand information for the rest) so why make any non-enforced changes at all? The NO CHANGE sign was ready until the Clark debacle was confirmed so instead I'll have the Experience who is no 60-a-year goalkicker but can at least cause some trouble in marking contests.

IN: Martin
OUT: Clark (inj)

Some are going to want to dump Moloney because he did nothing but you can't afford to machine gun senior players coming back into matches against real teams. At least he forces them to think about him.

I wouldn't be surprised if Lucas Cook got a run soon. He didn't do as much for the Scorpions as he had done in the previous two matches but after having proven that he exists he's got to be getting close to a "why not?" debut. I did absolutely love one lead he made in the quarter of Saturday's game that I watched. He botched the kick but it was a beautifully natural lead of the sort that we do about once a fortnight at the moment. Perhaps just one more in the twos to make sure and then in he comes in to either look silly against Richmond or lead us to a famous victory over Emo Maric

Oh and any danger Ricky Petterd before we all die of old age?

Was it worth it?
Yeah he got $6 mil.

An open letter to Tom Scully (part two)

Hey Tom, remember me? I wrote in last year before you became filthy rich to plead with you to (and I quote) "become an instant legend of this 150+ year old club instead of a big fish in a disinterested pond where nobody gives a toss" and invited you to pocket $3 million worth of the club's money to strike one last blow for loyalty in a world of heartless capitalism before free agency arrived and ruined the AFL forever.

Not ringing any bells? Fair enough too, when somebody sent it to your management and they claimed to have 'passed it on' to you it did rather have the air of parents promising to pass on a kid's letter to Santa before running it through a shedder.

Not that you'd have ever known this was going on because at the time you were busy "not in any way being signed by another club", but the online community even banded together for the most heartfelt 'please stay' collection since that kid offered Chris Grant his pocket money so that he wouldn't join Port Adelaide (in related news: Chris Grant stayed at Footscray and has just been inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame).

Obviously what we did wrong was to not offer $3 million in a suitcase full of unmarked bills on top of that. How stupid must Chris Grant feel now not having pocketed whatever the 1997 equivalent of rude money to ruin his legacy? At least he had a legacy to think about ruining I suppose. Does six million bucks compensate for leaving behind a brown stained legacy tinged with lies and hatred? Probably.

In fact the gigantic wedge of AFL approved cash provided by the AFL GWS Giants would probably have bought everything we offered a hundred thousand times over, but would it have meant as much as receiving this from somebody you knew only as @biggestred47;



Now that's a heartfelt offer. But it's not a $1.5m Superb 3 Bedroom with private eastern aspect is it? Mind you there was also the small matter of $700,000 a year from the MFC on offer too. I wasn't expecting you to show up and play for the inflatable thing only (apparently his name is Jack) so I'm sorry if I misled you into thinking that my offer was replacing a salary package equal to what some people might take a decade to earn. It often troubles me in the night how we could be so rude as to offer you such a pittance of a wage after all you'd done for us.

But that's all in the past, unless there's a 'mystery injury' which means you can't play we will meet again for the first time Sunday. We the collective jilted wife coming face to face with her husband for the first time since he ran off into an emotionless cock-in-a-cash-register style relationship with a young, well built tart.

Does the jilted wife end the night trying to glass him before being capsicum sprayed by police? You bet she does. Do we? Maybe not, it's not like you've actually killed anybody after all, but in the absence of anything decent to complain about in a country where $3 million sets you up for life and doubling that is effectively taking the piss you'll do nicely as public enemy #1 until somebody more worthy comes along or you retire.

This has been hanging over all us of since the moment the fixtures were released so thank god we're finally getting it out of the way. If the AFL end up complaining about the crowd turning nasty they've only got themselves to blame for not playing it earlier in their rigged fixture. And yes, any moral highground we could have taken claiming that you've gone to a 'worse team' has rather thinned due to our rancid start to the season but in an environment where everybody from Dean Bailey to Cameron Schwab, Brad Green and Julia Gillard have been blamed for our Titanic style flop at the end of last season I'm pointing the finger at you whether it's justified in the public eye or not.

Plenty of others had a hand in what we can only hope was a once in a lifetime set of circumstances during the 2011 season (there were so many triumphs and debacles rolled into one that they'll probably make an ESPN 30 for 30 out of it) but why do I feel that the "will he or won't he" (spoiler: he did) intrigue that swirled around our club from day one last season contributed in its own special way to the poisonous atmosphere that bubbled up throughout the club all before tragically bursting from the ground and killing us all (but mostly Dean Bailey) one sad, cold day at Kardinia Park?

Who knows what would have turned out differently if you'd taken the same path as Jack Trengove and agreed to stay. I'm not suggesting Dean Bailey wouldn't have ended up Adelaide, James Strauss wouldn't have snapped his leg or that Liam Jurrah wouldn't have been involved in some alleged unpleasantness in the territory but I'll bet we would have been in a much better situation than we are now. Or would we? Would Mitch Clark be there now or you'd stayed? For all our midfield follies I know right now I'd rather have him and two draft picks but it doesn't mean I have to like you for the way it went down.

Todd Viney was nice enough to recall you the week after 186, I'd have told you to pack your bags, drop the cover stories about indecision and go sign your contract elsewhere. Actually that's not entirely true, I'd have dropped you after Queen's Birthday when it became clear to all but the hopeless dreamers and the remarkable optimists that the only way you were going to stay with us was if GWS went under and we did some not at all shonky J**d/Visy style deal to pay you. Then the AFL told us we couldn't do that either. Funny that they would do that when you're ALLEGEDLY tossing up between a club that is owned by them and one that isn't. Nice way to help build an alibi.

At Queen's Birthday we were still in the hunt for the finals (no really), and you did rack up 29 touches that day (some of which hit the target) so I can imagine the uproar if we had given you the arse then. Your dead eyes looking down the barrel of the TV cameras solemnly pledging yet again that you were in no way decided about your future while the footy media rounded on us, kicking the club to death for hanging a brave young man out to dry just two years after drafting him.

In retrospect it would have actually provided you the perfect cover story for leaving, claiming that you were still 'weighing it up' until that point and being told to fit in or fuck off had 'made your mind up' about the future. You might still be exchanging messages with our players now and posing for Miami Vice style Facebook profile photos with Sam Blease but I seriously doubt they would have convened a strike a'la The Club to save you at that point.

It didn't help that you spent the year making contradictory statements about your future and using lines like "I'd love to end my career and say I was a one club player". "Then just sign on the fucking dotted line" we all screamed in vain, knowing that being a one club player doesn't buy that three bedroom apartment (hint: you could get the same place for about a third of that here), and in this could would land you with partial responsibility for helping drag the battered carcass of the oldest club in the world onto to its feet and back to glory. Jack Trengove took that challenge and whether he captains us to a flag or to relegation into the VFL he will be welcomed with open arms into any gathering of Melbourne supporters for the rest of his life.

But why involve yourself in something as noble as the rebirth of an icon? So much easier to grab the cash, deny you stormed out of China because Max Gawn spewed on you and take up at a team where success is as close to guaranteed as possible with the entire world served up to them on a silver platter. Nice coincidence that your dad got a job there too. Eight months before. And apparently didn't tell you about it. How do any of them go around talking about this with a straight face or unlit pants? JUST ADMIT YOU WERE NEVER GOING TO STAY ALREADY.

There's also something about Jim Stynes, but I won't get into that because it will cause me to write something that I will be ashamed of and that you might launch legal action over - because we all know you love a dollar.

Maybe the projected wild scenes this week (which are likely to fizz out into one guy limply throwing Monopoly money rather and the aforementioned cavalcade of hate) are the scenes we had to have and will probably ruin any chance of an amicable future between us but at some point in the near future an apology would be nice. And not in 30 years time when you're on Open Mike doing an interview with Mike Sheahan which has to stop every thirty seconds for him to take a belt of oxygen. The sooner the better so we can decide whether or not to bury the hatchet in the ground or 'elsewhere'.

Sunday afternoon would be good, after you're inevitably dragged into the press conference by Sheedy. Forget saying that the reaction from the fans was "pretty disappointing" (currently $1.02 favourite for first answer on TAB Sportsbet) and admit that while you are looking forward to being handed multiple premierships, being paid well over the odds and eventually playing in front of five figure crowds in Sydney that you were always going to leave Melbourne. That you, your management and your family did the sums the moment you were drafted and worked out the exact timing required to take the biggest financial windfall possible after stringing us along for two years.

It's a fiendish plot, and perhaps it's karma in a way for our conduct during 'that' Richmond game, and perhaps if you were at another club I'd heartily laugh and congratulate you for pulling off such an epic swindle before going behind your back and saying you were a shit bloke instead of just saying it openly. Lucky in a way we did 'lose' that game, because I can only imagine how much more remarkable the reception would be if we'd only had one pick and he'd become a scab.

Even the fans of other teams who are having a field day telling us to 'get over it' and laying the boots into the fact that we're rubbish know deep down that they'd be acting just as badly - if not worse - under similar circumstances. God knows footy fans have never been known to go off their collective tit about something trivial and stupid have they? Good thing Melbourne fans are all cravat wearing, snow bunny ponces (so the guy who wears the headset and pretends to be your coach told me anyway), because I'd love to have seen the reception you'd get after pulling the same sort of low act on a team with real life, feral fans.

Just take that first step on the path to redemption and admit that while you think what you did was right the way you did it was very, very wrong. Even if you don't want to admit that you signed years ago (possibly at birth) at least put your hand up and say there was no chance in hell for one minute of the 2011 calendar year that you were ever going to stay with us. Let the reconciliation process begin at your end because it's certainly not starting at mine. Offer a buyback scheme for all those people (certainly not me) who bought a #31 jumper and haven't yet set it alight.

There's no doubt that very few football clubs are perfect either. We were a shambles at times last year (*points*) for sure, and there's one of your teammates who almost everyone would admit was harshly done by when he was forced out the door by 'us'. You'll be able to tell which one he is because he'll be greeted with exactly the same respect on Sunday that you will never ever get from anybody other than a handful of orange clad Giants fans and the sort of people who write love letters to Ivan Milat.

We don't care that he's playing for a league owned franchise, we're happy for him to get another go because he won the respect of our fans over more than a decade of hard work, earned a shitload less than $6 million in doing it and is probably on something near #emomaric wages this year. Nor do we care that Matthew Warnock is appearing in McDonalds colours. To be entirely honest I don't even give a toss than Scott Thompson ditched us and became a superstar because he did it properly, got paid proper wages and earnt the right to be called a star. That's respect.

Respect isn't all it's made out to be though, certainly not when you stack it up alongside six million bucks and see which pile turns out to be higher. "Oh everyone would have done the same thing" they scream (and let's be frank so do you, hopefully in your nightmares) which might be true [see attached list of all those who haven't] but it doesn't mean anybody has to like or treat you kindly for it. Hamfisted "what would YOU DO" style analogies aside the fact of the matter is that you didn't have to do it, you wouldn't have been the first to say no and you'd still have ended up with a damn sight more money in your pocket than your performances thus far have deserved.

"But what about Mitch Clark?" they wail. What about him? I certainly don't expect Brisbane fans to like him any more for leaving them. Who am I to tell other people how to support their club? If GWS fans think you're the messiah then that's their problem, I'm not going to tell them to stop. But if Lions fans want to burn Mitch effigies and shout slogans at him that's their business, but the chances are other than a few hearty boos and a bit of blue language they probably won't really bother. It helps having recent memories of being involved in one of the most successful eras in the history of football. They've tasted glory, we've been beaten like a mangy dog for 50 years - and that's why we hate you so much.

Somebody was always going to cop it eventually, why not the guy everyone put their hope in only to have it spat back in our face? I couldn't think of anybody more deserving. Some poor deluded souls in the media think that Sunday is going to bring 'closure' and that a few casual handshakes with the players who didn't scab on us will mean we all shrug our shoulders and get on with lives. Don't count on it.

Sure there are a lot of fans who built the bridge seconds after you 'went to Sydney to test at the facilities' and wound up using the 'contract signing machine'. There's even a fair amount who are in the "good for him" faction. That's fine, I won't hold it against them - at least they're still loyal to the cause of this club and haven't traded in their membership for a seat at Skoda Stadium and an expensive car.

Many more will get it out of their system on Sunday and will be able to make a rational decision come Monday morning that they can go on with their lives, but make no mistake there will always be a group of us who will never forgive or forget the lies and deceit you have visited upon this great club, your contribution to the disastrous events of 2011 and the continued fall-out we're still suffering today. Even if the rest of the senior list banded together for a We Are The World style videoclip imploring us to close down the carnival of hate and forgive you then we will not consider it at least until you've apologised. Tearfully is clearly too much to ask for but a stoic stare down the barrel of the camera prepared statement live on Fox Sports News would be nice.

No matter how small and unorganised our group is, or how the numbers dwindle over the years, we will be the ones hurling abuse at our television every time you come on and begging to our chosen deity for your club never to win anything ever again. And even when the banners are gone and we're playing you in five years we'll still be making dog noises when you go near the ball.

It's hard to haunt a man with six million in the bank and who has the stock market beat but we'll damn well try our best. If you could please break the habit of a lifetime and show some minor traces of emotion in response that would be much appreciated.

And so on behalf of everyone who feels the same sense of betrayal as I do may I be the one to say break a leg.

Yours both bitterly and twistedly,

Adam S. Mercado
Demonblog Towers

P.S - That was break a leg as in 'good luck' of course. I certainly won't be the one rising to applaud if you really do end Sunday being carted off with your leg facing due east.

P.P.S - I see why nobody writes letters on paper anymore.