News roundup

For anyone who takes this site as their main source of MFC News (hah!) you might care to know that the practice match against Adelaide that was originally scheduled for Saturday at Optus Oval has somehow ended up on Friday at 4pm. Now I can't go. Outrageous. Once again if you are planning on turning up and can be bothered sticking a report together please send it in via supermercado@demonblog.com.

In other news...

Ryan Ferguson is back!

Certainly, there are pages of last year's diary the young Melbourne defender would happily tear out. Ferguson would prefer not to have celebrated his breakthrough senior season with three lots of shoulder surgery.

He would have played his first game well before round eight, somewhere other than the Sandringham reserves, and worn his No. 35 Melbourne guernsey at least on Saturday afternoon.

But by the end of last year, Ferguson saw himself as a Sandringham player, and not really a Demon. To finish the season a VFL premiership player meant it was not a complete write-off.

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and Shannon Motlop is.. keen!

Melbourne yesterday described its initial meeting with former Kangaroos premiership player Shannon Motlop as that of "a pretty keen young man" eager to resurrect his AFL career after he flew in to convince the Demons to give him a second chance.

With the club to decide on Tuesday who will replace Troy Broadbridge on its list - or indeed, whether anyone will be chosen to replace him - Motlop, whose brother Daniel plays for the Kangaroos and cousin Aaron Davey is already with the Demons, was "dying" to impress.

Melbourne recruitment and list manager Craig Cameron said Motlop, who plays for North Adelaide in the SANFL and with Wanderers in Darwin, had been enthusiastic but no promises had been made by the club.

"We had a chat with him this afternoon, a discussion about where he's at and what pre-season he's had and he'll be medically screened in the next day or two," Cameron said.

"He was the same as all the other guys, to be honest. They see an opportunity that they didn't think was going to come until the end of the year. I thought he was a pretty keen young man."

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In a completely non-comic and serious way isn't that "dying" comment a bit dubious given the reason he's trying out for the side? Couldn't they have left that bit out?