Blue Sunday

How does it feel, to treat me like you do. ENOUGH SAID.

It's been a wonderful weekend. So far I've been poisoned by a Chinese restaurant and accidentally smashed a $500 electronic implement. Surely a showing of the mighty Dees will make me feel better? Well, maybe if you wound the clock back a couple of years - because having to watch them this season is more likely to make you piff yourself off the Bolte Bridge than anything else.

But you never know. In a week where favourites were getting turned over left, right and centre stranger things COULD happen. But not to us. Even walking in to see Freo 35 points in front of Port in the first quarter wasn't enough to convince me that we were any danger of nicking the four points. Of course with West Coast winning yesterday some will question whether we really wanted the four points or not, and I'm guessing that they were some of the 15,000 of our fans who didn't bother to turn up on the day. Obviously it was a bit cold for the softcock brigade, and of the 21k crowd we would have been lucky to have had 8000 at our own home game. Imagine if North down the bottom as well? There would have been 10,000 there - it would have been like a Brisbane Bears tribute match. Ironic given that we were watching two of the teams most likely to go tits up and go the way of the Bears.

Took them 47 seconds to kick a goal. That's never a good sign. When do we ever do that? A couple of minutes later Miller got his first and then it was time for a slopfest. Daniel Bell had one of the biggest nightmare runs of all time and Corey Jones kicked three in a row on him - he was doing so well last year, what did Ben Johnson do to him when he destroyed him with that hit at the end of last year? Alistair Nicholson forgot how to run after he did his knee, has Bell forgotten how to play footy after being flattened? His position in our (allegedly) glorious future has gone from 'assured' to 'questionable' since the season began. It was like the second quarter last week all over again, but this time we didn't even get to see 1 decent quarter before we lost the plot. By the time it was, thankfully, over we were down 45-9 and the handful of us who had actually shown up had lost the will to live. Sometimes I wonder if there isn't something to be said for the Jonestown solution of handing around the laced softdrink and waiting for everybody to drop.

Speaking of Joneses, for the last month Nathan has played like he's Simon Godfrey. Running around with intent, laying tackles, going hard and getting the ball but disposing like a 12-year-old. Dare I say he'd benefit from a week in the 2's? I know he's been a lovechild over the last couple of years but surely nobody is above a wakeup call. And while we're on the topic of love children let's talk about Juice Newton. I think we all want him to play as a forward and prosper, but the way he's going he'll be lucky to make it to the end of the season let alone next year. Sure, he kicked two goals and one of them was an absolute corker but how many times did he cock it up? I'm not trying to be harsh, but 2 goals from 20 contests isn't much to write home about when one is an admittedly good looking but speculative stab from the boundary line and the other is a free-kick. We need a lead up, marking forward and at the moment he's not it. Fair enough that they leave him there for the rest of the season, because it's not like anybody else is going to step up and play the position but again he'll need to do a lot to convince me that he's anything more than the answer to a future trivia question.

The second quarter was better, but it would have been hard for it to be any worse than the first. Miller got his second early on before North responded (obviously). Lynden Dunn got reported twice in twenty seconds for pissy contact with Brent Harvey - he might cop a reprimand for the first one, but if he gets done for the second you may as well stop watching AFL right now. That was about as close as he, or anybody else, got to Boomer as he cut us to shreds on the way to 27 touches and a couple of goals. That's what a class player does. That's what we're lacking. It's what, sadly, McLean/Moloney/Jones etc.. are never going to be. We sort of broke even with them until half-time, but when you're coming off a vomitorium of an opening term that's not much to write home about. 38 down at halftime. Either we were going to claw our way to respectability or get poleaxed. The way I was feeling we may as well have gotten flogged just to give me something more amusing to look back on once we're winning games regularly again in 2014.

All things told we actually won the second half. Big whoop, let's hold a street parade and pretend everything is progressing swimmingly. North put the cue in the rack with such severity that the rack was almost torn from the wall. We certainly started to play a lot better, flowing football but only because they let us. There's nothing to get excited about there, even when Sylvia finally did something in the 4th quarter and cut the margin four goals with plenty of time on the clock you knew we weren't going to seriously challenge. Morton added another to keep it interesting but that was it.

The only thing more interesting was the amount of players who burnt their teammates in better scoring positions inside 50. Everyone was up to it and frankly it was giving all 27 of our fans who showed up the shits. Is everyone so worried that they're going to get the arse at the end of the year that they're trying to rack up goals to save themselves? Our defence - good again given the fact that we were poleaxed out of the middle - have earnt their spots, but there's so many questions around the forwards and the midfielders that it's no surprise everyone's trying to play for themselves. Let's get that out of the system.

Kontroversy Korner
Simon Buckley is giving me the shits. Is there any danger that he might actually dispose of a ball one day instead of dancing about trying beat everyone like he's in a 1970's disco. You can't tell me that other clubs don't sit down, watch the video of us play and identify the fact that whenever he gets it he'll try and step his way out of it EVERY FREAKING TIME. A perceptive person (who may very well have been me) was heard to text the Triple M commentators and point out that nobody should be fooled by him because he does it everytime. Another equally perceptive person of another name (again, I'm not denying anything) agreed. You can get 25 possessions every week if you want but I refuse to be impressed until some of them do something other than move a lateral handball, go backwards to a free man or end in falling over and being pinged for holding the ball. His attempted play-on from the kick-in was something else all together. God forbid he ever gets some confidence about him he should be a handy player - send him to whichever psychologist Miller has been working with this season because that guy has done wonders. At least he's assured himself a place in every "Footy Blunders and Fuckups" highlights video that will ever be released from here on in.

Kontroversy Korner II
Is Bruce finished as anything more than a pinch hitter? I like the guy, and I'm still convinced he'll be one part of the captaincy duo next season but can we ever expect anything major out of him again? I think not. Sit back and enjoy a couple more seasons of bit part play and the occasional piece of quality but don't expect anything earth shattering.

Kommunism Korner
Stay away from the reds they said, and when it comes to Matthew Bate it appears everyone's been given that instruction. Never before has a man had so many times when he's been on his own and nobody will kick it to him. Sure, he klangs it most of the time but maybe getting it with nobody within two hundred metres will help. Any danger he can play primarily as a forward anyway?

Farcebook Watch
There's an application where you can put a picture of your favourite player on your page. Not to be indecisive or anything but so far this year mine has gone,

* Pre-Season: Brock (sacked because Rivers is almighty)
* Round 1-Queens Birthday: Rivers (sacked due to being out for the year)
* QB-this week: Green (sacked because I can't bring myself to have a favourite player who is actually popular)
* Now-?: Paul Johnson (Obscure! Playing out of his skin! I think it's the first time I've ever listed a ruckman as my favourite player)

In fact, given that Rivers is still the man overall I present a brief history of the people I decided were my favourite players at any given time.

1990 - Brent Heaver
1991 - midseason 1991 Rod Keogh
Midseason 1991-94 Allen Jakovich
1995-97 - Post-Jakovich depression
1998-99 - Jamie Shanahan (brief, sick flirtation with Troy Longmuir fandom during '99)
2000 - Shane Woewodin (good season to jump on, cheers for the 200-1 Brownlow odds pre-season)
2001 - No serious attachments
2002-03 - Chris Lamb
2004-2006 - Philthy Phil
2007-2008 - Rivers

What a lineup. Maybe they can all come together (Rivers excepted) for the tribute match I'm setting up for myself of all our 'forgotten' players from 1990 to the present? What a star studded night it will be when Craig Greg Hutchinson's team (CORRECTED - watching us play makes me think of ambulance chasing wankers) takes on the Mark Riley All-Stars on a Tuesday afternoon at the Junction Oval.

2008 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes

5 - Shane Valenti
4 - Paul Johnson
3 - Brad Miller
2 - Stefan Martin
1 - Aaron Davey

Apologies to Chris Johnson, McDonald, Morton, Warnock and Whelan

No apologies to Jones, Sylvia or Newton.

Leaderboard

Again Jones retains his lead despite putting in an ordinary one. My money's still on Green, though if you took Miller at 10's as listed in the comments of the last post then you'd be happy. Over to our betting division with all the odds for the rest of the year,

Jakovich Medal
$2.50 - Brad Green
$3.25 - Nathan Jones
$4.00 - Cameron Bruce
$6.00 - Brad Miller
$40 - Matthew Bate
$50 - James McDonald, Paul Johnson, Chris Johnson
$100 - Colin Garland

Seecamp Medal

Could be ready to see a small man defender boilover?

$2.20 - C.Johnson
$3.50 - Garland
$10 - Whelan
$50 - Wheatley, Martin, Warnock

Hilton Medal

Take your pick of three. I'd probably be on Valenti from here.

$3.00 - Wonaeamirri, Morton, Valenti
$12 - Martin
$50 - Maric
$1.5 million - Weetra

Remember, when gambling is no longer fun (like if you're betting on Melbourne) walk away. And now, before we forget, the actual leaderboard.

23 - Nathan Jones
21 - Brock McLean, Cameron Bruce
20 - Brad Green
17 - Brad Miller
14 - Matthew Bate
13 - Paul Johnson
12 - James McDonald, Colin Garland (Joint Leader: 2008 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Chris Johnson (Joint Leader: 2008 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
11 - Lynden Dunn, Aaron Davey
10 - Austin Wonaeamirri (Leader: 2008 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year)
9 - Cale Morton
8 - Shane Valenti
6 - Jared Rivers
5 - Brent Moloney
4 - Clint Bartram, Matthew Whelan
3 - Nathan Carroll, Matthew Warnock, Jeff White, Simon Buckley, Paul Wheatley, Stefan Martin
2 - Russell Robertson
1 - Mark Jamar, Adem Yze

Did you know 46 different players have recieved votes in the four years of Demonblog? Stand by post-season for an in-depth statistical analysis of the DB years that will make the crowd go absolutely mild.

Banner Watch
The "Make A Banner" competition was a bit of a flop, which is no surprise given that there were 13 people in the ground. Pity we didn't enter with MCNAMEE FEARS STYNES because behind a cheersquad with 19 people in it you wouldn't have had much trouble being seen.

May I humbly suggest for any North fans who might be reading that they go for an exceedingly obscure musical reference and make a banner saying - IT'S GRIMA NORTH. When you win something from it I want royalties.

Next Week
Essendon at the 'G. The only positive to this is that we've escaped a trip to the freaking Dome and the only game where you have to buy a reserved seat even if you're a 17 game member. The negative is that despite the fact that 6 weeks ago we were pencilling this in as a 'maybe' game, suddenly they're playing great football and are going to smash us like a guitar. I'll be most interested in seeing how our backline goes against them, because believe me there will little else to hold your interest other than trying to work out at which point of the third quarter you should bite down on that cyanide pill you've been hoarding all season.

Deathbed Football

First things first, if I may, a personal story and a warning to the kids of Australia from all of us here at Demonblog. When you're meant to work at an event where the whole purpose is to stand on your feet all day and talk to people DO NOT go out the night before, get home at 6 and go straight there on an hours sleep. It will never achieve anything other than perhaps a stroke.

Sure, I survived the day - and in fact I'd say I dominated (especially during a lift breakdown, people trapped crisis situation) but the real problem was that due to unsavoury scheduling of the Freo game I couldn't go home and sleep - I had to wait for the match to finish first. Given that I don't have Foxtel due to my impoverished status (cue a "We Are The World" style charity single with appearances from John Northey and Simon Eishold) and by this time was physically unable to get in a car and drive anywhere else to watch it options were few and far between.

The last time I completely missed a game due to falling asleep after being awake for god knows how long was when we beat Carlton at Optus Oval in 2001. This means I missed Luke Williams' best ever game, which is probably a factor in why I spent the next four years having a breakdown every time I saw him in the selected side. I went home, and much like last night climbed into bed with the radio on. Next thing I woke up, we'd won by a goal and Peter Walsh had pocketed 3 Brownlow votes for getting 24 touches and Scott Camporeale had none for 33. Sucked in hard. Then there was the game I completely missed at Optus Oval in 2004 because I had to get off the tram, throw up on a St Kilda Road nature strip and go home halfway there due to the worst hangover anyone has ever suffered. Hey, at least I tried - which is more than you can say for the team that day.

So, once again here I was listening to the radio from bed (and what does it say about the standard of the AM band when it was easier to listen to SEN through the AFL website than the radio right next to me?) but the crucial difference was that this time I had the alarm set for 4.40 so I wouldn't miss any of the action if I did somehow fall asleep. Which I didn't. Game on, and suddenly we were flying Air Demons - 30,000 feet high, clear skies and a potential massacre on the cards.

From the first bounce it sounded like Freo were an absolute five alarm shambles. After we got the first goal Chris Tarrant did what he does best and missed one from 20m out directly in front - then it was all one way traffic for the rest of the quarter. Miller got one, Newton avoided his set shot yips by booting one from the boundary, Morton got a second and PJ joined in as well. 31-2 at quarter time - not bad eh? Either that or a massive setup for them to do what we did to them earlier in the season and pull off a grand comeback. They couldn't be that bad for four quarters could they? And god knows we couldn't be that good for four quarters, so the case was pretty clear for the comeback. Then, when the commentators started talking about how a Melbourne win would mean the two Perth teams would be bottom of the ladder 'at the end of today' it became even more obvious what was going to happen.

Five minutes into the second quarter Mark Jamar used one of his four kicks for the day to slot our sixth straight, and given that he's never had more than five kicks in a match it was surely an omen of good times to come. Bollocks it was. From that moment on it was a full scale mid-air emergency as Air Melbourne plummetted towards the ground at a million miles an hour, and all the deployed oxygen masks in the world weren't going to save us. From 38-2 we lost the plot so spectacularly that at half time it was 39 apiece. Clearly the Freo side who were playing Three Stooges-esque football in the first quarter had somehow swapped into our jumpers during the quarter time break because it all went horribly wrong. When Pavlich, who couldn't get near the thing in the first quarter because his midfield were too busy falling over, started kicking goals you wrote us off on the spot.

But level scores at half-time isn't so bad - unless you've backed the quarter quad. The boys go into the sheds, sit down to regroup and be asked "WHAT IN GOD'S NAME WERE YOU DOING OUT THERE?" before formulating a plan for avoiding complete demolition. Plenty of time for Captain Bailey and First Officer Bruce to work out some way of avoiding being portrayed in an episode of Air Crash Investigation. They already managed to save the good ship MFC from one disaster against Freo this year, so why not again? After all, as every man and their dog was surely pointing out, we were almost ten goals better off this time than then.

And that piece of sporting trivia counted for precisely nothing when Shaun "I didn't know he was alive" McManus goaled about 20 seconds in to put the Dockers in front. Miller responded, but once again from there it was all Freo for the next 25 long, painful and drawn-out minutes. From 46-45, by three quarter time it was 81-47. Where had I seen this before? It was truly painful listening, so I'd hate to think what it was like to watch or see in person. Lest we forget that we've supposedly got the best record of any of the Melbourne teams in Perth. Fat lot of good that does when not one single player can hit a target.

At one point I think Antoni Grover was on world record pace for the most interceptions inside defensive 50 in one match. I heard his name used more times in the second half than I ever have before in total. You couldn't blame the forwards, they just couldn't get near it.

Final quarter - 34 points down. What chance the Dockers fall apart in the final term again? That the Bailey/Bruce machine pull out some unlikely crash landing with no wheels and save 29,000 odd lives before recieving a heroes reception? Absolutely none. 54 points it was, and that was with two cheap as chips junk time goals at the end when they'd stopped with shock at actually having won a match.

So, down went the Slop 747 with all hands on board. It reminded me of one of my favourite movies of all time, where the final scene is a jumbo jet stacking it to the tune of "Do The Hustle". Make of that what you will.

Just dandy. I hate this season so much.

2008 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
Given that I was listening to the game in a state of mental distress approaching that of a terror suspect at Guantanomo Bay I have no actual capacity to deliver votes. Given that I don't trust the newspapers in the slightest I refuse to take their votes either, so what I'll do is wait for the BigFooty votes thread to run out of steam and take their top five instead, so if you're reading and want to try and rig the voting so that your chosen lovechild gets a mention then get on with it.

UPDATE

5 - Chris Johnson
4 - Brad Miller
3 - Simon Buckley
2 - Shane Valenti
1 - Aaron Davey

Leaderboard
As above. Brace for updates.

UPDATE - Jones retains his lead despite putting in another ordinary performance.

23 - Nathan Jones
21 - Brock McLean
21 - Cameron Bruce
20 - Brad Green
14 - Matthew Bate
14 - Brad Miller
12 - James McDonald
12 - Colin Garland (Leader: 2008 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
12 - Chris Johnson
11 - Lynden Dunn
10 - Austin Wonaeamirri (Leader: 2008 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year)
10 - Aaron Davey
9 - Cale Morton
9 - Paul Johnson
6 - Jared Rivers
5 - Brent Moloney
4 - Clint Bartram
4 - Matthew Whelan
3 - Nathan Carroll
3 - Matthew Warnock
3 - Jeff White
3 - Simon Buckley
3 - Paul Wheatley
3 - Shane Valenti
2 - Russell Robertson
1 - Mark Jamar
1 - Adem Yze
1 - Stefan Martin

Draft Watch
Ok, so we got slaughtered in the ruck today. I guess that means we're going to be subjected to a Naitanui fest over the next week or so. Personally I think the match proved exactly why we should stay away from him. Yes, we need a ruckman blah blah blah but what about around the grounds? Where was the disposal there? What were we doing when the ball actually hit the deck? Fark all and nothing by the looks of it. And what about up front? Miller tried hard and Newton did enough to keep himself in the mix for another week but if we don't get a big KPP up there soon we'll fail to score one week. If there's a ruckman that they can get with the second pick, or if they can lure Warnock over from Perth, then more power to them but right now we desperately need an elite midfielder or key position forward more than we need somebody who can jump 25 foot in the air and not much else.

Kasualty Korner
Rivers, Moloney, Green, McLean and Robertson would have been fairly handy you'd think.

Rulebook Corner
(AKA: "How KB is going to wreck the game this week and then spend his entire radio career trying to justify it")
This has absolutely nothing to do with our game, but given that everyone else will be all over it this week I'd like to talk about the Joel Bowden affair at the MCG the other day. For those of you who didn't see it he basically wasted thirty seconds by deliberately rushing behinds. Cue journalist outrage and talkback meltdowns. It's the same theory behind a rushed behind in any circumstances, the trained seals in the crowd boo when the opposition does it but rise to applaud when their own player heroically runs one through.

And so it begins. The myriad suggestions on how to stop something that has happened once in a million years. This article contends that the three point for a rushed behind rule should come in during the regular season. Pure horseshit. People are always using the "what if this happened in the Grand Final?" argument to try and change the rules, so I'm going to use it to try and stop a rule. What happens in this supposed Grand Final (which Melbourne will presumably not be involved with) when it's 2 points the difference and in the last second somebody gets the ball and has a ping at the goals, the defender legitimately sticks his arm on the line to stop it and it flies through the points. Is the goal umpire then expected to pay a 3pt penalty and cost the team a flag? Do we not have enough subjective rulings in the game already (holding the ball, deliberate etc..) without throwing another one in and confusing everyone.

Let's not forget that the goal umpire has to stand right there after he's made a decision. Field umpires might cause sections of the crowd to threaten to kill them, but they're generally running around in the middle and get a police escort off the ground. Goal umpires are generally expected to stand in front of toothless mutant cheersquads with their backs turned after they've made their decisions. Surely they have a union to speak out against this potential cavalcade of flying cans. If rushing behinds isn't a good look for our game what is it when bodyguards have to flank a man in a white coat like he's the Prime Minister of Israel going for a stroll through the Gaza Strip.

Here's your solution. Once the player kicking in has played on he must kick the ball forward. Play the Sale of the Century theme for me because that's got it all covered. There's no reason why you would want to kick backwards from that situation, and it would be simple for an umpire to judge whether or not a cross field kick has moved forward or back. Or what about after they've played on making it that their next kick must go 15m no matter if it hits a target or not - that's simply adapting a current rule to a new situation. Err, anyway that's enough serious football discussion.

Next Week
North at the MCG on Sunday at 2.10. Earlier in the year when we were supershit they beat us, but without really getting out of first gear. We might be playing better now, but so are they. Given that they're right in the middle of the pack for the bottom half of the eight, and in danger of dropping out at any moment, I fail to see how they can possibly take us lightly enough to get rolled.

Then it's Essendon (loss), Geelong (oh my god), West Coast (surely), Port (HOME WIN) and Richmond. The draft can get stuffed, I'd love to wreck Richmond's finals chances in Round 22 again - it'll give me happy memories of Round 22, 1998. Except that then we were playing finals the next week, and this time our players will be getting arrested for being drunk and disorderly on the Monday. Like sands through an hourglass, these are the seasons of our life...

Good Luck With That

Last night the club rang me up (i.e somebody paid by the club to ring me up) to try and get me into the $200 raffle they're running at the moment. At the time I was of sound mind and realised I couldn't afford it. Then this morning I woke up and decided that I'd actually like to win $40,000 and handed over the cash.

Presumably I will win nothing, however if I do this site totally needs to sponsor some shit next year. What about a statue of Nathan Carroll kicking his one and only career goal in Round 2, 2006 against Footscray. We'll get it just at the moment where, after getting his 50m penalty to put him in range, he hit the wobbliest helicopter punt ever and it somehow went through.

Spot the Demonblog

Surely too easy...

Stormy Weather

(Yeah, I know the roof was closed but in my heart it was pissing down)

Well, after a week off to do something important with our lives footy is back. Remember back to the glorious days of, err, a fortnight ago? We were in the winners circle and everything was looking up. Then as soon as you started to relax a bit it turned out that we were expected to show up and play the 2nd best team in the competition. Arse.

When we first met the Dogs this season, in that farce of a practice match at Bendigo where the lights went out, I was convinced that they were a bottom three side. This is why I never claim to be a real analyst of football, but at least I can't be accused of bias considering I had us in there as well. Anyway, as we've all seen - to devestating effect in Round 2 - they are quite good actually and have only dropped 1.5 games this year. Well slap my ass and call me a bitch, I didn't see that one coming. So, they're quite good. Obviously we were always going to lose so I chose to invoke the "Mercado/Gary Davies from TAB Sportsbet Plan" where the degree of success/respectability in a loss is measured on whether or not we beat the point spread. This week it was +42.5 points, so that was the target.

To be entirely honest the game was so freaking awful that I'm struggling to remember much of what happened. It was one of those days where the top side shows up, never gets out of first gear, gives their fans a bit of a scare and then do just enough to fall over the line because the rotten side don't have the tools to match them. The first quarter was eminently forgettable, mainly due to the fact that we didn't freaking score until the last minute. However, despite the fact that we were generally getting slaughtered out of the middle despite Jamar usually having first touch, we weren't completely blown out of the water early on. Credit for this must go to the defence who have been outstanding over the past few weeks. One of these days Garland, Warnock, Martin and Whelan (Rivers? Consult your local emergency department unfortunately) might earn the right to be called The New Jurassic Pack. Now that the last one has broken up and Nathan Carroll is preparing to take his wacky haircut world tour to the arenas of the WAFL, the much maligned likes of Warnock and Garland have stepped right into the breach and are probably our most important element while we're unable to kick massive scores.

So, with the midfield average at best in the first (Jones turning over everything he got his hands on) and the defenders holding it all together what about the forwards? What forwards? Miller was doing great work when it hit the deck but god forbid anyone could manage to find him as a target? Green was down there early on for some reason and couldn't get any of it either. Sylvia started up front but was soon thrust into the midfield. Can we just get over this wet dream of him being an elite midfielder already? It's not going to happen. Wonaeamirri seemed to have deliberately been sent up the ground and was taking a lot of marks 60 or 70 metres out from goal - and that's not a bad thing, that's a good thing because if you've got one trick and everyone else discovers it then you're rooted.

Speaking of people who might be a bit short in the trick department let's discuss the case of one Michael J. Newton. On the strength of the first quarter alone I found myself hoping that the car he won (well, won the use of anyway) for the 2007 Mark of the Year has a sweet Sat Nav system so that he can find his way to the nearest Centrelink on the first Tuesday after the season ends. Actually let's make it Wednesday, because you can't expect anyone to drive the day after Mad Monday. It's one thing to be a forward and not get a touch at all, but it's another to get the pill and botch things so seriously that even in a season where we're rivalling Fitzroy 1996 for ineptitute you get a bronx cheer from our own supporters when you finally get something right. Ok, so he was getting the ball 50m out on the boundary line but after first trying to square one into what was basically a team meeting of Bulldogs players, he then marked again in the same spot, burnt Sylvia on a lead and proceeded to thump it out on the full. Sad. We all had high hopes for him (well, medium level hopes anyway) based on the second half of last season but frankly he's just not going to make it. His most important goal should be to play two more matches for the rest of the season so he can overtake Leigh Newton's 13 games to be our most famous Juice ever. He redeemed himself - a bit - later on with a couple of marks and a goal but if he's the future then I'm a busty supermodel.

Anyway, so somehow we went into the second quarter within striking range. Didn't last long. When Will Minson, the king of slops, is marking over you and kicking goals you know it's not your day. They got the first two before Chris Johnson scored a cheap fifty to kick his first career goal and cut the margin to 20. Buckley and Green both added one, but Cross and Akermanis cancelled them out and we were a goal worse off than we were at quarter time but still hanging on and not getting blown out of the water.

Green got his second in the first couple of minutes of the third and you thought "well, maybe we could..." and then in true Melbourne fashion we failed to add another one for the quarter. Here's to a big 2.4 to that end (Coventry?) for the day. There was a lot of to and fro but the fact of the matter was that Footscray are a highly tuned outfit operating at a much higher capacity than we were. When they turned it over we'd usually give it straight back or kick it to an unrealistic contest (SHANE VALENTI IS 3 FOOT TALL, STOP EXPECTING HIM TO TAKE PACK MARKS AGAINST 2 OPPONENTS!) When we gave it to them they had players running everywhere. Unfortunately even though we had Johnson and Murphy well shut down they are a team with about 20 other players who can kick goals. We are a team who are lucky to have two people who have kicked twenty for the season. It didn't help that the likes of Bate, Jones and Wheatley were just throwing the ball on the boot with no concern about where it would actually go. The answer was usually "to the opposition".

Seven goals down at the last change and it was more a case of hoping to break even in the final term and avoid the Dogs running riot and kicking 15. We gifted them a few rushed behinds and both Buckley and Newton missed shots but it was basically junk time from the first bounce. From the time Mitch Hahn kicked a goal to extend the margin to almost 50 seven or eight minutes in the Dogs shut up shop, put their feet on the table and started smoking a fat cigar. Somewhere Robbo was shedding a tear that there was so much junk time that he wouldn't be able to run riot in. Newton finally got one - and thank god because I would run out there with the appropriate paperwork myself if he hadn't and Miller kicked our last three to make it a respectable 31 point loss. The spread was beaten - let the children of the town rejoice, and we were lucky enough to hear the Dogs theme song which still appears to have been recorded by a pissweak ska band fronted by a 75-year-old lead singer.

Let's be honest about all of this. We're a shit side, but there's a future. Today we were a ten goal better side than the one that they massacred in Round 2. Since March 29 we have seen the likes of Carroll, Yze, Weetra and White shelved. Some perhaps more permanently than others. We've also discovered that Garland can play, Dunn can tag, Green is a leader, Miller can be a presence up front and that THE CELEBRATOR and Valenti have been hits from the rookie list. This isn't the same team it was in Round 2 and thank god for that. Either we're going to look back on these years in a decade and say it was where we built for success, or we're going to look back and go "ahh, that's why the whole team went tits up and the club is now playing in the Tasmanian League". Either or - let's just get on with it already.

2008 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes

I feel like I'm being controversial with these. Please direct your abusive comments to our customer feedback department c/o the third wheely bin on the left outside the Ponsford Stand.

5 - Colin Garland (Safe as houses down back. More please)
4 - Lynden Dunn (Tagged Cooney to buggery. An angry young man)
3 - Cameron Bruce (He was always there and racked up 35 touches, but how many times were they actually worth anything?)
2 - Chris Johnson (Still butchering it sometimes, but playing with enormous confidence)
1 - Stefan Martin (Showed a shitload of poise in contests for a second gamer)

Apologies to Wonaeamirri (deliberately further up the ground?), Green, Miller, Jamar (rocking along at 1 kick a game but doing alright in the centre), Whelan, Valenti and Buckley

No apologies to Jones who couldn't hit the side of a barn for most of the day. And yes, I am biased towards defenders so there's no need to make a point of it. All I'll say is that how come none of them have ever won the Jakovich Medal then? Oh, because they've all been shit for years you say? Good point.

Draft Watch
Today's game tilted me even further away from Naitanui. Don't give me this bollocks about having a "marquee player". Do you seriously think that any of our alleged 'fans' who have lapsed over the last couple of seasons are going to come back just to watch some guy who can jump a mile and has a novelty haircut? He might turn out to be the best player ever for all I know but the last thing we need at the moment is a project player. Today says to me we need a key forward.

I think I've mentioned this before. What if we finish 16th, Freo finish 15th and we trade the #1 pick to them for the #2 pick and Warnock. Then we still have 1st pick in the Pre-Season draft and haven't really lost out. Of course the chances of anyone who isn't West Coast finishing last at the moment are slim to none, but you never know. Maybe you could pull the same kind of scam with them and throw Warnock in as part of some hot threeway deal. Or you could just do what everyone else does in trade week and sit in a room eating biscuits for four days and then try to make 17 trades in the last five minutes and have them all collapse because the fax machine at AFL House is too busy.

Leaderboard

Strangely enough I think Green is probably still morally the winner of this award. I don't know if that proves that the voting system is flawed or that I'm watching games on crack.

23 - Nathan Jones
21 - Brock McLean
21 - Cameron Bruce
20 - Brad Green
14 - Matthew Bate
12 - James McDonald
12 - Colin Garland (Leader: 2008 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
11 - Lynden Dunn
10 - Austin Wonaeamirri (Leader: 2008 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year)
10 - Brad Miller
9 - Aaron Davey
9 - Cale Morton
9 - Paul Johnson
7 - Chris Johnson
6 - Jared Rivers
5 - Brent Moloney
4 - Clint Bartram
4 - Matthew Whelan
3 - Nathan Carroll
3 - Matthew Warnock
3 - Jeff White
3 - Paul Wheatley
2 - Russell Robertson
1 - Mark Jamar
1 - Shane Valenti
1 - Adem Yze
1 - Stefan Martin

Religious Affairs Department
Bishop, please take your hand off my knee. Also it was great to see some guy in some sort of Montreal Catholic Church jacket (Le Church?) also sporting a Demons beanie. You'd think if you knew nothing and were coming from overseas for a massive god type convention that you'd automatically pick the Saints. Just proves how shithouse St.Kilda are in the grand scheme of things that they've had such a tragic history that even religious types won't back them.

Kaptaincy Korner
What price will you give me on a Bruce/Green joint ticket? You heard it here first - even if I did make it up.

Laughing Stock League
13. Port Adelaide (falling from grace and abandoned by fans. Choco Williams' head to explode by Round 22)
14. Melbourne (brave but shit)
15. West Coast (rotten, but at least they have a glorious past)
16. Fremantle (projected to jump at least one spot after next week)

Next Week
Freo in Perth. They're shit aren't they? Guess what kid, the moment we travel any further west than Telstra Dome so are we. Home win.