But then the demon, much too soon, returned one Sunday afternoon

Ever had a week where everything feels significantly more difficult than it should be? Where you spend seven days wading through a swamp, waiting for the hail of bullets to commence at any moment? I've had about 52 of those in a row, and where some people would find solace in their footy team starting favourites against a decaying giant I went to the MCG in a state of terror, fully aware that nobody plays the sick, the tired, the poor or the huddled masses into form better than us.

Other than West Coast, who play the MCG almost as badly as we do Subiaco, almost everyone else has had a go at eviscerating the Hawks this year, but I just knew that wasn't our lot. There will be a time (hopefully not too long into the future) where we'll go into games like this confident of carpet bombing nervous teams, but for now the best you can hope for is the odd surprise smashing like the first Gold Coast game last year, and accept that life wasn't meant to be easy.

So I might not have expected to beat the rotting hulk of one of the greatest sides ever, but nor did I expect to show up and be five goals down at quarter time. How did we cope with a team who have spent the season so far plunging into a cavernous hole after half time? By racing to throw ourselves into the void first, allowing them to build up the sort of second half lead that teams rarely give away. That doesn't mean we couldn't have won - and god damn it we nearly did - but it should never have got to that point. I suppose I'm meant to clap like a seal at the effort to get back into it, and sagely point out that we're a young team and these things will happen etc.. etc.. but this is what you're going to get if you insist on playing one quarter a week, and it wasn't always 'the kids' who were at fault when things went badly.

Could somebody with access to the world's most robust statistical database please calculate what percentage of comebacks from 24 of more points down lead to the team getting within a goal and still losing - and feel free to exclude MFC results if you don't want to tilt the figures unnecessarily. Two years ago I suggested that somebody intimately involved with the Melbourne Football Club had an auto-erotic asphyxiation style sexual fetish for watching us launch hopeless comebacks, and after seeing it happen three times already this year I'm pretty sure Paul Roos wasn't the stranglewank enthusiast after all.

Considering we've beaten the Hawks once in 11 years I should be used to it, but after the way they played last week this should have been a free kick if we had any hope of staying alive long enough to get Gawn back, find a best 22 that can play four quarters and pull off a storming Spirit of '87 style run at the finals only to cock it up against wooden spooners Collingwood in the last round. There's no point getting too upset, after all we have got a percentage of 106.7 despite losing more games than we've won, so as much as mid-table mediocrity currently feels like a pair of testicles plonked on the eyelids it still represents progress. It's just that now we expect more, and as such the failures feel like death.

I've delayed writing this just long enough to enjoy one of those classic shockjock moments that SEN relies on in lieu of employing a publicity department.

Ox: The Demons are just playing rubbish football.

— The Run Home (@TheRunHome) May 8, 2017

... and he's got a point, but there's never been an example of how far we've come in the last couple of years. Three quarters yesterday was shite, and three quarters against Essendon weren't much better. We're the kings of one quarter footy, but even the rest is significantly better than what we were seeing two years ago. There's big issues with the rush to handball everything instantly, but we're still a work in progress. I wouldn't be falling for concocted media witch hunts yet. At least wait until we offer Nathan Buckley the same service on Queen's Birthday that we did James Hird and temporarily extend his coaching career with a shock loss.

I was already in a general state of disarray before arriving, and managed to time my run so poorly that I walked into the ground 70 minutes before the bounce. Talk about matchday experience, they could at least put an old game on the screen to give those of us who've completely stuffed up our timing something to do other than sit there wondering where our lives went wrong. I should have used this extra time to walk around to the Ponsford, but thought that as long as I was paying for the Redlegs area I might as well give it a go. By the time we make a Grand Final I'll have spent so much on guaranteeing a ticket that I would have been able to rent a superbox with all the luxury options.

With quite literally nothing else to do, and a mobile phone battery that had to be nursed gently to the end of the day, I gazed at the beauty of the Ponsford and counted 34 people in it. What amateurs, the last person was only 14 rows from the front. I foolishly thought that by staying amongst the faithful I might get some good Crowd Watch material to make up for not going last week. This 'man of the people' routine lasted until half time, where after an hour having to hold my tongue due to two kids in the immediate vicinity I could no longer stifle my urge to carry on like an escaped mental patient.

As I sat there watching us go down the gurgler without a yelp in the first quarter, my mind wandered to another game I'd watched from the exact same seat. On Sunday 13 July, 2014 I also froze my tits off after misjudging the conditions, and saw us kick 5.6.36 against Geelong in a game where Aidan Riley, Chris Dawes and Colin Garland got votes. There is no doubt we've come a long, long way from there. It would be hard not to. I wondered if I'd have even been there if we were still playing like that. Probably not, because the club itself would probably have been relegated to the VFL. Otherwise of course I would be, in some sick, masochistic and perverted way it was more comfortable going to the footy knowing we were oozing Chernobyl style toxic sludge and should be put down for the sake of the community at large.

No matter how bad it got yesterday it's preferable to watch now, because unlike then even when we're terrible there's something building. It won't come in time for Vince, Lewis or probably Jones but it's bubbling away in the slow cooker. The issue is that there's a much heavier psychological toll when things don't go as expected. Back then you were just happy when somebody hit a target, much less kicked one of our handful of weekly goals. Now you think they should be doing better, so every wonky kick or one metre handball to a guy about to be slaughtered is like a dagger to the heart. I don't think I'm cut out for this caper. Having never won anything it's hard to know what it feels like to see your team crash back to earth, but if you're going to be one of these people who bails out on their team for being shit (also known as Collingwood fans) it would almost be better to stick with it through the worst times, then step away during the mid-table mediocrity years.

I'm grudgingly accepting of the usual excuses about experience, and as you'll recall if you've been with us all season I didn't expect great things this season anyway, but what angered me was how we just let them merrily punt the ball around amongst themselves. We let everyone do that, including Hawthorn on several hundred occasions, but those with a long memory may recall how well a free and easy, uncontested game worked for the Hawks when they were winning more flags in a row than we've had since 1960.

If ever there was a day to make them work to win the ball this was it, and if we could have landed some tasty blows in the first quarter they might have decided they'd had enough and enacted damage control mode. Instead we gave them unnecessary oxygen and paid for it. Considering all that it's amazing we got as close as we did, and because football fans blow with the wind there's no doubt that had we managed to force one more goal from that last inside 50 the tone of this report would be at least 90% rosier.

Ironically even when we did force them to kick to a pack they rumbled us in the contested mark game. I was not at all surprised to see that before this week we had the least in the competition - which is not helped by the absence of two ruckmen and Hogan for three weeks but still troubles me. We were actually above season average with 11 yesterday, but Hawthorn were one of two clubs a single mark in front of us for the season and didn't have much trouble pulling them down from everywhere. Like young players patiently sitting by the phone waiting for a call from the NAB Rising Star committee after playing us, Tim O'Brien must be eagerly expecting Kent Kingsley himself to phone through an update as to where he's moved to on the Klub waiting list because we made him look like a million bucks.

For the first time since he left to play in the forward line of a club going places I thought Jeremy Howe might have been handy. At least he could take the grab before kicking it out on the full. In fact we could have done with a reliable pack mark at both ends of the ground. Suddenly I'm wishing we had two of him again, maybe I'm not taking this season as well as I thought.

You know who else takes great contested marks? The Devil.


Never mind that the ball was nowhere in sight, yesterday this would have been called play on.

It was another ripping day for wacky umpiring. I'm not going to dwell on it too long, if we're going to become a good team (or at least give the illusion of being one) we have to rise above being fisted in the decisions to win anyway. You have to feel for the AFL, they've already spent big money getting the 5000 page manual of interpretations, exclusions and caveats as of last week translated into Mandarin before next week's white elephant Shanghai game (is this the end of our reign as Kaspersky Cup champions?), and now they need to print an amendment explaining how Roughead's two handed shove right into the numbers of Sam Frost to mark directly in front of goal was ok. Sometimes you give the umpire the benefit of the doubt because they might be on the wrong side of a pack, and have a player running past them, but this should have led to play being stopped while a guide dog was led onto the field and strapped to his arm.

That wasn't nearly the worst of them. It cost us a goal, but for a moment where you need a team of scientists to sit down and try to work out the thought process behind the decision there was a moment in the second quarter where one of our players (Hibberd?) dived to collect a loose ball, had a Hawthorn player back into and fall on top of him, only to be pinched for making contact below the legs. Again there was no mystery about it, an umpire looking directly at the contest adjudicated that - to quote the league's own Spirit of the Laws propaganda document - "the player who is making the ball their sole objective", and who is supposed to be "protected against any form of illegal contact" should penalised for trying to gather the ball in the general vicinity of an opponent who couldn't keep his feet and fell into his back. It was like a car crashing into you while you're halfway through reversing out of a parking spot and the insurance company deciding you were at fault.

It was one of those days where Hawthorn fans - and let's be honest we would have done similar if the roles were reversed - will be howling back at our complaints about the umpiring by pointing out we actually won the count. Which misses the point that we're almost entirely complaining about frees that weren't paid. Except for Roughead's two handed shove to the back, and the one he got when Sizzle Sr gently rolled onto his back after the ball had already spilled from a marking contest. Sure, Jetta got away with a desperate throw in front of his own goal and there was some consternation about Hogan's mark at the end, but when the league's stated goal is to keep the ball moving no matter what then dozens of holding the ball decisions will be 'missed' and most everyone - except Clayton Oliver who gets pinched for actual handballs - can casually lob the ball around Rugby Union style.

You'd think a system that encouraged players to throw the ball around would suit us, because the obsession with handball for the sake of handball continued. I'm not taking a general anti-handball "JUST KICK IT! WHY DID YOU KICK IT THERE!?" position, because when it works (e.g. the third quarter) it looks wonderful. But there's a big difference between a handball that unlocks the play, keeps the ball moving into space towards free players, or sets up a switch and one that gains no ground and just exists for players to get rid of it. You can't trust our possession numbers, they're as fraudulent as inside 50s or hitouts. It's like Lloyd Braun in Seinfeld hitting the bell when he makes a sale, only for the company to go out of business because he's completely bonkers and is just making it up. Both end in stressed people screaming SERENITY NOW.

It looked a lot like the first quarter last week (and didn't I pick the wrong game to be unavailable for?), only with the opposition refusing to join us and the umpires in a salute to the butchery industry. Can we play a team who'd played two games in nine days every week? As a keen Nathan Jones advocate since he shot past Moloney and rose to the top of our turdly midfield in 2012 it was painful watching his first quarter. He was probably affected by nightmare Vietnam War style flashbacks to the many other games where we've been dead by quarter time, but I've rarely seen him play worse. He turned it up in the second half - climbing through the hole torn by Viney playing his best game of the year to play a key part in the comeback, but it was not pretty at first. It's not a scenario like Vince where you can see the end rapidly approaching, and I will still cherish the bobblehead figure from showing up to another six home games (PS - I don't think the head will actually bobble, please address your complaints to us rather than the MFC if we've unfairly raised your expectations) but watching him struggle still got me right there in the feelings.

When future 'Forgotten AFL players of the 2010s' Facebook group fodder weren't having the day of their life climbing all over us, the rest of them were trotting off into open space like Lewis and Clark (no connection to Jordan and Mitch) mapping the Oregon Trail. Who'd have thought that a large number of players who went within a few kicks of a fourth Grand Final in a row would run riot when allowed to play the exact game that got them to that level? On the other hand our players spent the first half being pounced on the moment the ball arrived, usually courtesy of a teammate packing it and giving off a one metre handball because he didn't know what else to do, which led to dozens of turnovers and many more flat, shithouse kicks that didn't give anyone except Hawthorn players a chance.

I desperately wanted the win at the end of last year that kept the Mighty Ducks Finish alive to herald the start of the same double turn as that famous 2007 pre-season cup game when they swapped places with us. As they embarked on a nationwide farewell tour, being spanked at every stop while we were hanging around the fringes of the eight I thought it might really have happened. Maybe in the long term it still will, but there's a big difference between our side that saw a (relative) glory era quickly fizz out in a shower of sparks after 2006, and their lot who have struggled this year. Even if you cancelled the flags and put them in our position back then (e.g. where flags are permanently cancelled) I'd have a lot more confidence in Roughead, Burgoyne, Hodge, McEvoy holding up their end long enough to get 'the kids' a start than the fading Neitz, Yze, White, Pickett etc...

Avoiding a fall from top of the bottom is also aided by being able to lure players like Tom Mitchell and Jaeger O'Meara (if he ever plays more than one in a row. And was anyone surprised when the fringe player who replaced him late had the first shot of the game?). Whereas at the end of 2006 we traded for.. err.. nobody. The players who had carried us since 1998 all flamed out at the same time and here we are a decade later still trying to stick the pieces back together after dropping the bloody thing on the floor and watching it shatter several times over.

Other than our near 50% disposal efficiency - boosted by all the panic handballs which hit the target for no overall benefit - and allowing Free Range Hawthorn to set up how they wanted to, the most frustrating thing was the way our forward line operated in a battery hen mode where they were rarely allowed into space. Compare to what Roughead was doing when not enjoying soft frees, leading and generally being a nuisance. Once we learn to regularly get players into the open inside 50 things are going to start moving forward quickly. After a genuinely A-Grade game as a forward with a sore knee, Petracca barely got free, but when he did he made good things happen. Therefore if you want to ridiculously simplistic about it - and I would have it no other way - get him into space more and enjoy the show.

We can't go on relying solely on the hefty bomb to Hogan one-on-one, because that's not only easily killable by a second defender flying over the top but it usually requires us to work the ball from the other end of the ground after turning back an opposition attack. I'm all for a counter attacking masterclass, but doing that with a Swiss Cheese zone (I think that's what it is) seems needlessly unsafe. At the risk of being one of those people who writes to the paper and says things like "for goodness sake, why can't politicians just FIX IT", what we need is a reasonably tall forward with good acceleration who can lead at the ball and give the mids a chance to hit a target with a low kick. Take this person, pair them with Hogan violently manipulating defenders in contests and watch miracles occur. Or we could spend five years developing some random American, get a few good news stories and discover not long after that it's a dud idea. What's Maia Westrupp up to these days?

There must be a method to what we do, but it's not always obvious to the untrained eye. Presumably every team mired in mid-table mediocrity or worse make their fair share of bonehead moves, maybe I should take a season off Melbourne and watch one of them intently for 22 games to see what everyone else is going through. For instance, Garlett is hardly known for his long distance Malcolm Blight-esque goalkicking. So when he's taking a set shot from 40 that falls short how is a Hawthorn ruckman the only man in the vicinity? Still, what do I know about tactics - there was one point in the last quarter where there was as stoppage on the Members' Wing side of our 50 and Cyril Rioli turned around and dashed off towards the bench. Obviously nobody followed him because they knew where he was going, but given that his replacement wouldn't get to the contest in time why not just stop and wait to see if the ball comes your way. Had they got it over the top to him he'd have practically been able to walk to the line from the outer wing, with time to stop for a milkshake. Instead he trotted off with no idea of what was going on behind him.

The result of this tunnel rat style commitment to operating in confined spaces was that we made scoring look practically impossible. Meanwhile down the other end, after Roughead's big shove we spent the rest of the quarter serving them goals on an ornate silver platter.  Pedersen got one, but it was one of only a handful of decent chances in Goodwin's first ever one goal Bailey Quarter. It closely resembled that 5.6.36 Geelong game for attacking impotence, so I suppose in a roundabout way scoring 91 is a triumph.

The man with footy's most NQR nickname was flayed in the ruck contests but did a reasonable job around the ground given his bulk/experience disadvantage to McEvoy, and the fact that he spent the whole week having people give him condescending praise in interviews for his game against Essendon as if he was a Category Z rookie with a prosthetic leg unexpectedly called upon to play while also battling a bout of pneumonia. Gawn would have been handy, not as much for the hitouts as somebody who can instinctively take an overhead mark at either end of the ground. Frost did it in defence, nobody really joined in elsewhere.

The epic saga of our day was not the comeback, but the question of what in god's name the defence were doing whenever a long, high ball arrived inside 50. Most of the time they would all jump for it at once, causing the ball to spill to any number of free Hawks who'd stayed on the ground. Then twice least twice they all thought "shit, I'd better not get in anyone's way" and nobody jumped. Who in god's name is marshalling these people? Was anybody surprised when McEvoy - who has slipped straight into David Hale's role of tormenting us - marked in the dying seconds of the first quarter and kicked the sixth goal? I was already having to heavy breathe like a telephone pervert into my jumper to try and stay warm (while the guy three rows in front of me sat there in a t-shirt and is now presumably dead), conceding another soft goal at the end of a quarter was not doing much for the experience.

Speaking of the backline, what was the point of taking McDonald, T out of defence and playing him as centre bounce ruck during the second quarter? It makes sense when there's a stoppage in defence (get them quick before they're outlawed), but did they expect he was going to have more success than Watts or Pedersen and suddenly start delivering pinpoint Gawn style backhand taps? If Pedersen was off at that stage and we preferred Watts forward you could have put anyone in the centre bounce and we'd have got the same result. Ironically despite being thumped in the hitouts we won more centre clearances, demonstrating once more that what the players do at ground level is infinitely more important than the vast majority of times when one player gets his hand to the ball before another. A perfect tap is gold, everything else is a lottery.

Once we showed up after quarter time things slowly got better, but why make it so hard for ourselves? I can't rule out Hawthorn coming out angry, but who didn't know that was going to happen? Did we expect from personal experience that once a side is 1-5 that they're just going to roll over and die? Not many organisations have psychological drama in its DNA like we do.

Finally after we had two goals - including one corker from Viney on the boundary line, and one where we finally managed to isolate Hogan with some spare parts defender and let him do what he does best - it was hello Ben McEvoy yet again as he marked easily again to kill off the first little comeback and leave us effectively where we'd been at quarter time. At least we'd started to get a bit more space and (incoming cliche alert) spread, instead of everyone standing flat footed waiting for somebody else to do the running. Which was all wonderful but still left us five goals down.

If anyone was ever going to suffer a visit from the all-pervasive MFC media curse it was Jayden Hunt. Not only had he enjoyed a startling amount of publicity after battling the AFL for his right to wear novelty headbands, but he'd just been featured in the paper making the startling claim that he can't go a day without seeing an owl. Not that he needs to see one, they're just all around him. I think Ben Cousins used to have a similar issue with dragons. Did they think to ask Hunt for his views on the fake birds that flap around at the top of the Southern Stand to deter seagulls? Sure one of two newspapers in this town is on strike, but once Rohan Connolly puts his megaphone away and gets back behind the desk I'd love to get more Hunt Owl Updates. Wonder if he's ever seen this one:



The Cult of Hunt (don't say that 10 times quickly in mixed company) is growing so rapidly that the returning Josh Wagner decided to adopt a headband of his own, leading to all sorts of Febey brother style confusion between them. At least when they were both in defence you could understand commentators calling the wrong one, unlike when Kennedy-Harris went for a mark right in front of goal and the radio called him Jetta. When Hunt's first half consisted of being penned in too tight for lightning dashes and a scare about doing his shoulder I could hear Nearer My God To Thee - the official theme song of the Media Curse - but in a win for novelty coaching moves he was sent forward in the second half with great success.

He arrived as a forward at just the right time - though if he's not back in place doing turbo mode sprinting off the HBF next Saturday night then everyone to a man should be sacked - after half time provided time for reflection and the adoption of a new plan to start reeling in a five goal deficit we conceded the first within a minute. Last week they put Mark Neeld on my TV, now we were ripping off one of his most famous moves. I didn't scream or swear, it was back to the glory days of the Neeld era where you almost had to laugh at how silly it was. By the end I was not laughing, and instead consciously making sure my jaw loosened up a bit so I didn't wake this morning with a screaming headache.

The most important player in our comeback was the guy who gave away a needless 50 to Hunt for his first goal, and the Owl Fancier was on the end of the next one as well after a chain of handballs out of defence. The difference here was that they were positive handballs that had the purpose of working a player into space. Even at first when they were panicked they were trying to make something. If a Hawthorn player had got a hand in, and turned it into a goal you couldn't be upset with them because they were trying to do the right thing. What shits me is when we have the ball with back to goal in the middle of the ground and go as short as possible backwards by hand, as if the would-be tackler won't just keep going and pressure the new ball-carrier.

Then Garlett got another and against all the odds it was on. I was excited, but barely below the surface I knew exactly how this was going to end. We probably only steamrolled St Kilda because the comeback happened so early in the game that nobody got nervous and went back into their shell. Our record for catching teams and passing them in second halves is rancid, and yet again that would not be a problem if we didn't get ourselves into such ridiculous situations by playing quarters of suburban standard football in the first place.

It was appropriate that our comeback would be halted by another shithouse decision. This time it was probably the interpretations at fault rather than the umpiring, but when McDonald went to ground with Roughead and lightly rolled over his back as the ball fell loose he was pinged and they got their steadier. I'm on record saying this in many non-MFC circumstances, so this is not 100% outrageous bias, but there is nothing worse than players being done for incidental contact that doesn't affect the opponent's chances to get the ball. If the ball had spilt and he'd gone for it by sticking his hand into Roughead's neck and plunging him face first into the turf then fair enough, but they didn't even wait for that to happen before rushing to pay the free. After a first half of letting nearly everything go it was a fine time to start getting technical. Where was this ruthless application of the rules when Joe Daniher was light-heartedly dry-humping a clearly irritated Michael Hibberd last week?

They got another not long after, so as we teetered on the brink again it was an excellent time for Sam Frost to play the quarter of his life. Things change in an instant around here, so he could be back at Casey in a month for all I know but at the moment he is practically the first choice defender. Now watch his toe drop off again. Somebody that tall who can run so fast is a killer asset, and between his closing speed, tackling and ability to leg it out of trouble he temporarily halted Roughead Appreciation Night by giving the Hawks' skipper an arsehole of a time. Wherever he went Frost was there to annoy him, and it was wonderful.

As we started to work into space and make Hawthorn run to catch us rather than the other way around they cracked like an egg. Four goals in the last 10 minutes reduced the margin to a point at three quarter time, effectively cancelling everything we'd done so badly in the first quarter and giving us a fresh start. The way we were going another couple of minutes might have got us more goals. In the midst of all this Pedersen went off for a concussion test, Watts must have been thinking "oh Jesus Christ, here we go again" and somewhere Mitch/Max/Whoever King was getting ready to ring mum and tell her to come to Adelaide next week.

After thinking I'd dressed appropriately for a May afternoon, a violent sideways wind had traumatised me all day, but at three quarter time my shakes and shivers were finally due to extreme nervous tension rather than the conditions. Maybe it was because the Ponsford was better protected, or maybe my screaming blood pressure was keeping me toasty. This was where I realised again why going to the game is so important. Win, lose or draw I had to be there to feel this rather than seeing it second hand through a screen. Even when you're working hard to avoid sitting near people, being in close proximity to them during a run like we had to end the quarter is better than any gear mixed in a bikie's bathtub.

Like so many other times that we've turned on a blistering comeback after getting into frightful trouble, the margin was reeled in with the sort of death or glory footy that even neutrals would be excited by, before we clammed up and lost anyway. It was terrible news for Jeff Garlett, who was taunting Hawthorn players about his three goals just before the last change only to barely get another kick. Not sure I'd be hanging it on many Hawthorn players about doing multiples of things. It's like the pantomime booing of Frawley when a) he's got a flag and b) has never lost to us yet. What about the minority of Hawthorn fans who booed Lewis as if it wasn't their side who'd sacked him. It was Woewodin vs Collingwood in 2003 all over again.

It would be no surprise if Hawthorn had more gas in the tank, having taken five of the first six weeks off. Considering how much time there was to go, conceding another goal in the first minute didn't mean much but what a psychological blow when you're already so nervous your eyelid is twitching. Fortunately Watts clobbered Hodge with a picture perfect tackle inside 50 to cancel it out quickly and give us another life. But by then we'd already lost our mojo. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as the first quarter but other than Frost, still galloping around madly like a giraffe let loose from Werribee Open Range Zoo, we'd stopped moving again. If his shoulder was ok I'd have accepted that the Hunt half-forward move worked when it needed to and put him back down there after Watts' goal.

When they got two goals in a row I was resigned to defeat, and even after Hogan dragged one back with a push only marginally less criminal than Roughead's in the first quarter (that's not what people mean when they demand consistency, but god help the authorities if he'd been pinched for it) I just couldn't see us kicking two more. We'd made scoring one look difficult enough all day without firing off a quick double, but once you get the first then anything can happen. We were given a leg up by Josh Gibson trying a suicidal switch across goal into congestion, which then led to our old mate Frawley having a flashback to playing in a disastrous team and opting to punch to the line under no pressure instead of marking. Hunt bravely kept it in, and stopped Hodge from taking off, before Petracca delivered one of the great passes of our time. It will be forgotten because we lost, but go back and watch how he gathered on the boundary with his back turned to goal, wheeled around, realised Lewis was on his own 40 metres out, changed direction and kicked through two attempted smothers to hit the target with a perfectly weighted kick.

Faced with the double-edged sword of having to make sure he kicked it while simultaneously trying not to waste too much time thinking about it, Lewis' shot was perfect, and finally after the Mediocre Escape against Carlton, and the thwarted Even More Mediocre Escape against Freo we had 58 seconds to pull off a win that would be mentioned in romantic terms for many years to come. We've had so many dud defeats that losing in these circumstances will probably be forgotten by the end of the week.

There was enough time to absorb one Hawthorn attack and counter, but Pedersen and Jones picked an excellent time to execute a proper ruckmanly tap and gather. With a Hawthorn player hanging off him like he was abseiling, Jones managed to tap to Vince, but his handball floated into Hibberd's hands and set him up to be buried in a tackle. He was lucky to get his hand to the ball so we could escape with a ball-up. The magic of taps was again shown to be Fool's Gold when McEvoy hit it straight to Lewis. The first Hail Mary kick forward came back to a solid Frost mark, he kicked it Vince and with acres of space to run into or Salem running past for the handball he inexplicably stopped dead and gave the Hawks a chance to get back into defence. Admittedly his kick to Salem - and Salem's mark - at the top of the centre square were spot on, but by then the only hope we had was for somebody to pull off one of the gigantic pack marks that we've been unsuccessfully trying to set up all year.

Not surprisingly with half a dozen players in the contest nobody was able to take an Inspector Gadget arms still upright grab and the ball spilled out of bounds. Thanks to the magic of a radio station that actually tells you how much time there is to go I knew we were sunk, clinging only to the outrageous outside hope of a comedy finish involving a suspect ruck infringement. There was barely enough time for even that and we were shot. Another so near but so far comeback that we should never have had to contemplate in the first place.



2017 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Jack Viney
4 - Sam Frost
3 - Dom Tyson
2 - Jayden Hunt
1 - Jordan Lewis

Apologies to Oliver, Jones (last three quarters only), Hogan, Pedersen, Jetta and Garlett.

Leaderboard
16 - Clayton Oliver
12 - Jack Watts
11 - Jayden Hunt (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
9 - Jeff Garlett
8 - Jack Viney
6 - James Harmes, Neville Jetta, Nathan Jones, Christian Petracca
5 - Sam Frost, Christian Salem
4 - Michael Hibberd
3 - Dom Tyson
2 – Max Gawn (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Jordan Lewis, Dean Kent
1 – Jesse Hogan, Jake Spencer

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year

With apologies to Jones' goal on the run after being whacked around the chops, and Lewis' clutch set shot with Petracca's assist, it's hard to go past the resurgent co-captain for his goal from the boundary line at the start of the second quarter. The lift Viney gave us lasted for about 30 seconds before we settled back into sludging around via hand and hoping for the best, but it kept me going just as I was ready to close my head in the window of the corporate box behind me. For the weekly prize Jack wins $200 worth of Nubrik bricks with which to construct a brick wall and run through, but Watts vs Geelong remains the clubhouse leader for the overall award.

As one of only two sides ever to register an away win in this competition - and to be fair that was because I was reacting poorly to a Chumbawamba reference on our banner rather than anything they did - the Hawks were an outside chance here. But while they put in a reasonable performance, with one of those gigantic pictures of players that usually floats my boat, I assume ours was a nod to cancer victims and give the points accordingly. Dees 6-1-0 for the season.

Crowd Watch
Suffice to say the citizens of the Redlegs area didn't think much of the first half umpiring. One guy was becoming so shouty and unhinged that I removed a headphone and adjusted which ear the other was in so I could capture any classic lines. Sadly there were none, just endless frustration and cliched screams like "WHY DON'T YOU JUST KICK IT FOR HIM?" He was far less concerned about swearing in front of children than me, but I knew I had to relocate when McEvoy took the unchallenged mark and in trying to stifle obscenity I let off a noise that caused the kid in front to turn around and look at me like I was a special case. He hadn't flinched once while old mate was going haywire to the left of us, but you make one noise like a dying farm animal and children think you're a nutter.

I was going to move to the Olympic Stand for quick egress to Jolimont Station at the siren, but with 20 minutes to waste waiting for play to resume I dejectedly trudged around for a bit. When I saw people walking up a mystery set of stairs I thought I'd follow and see where they ended up, fully expecting to go up one flight and end up being turned back at the Members. Turns out there's an MCC Bypass from the Olympic to Ponsford Stand. It was like playing MCG Cluedo - I'd just witnessed murder and was now crossing from one side to the other via a secret passageway.

Apparently it's been there for ages, and I'd never taken the hint from the "through to Olympic Stand" sign in the far left corner of the Ponsford before. I always thought that meant you had to go through the MCC, but now that I think about it why would people who have waited 25 years to specifically avoid having to sit with plebs give a continental about transferring between stands? Not to overstate it, but this is a life-changing experience. Now I can easily switch from reserved seat to Ponsford at the drop of a hat instead of scanning in/out and busting through crowds to walk around the ground. It was my most significant discovery at the 'G since Gold Coast 2012 when I accidentally found myself in the AFL Members because they hadn't bothered to protect one of the entrances.

When back in more comfortable - and warmer - surroundings I was able to properly act the goat. Swearing under my breath, slumping on chairs and generally being a bad person without anyone close enough to see it. If a tree falls in the woods etc... I was impressed to see two lunatics had gone many steps further and done my old Row MM trick, including one man who was old enough to know better sitting up there in a shirt and tie with a look on his face like he was having a wonderful time. Because he probably was, there's simply no better place to be than in the heavens, looking down on one set of 18 coloured dots turning the ball over to the other 18 dots.

Next week

After suffering a wind-assisted battering that briefly had them on world record pace for a 186 style debacle, you can only assume Adelaide will return home next weekend and comfort themselves by arranging for 22 severed heads to be returned to Melbourne via registered post. Stranger things have happened than us mysteriously toppling a side who until this week had been ruthlessly slaying everything in their path, in a city where we traditionally play like shambling drunks, but if you don't mind I'll be taking to this challenge in full canned goods and fallout shelter huddling survivalist mode. At least I've got an excuse to not leave the house this time.

I'm not that keen on changes - it wasn't the fringe players that cost us in the first quarter yesterday. Who knows what to make of the VFL anyway, Casey are suffering the inevitable effects of changing their name to Demons immediately after winning a final again for the first time in years and Melksham was their top possession getter. Presumably this means he played in the midfield, so picking him to play off half-back wouldn't make any sense would it? He won't be doing anything next week after being suspended for whacking the same VFL player twice.

So let's keep this simple and forgive Kent for whatever indiscretions he's committed and admit that Kennedy-Harris has shown next to nothing in the last three weeks. I knew JFK wasn't a crumber, he was never in position to take forward 50 marks, and though his best game was against Adelaide as a midfielder in 2014 he doesn't look like he knows where to go to get a kick now. We've all had a few laughs at the expense of Milkshake, but I'd much prefer him in the team. Even ANB can get the ball before turning it over. Jay might have won the inaugural Tom McDonald Sizzle Award for player participation in this year's Demonbracket but I can't take him as a senior player.

IN: Kent

OUT: Kennedy-Harris (omit)

LUCKY: Vince

UNLUCKY: Kennedy, Stretch, Trengove

Was it worth it?
In the grand scheme of things yes. I'm still bitter and twisted about losing but every week is another step towards glory. Any danger we might find a massive chunk of cash behind the sofa to lure Fyfe? Not only will he add the much needed 'this bastard could do anything' factor that we're so sorely missing, but he could also act as a West Australian fluffer for Hogan and be tasked to continually remind Jesse about the benefits of living in Victoria rather than having to take six hour round-trips every second week..

Final thoughts
No matter how bad it gets, remember your life could always be worse:

Rethink your life choices pic.twitter.com/tCsDGHyWF5

— Adam 1.0 (@Demonblog) May 6, 2017

Fortress Shithole

It's hard work being the sort of mid-range obsessive who just has to be there whenever possible, and for the first time since the day Hawthorn humped us in 2015 I was forced to accept defeat due to family reasons infinitely less important than the one that kept Jesse Hogan out. After a golden run through 2016 where nothing stopped me, it was back to my nightmare scenario for the 12th time since 2007.

Like a player propping his career record up by being dropped before the team loses, I was 1-10 in those games with two hundred point losses so it didn't seem like such a bad idea to concede for once and watch from my loungeroom. Even the win came in the days where the best you could do for 'live streaming' was radio via the AFL website, meaning that today could very well have been the first Victorian win I've ever watched live on TV. Didn't like it, won't be lining up to do it again anytime soon. Until we started machine-gunning them in the third quarter I felt out of it, like I was watching a video game. The only way you knew it was real was that if a game featured as many remarkable blunders and fantastic fuck-ups the publisher would be offering refunds.

As hated as Docklands has become over the years there was something not at all right about seeing a Melbourne team playing there on TV. I suppose if there was any day to miss out it was a 40,000 crowd full of Essendon fans. I'd have been forced to sit within a few square metres of another human, and if it had been one of the Back The Boys/Kill ASADA/I would like to wear James Hird's Arabian Goggles types who then booed Hibberd there would have been at best terse words, and at worst I'd have been glasses.

To continue the theme of good things happening when you chicken out of a game, neither Dwayne, nor 'Derm' or Tony Shaw was involved in the call. Maybe they should release the roster of callers in advance so you can decide whether or not to go to the game based on the prospects of somebody yelling complete shite for four quarters. At least with Channel 7 you know when BT's coming on and can psychologically prepare for amazing tripe, Fox Footy just mysterious foists overheated lunatics on you without warning.

There was more than a hint of bitterness in my loungeroom as I treated it like an interstate game, standing over the television when I was nervous, and slumping on the couch when it all got too much for me. The only thing this scenario offers you that going to the game doesn't is the chance to over-celebrate a modest win without anyone else seeing it.

I didn't have to be perched high (as high as you get) in the stands to recognise that I'd seen the first five minutes before. Dominating the inside 50s, and looking like a world class team in every aspect other than converting opportunities into goals. Then after smashing the door down, this time for only one point, the ball goes down the other end and they kick a goal. It's like going to see a classic band, you know you're just going to get the classics every time. The difference is that when it's the Rolling Stones you want Jumping Jack Flash, while we've all had enough of battling our hearts out to kick goals and being astonished when we score more than a hundred.

With Pedersen doing a capable job in a ruck division that has a higher casualty rate than Spinal Tap's drummers, and McDonald Sr. sensibly used as a pinch-hitter at defence stoppages, Watts was free to play one of his best games. Sure his last goal came from a free so offensive that if it happened to us we'd still be complaining about it 10 years to the round later a'la J. McDonald vs Port in 2007, but that made up for half a dozen red hot shockers like Sam Frost being given a 50 for walking sideways and Clayton Oliver being done for handballing. Just to prove it could go both ways the umpires also missed a blatant throw in front of our defensive goal, but what do you expect when part timers are expected to leaf through a 4000 page manual of vague rule interpretations before every game. No wonder they just start making it up and guessing that a player has thrown it. Which is ironic considering it happened in the very same week we went for a sook to the AFL about how Oliver's handballs were being adjudicated.

Unable to make a goal in the traditional fashion, and with both teams rushing to turn the ball over to each other as quickly as possible, it took the usual surprise intervention out of nothing from Garlett to get us on the board. A lovely goal it was too, taking advantage of a pair of dud Essendon handballs (and in this game it's important to confirm which team stuffed up, because there were a few times where we did and it still led to scoring opportunities), to nip in and screw through his kick from an angle. He then proceeded to do a shit bloke nudge into the side of an opponent, which is a much more efficient way of getting under their skin than risking suspension for punching them in the head.

It was the best moment of a quarter that was laden with some of the sloppiest football ever - including gifting their second goal via Hunt handballing it straight into the hands of an opponent. Which made it appropriate to see Mark Neeld giving sage advice to John Worsfold. Given how long it was between wins against Collingwood, is this the first time we've ever beaten him as an assistant coach? What a blow to his sparkling record of masterminding Melbourne losses.

Probably the only moment of proper class started with (surprise!) a turnover, and ended with Lewis feeding Watts to casually thump through the second goal from 40 metres on the run. Near on everything else was just plain bad - including the dual decisions not to pay a 50 when the same player knocked the ball away after a free against. Remember when Jack was having a troubled off-season and getting around with hair like 2000 Eminem? And we thought - secretly in my case - that he was going to follow up his career best season with a stinker? Whatever he did it has well and truly been forgotten by now, and he's proven a very good forward option when not being used in the ruck due to the latest mysterious injury.

One of the key suspects in the early festival of dripping slurry was Tom McDonald, whose often unfairly maligned kicking was quite right to be publicly slated at first. I'll still fight anyone to argue he does more good than harm, but some of his long kicks were ridiculously optimistic. Still, I'd rather go down trying to create something than be caught in an endless loop of kicking sideways and backwards waiting forever for an opportunity then turning it over anyone. Then in the ultimate Jekyll and Hyde performance he played 15 minutes of the third quarter that might have been the best of his career. His brother was reasonably good against a barely one dimensional forward line, so if playing him and the once again impressive Frost allows McDonald to become more of an attacking weapon then I'm prepared to go along for the ride. As long as they understand that if he's roaming around the half-forward flank then we're going to get slaughtered on quick turnovers and have a Plan B ready to be ripped from the envelope at a moments' notice.

It took a while for Joe Daniher's exhibition of peg-leg kicking to warm-up properly, only offering us one missed and an out on the full early before exploding into something approaching the day Justin Longmuir kicked 0.7 for Freo. In the end the only way he got a goal was after originally playing on and missing before being helpfully dragged back to kick again by a sensitive, helpful field umpire. Conversely Christian Petracca, now on at least 1.5 legs and playing a fantastic game as a full-time forward, was converting from the boundary line and finding time to turn around and mock some humanoid on the other side of the fence as part of his celebration.

Not long after Truck's poised finish, Daniher missed three in five minutes. Other than Hogan kicking seven against St Kilda I can't even remember the last time we had a key forward take seven shots in a game, and here this guy was on 0.6 with one out on the full at quarter time. Given our luck with playing people back into form it's a surprise he didn't bob up to kick five straight in the last quarter and win the game single handedly.

If you though the first quarter was a blight on our great game (and for those of you growing up in the "footy is shit because we don't have nine awesome matches every round", let me assure you that it was no picnic in the past either), you'd have walked out by half time. The AFL website highlights sensibly choose to play down the disastrous aspects of the contest, but Fox Sports has no such qualms and helpfully packaged up one minute of football so bad it should have been taken to the tip and thrown into a landfill. In summary:

• Garlett stormed through the middle and for reasons unknown lobbed a handball forward at the sort of height you'd expect from a kick, as if Pedersen was on a hard lead
• Some Essendon guy who must be shit because he's in #49 intercepts, and tries a lazy pass that is spoiled in the middle of the ground
• T. McDonald and Oliver actually manage to connect with useful handballs Bugg kicks it over Garlett's head and straight to a Bombers' defender.
• Essendon finally manage to go forward, before Frost smothers their attempted last kick inside 50.

It was awful, especially the Bugg kick, but calling the video 'worst patch of play in 2017?' is optimistic, it's not even the worst patch of play by us and we're apparently a fringe top eight side. That might have looked worse because it involved so many players - though the Frost smother was delightful - but far worse was the goal we conceded immediately after the trifecta of Daniher Duds when Vince played on to himself, ran a couple more steps, then tried to pinpoint a pass into a nest of five opposition players. Needless to say that didn't work, and he was quite rightly left with hands on head wondering what in god's name he'd just done. He must have changed his mind at the last minute, otherwise what's the point of playing on to yourself if you're not either going to trot off or punt it as long as possible? It was the low-point of another less than stellar day for Bernard, who must be hearing the Grim Reaper rounding the corner and coming after him.

Daniher had yet another chance immediately after which could have put them in front, and this miss was the best of the lot because it came from that diabolical 50 against Frost. This bastard played on so blatantly that Sam just shuffled across a bit to cover the space, was run into, and because the umpire was so slow to call play-on he decided that Frost was in the wrong and paid the 50. Which is the sort of decision that would be on every footy talk show for the next week if it happened to a big club. It marched him to 30 metres out and he missed again. Sensible people probably poured scorn on him, I stood there thinking "he's going to kick the winning goal after the siren".

It was truly dire stuff all round, and as much as it hurt me not to be there I was starting to see the benefit of not leaving the house to watch an endless parade of disasters. Of course at this stage I was still not expecting to win, so assumed that I'd only have had to trudge home in defeat anyway. It still baffles me that we started as favourites, having only had moderately more rest than the Bombers and without two key players. The bookies knew best, Essendon were not only untidy from the start but hit the wall with a vengeance in the third quarter. By the time we joined in halfway through the last term the game was too far gone.

Appropriately in a segment at the end of the Collingwood/Geelong game (no Lynden Dunn = no Pies) called "The best stuff" they didn't manage to find a solitary thing to show from this game. There were even highlights from a match that was in progress, but nothing from us. Of course there were worthy contenders, but it felt right not to score a mention after contributing to a first half that was such a spectacular tribute to butchery that all 44 players and three field umpires should have been presented with a meat tray.

Even our kit man earned his share of the chops, half the players had numbers touching the solid line above the white, and half had them below. Sizzle Sr even seemed to have two at different levels, like Milhouse Van Houten's eyebrows:



We only played one quarter, but it was an exciting one. Eight goals to two, starting with Neal-Bullen setting up Garlett for a gift in the square, then Tom McDonald wandering forward and kicking some sort of weird close-range torp almost immediately after. The best part of the McDonald goal was not the awkward defender's finish, but the vision Oliver had to give it to him. Forget sending a video to the league of all the times he's been rorted by the umpires this year, package up his sixth sense handballs and provide a copy on DVD/Blueray/USB to every Auskick player in the country. Last week I asked if our endless supply of handballs were damaging enough, that one sure was.

This was the break we needed, and with neither Watson nor Goddard doing anything useful (except developing a bald spot in Goddard's case) we were left free to romp around unchallenged and build a match-winning lead. There were still howlers out the yin yang, but the more times you get players 40 metres in the clear of an opponent the less chance of even the most turnover prone players giving it up. Even after those two goals Essendon clung to us like an unflushable nugget, and when Daniher finally converted I thought "here we go". But then Petracca gathered a ball in tight space in front of goal and kicked it like he was Aaron Davey (according to the commentary "The Bombers fans are livid!" But how could you tell from how they normally act?) and all was seemingly ok again. Until we conceded almost immediately from the bounce.

To continue the theme of umpire bashing it was a weird day for bouncing. They'd let them off at obscure angles and wait to make sure the ruckman who'd been disadvantaged wasn't able to cover the extra ground to get to it before recalling it. So just like you can now play the system by giving up the chance and hoping somebody's pinged for deliberate, ruckmen can now be aware that there's no point trying their heart out to get to a wonky bounce because they can get a recall by standing back and doing nothing. Then there was a slightly wonky bounce that barely left the centre circle and which Pedersen got too first that they decided to re-do. I'm a traditionalist at heart but just throw the thing up. Which for no apparent reason one umpire did in the last quarter. Good for him, there should be more of it.

I'm so used to other teams putting us away in a sharp burst of violent football that it was heartening to see it go the other way for once. In the last five minutes of the third quarter we kicked four goals and the Bombers were cactus. And four set shots too - cop that complaints about our goalkicking. Don't go looking for any of these goals in the AFL website highlights, they were obviously not important enough to qualify.

I can see why they wanted to cover up the last one. Confirmation that the umpires were on the piss came just at the right time for us, when right at the end of the quarter - in the sort of time we're normally battling hard not to concede - Watts completely misjudged a leap at the ball and was given a free for some alleged infringement. We weren't anywhere near comfortable, and the Chris Sullivan Line remains elusive as it has for every game in six years except the Carnival of Hate and Gold Coast away last year, but his goal temporarily calmed my nerves.

Any fears of a shattering reverse were quickly calmed, when first Watts kicked another of the set shots that you'd put your life on the line for, then Bugg found Hannan on his own in the square to put the margin to nearly 40. Even in my dark, Round 6 1992 damaged heart I knew Essendon couldn't win from there, but it didn't stop me shitting it royally when they whipped through two quick goals .

By the time the weary Essendon player was too scared to rush a behind, and instead sliced the ball out on the full in the back pocket at near right angles the AFL had achieved their dream of players being both tired and confused. Jordan Lewis - who had earlier confirmed his place on every montage for the week by reversing into a goalpost - converted with one of the most casual set shots from an obscene angle that you'll ever see and it was very much officially over. They got a couple of consolations, before Viney capped his best game of the season by setting up Hannan's third.

The only thing that soured the last quarter, other than my blood pressure going up and down like a rollercoaster whenever they kicked a goal, was a piece of shocking acting from Vince when lightly elbowed in the head. He went down like that bloke in the 2002 World Cup, clearly thinking that the umpires had had such a 'mare that they might just pay anything. For once the confused whistleblowers did the right thing and called play-on. We deservedly conceded a goal from it.

To confirm that it is most certainly a new day, the win lifted Dom Tyson above Martin Gleeson (who looks like he's about 14-year-old, so god knows how he's managed to lose so many games) in the current player win/loss records. This means that for the first time in god only knows how long none of the top five are current Melbourne players. We've still got six of the top 20, plus the SME and Jeremy Howe but Martin has now played more for Brisbane than us so it's their fault more than ours.

2017 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
This was difficult due to a wide range of contenders. A number of worthy players have missed out on the lower numbers, but that's the way it goes. No doubt some of them will make up for it by scoring default votes in a game where we play like shite.

5 - Jack Watts
4 - Christian Petracca
3 - Jack Viney
2 - Clayton Oliver
1 - Jordan Lewis

Apologies to T. McDonald after the ultimate Jekyll and Hyde game, Salem, Frost, Jones, Hibberd, Pedersen, Tyson, Garlett and Hannan.

Leaderboard
The competition favourite is on the board, but with Oliver continuing his Donny Brasco style tour of inside work Viney only slices a vote off the lead and still finds himself with plenty to do in the final 16 games (plus finals? Jesus, let's not get too excited we were about to put our head in the oven last week). For now Oliver's closest rival is the ultimate utility J. Watts.

(Note: Leaderboard now updated to rightfully show Hunt as the leader in the Seecamp).

16 – Clayton Oliver
12 - Jack Watts
9 – Jeff Garlett, Jayden Hunt (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
6 – James Harmes, Neville Jetta, Nathan Jones, Christian Petracca
5 – Christian Salem
4 - Michael Hibberd
3 - Jack Viney
2 – Max Gawn (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Dean Kent
1 – Sam Frost, Jesse Hogan, Jordan Lewis, Jake Spencer

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
It's a decent field, with Garlett's opening goal and the Petracca set shot from the boundary line both strong contenders. But even though the sting was right out of the game by the time he did it, I'm going for Jordan Lewis. Not since the 70s would a man have kicked a goal from that sort of angle with so little fuss. No running around, no theatrics, just holding the ball on an angle and casually stroking it through like he was sinking a two foot putt.

Watts vs Geelong still leads the overall competition, but for Jordan's weekly prize is an all-expenses paid breakfast with the person who puts the highlights together so he can understand why in god's name this kick didn't make it either.


Essendon's Daniher focused banner was well designed, and obviously provoked the Bombers into kicking like they were 50-year-old men so that was nice. But ours not only had the obligatory giant picture of the milestone man, but in one of the nicest touches seen on a banner in recorded history we had this from Nifty's kid. Stick your comedy routines up your arse, (though I did like St Kilda's one pre-taunting Hawthorn about giving up their first round pick) this is the good stuff. Dees 5-1-0 for the season

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here&#39;s a special message on our banner today for <a href="https://twitter.com/melbournefc">@melbournefc</a> from Nalani Jetta <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/goDemons?src=hash">#goDemons</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/raisehell?src=hash">#raisehell</a> <a href="https://t.co/m6x9sNZTZI">pic.twitter.com/m6x9sNZTZI</a></p>&mdash; Demon Army (@DeeArmy) <a href="https://twitter.com/DeeArmy/status/858523183854403584">April 30, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Next Week
Speaking of Hawthorn, rapidly plummeting towards handing St Kilda the #1 pick, they get their chance to return to the MCG and start making amends next Sunday afternoon. The way we're travelling there we might try to get it transferred to Docklands. For all the Hawks fans that will turn up now that the rush is gone they could apply to hold it at Glenferrie Oval.

Now even with our injury issues, surely on a full week rest we're going to win. I'm not going in expecting to condemn them to another 80 point loss (because that was lies madness) but I refuse to accept that their rag tag bunch of survivors are going to climb off the life raft and topple us - especially if Hogan returns. Of course, nobody plays a side back into form better than us so stored tinned cans of food in your secure underground bunker just in case.

The two hyphens are a given, Neal-Bullen couldn't even get the ball to butcher it effectively this week and Kennedy-Harris has failed two chances to impress in the ones. Back to the windswept tundra of Casey Fields to see if they can get the ex-Scorpions a win already. Not even concerned that my ins don't balance with the outs - there are coaches paid a fortune to work this stuff out.

IN: Kent, Stretch
OUT: Kennedy-Harris, Neal-Bullen (omit)
LUCKY: Melksham, Vince
UNLUCKY: Trengove (racking them up by the dozen in the VFL, and should get a go eventually. But not here), Kennedy, Harmes

Final thoughts
The building blocks are definitely there. The rational part of my brain says that even with off-field drama and surprises losses to Freo this list is doing enough to keep it respectable this year and hopefully lure the extra players we need to have a proper, unencumbered bash at the eight or better next year. Doesn't take much to shake my faith though, by this time next week I might be back to wallowing in self-pity and declaring that the end is nigh. Such is life as a Melbourne fan. At least we're in the eight after six weeks for the first time since Ivor Warne-Smith.

Reinventing hell

As I watched the depleted Dees slowly slip away in the last quarter like a patient taken off life support I had some sympathy with the late Marylou Cunningham Belles, whose obituary said: 'She was also a lifelong Mets fan, though surprisingly that wasn't what killed her'. But then again she would have been alive for at least one, if not two, Mets world championships so stuff her. When following Melbourne does kill me sometime in the next 1-65 years I'd like it noted that I never even got that. Now I know how Bulldogs fans felt all those years.

I've come out of last night with my bundle reasonably intact. We went in with injury problems, we suffered more, we could still have won with more experience. You could say that it was unfair to come so close after being down to two on the bench, without a ruckman for three quarters, but to that I would say:



I'd like to preface the following remarks/lengthy whinge by saying that I don't blame the players. A handful of them played like they were on heroin, but even they tried hard in the circumstances. On another night, with perhaps three left on the bench rather than two we might have dragged their lifeless carcasses across the line for an epic victory. But it was not to be. The part of it that's truly unfair is how many times we've been turned over by sides who have lost one or two players, but when it happens to us the remainder could do no more than put up a valiant fight before eventually caving in. Not that it stopped at two injuries, Petracca was playing on one leg, and various other players were coming to the bench in the second half looking like they'd been mugged. Forget 'bruise free footy', we've gone the other way. It will pay off eventually, but not before our medical insurance bill grows to the GDP of a small country.

Let the ongoing misery that comes free with your membership not detract from the fact that we were four goals up at three quarter time, or that we completely dominated the first quarter in every aspect other than converting inside 50s or stopping Riewoldt from snapping goals out of his arse. It was an odd night, for a quarter where we couldn't stop getting the ball into attack I still couldn't believe we ended it in front. Conversely I've rarely been so convinced we were about to blow a four goal lead at the last change. And I expect to give up every three-quarter time lead of less than 47 points - it's just this time I didn't think it would probably happen, I was convinced.

After years of spitting at the sub rule I can't complain that injuries cost us. They did, but it happens. There have been games where we won because the other side fell apart like cheap imported crockery, just not in front of 85,000 people as we sat delicately poised at 2-2. There was still plenty we did wrong that had nothing to do with half the team gasping for oxygen by three-quarter time. After going on ad nauseum about how missed shots are not transferable I can't go on about how we should have had 30.5 from when we were on 35 inside 50s to 10, but the way we were playing it's not inconceivable that if we'd found a reliable route to goal the first might have been the beginning of an avalanche.

The problem was the players we lost, I wouldn't wish injury on anyone but I could think of at least four players we could have stood to lose for 3/4 of the game ahead of Spencer and Smith. Not that either of them were playing out of their skin when they went down, but it blew our structure to buggery and left Jack Watts playing another heroic innings in the ruck. When he saw Spencer go down he must have been saying "not again", like Liam Neeson in one of those films where his family mysteriously keeps getting kidnapped.

In a surprise change of policy we've stopped gifting unknowns and journeymen career-saving games, and instead all our losses have come as a direct result of the opposition's superstars running riot. Now we've been done over by Selwood, Dangerfield, Fyfe, Cotchin, Riewoldt, and one of the most influential 35% disposal efficiency games you'll ever see from a one-legged Dustin Martin. Shows yet again - as if you needed any further proof - how important the very top end of a team is. We're nowhere near the level of having one of the above yet, let alone multiples. Give it a couple of years for Oliver and Petracca, but for now we keep battling away with a young team and have to expect random highs and ridiculous lows. Last night wasn't even the latter, we left with plenty of excuses but a lot of issues as well. We can get a lot of touches, but unless it's Oliver barging through a centre clearance or a rebound out of defensive 50 how many of them are damaging?

It's talkback caller level simplistic to say we handball too much, but bloody hell we do. Between Jones, Viney, Oliver and Tyson they had 31 kicks and 72 handballs. Other than the quick handed Hamburglar, and with respect to Viney's best performance of the season, it wasn't getting us anywhere fast. No wonder they were trying Petracca - pre-injury - and Salem in there as well. Sure, you don't want as much kicking in the wet but let's not pretend we don't play like this every week. Conditions or not, most of the time you could only get a midfielder to kick if they were heaving the ball long into the forward line and expecting Hogan or Garlett to do their Shaun Smith impersonation.

Our defenders like kicking, which is often terrifying but makes sense because god help us all if any of them other than Jetta starts trying to do dinky little handballs, but once there's any kind of pressure further than 30 metres from goal everyone goes to water and tries to get rid of it as soon as possible. It's like the whiteboard in team meetings reads MIDFIELDERS = HANDBALL, DEFENDERS = KICK, FORWARDS = GOOD LUCK. Usually the only way we'd get a decisive kick out of the middle of the ground was when a player had no other options and just thumped it at goal in the hope of something happening. It rarely did.

At least Hogan was back to provide a target. I shudder to think how Weideman would have gone in the same circumstances. Jesse wasn't spectacular by any means, but I was just happy he returned from his WA tour in one piece. I expected his trip home to look like this:


I'm not sure how he got the leave pass to go home when he was rubbed out for cracking the sads and biffing somebody, but I guess that's the sort of NQR compromise we're forced to make to keep him. He did his job on the scoreboard courtesy of a couple of gifts, and provided a better target than we had the last couple of weeks, but given the way he burst onto the scene by making Alex Rance look silly in the same game a couple of years ago he's not progressed much further since. Now that Freo are seemingly good again should we expect him to be slapping in a trade request at the end of the year so he can displace Shane Kersten and take his rightful spot alongside the Unmade Bed? Somebody spread a propaganda campaign that Fyfe won't there so he doesn't start dreaming of being paid a fortune to accept bullet passes on the tit from a fully functioning midfield.

His cause wasn't helped by playing in the wet, or alongside a second gamer who soon departed with broken ribs, and nor did it help that we kept thumping the ball long instead of trying to spot targets. Only Jack Watts - now only much maligned by people you wouldn't want to sit next to on a bus - bucked the trend, thinking about what he was going to do next in the second quarter and finding Salem with a perfect pass. I'd say they should have that passage of play on a video loop for the rest of the week, but what chance 3/4 of the list pulling it off?

After battering them from pillar to post for 10 minutes we were two goals down. Another game in a long line where we've come out strongly, wasted our chance to knife the opposition before they could get going and lost in the end. Both goals came from turnovers, reminiscent of the first time we played this fixture and they would have only kicked about four goals off their own bat. The difference was that night we had ruckmen, an intimidating forward line and 21 fit players remaining after Kent blew his hammy.

It took McDonald marauding forward and thumping a long goal to get us on the board, which was helpful because it didn't look likely that any of our actual attackers would get one. It was the first of a trio of running goals by defenders - next Hibberd, then Hunt - that came as a welcome change to every other long kick inside 50 being instantly mopped up or swept away. The measure of our success was that nobody managed to frustrate Alex Rance into thumping a defenceless player in the back of the head. He had to settle for playing a mighty game, marking everything that came near him. We're still 2-1 up on him (and indeed Richmond) in the lifetime of this fixture but that doesn't help right now.

If nothing else we get confirmation that when Essendon were pumping their players full of mystery drugs, Hibberd got something from the good batch. Having played two competitive games in around 18 months he died in the arse in the last quarter when unable to rotate, but until then he'd played a great game coming out of defence. On the other side of the WADA debacle, Melksham played like he was still suffering side-effects from his dose of elephant juice. He did another lovely tap-on and was angry, but that's not doing much for me. It's time for him to discover what life as a mid-range Melbourne player is all about, traipsing across Victoria playing at shithouse VFL venues with gale force winds blowing in all four directions at the same time.

It's a shame Milkshake hasn't demonstrated an aptitude for kicking, because at the moment the only thing separating Bernie Vince from the stereotypical view of Tom McDonald is the lack of outright howlers. Instead it's death by a thousand cuts. If you're going to play as the loose man who's not actually a defender but can be relied upon to hit targets (role previously occupied by Davey and Watts) hitting the targets is a pre-requisite. I like Salem no matter where he plays, but we might be getting a bit ahead of ourselves trying to play him as a midfielder when he could do a far better job as the trusted kicker than Vince is right now - and will be there long into the future. For all my propaganda about more kicking from the midfield - as long as it's reasonably accurate and doesn't just set up turnover goals - somebody's generally going to have to get it out of defence to them in the first place.

Once Smith departed with his ribs displaced and lung punctured, and Watts was forced into the ruck as good as permanently, we basically played without a half-forward line. Garlett flits in and out doing good things but can't be relied upon to play four quarters, so we could have done with somebody else down there with a bit of life about them. Whatever indiscretion Dean Kent was dropped for, it was not worth Kennedy-Harris' comeback performance. As much as people like to racially profile JFK as a small forward he's definitely more of a midfielder/half-forward, but didn't show anything last night that suggests the seniors is his level. It was one thing playing well against the Carlton seconds at Casey Fields, but after returning from injury he didn't seem to be banging the door down to get a start. He could get another go eventually, but will need to put together a string of games in the seconds. Now watch them double down, pick him again next week and leave Kent to wither and die on some rocky VFL outcrop.

Absurdly because of how bad we looked going inside 50, but appropriately considering how many times it happened, we were in front at quarter time. The second goal came from one of these newfangled deliberate decisions where the player is pinged for badly disguising trying to rush it over the line. What a load of old bollocks. It was a correct application but of a stupid rule. What was wrong with the rushed behind? If teams want to concede points then let them. Imagine how many times we walked into seven or more point plays after rushing a point because we had no idea how to craft a kick-in? It's just another unnecessary interpretation for umpires to get slaughtered over and people to moan about on talkback radio.

By all means ruthlessly ping deliberates around the ground, but if teams want to give up points let them. If they can convert the kick-in to a goal via a spectacular end-to-end move that's got to be more appealing to viewers than endless debate about what players are or aren't allowed to do. At the time of writing I was watching the other Anzac Day game and Leigh Matthews said it was good for the game that players had no idea what they were allowed to do. There's proof that the rules are in disarray if you ever needed it. Maybe they should hold a Constitutional Committee and rewrite them from scratch? I'd stand on a pro-early 2000s ticket with this as our theme song. Ironically a Richmond player had dashed out of bounds under little pressure like an NFL player going for the sidelines to stop the clock a few minutes earlier and went unpunished. Maybe they were just trying to square up for that?

The go-ahead goal came from a perfect Watts set shot from distance, especially impressive considering it had been pissing down for much of the quarter. Just goes to show what we missed by having to use him in the ruck for the rest of the night. I don't know why it took so long to try Frost instead, Richmond had one dangerous tall forward and another who was as useful as an oak table so we could have spared losing Sam for a few minutes to give Watts time to rest/become a target up forward. As it was we ran him into the ground and can't be far from him keeling over and dying if any more first rucks get hurt.

In the second quarter we weren't as good at getting the ball inside 50 a ridiculous number of times, but this time managed to score the first two goals instead of conceding them. First Petracca took advantage of probably the only Neal-Bullen disposal to hit the target all night, then Hogan got another from a free, before Salem added another from a perfect Watts pass and everything was starting to look Melbourne. Even though we'd lost Smith and Spencer by this point we'd finally harnessed the momentum enough to start building a lead that would somewhat insulate us against a last quarter fadeout.

After Hibberd romped down field to kick a goal we were 12 points up shortly before half-time, which lasted until approximately seven seconds before the siren. ANB got confused about what to do with a ball rolling towards the boundary line, and instead of either picking it up to try and disguise taking it out or just hammering it up the line and hoping to be pinged in a less damaging position he just shoed it straight across the line 30 metres out. Not that it diminished from the stupidity of it, but he wasn't to know there was only seven seconds left, and neither was the Richmond bloke who risked a debacle by playing on but just beat the siren.

For the third quarter in a row we opened up threatening to destroy them, kicking the first two goals in quick succession before settling back into a arm-wrestle. Things were going so well for us that even after they got their first of the quarter we responded immediately, with a goal created almost entirely courtesy of Oliver bashing through a pack at the centre bounce. Then we flipped the usual script by being the team who turned one goal against into two for, when the next bounce ended with the ball flying inside 50 and Hogan's whinge about not getting a free-kick somehow ending with him in the perfect position to soccer through another. Still didn't think we were going to win, but we were starting to build a decent sized wall to defend behind.

Like last year there was a good old fashioned melee, and again both Nathan Jones and Jack Viney came out with lighter bank balances. Jones is now not only the most fined player in MFC history ($21,750 and counting), but has also drawn level with noted mentalist Rod Grinter as the most reported player in club history. Chunk might have done $20k in fines, but he's trailing Grinter 31 games to one in actual suspensions. As far as Richmond vs Melbourne fights went it really lacked the wide-eyed lunacy of Kent/Dunn and the comic relief of Bugg/Gawn.

The dust-up was the cue for Richmond to lift, and they spent the rest of the quarter battering our line for a last goal to bring the margin under 20 at three quarter time. Once more there was an inevitability about us conceding, and surprise surprise the siren went with one of them about to have a shot. He missed, but I knew we were still stuffed. It's not every day a team comes back from that far down at three quarter time, but this was against a decimated side whose most important players had run themselves into the ground. If they suffered a few mishaps we were a chance, but as long as they had 20+ players upright it was over.

We could have done with a massive, pissing, sideways rain. And if the match started 30 minutes later we'd have got it. Our lot were already slowing to a crawl before the break, and hit 0 km/h not long after the resumption, so at least it would have dragged Richmond down to our level. It probably wouldn't have helped us get the ball out of defensive 50, by then we were working with 20 battered survivors who barely had 40 operational legs between them. If it was a boxing match the referee would have stopped it for our own protection five minutes in.

What I didn't get about the last quarter was why we didn't use Hogan in the middle, or realise that Watts was going to lose the majority of ruck contests around the ground and set up to defend the tap. The closest we got to doing something else at centre bounces was using Garlett when he was practically the last player left who could still run at any speed, but the game was shot by then. Our coaching staff must have realised we were going to fizz at some point during the quarter, so even an early goal might not have saved us. On a night where long kicking into the forward line had delivered us four marks inside 50 and not much on the scoreboard we could have had Hulk run through and bowl a few pricks out of the way to make a statement. Instead we did the traditional Melbourne thing of wandering meekly off the edge of the cliff like defeat was inevitable.

The set up at the stoppages gave me the shits, maybe they had plans which fell apart because the players were too stuffed to execute them, but at the same time maybe nobody thought that the worst thing for us in that situation was fast breaks and forgo to leave somebody out the back to stop an opposition player swooping through and picking up a loose ball? There was one perfect tap from a boundary throw in to a player dashing past that should go on the 'highlights' reel at AAMI Park alongside Watts' pass to Salem - this time as a cautionary reminder of what not to do.

They battered us for the first 15 minutes of the quarter, and even though we couldn't for the life of us get the ball out of 50 in any way effectively we did a good job to stop them from going past us and into the distance. Once they narrowly hit the lead they clammed up a bit, giving us a shot of pulling off a miracle if we could pull a goal or two from our arse. We tried hard, only for Riewoldt to take a contested mark on an obscure angle and do exactly what you'd expect one of the best forwards in the competition to and convert as if he was 20 metres out directly in front. It may have been his first real full forward style goal of the night, and it came at just the wrong time for us. We had another couple of forward thrusts, with one golden opportunity for Garlett to cut the margin back to less than a goal with plenty of time remaining, but we didn't have enough up front and down we went.

It was all for nothing as the game was already stuffed by that point, but I loved Sam Frost cutting Riewoldt in half with a 'tackle' at the end. It might be a controversial viewpoint, but I just like Frost in general. At the moment he's a mile ahead of Oscar McDonald in every aspect, and has enough years left in him that we can afford to develop Sizzle Jr elsewhere until the grim reaper of serious injuries arrives to haunt one of our defenders.

This is the point where people start getting nervy and start a fundraising campaign to bring back Roos, but let's not act like Richmond fans just yet. I have no idea what they've been doing with selection for the last few weeks, but let's not pretend we didn't sook about the last guy's team choices either. Maybe not in Year 1 though, when we were so grateful just to have him that we'd put up with anything. Now we expect more so the coach cops it in the neck from day one, which is an occupational hazard of being in charge of anything but the most rock bottom slop side.

2017 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
Another week of toil and struggle. I have confidence in the top four, but not necessarily the order. If Hibberd hadn't died in the arse late he was certainly on the way to a rare five vote performance on debut. The last spot was a raffle, feel free to exchange Frost for any other player and keep your own version of the leaderboard.

5 - Jayden Hunt
4 - Michael Hibberd
3 - Clayton Oliver
2 - Jack Watts
1 - Sam Frost

Apologies to Petracca, McDonald, Viney, Salem

Leaderboard
The committee has decided to temporarily exclude James Harmes from Seecamp contention, but are open to reinstating him if he ends up back in defence. As for the Stynes, back in the days before the 10 hitout average rule came in you'd think Jack Watts would be the unlikely leader but he's only only about 6.5 so that's unfortunate for him.

14 – Clayton Oliver
9 – Jeff Garlett, Jayden Hunt
7 - Jack Watts
6 – James Harmes, Neville Jetta (CO-LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Nathan Jones
5 – Christian Salem
4 - Michael Hibberd
2 – Max Gawn (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Dean Kent, Christian Petracca
1 – Jesse Hogan, Sam Frost, Jake Spencer

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Impossible to go past the lightning Salem handball to Hunt in the third quarter. One of those handballs that at full pelt you think had to be a throw, but it was legal and Hunt's finish in his newly AFL approved novelty headband was perfect. Replay also revealed the classy tap from Watts to keep the ball moving when it was going over his head.

For the weekly prize Hunt wins a full-day headband workshop with Carl Ditterich, to try and get the thing to stretch ever further until it looks like a small towel draped across the forehead. It went close to snatching the clubhouse lead, but after hours of soul searching we've opted to stick with the Watts long bomb against Geelong.


It's the annual draw for the joint banner. And what a nice banner it was too. The editing was definitely left to us because there were no spelling errors - and the person in the Richmond cheersquad waving a 'Dusty 4 Ava' banner was banned participating. Unless their name is Ava and they're hoping for a quick and dirty legover with the Tigers superstar. I doubt you would need to put together a banner to set that up. Dees 4-1-0 for the season.

Crowd Watch
Maybe turning up late for once, getting inside just in time for the commemoration and banner run-through, played to my advantage because I walked straight in via the sort of queue you'd usually get at a game against Gold Coast. Only once inside did I realise that there was a huge crowd there - our biggest home and away attendance since 1964, and the second highest for any game I've ever been to. Suffice to say I never tried to use the catering or bathroom facilities. Who'd have thought there would be a day you'd have to queue for a whizz at a Melbourne game?

Now that this game has momentum - though I bet there would have been 30,000 less there if Richmond were 0-4 - and is creeping towards the crowd the actual Anzac Day game gets I expect Eddie to finally fulfil the prophecy I've been flogging on here for years and give us the arse from permanent home status on Queen's Birthday. I don't mind it, keep the game and give them the gate every year when we've got the home Anzac Day Eve match. Every cent counts, but I'm sick of taking their charity.

The weird thing about this game is that after the solemn and well-observed pre-match ceremonies the moment the first siren goes it's straight back to hokey crowd promotions that even the NBL would refuse to get involved with. I'm not expecting them to replace the man kicking for cash while being cheered on by somebody dressed as a cardboard box with a recreation of the Battle of Long Tan, but they could have replaced the segment where people are shown tooling around on their phone in the crowd for a week with promo for Legacy or the RSL, or basically anyone remotely connected to the idea of being shot at. This is not a shot at Richmond, I can't remember what happened last year but we probably greeted quarter time with an irony free round of Hogan's Heroes.

Commemoration Corner
Unlike that bloke from SBS who got himself the sack last year I'm all for paying tribute to troops both past and present, but the wearing of special jumpers is a bit over the top isn't it? Not that you'd have known from a distance that we were wearing one, especially because in a minor design flaw the image of the bugler looked like more like a drawn on arse crack unless you were looking at it from two foot away. I presume some of the funds from selling them goes to the RSL, and if not that's even dodgier.

Next Week
Speaking of hell, it's Essendon at Docklands. We've gotten away with not having to play them there for a few years, but our luck has run out and it's time to shuffle up to the back row and sit in close proximity to conspiracy theorists and 9/11 style truthers. Drink every time one of them reminds you that we were on some sort of gear as well - and look how well the cream has done for Jack Trengove, did it have Agent Orange in it? Journalists please note - if there are boos when Melksham gets a kick don't automatically assume they're coming from Essendon fans.

Apologies to the sunshine and lollipops faction who only want brightness and positivity (as if they would be reading anyway), but I just assume we're going to lose now. Still don't think Essendon are anything more than a midtable mediocrity this year, but neither are we so it should be a good game but ultimately they're going to run us off our feet. The following changes have no hope of getting up due to all the injuries, but a man can only hope:

IN: Kent. Pedersen, Kennedy, Hannan, Lewis, Bugg
OUT: Kennedy-Harris, Melksham, Neal-Bullen (omit), Smith, Spencer, Petracca (inj)
LUCKY: Tyson, Vince
UNLUCKY: Max King (EDIT: Err that would be Mitch King - sorry, I was on the Jesse Hogans when I wrote this) and Lachlan Filipovic by default as the only real ruckmen left, no matter how unprepared for senior football. And Angus Brayshaw in general, who is one clubbering blow to the head from a low-flying seagull away from having to retire.

Was it worth it?
A marginal yes - for the atmosphere, the record setting crowd and the brief, spectacular moments when we were the better team and converting the scores to prove it. We'll look back one day and etc... etc...

Final thoughts
The first two weeks (well, the middle bit of Round 1 and the last 15 minutes of Round 2 anyway) were a nice teaser of what's it like to be a real team, now the incredible injury luck we rode through 2016 has ended and we're hurtling back towards earth like a faulty plane. That's ok if you never really expected much this season anyway. Now that I'm back into my comfortable space of thinking we'll lose and being surprised by wins I can concentrate on development instead. Maybe we'll spring a surprise, get a run on again like last year and I'll be left as wide-eyed and horny as a 5-0 Tiges fan. If not, then no drama - 2018/19/20 are the real key years.

As much as I'm expecting the season to die in the arse from here there are still going to be good weeks. Maybe we'll have to wait but this is not 2012-13, we will eventually get a run on in a game, convert and hopefully obliterate somebody. Other than injuries all the issues I have with the team are the sort of thing that could be ironed out during the season, we just need a few weeks of clear air without anyone crucial being hurt or suspended to work on it. I'm feeling a sense of disappointment, but what would following Melbourne be without one of those?