Reviewed: 1990 Melbourne Demons Celebrity Variety Concert

In the highly competitive world of YouTube, the Costa Sports channel has quickly shot to favouritism for this year's NAB Rising Star award. First we got the 41 minute promo video for the 1987 Brisbane Bears which made it sound like a solvent enterprise with a glorious future, now this - a production so startlingly ill-conceived that several people involved may take out injunctions to try and have it removed from the internet. It's the...

Please note: In the realm of 'Demons Celebrity Variety Concerts' this isn't the one that featured Jazzy O, a raffle, and live on stage activities so if you're into that sort of thing move along.

At least we had a win the day before so there wouldn't have been fans using primitive internet newsgroups to whinge about how players should concentrate on footy instead of engaging in vaudeville. I'm highly skeptical that it was really held on a Sunday, surely everyone had real jobs to go to the next day?

The first 'celebrity' appears to be Nathan Buckley singing a karaoke version of John Farnham's Take The Pressure Down whilst engaging in frottage with the original Solid Brown Dancers. As far as the sort of performance you get when you can't afford John Farnham it was at least better than David Thai on Pot Luck. My poor memories of the 1990 season will be exposed when somebody tells me this was our third string ruckman - but I'd turned nine two weeks before so get stuffed.

It doesn't appear that this spectacular was broadcast anywhere, so the question is whether the video was produced for sale in the predecessor to the Demon Shop, or whether like a homemade sex tape it was only intended for private viewing but leaked onto the internet.

To lukewarm applause your host - and 25 years later a wedding celebrant - Greg Evans does the standard "is it getting hot in here" act to imply he'd like to fornicate with one or more of the dancers and then follows by suggesting "that sort of stuff" "gets the blood pressure up" rather than taking it down. "If you thought that was good" he says, "that's just a taste of some of the magnificent talent we've got for you tonight". Not sure if talking about song and dance routines or hornbags in leotards but we're about to find out.

After implying that the Febey twins are still half-cut from over-celebrating their birthday the night before (which is indeed, 19 August) he does some confusing 'of its time' joke about Jamie Duursma's sock which raises some knowing laughs from the audience before his next gag falls flat on its face and he says "ah a lone clapper, or is that a nudist sitting down at the back?" To confirm it was the 90s, the first segment of entertainment for the night was a list of the top seven comments made by 'Italian porn queen' Ilona Staller when she made love to Saddam Hussein. I won't ruin them for you in case you dare to watch the entire video but suffice to say it gets a bit racial (much to the disinterest of the crowd) until he wraps up with a dutch oven gag which gets the audience back in the palm of his hand.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to get involved in the show at this point, but Jo Pearson had obviously already cashed her cheque because she turns up late to co-host. If I was her I'd have legged it. Apparently this is being filmed at the Southern Cross Hotel, which was bulldozed shortly after. Some ticketholders may have wished for a wrecking ball to go through the place before this was over.

The best we get early from the Evans/Pearson combination is ribald comedy about being screwed by Channel 9 executives. The audience microphones might have been turned down at this point, because nine minutes in people have lost interest and Jo is wearing the sort of look people get when they sit on a thumbtack. Greg takes this as an opportunity to do more gags implying she's a keen rooter.

Greg alleges that Chris Connolly is responsible for much of the material in this show, but I think the jokes implying Jo Pearson was hot to trot were pure Evans.

First on stage are the Major Reconstruction Quartet (Stuart Clark, Trevor Spencer, Connolly and some bloke who is possible Jamie Duursma wearing Sean Wight's jumper because Sean obviously told them to piss off) with a ditty entitled "I've Done Me Knee" to the tune of Let It Be - ensuring the song-writing credit would go to the unlikely trio of McCartney/Lennon/Connolly.

It's about as tuneful as you'd expect from footy players doing Beatles covers, highlighted by Spencer forgetting the words halfway through. There's 2hrs, 22 minutes of this sort of excitement to go - and a good few minutes of it are then wasted by bringing a proper entertainer on to sing a song. Bugger that, I want Brent Heaver dressed like he's in Motley Crue. Or a comedy skit where all stereotypes about us being toffs are confirmed when Joan Kirner is referred to as 'Mother Russia' before our latest international recruiting coup is discussed,

Featuring a sensitive portrayal of international accents with the same subtitles they used to have on Hey Hey It's Saturday

And a Brisbane Bears gag which surely much to the chagrin of Greg Evans got the biggest laughs of the evening.

What any of this had to do with the alleged comedy skit taking place I'm not entirely sure, but they had 150 minutes to fill and an audience who had nothing to do but drink cans so I'm sure it made sense to somebody. The lion tamer then dons the MFC jumper and offers a footy to a group of vicious animals. In the #fistedforever era they'd have eaten him alive.

This is followed by a bemused Russian with shocking Soviet chompers being implored to yell 'COME ON DEMONS' for the benefit of the capitalist swine in the audience.

And he's not the only member of the Politburo to get involved:

But no footage of Josip Broz Tito brokering us drafting Allen Jakovich.

After some brief chat about the raffle (reminder: not that raffle) they mention a performance by Kylie Minogue at this very event four years ago - and as they're committed to introducing new talent here's another guy that's going to go far. He's a factory worker who likes to sing in the shower and it's his first appearance on stage - your friend and mine Ron Humphries.

It was also possibly his last time on stage, but if it's any consolation later that night he won the Percy Jones lookalike contest. But whatever he was singing it was far less offensive than the feral shirt worn by Shane Bourne for his stand-up set:

Riding high on his success doing the Great Australian Joke on Hey Hey he does the same routine that he would at the Burvale on a Friday night, calling the crowd 'thrillseekers' about 37 times, without bothering to thrown in any custom footy gags for the occasion - but there was a quality joke about a leper having an argument that I won't spoil for you. He also implies that Ossie Ostrich has crabs and has one with the punchline "I love your tits but where do you want the venetians?"

What's happened to the footy players? Surely we're going to see one or more of them in drag before all this is said and done. During the comedy routine they cut to Sean Wight in the crowd as proof that he is there but just had no interest in mocking his season ending knee injury in the opening skit.

Bourney finally racks off after eight minutes and is replaced by extended highlights of the Round 16 win at Windy Hill to the tune of Show No Mercy by Mark Williams (sadly not the one who choked himself with a tie).

Now here's an all-star gathering,

Neil Mitchell, before he gave up and took to endlessly potting us on the radio, interviewing an all-star cast of the late great Robbie Flower, Ronald Dale and pre-stardom Todd Viney. They go to questions submitted by 'the audience and Chris Connolly', which are far more likely to make sense than any of the bollocks Neil's likely to serve up then or now.

Stuff the questions, how about Tulip's shirt? He also points out that "this is supposed to be a humorous segment" as if to highlight what a humorless debacle it has become under Neil's stewardship.

Todd Viney then answers a question about whether players should have sex before games by revealing he usually keeps it in his pants on matchday but his girlfriend recently visited from South Australia and... well that's not where Jack come from but at least it saved the panel segment from disaster. It is then revealed that Todd was Ron Barassi's tennis coach, which must have been an amazing apprenticeship for his later adventures with the Phillipoussis camp.

We then get some serious chat about Ron doing recorded motivational speeches for Australians being held hostage by Iraqi forces in Kuwait, which brings the mood down until Flower gets a few laughs by recalling the time Mark Jackson clocked him during a practice game then chucked a brick at Slug Jordon. If I was in the crowd I'd have started drinking like a fish to get through with this - get back to the Connolly penned parody numbers and players dressed as Cher.

One bearded ex-fan out, one in as Derryn delivers the '1990 Demons Shame File' with some Mitchell-esque flat zingers about Greg Healy, Brett Lovett, John Northey, Garry Lyon, Darren Bennett, Rod Grinter and Tony Campbell. The crowd went mild. Thanks for your contribution Derryn, still bitter after having $5k on us to make the finals in 1981 only to see one win.

"How do you pick the New Zealander in a shoe store?" he asks, knowing full well that he was born there so even in 1990 before racism was invented he could say anything and not get in trouble. "He's the one with the erection in front of the ugg boots". Who said vaudeville was dead?

Because Allen Jakovich's Trial By Video hadn't been formed yet, the next musical performance was by Jim Keays and a bootleg version of his real band called the 'Masters of Everything'. Then something (possibly involving the raffle) is brutally cut from the tape so we can go to Greg Evans and Ricky Jackson playing pissed and doing a better job than Trevor Spencer by not forgetting their lines until at least halfway through the skit...

... which was because they whipped out the script halfway through and started reading their "Top 10 reasons beer is better than women" list off it - highlighted by #1 "You don't have to wash a beer before it tastes good". Welcome to the progressive 90s - ladies, bring a plate.

Now we're talking!

Unfortunately it's comedy maestro Connolly doing a Swooper impersonation instead of the great man himself, but he does have the look right and does a good knife in the back gag so that's something:

And god bless them here comes the cross-dressing, with Matthew Febey self-conciously appearing as "Jennifer High As A Keyte" and being described as "coming in like John Wayne without the horse" which may or may not have been a reference to certain urban legends popular at the time.

Plus Stephen Newport as Clive Robertson, who isn't a woman in the media so it doesn't end up implied that he's slept with everyone in the industry.

Newport breaks character briefly to wrap up a gag about umpire Peter Cameron being murdered by saying "I'm glad he's dead", which would cost you about $20,000 these days. "Jennifer" then reports that Terry Wallace is going to sue god because "It's his fault the way I turned out and I demand to be compensated" which seems to absolve Rod Grinter of any blame for caving his head in. There's also gags implying Irish people are stupid, Western Australians copulate with sheep and Tasmanians are keen on incest.

Considering how much of the show is being put together by people who work on Hey Hey It's Saturday they sure like ripping off Steve Vizard (who was ripping David Letterman off, but nobody knew that at the time) and we're treated to our third countdown list of the evening. This one is slightly more relevant in that it's the top seven things Melbourne members will hear in the year 2000. If #1 isn't "GET FUCKED MICHAEL LONG" I'll be disappointed. I'm really not causing you to miss out on anything by listing the answers here - as delivered by the other Febey in a shirt even Shane Bourne would reject as too garish:

7 - "Have you heard Andy Lovell is still a virgin?" (No, and nobody gives a shit since we traded him five years ago)
6 - "Is it true John Northey turned gay and ran off with a West Coast trainer?" (No, but he did run off with Richmond)
5 - "Is it true Earl Spalding got Derryn Hinch pissed and put him on his own shame file?" (Any danger somebody in this list didn't end up at another club?)
4 - "Don't tell me Collingwood still haven't won another premiership" (and look what happened six weeks later, good work dickheads)
3 - "What great news, Rod Grinter won the Brownlow. He beat Terry Wallace on a countback on a TKO" (God only knows what the last bit meant but the crowd went wild for the suggestion of Grinter lifting the medal)
2 - "Yes, Michael Shildberger still plays in the Mini League" (In the year 2000 nobody knows what either of those things are)
1 - "Yes, Brian Wilson retires again". (And much like goading the Pies into a flag thanks for summoning him up to kick six against us for St Kilda in '91 before retiring again)

Just when you thought you'd had enough topical Beatles related entertainment with that knee injury sketch here they are again - featuring Earl Spalding wearing sunglasses so he can't be identified later, Rod Keogh, Brett Lovett looking like he wants to kill himself and Jamie Duursma again who must just love this stuff.

There mustn't have been time to write a footy related parody so they just sing a horrendous version of Can't Buy Me Love while all staring at the lyrics taped on the floor. Only more transvestism or jokes about Jo Pearson being keen on flange can save this production. Clive Newport being the Beatlemania segment to a tasteful end by shooting Earl Spalding/John Lennon in the back.

Unfortunately this brings out the very popular Rod Grinter dressed as Superman, and at this point I wish they'd go back to doing Soviet jokes. It should be noted that there's one hour and two minutes left in the show.

Would anyone really pay for this video later? It would be one thing to sit in the crowd necking a slab until anything was funny but the idea of sitting down, slapping the tape into your VHS and enjoying a hilarious night on the couch watching John Northey impersonations and low grade professional musical acts is outrageous.

And now the event that we've all been waiting for. There was no way that a 1990 gathering of footballers would not include at least one person impersonating Cher in her knickers. Arise David Flintoff, you were truly the man for the job. And several others. Considering he was Garry Lyon's cousin it's concerning how much more he looks like Gaz in a frilly wig and suspenders.

As we hang shit on the early 90's let's not forget that this sort of thing was still being trotted out as comedy gold in Footy Show Grand Final revues until about two years ago. At least on those shows the player in question didn't go around the audience thrusting his barely concealed penis in the face of paying guests.

Hold on a minute, that's actually is Garry Lyon and not Flintoff. How long until this clip is lifted without any attribution and played ad nauseum on the Footy Show?

Just in case you were confused - and I really was for a while - 'Northey' informs us "It's really Garry Lyon dressed in drag!". There I was thinking Cher had let herself go and lowered her price to suit an occasion being held at the Southern Cross Hotel.

For some reason Rob Gell and Rosemary Margan are played by themselves rather than by Robert Hickmott and Danny Seow in a sequinned gown. In an early 'Banner Watch' segment a run-through with a map of Australia is hoisted behind them, and you knew you were in trouble here when the first line was "And now a look at Howat it all began". Because, you see his name is John Howat yeah?

The weather's really been"Eishold" in some places and some parents have had to put their kids in bed and "Zantuck 'em up for the night". If you were unkind you'd suggest this segment was failing to "Gell" but as a Demons man from way back he was probably working cheap. "Up Northey" it hasn't been so bad, you "won't need a Spencer" (just like our side today). Another opportunity is taken to suggest Tasmanians have two heads and enjoying sheep worrying.

"Stretching" in from the west the weather is "Obstaloutely beautiful" FFS and while "white pointers have been seen at a nudist beach" that appeared to be a simple dick joke rather than a player reference. I take it Earl Spalding's wife was called Michelle because when they called him the 'Fremantle Doctor' this was followed by "there's some concern that the doctor is heading to Mount Michelle".

They also suggest Darren Bennett has "had about eight inches" which is controversial. Then the Irish become the third ethnic group of the evening to be accused of having sex with sheep. Once the ethnic humour is out of the way we get the Grinter footage we all wanted to see, him punching some Richmond jabroni in the guts.

I suspect these highlights packages were added later - and nobody paid for the rights to use the obscure AC/DC song - to try and pump up the VHS sales of the event. Makes sense, nobody was going to pay to see Gary Lyon's barely concealed dong. Meanwhile forget the kid punting the Dees home at Carrara, how about the jumper on the right?

I wish they'd dedicated the last 40 minutes to the best knitwear seen on the terraces this year but instead Wilbur Wilde is rolled in to do his Hey Hey saxophone schtick. You can't make instrumental gags about Terry Wallace so I saved myself a few minutes and skipped this bit. Much more enjoyable despite the lack of koala jumpers was the Mike Brady voiced "You give me Febey" parody to the tune of Fever which followed - and featured him mystifyingly depicted as a ninja turtle.

And just a reminder in case you'd forgotten that Tasmanians are two headed:

Greg then tries to flog the video of the evening to the crowd, most of whom are probably so pissed they'll buy anything. Would have done more sales if they could have worked another couple of sheep shagging and incest gags into the Febey bit.

Mercifully for those of us trying to get through this whole thing they then waste about 15 minutes on serious musical acts before bringing Hinch back for another gag reel where he highlights a quality member of the Subiaco crowd complaining about an umpiring decision with a baby hanging off her left norg.

There's 20 minutes left and I think I can get through to the end without having to resort to hard drugs - even when the next few minutes are taken up with club President Stuart Spencer playing the jauntiest piano you will ever see in your life. There's no point showing a screenshot because it can't possible tell the tale of how much he was getting into it. Not exactly convincing me to buy the tape though. Jim Stynes then takes a break from smashing the competition to show up in a flat cap and play the theme from the Pink Panther, as anyone in the crowd who had filled in the form to buy a copy frantically tried to cancel their credit card before it could be charged.

I think we're on the downhill slope here, I feel there's not going to be any more Connolly gold. We do, however, get the singing all-stars doing Amazing Grace which is nice if you're into spiritual tunes but complete wank if you're holding out for Jay Viney doing a Bob Hawke impersonation. Regrettably that's it for 'entertainment'. Not one last Tasmanian joke, which is disappointing but I think we got enough to answer most of the questions we had about the last century.

We also get the only image in existence of Mathew Mahoney, Glenn Lovett and Andy Lovell arm in arm which makes this as a true collectors item.

And with that all that there is left to say is...

The verdict - A complete travesty. 5 stars.

Bloods d. Crips

How Melbourne Are You? they asked. Well I've been disappointing everyone with severe underperformance for years and there's no sign of it ending any time soon so we've certainly got that in common.

I've had enough of testing ourselves against the best in the league. We tried, we failed, bring back the other horrible teams so we can at least enjoy a competitive match before the spirit of our squad is completely squashed to the point where they're easy prey for anyone. It's something of a dramatic overreaction to two games against last year's beaten grand finalists and a side who could quite conceivably be playing against them at the end of the year but it's disheartening to see us looking as outmatched against the big teams as we did last year.

I expect we're meant to pretend that keeping the damage to under 40 points represents some sort of moral victory. Last year when we lost to them by five goals and kicked 5.8.38 it was hailed as a major step forward even without Franklin having played three quarters. And at the time it was, because we were just a few weeks removed from regular 80+ point defeats against the good and not so good of the league alike, but a year on with the side having undergone further redevelopment and expectations having risen from 'nil' to 'few' it was deflating to watch us crumble so drastically.

After the horror start some ground was recovered in the third quarter but even if we ignore the fact that the Swans had lost players to injury (because that's usually a trigger for teams to waffle us) it still came after they'd started preserving themselves for next week and switched to comedy forwards-in-the-backline mode - which was about as successful as us trying it seriously with Howe, but at least they weren't being serious. Also didn't hurt that the 15 MFC players who had been shell-shocked in the first half suddenly realised that they didn't want to play for the Casey side who had done stuff all a few hours earlier and started throwing caution to the wind again.

It really was a horrible performance which looked like everyone both on and off-field went in knowing they were going to lose and trying to minimise the damage. After a couple of things went wrong early everyone - and I mean everyone - went into their shell and decided that it was better to score 50 and lose by 40 than score 70 and lose by 10 goals. It made it look like we hadn't moved forward an inch from last year - and we'll still need two more wins and some close losses to even come close.

You would think we would easily go 2-15 or better for the rest of the year - especially with games against three of the four teams currently below us to come - and a reasonable run of matches against flaky teams in the middle of the year but then again we did cark it in spectacular fashion in the second half of last season so that can't be ruled out either. And our record against bottom four teams has almost been as bad as our record against top four teams over the last couple of years.

There was about three minutes of total domination early on where most of the side were playing without terror. In one of only two moments of excitement for the entire first half we came down the middle of the ground, Hogan smashed a pack to buggery and almost held the mark but we managed to get the ball on the lead to Kennedy-Harris in the pocket... who kicked off a night best generously described as 'disappointing' by dropping a sitter. Kicking to a lead makes me happy, kicking to a lead in the pocket makes me nervous, kicking to a lead in the pocket then seeing a player drop it cold under no pressure makes me want to rip out a seat and hurl it at the turf.

In spite of JFK's hand-eye coordination starting to resemble his namesake on one particular afternoon in Texas we might have gotten away with it. The ball eventually bounced out to vandenBerg who had all day to turn around a measure his shot but kicked off the main theme of the evening by panicking, throwing it on his boot in haste and missing. Sydney went down the other end, Pyke kicked a goal and any inclination we had for daring play was quelled until the game was well and truly over.

Don't you feel slightly cheated that they can turn a Canadian rugby player into a near Norm Smith medallist while we've been busy ruining the careers of a string of highly rated youngsters? I'd ask for a priority pick but what's the point? I guess fans of the clubs who were shithouse in the early 90's must have felt the same watching Jim Stynes running around winning Brownlows as they were on the bottom of the ladder - but since the draft started being taken seriously in the mid 90's no team - with Richmond a clear second - has stuffed it as frequently as we have.

Even though we've had 500 top draft picks our half-forward line is still under investigation to determine whether it exists. If Dawes was fit going on I'd be surprised, and he got hurt as well so that was about it for him all night - unless you were the coaching staff and left him on the ground for the rest of the game while a reasonable if not perfect replacement was trotting up and down the sideline waiting for a shot at redemption.

Hogan will always push up the ground, and I'm fine with that but what's the point in him (or Dawes circa 2014) doing all that work unless there's somebody for him to kick it to? He did nothing in the first half on Saturday night but he can't be accused of not trying hard. It's been happening all year though, the number of times he's led up the wing and taken a mark only to turn around and see his options are small forwards is ridiculous. If Dawes or Watts could take contested marks to save themselves he could stay at home and be the target, but instead he's forced to roost the ball to Jeff Garlett with a much bigger defender right on top of him - Garlett has taken one screamer this year, he's not Jeremy Howe and it's not a sustainable tactic.

For god's sake could somebody just make a proper lead in the sort of area that radio commentators refer to as "practically right in front", which is anywhere not hard on the boundary line. It happens about once a week now, which is up on the rate from the last couple of years but we're never going to be an average team let alone a good one until we start presenting decent options. I half watch about three non-MFC games a week and pay a total of about one quarter attention but even then it seems every time I look up somebody's screaming down the middle and taking a chest mark. Remember when Michie and Dawes teamed up to do just that in Round 23 last year? It gave me hope that with Hogan around we'd see more, but no. I understand we're trying to get 'slingshot' (cliche) goals but that's not happening either so alternative options would be great before it breaks down into total anarchy. I'm all for the long bomb onto somebody's head but just a casual chest mark on a reasonable angle would be dandy - even if it's to Garlett who's more likely than not to miss it.

Speaking of Howe he'd probably help the situation by providing an awesome contested mark option but he's marooned in defence performing some unclear task which leads to him having about one good game a month. He should have signed a new contract after the Richmond game. I expect after the last fortnight he'll be backtracking on his "I want to stay" comments as fast as he did on his agent's attempts to whore his services out to the rest of the competition. He is totally wasted in defence, and if it wasn't for a coach who we're all in love with then there would be general unrest about it. He's almost not worth picking as a defender so unless you're doing a reverse Rivers/Frawley and playing him out of position in his last year just because it's ridiculous to only use him as a 'break in case of emergency' forward when we're six goals down in the third quarter. I'm not saying we should pay him billions but when he's taking screamers and kicking goals for Carlton next year the time he's spent permanently down back is going to look like a tremendous waste of talent.

We really were so diabolical going forward that it was embarrassing. The defence was holding reasonably strong considering Kurt Tippett was threatening to kick 10 but any good work they did was quickly rubbed out by moving the ball at glacial speed. It can't be a coincidence that we've kicked several goals this year straight out of the centre bounce (and conceded a few too but that's par for the course) because when we do get the ball inside 50 quickly it generally leads to a score.

It took a first gamer to finally get us on the board. Billy Stretch's ice cold set-shot finish was a thing of beauty, putting him into that rare club - Melbourne players who began their career with 100% kicking efficiency. And the other rare club. His disposals went downhill as the night went on but it was still an encouraging display which showed he has the nouse to get to where the ball is and he must be given plenty more opportunities throughout the year.

I've shamefully used disposal efficiency in arguments before (usually while defending All-Australian defender Tom McDonald) but if you need a further example of why you shouldn't judge anything based on it comes from Jake Spencer. The Spencil finished the night with 100% efficiency - consisting of one kick and eight handballs to a standing target which provided next to no offensive benefits. He tries his heart out but there has to be some balance between heart and benefit to the team. I didn't mind seeing him picked but to have him effectively go one out for four quarters was just wacky. He's a reasonable tap ruckman but once the ball hits the ground it's like playing one short no matter how much heart he shows with chasing and tackling. Nic Nat turned that into an All Australian season, but that was more to do with the contents of Gerard Healy's pants than anything else. He's also more often than not had the benefit of a killer midfield at West Coast so they can afford to play a ruckman who can't do anything else.

When statistics prove a point I'm happy to go with them, and there was an outrageous moment where he led our tackle and clearance numbers right into the second quarter. In the end he had 10 possessions but with five from free kicks. I know he couldn't play as a forward if his life depended on it but surely in this era of football you can't carry a sole ruckman who has one kick a week. We all had high hopes for Gawn - and there must be something going on behind the scenes with him - but even though he hasn't starred this year I'd much rather stake money on his future than Spencer's. It was a worthy experiment but it didn't work - he's all heart and no impact.

We do still have a reasonable ruckman in Mark Jamar. He's hardly been an offensive powerhouse this year but when has he ever? At least he's had better than one kick in a game for the last couple of years. It seemed that he was being rested when he was 'dropped' on Thursday night but I sit down to watch Casey play on Saturday afternoon and there he is playing practically a full game on the frozen tundra of Casey Fields. What did that achieve? Some Channel 7 bloke said they were 'managing his gametime' but it seemed a weird way of doing it.

The worst thing was that Sandringham were fielding old mate from America in the ruck so it would have been a great day to send Gawn out to dominate and get some confidence up - instead he ends up floundering in a windy forward line with no bastard being able to get the ball to him. I got bored at quarter time, went to do the vacuuming and never paid more than half attention to the rest of the game so I've got no idea if he got into it but certainly not when I was watching. Nevertheless while I'm all for the "players must earn their spot" philosophy it can't be a blanket rule - and from the outside doesn't appear to be treated as one - Stretch was thrown in at the deep end, Toumpas wasn't listed amongst the best over the last few weeks but they got a chance to show what they could do. I'd rather we did it that way instead of waiting for good VFL standard players to force their way into the side then play one quarter as sub and get dropped again. All we are saying is give Gawn a chance.

Our trouble with getting the ball inside 50 - and at one point we didn't manage it once in 15 minutes - was that we barely ever had a free player when trying to move the ball and were left kicking to contests that we weren't qualified to win. It seemed to me - having failed Football Tactics in my VCE - a combination of the Swans being a perfectly drilled side with all the confidence in the world that they could clean us up and most of our team going into self-preservation mode when they made a few mistakes and the opposition got a run on. Add sore players running up and down on the spot and a coach who'd rather turn a game into guerilla war than try and make bold moves to win it. Go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect four points.

It wasn't like our lot weren't trying, when there was a loose ball they were as vicious as they have been in any game this year win or lose (exceptions: Vince being more vicious against Adelaide and everyone being heavily sedated against GWS) but when it came to pressure there was nothing to compete with the clamp the Swans put on us whenever we had the ball from a standing start. Plenty of goals are kicked from turnovers - which we couldn't generate - and plenty come from open play but no team has ever won a game courtesy of endless stoppages on the wing no matter how hard they hit their opponents. Apparently Dunn even kneed Goodes for good measure at the end, but he's such an anti-social individual that it was probably done for fun rather than footballing reasons.

It's great that we rescued our defence from disaster last year but it seems the side are so wound up to be negative that it's almost pointless playing with a forward line in the first place. Early on the backline - with the exception of the imperious McDonald - seemed overwhelmed but once they closed down Tippett I thought those of them with an obvious role did an excellent job. Salem in particular has been the revelation of the season. I will waste gigabytes of your data with my complaints about Paul Roos' baffling use of the substitute, but one thing I'll graciously concede is that this has been a masterstroke - he's strong around the ball, can take a contested mark and use the ball when he gets it. If somebody would get free for him to kick it to that would be even better, but he's not alone on that front. Here's to him following the career trajectory Jack Grimes was supposed to and ending up as a solid midfielder instead of a Casey Scorpion.

Not that it cost us while we were busy shooting ourselves in the foot, face and vital organs, but the wheel of umpiring fortune continued to spin against us. This week's highlight was ill-feted boy band member Isaac Heeney winning a free for running into his own teammate. The scoreboard operator, now charged with the duty of interpreting umpiring decisions in the interest of 'fan experience', opted for a guess of 'holding the man' instead of just putting up a question mark which would have made far more sense. We did win the free kick count in the end - and lost every other major stat.

What a horrid first half it was - unless you're a Sydney fan who suddenly rediscovered interest when Lockett showed up - and when we play this ugly, slow football it makes for such an incredibly boring 'fan experience' that just as they've got the membership counter going in the right direction it starts counting down again. I can only imagine the look on the faces of Channel 7 executives as they sat there watching the ratings plummet to the point where it would have been more economically viable to put Naked Gun 2 on instead.

I became so gloomy about my decision to leave home and watch this gash that at half time I relocated from my beloved Ponsford Stand to my long forgotten reserved seat for the first time since mid-2014. The game didn't look much better from there either, but at least I was sitting amongst the chosen people rather than Swans fans who were clearly taking delight in my distress. To cap off a total farce on the way I briefly lost my mind and decided to eat a non-Kaiser MCG hot dog, then after coming to my senses and putting it back I attempted to escape the 'food' store under the turnstile and almost took my head off to the amusement of several slack-jawed yokels standing around watching.

By this time, having watched ghastly football and necked myself on a turnstyle it's lucky I didn't just go home - but duty called. Shortly before my mum gave up going to games or paying particular interest to anything other than the scores she walked out at half time of the Adelaide game where we failed to score a goal until the third quarter and thus managed the rare feat of going to a match and not seeing her side kick one major. I wonder why she lost interest. The only person showing less interest in life was the MCG attendant who paid so little attention to my membership at the entrance 'premium' area that I could have waved a Video Ezy membership card from 1992 and he'd have let me in. Once I got through this rigorous security check and took a seat it was appropriate that the 'Melbourne Experiences' superbox directly behind me was empty with the lights out.

Yes, we did improve in third quarter but I'm still not satisfied. The only thing I got out of it - other than the sense that the fans sitting around me have all given up - was that we might beat Brisbane if we played them next week, and I knew that already.

All that was left was to play for dignity and the Baffling MFC Substitution of the Week™. With the game shot to buggery in the third quarter and Dawes moving like he was waist deep in cement I can't for the life of me understand why they took Pedersen - who had been quite reasonable - off instead of several others. Others, most noticeably Kennedy hadn't fired a shot and Pedersen (I've retired his nickname for being uncouth) was about 50 times more damaging around the ground than Spencer. I'd much rather have played him on his own for a quarter and a half instead of the Spencil to give him a reasonable hitout as a ruckman against proper opponents. If he lost the taps who cares, even when we win the taps we rarely get the ball out anyway. Having seen Spencer's game I'd almost rather giving Fitzpatrick a go next just for the laughs but all of a sudden he's been converted in a defender at Casey so I suppose there's no chance of that.

There was some suggestion that Watts got bronx cheers for his first kick when he came on, but I would suggest it was actually a cheer of encouragement. Of course there's a significant faction of our fanbase who won't be happy until he retires and joins a religious cult but I'd like to think most of us are still not total arseholes. I guess 'cheers' can be interpreted however you like, but based on this tripe I suspect Mark 'Stevo' Stevens would have jumped all over the bronx theory. Where do you want him to warm up you poon, Platform 10 at Richmond Station? I hope Mick Malthouse celebrates his last press conference by paintbrushing the twat until his hand swells up.

In the end Watts wasn't too bad. He wasn't great either, but did enough to make me think he's worth a full game next week. At which point he'll probably be one of 15 players totally out of their depth against Hawthorn and will end up carrying the can for about 13 of them after we get thrashed. At least you can't blame him for us losing this week while he was sitting on the bench - though I expect some will. Speaking of players much maligned I thought Toumpas got better as the game went on - he looked even more terrified than the rest of his teammates for the first half but came out with some credit. Got to persist with him for a few weeks as well, we're not playing for the finals here.

The decision to play the Spencil one out ironically coincided with our best period of the game but I'd argue that  he had little or nothing to do with it. If you could genetically splice he and Watts you'd have one great player and one who should be fed into a wood chipper but I don't think science is going to come early enough to save them.

And so in the end we made it respectable for future generations who look at nothing other than the scores. McDonald continued to dominate, Brayshaw killed a few people, Garlett chipped in with his customary two goals and two horrifying misses, Tyson had his best game of the year and Nathan Jones was Nathan Jones. And not a single clue was provided as to what our eventual fate will be.

2015 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
5 - Tom McDonald
4 - Christian Salem
3 - Dom Tyson
2 - Nathan Jones
1 - Jesse Hogan

Apologies to Pedersen (pre-mystifying sub), Vince and Cross who might have snuck into the last spot based on possession count and to Garland who I quite enjoyed despite a couple of high profile blunders.

Leaderboard

25 - Tom McDonald (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
12 - Nathan Jones
7 - Jesse Hogan (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Rising Star Award), Bernie Vince
6 - Christian Salem
5 - Angus Brayshaw, Jeff Garlett
4 - Aaron vandenBerg, Jack Viney, Jack Watts
3 - Viv Michie, Dom Tyson
2 - Heritier Lumumba
1 - Mark Jamar (CO-LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Ben Newton, Cameron Pedersen (CO-LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)

Sydney's banner looked nice but their wording was distressing - with 'at' being used twice in three words. You'll find several thousand more serious grammatical crimes in the Demonblog archives but if limited to a total of 15 words even I'd avoid disaster.

Obviously we won, but not just for the reasons you'd expect. Not only was our traditionally well kerned banner turned over to a charity cause for the evening (which is always a winner for me) but the cheersquad also made one for mums to run through beforehand - and instead of phoning it in they made one that was just as well kerned as the main event. Let's pad the figures and put it down as two wins shall we? 6-1-0 Demons.

Crowd Watch
You know you're in for a good night when you walk in to see somebody you know on the big screen wearing a comedy wig and making faces like an ice addict. At least he was there, the crowd was 26,000 but considering how many Sydney fans were in attendance I'd say there would have been a good 5k of ours who decided that they couldn't stand seeing a loss and just didn't bother. They're the smart ones.

There were odd scenes in the first half where the Swans fan in front of me was wearing a scarf which claimed the club was established in 1982. Which is not entirely untrue but at the same time a bald faced lie. When you're winning nobody cares - for a flag I'd happily admit that we merged with University in 1915 and the date of the current club should go from there but until we've won one I'll shank anybody who suggests it.

On the train home I ended up in a carriage full of Swans fans and they were all incredibly jolly - which made me ill.

Matchday Experience Watch
At three-quarter time there was a race between people dressed as New Age Caravans. Russell Robertson should get a raise for the enthusiasm he showed in introducing this with a smile on his face as every Melbourne fan in the stadium not dressed as a caravan was regretting the MCC's decision not to sell cyanide pills. Nobody cared - and the only way they would have shown interest is if there was a big stack and somebody had to go off on a stretcher while in costume - but as always if it's making us then it matters not if a single person was entertained.

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Congratulations to Billy Stretch for holding the lead by default during the first half but I'm not only a sucker for crumb but also for goals kicked over the head so Jeff Garlett's first (and possibly his first kick of the whole game) not only takes the weekly prize but I'm also promoting him into the lead in the overall prize. Tyson's goal from Round 1 was meaningful and pretty but unless it's something amazing like Salem and Friends vs Essendon team efforts are far less preferable to individual moments of magic.

NB: If McDonald had managed a goal in the last quarter when he walked through half of Sydney's defence (who were admittedly showing half effort) but couldn't take the extra step to get a clear snap on goal then the medal would have been hurled from the stands on the spot.

Stat My Bitch Up
It's the return of everybody's favourite miserablist section. I meant to include this last week but in a demonstration of the complete disarray this page finds itself in the post was published with the headline and nothing beneath it.

After opening the season with a score of 117 we're down to 68.16 after six games. It's still better than the 60.72ppg last year, but not by much. Defensively we've not been much better, 87.83ppg conceded vs 88.81 last year - and all this despite McDonald having an All-Australian calibre season (sadly he plays for Melbourne so he won't even make the shortlist). Look fondly towards the second half of the year and hope that we might see one more +100 score without conceding 250 at the other end.

Next Week
With the media changing their mind on who's good and who isn't on a weekly basis it seems that we're supposed to think Hawthorn are suddenly rancid because they're 3-3. Even if they're eventually proven to be just that (spoiler: they won't be) the final verdict is not going to come next week because they're going to beat the living bejesus out of us.

The bad news if you're looking for relief is that the Casey game revealed that the players who can't get a game for us couldn't do much better than stay at arms' length of the players who couldn't get a game for St Kilda on their 'home' patch.

Last week I gave Viv Michie three votes and he got dropped so god only knows why you've read this far.

IN: Jamar, Jetta
OUT: Spencer, Kennedy-Harris (omit)
LUCKY: Dawes, Howe (as a defender)
UNLUCKY: Bail was held out of the Casey game in case required at the 'G so he must be close. I'm not enthused by his future but may as well give him a go eventually.

If Dawes is injured then for the love of god get Howe forward. If Tyson is injured then either pick Bail or just forfeit, we'll  have the same result in the end.

Ex-Player Watch
After some rocky times Matthew Bate is happier than a dog with two dongs. And good luck to him. I want to go to one of his talks and get kicked out for asking about what it was like to sit on the bench in the first half of 186. I'd like to think my support of him to the bitter end contributed to his rapid turnaround in life.

Was it worth it?
Only for avoiding 'BT', 'Darce' and the rest of the buffoons on Saturday night Channel 7 games who make you pine for Dwayne Russell to do the call. Be careful what you wish for, we'll never be allowed off Foxtel again if we keep putting in performances like that. To top it all off just as I walked out of the safe confines of the 'G it started raining. Let the good times roll.

Final Thoughts
It's going to be a major letdown when we play a bottom four side again and lose. Fork, meet toaster.

You can't play Richmond every week...

... is what I seem to say a week after any time we play Richmond. I suspect most of the other 16 teams have a similar version that involves playing us.

Yes, it's back to our comfort zone. A week riding the giddying heights of a one game winning streak is as good as it got before a reality check better described as "blindingly obvious" rather than "much needed". In a week where Jesse Hogan's march to glory was inevitably halted after the photo opportunity with his wrestling namesake (who worked surprisingly blue) it was appropriate that the club paid tribute to professional wrestling by doing our best impersonation of the midgets who were splattered by King Kong Bundy at Wrestlemania III.

It felt odd to be playing on Sunday again. We used to do it every damn week to the point where it influenced the name (that nobody including me ever uses) of this very page. I'd almost forgotten the frustration of not getting the 'extended' team on Thursday night where they randomly pluck a few names out of a hat in a futile attempt to fool the opposition. With respect to the players involved trying to pull off a bluff with Riley, McKenzie and Spencer is practically useless. In this case you might as well just pick an honest 22 to start with, as we found out with Dawes' late injury it's not like you can't pull off shenanigans with the team before the first bounce anyway.

The eventual inclusion of long forgotten tagger Jordie McKenzie seemed to indicate that the plan was to try and replicate our strangulation of Richmond on a grander scale by playing about seven taggers and one ruckman. Good luck pulling that move off against a team with two quality tap ruckmen, a never-ending cavalcade of midfield options and a nasty habit of beating us to a pulp in recent years. It's one thing trying to intimidate Richmond or to beat up on Patrick Dangerfield but Melbourne
attempting to scrag Freo into submission is like East Timor trying to bring down the European Union with a round of economic sanctions. Then they didn't even pick McKenzie to play from the first bounce, but we'll get to that matter. At least sanity prevailed by bringing Pedersen into the side to give Jamar some sort of backup when Dawes was a late withdrawal.

Our return to Sunday for the first time since the GWS debacle made me realise just how much I prefer playing on Friday or Saturday. As Fremantle scooted away in the first quarter I had one of my rare "do I really need to be here?" moments of doubt. This is where 'fan engagement' is a farce, there's no realistic gimmick which can compete with live TV coverage when you know you're absolutely no chance of winning unless you're a rusted on sicko like me. Perhaps I was just being greedy after the rare scenario of personally seeing two wins in a row and couldn't handle dropping back into the sludge.

Naturally I'll still be there next Saturday night because it's still in the blood to a frightening degree, but as a light attempt at rehabilitation I'm considering trying something novel, unique and shithouse when we play Port in Alice Springs - going away for the weekend and implementing a total media ban (traditional and social) before watching on tape as if live on the Sunday night. Good luck with that - the only time I've attempted anything similar in recent times it was only for a few hours and we ended up losing by 148 points. Might go somewhere without any mobile coverage to completely remove any temptation to try and watch on an iPad or similar.

We gave Port dual scares last year but given that they're going about as well as Freo at the moment it might not be the worst match to have a fast-forward function handy for. We tick off another two of the prospective top four over the next fortnight so hopefully this defeat will teach us valuable life lessons instead of setting off an arms race where the best sides in the competition try to prove they've got the largest grapefruits by teeing off on us until we're left in a crumpled heap.

It was everything you'd expect from a top four side playing a bottom four side, but for most of the afternoon we did well to at least stay within arms' length of them. Early on it looked like we were going to get stomped, and indeed it came to pass that we were, but in the middle it wasn't all that bad. Even in the first few minutes of the last quarter when we were throwing the kitchen sink at them one goal might have helped make it interesting before they broke our will and romped away to what must be the sort of win fans love - I can't remember the last time we had one.

The problem with having to rely on industrial grunt players because you haven't got any silky superstars has never been better demonstrated. How come when other teams draft players that look as if they should be in a boyband (Fyfe, Sloane, Heeney) it turns out they're top shelf footballers while ours are better suited to having one single fall into the lower reaches of the top 40 before disappearing off the face of the earth.

Fyfe in particular was a pleasure to watch. If you're going to be torn asunder better that the best players in the competition do it rather than the parade of nobodies who normally clean us up. My favourite bit was the centre bounce where he took the tap, unloaded a perfect handball and laid a light but technically perfect bump on Garlett without breaking stride. He also demonstrated the benefit of developing star players who get about 50% extra time to dispose of the ball in a tackle, but it's not like he or any of his teammates needed umpiring rorts to clean our clock. There were plenty of those too, but we also got the charity goal to Hogan so it's got to be time for the Wheel of Fortune to spin up a run of filthy decisions in our favour.

Once the novelty of battering us wore off and they let us back into the game we played out a more than reasonable first quarter. After a rocky start the backline was holding up, we were occasionally given a chance to get our hands on the ball (even if we couldn't use it to save ourselves) and briefly broke the shackles to kick a couple of goals. Even Garlett brought the crowd to its feet by kicking a set shot, and would do it two (2!) more times throughout the afternoon. He barely got another touch but who wouldn't sacrifice 15 disposals a week for three goals?

The good times continued into the second term, but with Freo on their way to a disposal efficiency of 82% what in god's name were we going to do? We gave them a brief nudge but it was just holding the tide back. Howe made a mockery of my demands to play him forward by missing the first of a couple of gettable shots, Garlett took a screamer and the smacking everyone expected was briefly held at bay. Then Jeff (never Jeffy) conceded a 50 metre penalty after a Freo player marked a six metre kick then ran into him, they got another one straight after and it was all over. We got the last one of the half but the damage was already done.

Considering Walters had already been subbed out (remember the day we played them at Docklands and kicked the first three goals before he reinvigorated his career, Jamie Bennell wrecked his knee and a random Melbourne fan lost his mind?) when they lost Pavlich as well after a head clash with Garland (Col's facial expressions are reported to have not budged) any normal side would take advantage, but as every club in the competition knows when opposition players start dropping like flies we usually cark it as well in the interest of fairness. It's like Nigeria vs Italy in the 1994 World Cup when the Nigerians went to pieces after Italy had a player sent off - except that it's happened about four times in our last 10 matches.

Against my better judgement I got roped in by the boxing 'Superfight' during half time and spent the first few minutes of the third quarter trying to watch it. No idea why, boxing was ruined for me on Grand Final day 2007 when I saw this fight in an episode of 100 Greatest Knockouts on Fox Sports - fight of the century my arse how are you ever going to top that? In the end I barely saw a punch landed in two rounds while watching in Spanish on a dodgy Russian website and gave up - fortunately I only had to wait another 45 minutes to see 21 men bludgeoned into submission by a relentlessly vicious opponent.

We gave it a bash at the start of the last but once they got a roll on it was reminiscent of the GWS massacre and escalated - as the kids say - quickly to the point where we almost lost by 70. It wasn't a fair reflection of the effort we'd put in for most of the game but it was a perfectly reasonable demonstration of the gulf in class between the two sides.

Given that the ball was down there every five seconds I thought McDonald did a great job again, and Garland was good before he clashed heads with Pavlich. Dunn did alright considering he was over-matched for size most of the time and I wasn't as down on Grimes as everyone else seems to be. And on the off chance we could get the ball forward we looked a half decent chance to score but usually couldn't kick straight after fighting like hell to get it down there. The other lot were just romping out of the middle with the greatest of ease so of course they were going to rack up a big score eventually, how many times over the years have our tall defenders put in reasonable performances only to be beaten by weight of numbers?

The elephant in the room from this game was that of Jack Watts who had one of the less successful milestone games in history. I've gone out of my way to defend him over the years because of my dream that he'll eventually bounce back and stick it up everyone but that's three shite performances in a row, and while I'm not sure dropping him will achieve anything for his confidence it's only fair considering that if your Dean Terlich's of the world had three shockers in a row we'd have them shot. It would hardly be compatible to claim that players have to earn their games in the VFL then not let them in because their spot is taken by a struggling senior player who is on his fourth chance. I'll compromise and suggest that he should be busted down to the sub next week as a warning shot before exile to Casey Fields. At least it'll make a change from this week by picking a sub with some hope of having an impact.

What happened to the Jack Watts of Round 1? I know he didn't have a full pre-season but it's all been downhill since that dropped mark against the Crows. It can't help having dickheads in the crowd giving bronx cheers, but even loyal defenders like me can't look the other way forever. I'm happy to persist with him in the future but for his own mental health we should probably think about flogging him elsewhere at the end of the year. Same with Grimes, they're both dripping with Melbourne Player Depression Syndrome so I wouldn't hold it against them if they wanted to be set free to reinvent themselves somewhere else.

He wasn't alone in not delivering the goods on the day, but Ben Newton isn't high profile enough for anybody to be concerned that he's only been so-so the last few weeks. I didn't think much of JKH's game either but a look at the stats suggest otherwise. Numbers are an unreliable witness but so are my memories so let's say it's somewhere in the middle and give him a reprieve for now.

At the other end of the scale where expectations are low but so is output comes poor old Jordie McKenzie, who wasn't helped by being thrown to the dogs in what must have been a contender for the worst substitute selection since the rule was introduced. Not his fault, or that Salem's concussion caused him to be introduced before schedule but after 79 games he is unfortunately going nowhere fast - but if we were going to pick him I can't understand why he wasn't used from the start. We all
hate the sub rule Paul, but it's on the way out at the end of the year so for god's sake try and use it to advantage. We all laugh at Sydney picking ruckman Mark Seaby in Round 1, 2011 when we drew but if John Longmire didn't understand how it worked then he's certainly compensated since by winning a flag while we've been floundering around at the bottom.

The idea that the last picked player gets the hi-vis is tremendously noble and Roos might win a Nobel Prize for Sports when it's all said and done but if your 22nd player is likely to have next to no offensive impact when they come on then maybe they're not the right player for you in the first place. At least Jordie got on the field this time, unlike the Essendon pre-season match where he was left jogging up and down the boundary all night completely unused. It's not his fault he couldn't have a positive impact when used in such an odd role but completely shanking your first kick then looking like a deer in the headlights after didn't help. He had his day a few years ago but is sadly now officially cactus.

We'll always have the memories of him being the only player to come out of 186 with even the slightest credit and the night where he pocketed five votes in the Jakovich by tagging Brendan Goddard to the point of near insanity but after fizzing out at the end of last year as well I'd be surprised if he ever played for us again unless there was an injury crisis. Remember when Neil Craig tried to lure him to the Crows but he decided to stick with us instead? Maybe that's the sort of list management decision that got Neil sacked in Adelaide but add McKenzie to the list of players whose loyalty to our club has ultimately ended in tragedy.

Every team can carry a couple of players like this but we've got too many - Viney and Brayshaw are both luxury upgrades on the likes of McKenzie and Riley so you can't keep all of them around. I don't mean to sound cruel because he had his good times as a tagger and role player but it's best to move on now.

In the end we got what we deserved but there's no need to panic. Even if similar beatings follow us over the next couple of weeks these aren't the teams we're contending with - as long as heads are held high long enough for us to get into the tail end of the ladder in the second half of the year we should still get out of the year with some credit. The only thing I'm worried about is the latest rebuild taking so long that Cross, Jamar, Vince, Lumumba, Jones etc.. either go before the kids are ready to take their place.

Things seem to be getting better, and we've gotten past the stage where we were so unpopular with Facebook lunatics that it seemed somebody had paid for us to become Halal certified but we're still so far away. There's a grudging admission in some circles that we're starting to slowly turn the corner, but that's because nobody except Richmond fans see us as a threat and nobody can hear them from inside the oven.

2015 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
5 - Tom McDonald
4 - Angus Brayshaw
3 - Viv Michie
2 - Jeff Garlett
1 - Cameron Pedersen

Apologies to Cross, Dunn, Jamar and Jones.

Leaderboard
It's really happening, and for those who think I'm just being ridiculously biased because I've championed his cause for years let the records show that the King of Sizzle was also voted into the bests by several neutral observers. He's got 17 games left to defend a two BOG clear lead but I'm not writing Jones off yet.

In the minors Brayshaw joins Hogan and vandenBerg in the race for the Hilton and Pedersen temporarily pulls up alongside Jamar in the Stynes. You'd think he should get DQ'ed for playing too much forward or back this year but there was some bizarre rule I put in place that helped Fitzpatrick win it despite having about seven hitouts for the year so who knows what will happen by Round 23. All I know is that if we get into that game and are a chance to knock GWS out of the finals then I am going to throw my belief in not drinking at footy games out the window, get roaringly drunk and probably end up spending the night under police guard in hospital so who even knows if votes will be awarded.

20 - Tom McDonald (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
10 - Nathan Jones
7 - Bernie Vince
6 - Jesse Hogan (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Rising Star Award)
5 - Angus Brayshaw, Jeff Garlett
4 - Aaron vandenBerg, Jack Viney, Jack Watts
3 - Viv Michie
2 - Heritier Lumumba, Christian Salem
1 - Mark Jamar (CO-LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Ben Newton, Cameron Pedersen (CO-LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)

Freo has got enough fans now that they've probably got a reasonably sized Victorian cheersquad and don't require the sympathy vote on banner-making but I thought it was a strong effort from them. Good font, excellent kerning, no ponce curtain. The only thing I would mark it down for is having the players run through a banner thanking members - not that a player has taken notice of a non-milestone banner since 1982 but it still looked weird. As did the brief period before unveiling where they forgot how to do it and had a brief moment of terror when it looked like the thing was going to tear in two.

Speaking of milestone banners we still win the day in a squeaker. Freo's would have knocked over most Victorian sides but even if you're one of the thousands of people cheerleading Jack Watts towards even total mental collapse and/or an early retirement you can't deny that the guy who does the pictures for special events delivered the goods again. The only thing I'd mark us down on was the unnecessary www. in the web address of the wine company sponsor, but otherwise another strong effort. Dees win - 4-1-0 for the season.

Crowd Watch
The Dockers seem to have gained significant amounts of fans since they became good, which is a tidy coincidence. Either that or their fans pencil in a trip to Victoria to see them play us every year because they can be guaranteed to go home happy.

It was a reasonable overall turnout, possibly due to a few thousand people being seduced into showing up based on the temporary return of the Feelgood Factor after the previous week. We've gotten out of two interstate visitors pretty well so far, now to drag big (relatively speaking) crowds in against locals - and hopefully a packed house for Queen's Birthday with Harry O having 73 disposals and kicking eight off a half-back flank.

Regrettably it was my first loss on the Hurstbridge line, dropping me to a 2-1 record. There was some classic MFC class warfare on the way back though, as a fairly left-wing fellow who was on the train when it arrived spent most of the time between Jolimont and Clifton Hill telling his lady friend how disgraceful it was that people are paying to go to space when they could be spending the money on more important things ("like buying a Melbourne membership" I thought). Harmless stuff, and he wasn't trying to bait footy fans into a punch-up about whether the cost of a Kaiser could be better spent on earthquake relief but after he got off the older MFC gentlemen sitting opposite him remarked to his wife: "What a socialist pig". Excellent way to play up stereotypes, his Mercedes must have been in the shop. Twat.

Matchday Experience Watch
After hovercrafts and trumpeting were quite rightly off the agenda in Round 1 due to the pre-match Robert Flower tributes this was our first opportunity to see what sort of horrors would be unleashed on us for the rest of the year. I'm pleased to say that other than a segment where people were supposed to run up and down on the spot for New Balance we refused to participate - and at least unless some of the rubbish the Tigers were serving up last week that was in aid of making a quid.

Instead of a Guinness World Record attempts of how many mascots you can stuff in the boot of a Daihatsu Charade (answer: two if sedated) we of course had the famous Howie's Hangers. I might be the only person in the world other than Russell Robertson to take any interest in this segment but it was in total disarray today due to the wonky kicking of the guy setting up the titular hangers. This segment is now sponsored, is there no chance of getting a mortar-like machine which fires out consistent targets - if only to avoid the lawsuit when somebody breaks their neck and we find out the consent forms aren't worth the paper they're written on.

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Probably the worst selection in the history of the award. Pick any one of the three set-shots by Garlett because at least it proved he can kick them, and shot the trade back to BIG STEAL territory. Carlton could probably use a player like him about now. Unfortunately to compensate for his sudden accuracy from set shots he later forgot how to kick one on the run but as a Melbourne fan you can't have it all. Obviously the overall lead remains with D. Tyson in Round 1..

Next Week
Sydney might have slogged through typhoon conditions this week but fat chance they're going to show up next Saturday night the worse for it. In fact having lost to the Bulldogs so narrowly they will probably be in an absolutely murderous mood so I'm not going in expecting anything except total disaster.

McDonald vs Franklin or Tippett will be the main event but I don't look forward to seeing what the other one does to us while the King of Sizzle is holding court. Garland is going to have to play out of his skin in this one.

After saying Watts should be busted down to sub a few paragraphs ago I'm going to hedge my bets and try to get rid of him here - it's for his own good it really is. Surely there's a cheap fare we can get him to Bali so he can get away from it all and mentally refresh without having 15,000 people yelling abuse at him.

IN: Dawes, Jetta, Bail
OUT: Grimes, McKenzie, Watts (omit)
LUCKY: Kennedy-Harris (I didn't rate his game at all but looking at the stats maybe I was the only one. Could be the proper impact sub we're never crying out for due to them not coming on until we're five goals behind)

It feels very wrong to call for Bail's reintroduction given how horrid he was during the pre-season but the 'bests' in the Casey game were a battlers paradise with him, Riley and Matt Jones all featuring. May as well give these guys a chance to play for their lives - McKenzie showed that he's all but finished so maybe we can tick another one off the list next week? He's hardly the answer (unless the question is about Casey Fields) but nor was he our worst player last year so why not give him a go against a decent side.

Meanwhile if Grimes came in for Jetta then he has to go out for him again. He didn't do enough to make himself an automatic inclusion again. The only reprieve I can see for him is if Salem's concussion keeps him out. Either way the Swans are going to spifflicate us.

Was it worth it?
Marginal. I've seen us lose by larger margins to worse Freo sides. Good luck to the Dockers, I've forgiven them for removing the "heave ho" from their song and leaving in all the rubbish bits and wouldn't be unhappy if they won a flag. When applying the Kick a Vic rule I'd rather Port but they'd be my second choice. They'd want to get on with it soon mind you, the entire operation is starting to look similar to St Kilda's dying days of success before Roscoe snuck out the side door shortly before it all went tits up.

Final Thoughts
I still think we'll finish 16th, I just didn't expect Carlton and Brisbane to be the sides below us. Almost time to reopen the old phantom draft threads and start looking for talent around the top three. I feel like we can still get out of this season with our heads held high despite finishing in the last few - six or seven wins will feel like a fantastic victory compared to previous seasons. Now to find four or five more wins somewhere to make that happen.

Strange Rumblings on Brunton Avenue

There is a long-term reader of this blog who I promised to make famous if we won on Friday night. Not famous enough to name him mind you - it was only Round 4 not a Grand Final. You know who you are, and you know that you took a sadistic glee in poking my Emo Maric style glass totally empty outlook on life throughout Friday by insisting that we would win - by text message, twice by phone, in person before the game and for most of the match itself until the 20 minute mark of the fourth quarter when I finally came to terms with the fact that we weren't going to stuff it up.

It was probably what I needed after last week's moaning, but assuring a life-long pessimist that everything's going to be alright is a high risk strategy. Drinks all around and temporary lifting of darks clouds if you're right, get Lifeline on the phone if you're wrong. It's not that I always think we're going to lose, it's that I always feel like we're going to find new and humiliating ways in which to do it.

He assured me that a key factor was their three good players out, replaced by a group with a similar public profile to Maia Westrupp. It was pointed out that we've beaten them over the years even when we were 100% toxic, and now we're only 95% rubbish. Apparently our loss to Adelaide was a far better trial than their thumping win over the Lions and players like Viv Michie are being forced to earn their spots. And we all know Richmond are just flat out flaky, I didn't need a motivational speaker to tell me that.

On the strength of the evidence presented he made a good case that Richmond might in fact lose the game, but the enormous counterweight to that argument was that they were playing Melbourne. How many times have we been torn apart by players who then faded back into obscurity until the next game against us? Kent Kingsley and Beau Wilkes made careers out of it. Marcus Baldwin didn't even make it to the return fixture after taking us for three goals off his first three kicks. And I think the North Melbourne player who had 36 touches against us once now works as a parking inspector in the City of Stonnington.

Like a person roped into joining a cult when they're at an emotional low I was prepared to subscribe to his newsletter because I needed a win after a horrid week both on and off-field highlighted by a slapstick plummet off my stairs on Thursday night. In a week where we commemorate the courage of men and women who have faced situations that soft-as-butter raised-by-television types like me would run a mile from it was hardly the worst thing that's ever happened, and it was self-inflicted by
me descending a staircase while also reading Twitter on my phone but by Christ it hurt at the time. It's a shame there's no footage of the bump, because the Jeremy Howe style hang-time I 'enjoyed' would have become a YouTube sensation overnight after Jim Ross commentary was played over the top. At least Howe gets to land on on grass, I ended up crumpled on the floorboards.

Somehow it ended as nothing worse than a few bruises and some bland blog content. It was the cherry on top of a frankly shithouse week, and by Friday night I really needed something to lift the spirits. Usually when you're a Melbourne fan there's more chance of finding happiness in heroin than in the stands of the MCG, but against all odds the optimists had the last laugh.

Due to delivering worse ratings than Fishcam we'd been kept off Friday night football since Round 7 2012. That's only one full term of a federal government but it seems like a lifetime. If a political party had been through what we have since then they'd be de-registered by the AEC, but there's a credible argument to be mounted that if you're in my age bracket (25-34) even taking into account the #fistedforever years of 2007-? we've had a better football supporting lifetime than Richmond fans. Nobody on either side is old enough to remember a flag, and as horrible as we've been at least it's been honest sludge instead of a constant cycle of seduction/STD/harsh antibiotics. It feels like death warmed up to be a Melbourne fan (or it did until the temporary glee of Friday) but there is the small matter of making the finals six times since '98 to fall back on if you've got a long enough memory.

It seems there are more Richmond than Melbourne fans reading this page so I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but when we're all in the retirement home having never seen a flag between us while GWS and Gold Coast are enjoying 21 each (one for each fan) at least you'll look back at the run to the finals last year as one of - if not the - most amazing few weeks of your sporting life. I still haven't emotionally put myself back together from the last three weeks of 2005 so I can't imagine how nine weeks of living on the edge would have felt. It's alright, we ended up being thrashed in the Elimination Final as well.

The problem is that even though the second half of last year was the sort of magical run which even caused hard-hearted cynics like me to take notice it wasn't the first time the Tigers had teased magic then reverted to pumpkin status. Remember Terry Wallace saving himself with a killer second half of 2008 then not even making it halfway through 2009? Even in Hardwick's first season where they were MFC style pox in the first few weeks their six total wins included four in a row. We, on the other hand haven't won any two in a row since pre-186.

The question, on a larger scale than our riches-to-rags performance against GWS, is whether it's better to have had legitimate hope dashed or to enjoy a childlike sense of wonder by every rare victory? In all honesty I think we'd have them covered if you didn't then factor in all the off-field disasters as well. We probably think they've had it better, they probably think we do - but in the end we're all cactus. Maybe we should mob up with some St Kilda and Footscray fans and beat the shit out of a Hawthorn supporter to make ourselves feel better?

At the moment mob violence is not required, a simple win does wonders for my life as a supporter. After Round 1 I was ordering an open top bus for street parades, and after Round 2 was trying to drive it off a cliff. Now everything feels good again, and while we're still a bottom four side in most ways it's still true that there is no such thing as a bad win - they are all beautiful in their own way.

I sat with the same football friends when we beat Richmond last year. On the basis of it being the only game we'd gone to together and seen a win it was decided that we must take up exactly the same position this time. That sort of sorcery's not for me, but same result anyway as the chosen seats were in the top of the Ponsford. Now I'm 2-0 in that spot against the Tigers, 2-0 while living on the Hurstbridge line and though it's hardly relevant to this discussion 2-0 at the SCG. I tender that 6-0 combined record as evidence to the people who claim that I'm somehow bringing the club down by always pointing out how shite we've been.

Secretly I thought we were a chance, but I wasn't admitting that to anybody other than my footy tips provider. Even at ridiculously long odds it still felt that with Richmond's outs and the credit we'd won back in Adelaide last week that we should at the very least go close to beating them. This is still a foreign feeling to me, so the longer the game went on and the more it became obvious that we were strangling the life out of them I started to tense up with fear of a humiliating GWS style reverse. Especially after it became personal when a slanging match broke out with a Richmond fan behind us, and we needed to win not only for football purposes but also to further ruin his night.

The night was a success on all fronts. It was our largest non-Queen's Birthday crowd for a home and away game since Round 15, 2006 and while it's now irrelevant as this is going to become an annual game I've always thought Richmond would be a great replacement opposition for Queen's Birthday when Eddie McGuire is finally pushed over the edge and stops generously subsidising us with a home game every year.

Whether the same crowds turn up and the concept works as well next year when the game will be played on a Sunday night I'm not sure but it it all seemed to go pretty the other night. The commemorations were respectful and well-observed, nobody other than kids who don't know any better yelled out during the traditional 38 second AFL brand 'minute of silence' and when the game started nobody immediately blew a hammy from standing around on the ground for 20 minutes before the first bounce. Whether it contributed to Dean Kent's issues a quarter and a half later you would have to consult an actual doctor and/or Google.

The immediate danger in any Richmond game is that Jack Riewoldt is a fairly handy target up forward, but for some reason whenever he plays Melbourne he turns into Michael Newton and has kicked 16.33 against us in 13 games. Compare this his record against everyone else and remember that not long ago Frawley (remember him? I hope so, because Hawthorn fans have already forgotten who he is) tearing him to shreds was something you'd mark on your calendar when the fixture came out. Now that he's gone the torch has been passed to Tom McDonald, who successfully pushed Riewoldt so far up the ground most of the night that they were left without any other forwards who could kick straight - and had paid tribute to MFC 2012/13 by not picking any crumbers in the first place - so were left on the sort of score that we've become famous for over the last few years.

We held Carlton to 7.16.58 last year but it's still an amazing novelty to throttle an opposition like that. Usually the defence battles hard but is overwhelmed by the ball going inside 50 with the greatest of ease. This time Richmond got it down there but were usually under enough pressure that it was easily cleaned. While we're speaking of great defensive performances a word please for Bernie Vince backing up last week with a less exciting but arguably more important job on Cotchin and to both Angus Brayshaw and Aaron vandenBerg who kick with peg legs but are like the Legion Of Doom for chasing, harassing and tackling.

The first highlight of my night was Brayshaw being named to start instead of having to sit on the bench for three quarters wearing a luminous vest. As it turns out he'd have been required much earlier than that due to Kent's injury, but tragic as that was it allowed Michie to come on and play a solid game by the time Brayshaw already had five or six tackles on the board. What a farce the sub rule is, but that's an argument for another day - every other day as it turns out.

Both times we've held sides to scores around 60 we've been helped by horribly inaccuracy from the other side, but imagine a world where the only goal we concede in an entire second half comes from a speculative bomb out of the middle. Not one properly constructed six pointer in approximately one hour, how grand. If you've studied the fixture you'll know it can't last so enjoy it while you can.

It was obvious from the start that Vince and the LOD were going to make life difficult for Richmond, but we'd still need to score to win. Even with looming storms threatening to turn the game into the same kind of sludgefest as last week we weren't going to win with five goals dotted through the evening - and that if we did that they wouldn't let us back on Friday night for another three years.

Enter Jesse Hogan, who was expected to meet his match against Alex Rance but more than held his own. In fact let's just say he won - it was his strong body work which set up Dawes to kick the first, he took two killer contested marks and at one point Rance was so wary of him that he stood back and let Jay Kennedy-Harris of all people take a mark in the square. Glorious. We have been sucked in before, but this is what true excitement looks like. It's one thing to have young midfielders racking up possessions, but to see a key position forward treating the stars of the game with contempt is enough to make you slide off your seat even while sitting undercover.

The pre-match Kaiser I'd had as a gesture of reconciliation towards the Austro-Hungarian Empire almost expelled itself when he took that mark on the stroke of half time (NB: I have botched history here and got my world leaders of the 1900's wrong. Lucky I don't work for SBS or I'd be out on my arse) and The Optimist leapt across the seats to dry-hump me with a vigour I'm not sure I've ever felt at an AFL match before. The fact that he missed the kick didn't really matter, Hulkamania was running wild at the MCG. It also proved a great trial run for his goal in the last quarter that sealed victory. In my dreams I see Hogan goals floating past in an endless loop in the style of the old Flying Toasters screensaver.

It has come to my attention that the original Hulk Hogan is coming to town on a publicity tour this week, and I swear if we don't arrange a photo shoot where Jesse and the Hulkster flex their 24-inch-pythons together in MFC jumpers then the marketing department should put a sleeperhold on themselves. I've hated the original Hogan since I first picked up Wrestlemania V at the video shop in about 1988, but this is the greatest promotional opportunity yet. If I see footage of him posing alongside some Collingwood peanut I'll legdrop somebody at the AGM.

Much like last week I'm sure opposition fans would have differing opinions but surely any neutral observer will admit that the Wheel Of Umpiring Fortune again spun violently against us - continuously on either MISTAKE, ERROR or RORT for most of the night. Differences in free kick counts are the most overrated conversation topic in football, but while there are days when your team is just undisciplined there are others where you've got no bloody idea what rulebook is being used to adjudicate the game.

The cliche would suggest that it's not the ones they do pay, it's the ones they don't but there was at least one absolute corker in either category that went against us - Garland being done holding the ball after receiving it about 0.9 seconds before, and Kennedy-Harris having his legs taken out in the square for no result. The sliding rule is an even bigger overreaction than the sub rule but it's also possibly the easiest thing for an umpire to make a decision on other than a player throwing an NFL style forward pass 30m down the ground - and even then you'd be a 50% chance of getting away with that in some games.

See also Harry O getting done for Riewoldt falling into him, Brayshaw's 50 being about 30 and Dunn not getting the most obvious 50 in history when he was pushed over after marking - but that's probably karmic payback for all the evil LD has been involved with over the years. Just to prove I'm not completely biased (only 99%) I can handle the reversal against vandenBerg costing us a goal, that was just stupidity on his behalf. When your side is having a shot let the defender do whatever he likes until the ball is through the goal then jumper punch him in the kidneys. Also the free against Howe for holding on, that was there. Some people will boo anything (and could you not just yell abuse instead of booing if you're older than 13?) but that was spot on and probably unnecessary anyway with McDonald looming.

We were in front at quarter time and the Tigers did seem rattled, but I wasn't getting roped in again after the debacle in Canberra. It had been pointed out that I take so little interest in other teams that I probably wouldn't be able to pick Shane Edwards out of a line-up, and probably still wouldn't, but I knew who he was when he kicked the first goal of the second quarter - he was the prick who was going to start the avalanche that would ruin my night. Fortunately we then put the breaks on them, turn back a number of attacks and then rope-a-dope them when Watts and vandenBerg combined to goal.

It was another interesting night for Watts. He still does a lot of good stuff but when his first kick of the night was gathered after good play then kicked straight out on the full you could tell things weren't going to go his way. Even as the leader of the Just Let Him Play and Fuck It See What Happens coterie group I can see he's been all over the shop mentally for the last fortnight. It's probably time to take the (dis)honourable route to a few weeks off by piledriving somebody just to get away from it all. Still not sure why so many of our fans get the horn from seeing him going slowly mental though. Next thing he'll be copping it for looking happy after the win instead of sitting down in the centre square and cutting himself. If he'd missed the goal after the 50 courtesy of Dustin Martin, and it was close, then I may very well have joined the picket line.

The good times began in earnest when it started pissing down at the start of the third quarter and we could have well and truly put them away several times during the quarter. They helped us by continuing to kick like muppets inside 50 and around the ground, but once we got a roll on at the end that was when I started to believe. Until we gave a goal up straight from the centre after Garlett's second goal and fear began to creep in again.

Dawes played a much better game than he has in the first two weeks and kicked two goals (perhaps my "second of 10" claim was a bit premature), but his performance as a centre-bounce ruckman was akin to past performances of A. Nicholson and C. Sylvia against Port Adelaide in Darwin so let's put Jamar solo down as an experiment due to the conditions that we got away with and give the man some proper backing next week. He can still do 90% of the work but the ease which Richmond got that goal late in the third quarter horrified me. There is no legal way we can get away with that against Fremantle or Sydney so we at least need somebody who can compete in the taps even if they're all but useless around the ground - arise Sir Spencil? He'll be pocketing life membership in 2017 so we may as well try and get him to 50 games first.

The rain stopped in the last quarter but it didn't help Richmond. Still, until Hogan kicked the sealer I still expected something, anything to go wrong but eventually you just have to sit there and admit to yourself that yes, we are going to win a game of footy. Which is not such a surprise these days having done it twice in a month these victories still hold some historical significance.  When I don't receive one text message of congratulations from somebody after a win then I'll say we're back. Until then "it's only Richmond" my arse, winning is still an event - and considering our next couple of weeks I'll clutch it to my bosom until 1.10pm next Sunday.

I went home and watched the replay until 1.30am. It was deelightful.

2015 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Nathan Jones
4 - Aaron vandenBerg
3 - Jesse Hogan
2 - Bernie Vince
1 - Tom McDonald

Top level apologies to Garland who lost the 1 vote in a photo finish, and regular apologies to Brayshaw (for the defence), Cross, Dunn, Howe and Salem.

Leaderboard
The four time champion looms large in the King of Sizzle's rear-view mirror, while we welcome the man with the faulty shift key vandenBerg as the 92nd player to pocket votes in the history of this award.

15 - Tom McDonald (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
10 - Nathan Jones
7 - Bernie Vince
6 - Jesse Hogan (LEADER: Jeff Hilton Rising Star Award)
4 - Aaron vandenBerg, Jack Viney, Jack Watts
3 - Jeff Garlett
2 - Heritier Lumumba, Christian Salem
1 - Angus Brayshaw, Mark Jamar (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Ben Newton


If footy clubs were countries I'd be the most nationalistic and racist dickhead around but even I'm not going to try and find a way to get the Dees up in this one. A joint banner which both clubs ran through as part of a solemn, well-observed ANZAC ceremony will do nicely for a draw. 3-1-0 Dees for the season and 25-1-1 all-time.

Crowd Watch
After carting an umbrella around all day I finally got the chance to use it after the game, which was a problem considering I'd left it in my seat and only realised once I'd reached ground level. As I returned for the search some kid was making off down the stairs with it, but to his credit he stopped and gave it back to me instead of doing a runner - which was surprising because I'd been led to believe that every teenager these days is an ill-bred hooligan called Jayshawn.

Who am I to take the moral highground on theft at AFL matches - after the drawn West Coast/Collingwood final in 1990 a school chum and I flogged several rolls of tape and a wooden flagpole from the Eagles cheersquad. The pole didn't make it out of the Waverley car park but we were sticking things down at my joint until about 1994 courtesy of our very good friends from Perth. Karma struck once again the next year when somebody lifted my jumper during a post match kick-to-kick at the 'G and every year since when my football club has had bugger all chance of winning a flag.

Shortly after pressing publish on the original version of this report I went to the shops and stepped in a dog turd. This reminded me that at half time on Friday night a bird had shat on my shoulder. If we'd lost I might be in an asylum by now.

Fan Experience Watch
The pre-match ceremonies quite rightly took care of the tripe Richmond served up last year with the ritualistic playing of drums, but unfortunately once the first siren went commemoration was out the door and in came the gimmicks befitting a minor league baseball team from Omaha, Nebraska.

It wasn't so much the gimmicks, but the wide variety of them. The now traditional "wave some shit in the air and win" competition isn't much worse than our Chemist Warehouse supported game of Three Card Monte, everyone except us (thank god) seems to provide a Dance Cam for middle aged women can lose their dignity publicly and something called Cuddle Cam appeared to be connected to charity so I will go against every instinct and refrain from taking the piss out of it. The best bit about Cuddle Cam was the complete disinterest in it by any Richmond fan over the age of 16 because the rest of them realised they were about to lose to Melbourne.

Hands down the worst thing seen since the day Richmond had recovering drug users take part in a pre-match goal kicking competition was a segment called "Are you paying attention?" where they played the Jeopardy theme song and put the camera on people who... weren't paying attention. Riveting stuff. To quote one of my companions "Of course nobody's paying attention, it's half time". Most of the people sitting around these hapless fools never bothered to tell them so they sat there tooling around with their phone completely unaware of what was going on. Sadly nobody jammed an index finger up their nose while being filmed. Does research exist to show anybody is interested in this chintzy rubbish? At the risk of acting like Craig Hutchison if you're not slapping the name of a second rate business on the screen and making a buck out of it then it is completely pointless for everyone but Barbara, 46, from Croydon.

Now that I've seen the digital advertising boards at a night game I can confirm they had no less effect on me than a day match, and in fact I probably wouldn't have known they were there if I wasn't thinking about it. Maybe it's worse sitting closer to the ground, but if that's the case move yourself anywhere but the top of the Ponsford.

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Apologies to the lightning fast Garlett crumb at the end of the third quarter but I'm going to have to go for Jesse Hogan from the boundary in the last quarter for sheer emotion value. Tyson in Round 1 still in front overall though - but even though we're kicking more goals I'm still waiting for somebody to boot a truly outrageous one and steal the clubhouse lead.

Next Week
You've probably had enough time now to come to grips with the fact that as joyous Friday night was we're going to lose to Fremantle next week - but that's alright as long as we put in a decent shift while doing it. In a Lyon vs Roos game with our backline firing we'd usually expect to lose 3.4.22 to 1.10.16 but they're on fire at the moment so it could be another in a long line of recent debacles against them. Good chance to show we're made of sterner stuff though, will Watts take my advice on board and go down in infamy for a spinning roundhouse kick to Nat Fyfe? Find out 1.10pm next Sunday.

The one ruckman set-up got us through Friday, probably thanks to the rain, but I daren't try the same thing against Freo. Pedersen still never a top level ruckman but a better option than Dawes. Still gagging for Gawn to come good at Casey soon though - because Jamar is alive and well in 2015 but he can't go on forever.

IN: Pedersen (will get him in eventually)
OUT: Kent (inj)
LUCKY: Watts

Was it worth it?
It has otherwise been an arsehole of a week so good god yes it was.

Final thoughts
Still not used to winning but I want to be. Feed me more.