North Melbourne preview

March 28, 2009 by Melbfcblog

Nothing like writing a blog at midnight, eh? I’m bored, and I don’t think I’ll have time during the day so here goes.

We kick off our season tomorrow with a game against North Melbourne at the MCG. Firstly, here is how we’ll line up:

Backs:J.Rivers, M.Warnock, C.Bartram
Half backs: C.Garland, J.Frawley, B.Green
Centre line:A.Davey, B.McLean, B.Moloney
Half forwards: C.Bruce, P.Johnson, C.Morton
Forwards: B.Miller, M.Bate, R.Petterd
Followers: J.Spencer, J.McDonald, S.Buckley
I/C:J.Bennell, K.Cheney, N.Jones, N.Jetta
Emg:S.Martin,L.Dunn, J.Meesen

On the injury front, Daniel Bell has a fractured thumb and isn’t back until round 5, Austin Wonaeamirri is still recovering from that hamstring injury he sustained against Hawthorn, Jack Grimes is out for another 3, Whelan for 2 and Wheatley for 1. Russell Robertson and Mark Jamar are still a while away.

Jake Spencer, Kyle Cheney, Neville Jetta and Jamie Bennell will all play their first senior games for the club.

Spencer gets the nod ahead of John Meesen. What can you say? He was recruited from Adelaide at the end of the 2007 season not just for the sheer purpose to run around in the 2’s, and yet our two best ruckman from 2008 are out and he still can’t get a game. You have to assume he’s just that bad. Or he’s not ready. But he can’t be any less ready than someone who has played one good NAB Cup game and three ordinary ones.  No doubt Spencer will be a good player, but he has time on his side. Meesen does not, and if he doesn’t crack it this year, I have no doubt he will be delisted come season’s end.

But well done to Jake Spencer. As I said, the potential is definitely there and hopefully he can make an impact at senior level.

The other three debutants have all impressed during the NAB Challenge and deserve their call-up. I’m really looking forward to seeing Jetta run around. The talk is that this boy is the next Cyril Rioli, one of those players who can make something out of nothing. An impact player, if you will. Cheney looked the goods against Hawthorn. And Bennell is likely to turn out to be the Weetra of 09′. I kid, I kid. Good luck to all of them.

Colin Sylvia is out. There was an article earlier in the week in which Dean stated that he had to train well to be in the side. It’s a big call from the coach but I think it’s just what he needs. He needs to go back to Casey and find some form before he gets considered. But above all, his attitude must be right.

 So anyway, on to some in-depth game analysis. I think we match up pretty well against North. Luckily for us, their backline isn’t their strongest area of the field, and while we all agree our forward line is woeful, if we can get good delivery into the forward 50, we’ll be in the game. That’s where the game will be won and lost, the midfield.

North have a couple of dangerous key forwards. Drew Petrie is a dangerous player, and is capable of kicking a bag. I’d expect that either James Frawley or Colin Garland will get the job on him. David Hale is another one who can take a grab, and will be closely minded by Matt Warnock, I would think. If we let their forwards get on top early, we could be in for a long day.

Of course, the X factor is Brent Harvey. He’s torn us apart the last four or five times we’ve played them, and with Dunn being left out of the side, Bartram should be the one who gets the tagging role. I think we can assumue Harvey will be effective, so we’ve just got to limit his effectiveness as much as possible.

Interesting that Dunn has been left out. We all remember what happened last year, with Harvey getting him reported twice, and calling him selfish for focusing too much on Harvey and not on the ball. A load of bullshit, of course. When you’re playing on a player like Harvey, you tend to focus more on the prick than anything else. That is what the whole concept of tagging is, isn’t it?

If I were Bails, I would play Aaron Davey on Daniel Wells. Wouldn’t that be a great battle? I think he’s a good match-up for him. I think it’s worth it even if it means cancelling both players out of the game. Wells has underperformed over the last year or two, but has been in good form over the pre-season. He is a good player, and needs to be payed respect.

The way I see the game as a whole is that our weakest area is that our backs cancel out their forwards, and their backs cancel out our forwards. This means that whoever wins the clearances will probably win the game. Big Jake Spencer’s got a job to do, then.

This game is definitely not beyond our reach. North on their day are a good side, but as was proven in round 22 last year, when they were smashed by Port Adelaide in a must win game, they can also be very bad. But let’s not get too confident. We are in a rebuilding stage, and are fielding a very young side. But we are a chance. I am not going to the MCG tomorrow expecting to win, however this is a great opportunity to not only get a win, but to crack the top 8. I know it wouldn’t mean much, but it would be nice to say to the Essendon supporters that we were actually in the top 8 at one point in the season.

We currently have 26,492 members, which is our largest ever amount at this stage of the year I think. As it’s our first home game of the year, we need every single one of those members and more to get along to the G’ tomorrow and show your support for the mighty Dees. Let’s not only out number the North fans, let’s make the G’ a cauldron of noise supporting the red and blue.

Go Dees!

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Everything is looking brighter

March 15, 2009 by Melbfcblog

With 14 days to go until round one, I have to say I’m feeling good about what’s going on at the moment.

Today we had our family day at Luna Park. I wasn’t there, but from all reports it was a great day. Players moved around in pairs, and were very social with the crowd. The great Ron Barassi was announced as our No. 1 ticket holder for the next two years. And the place was packed with supporters. The membership figure still reads 22,863 but I’m expecting that to skyrocket in the next day or two. The membership line is normally much longer than any of the player autograph lines from past family day experiences.

In other news, Brock has some advice for Colin Sylvia:

The best thing for Col is to let his footy do the talking … we know he can play footy really well. It was just a few little things that build up over time – these days the scrutiny off field is probably worse than what it is on field. You’ve got to make smart decisions, especially off-field. The best thing for the footy club is that Col is up and going, week-in, week-out, he’s an important member of our side.

Did I mention I really love Brock and he should be made captain this moment? This is leadership qualities if I’ve ever seen them.  This time last year, he was out of the leadership group for an off-field incident. He knows exactly what it takes to turn it around, and I think Sylvia needs to look at Brock and use him as inspiration and as proof that he can do the same.

I’ll say it again. Brock. For. Captain.

More soon.

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It was bound to happen

March 14, 2009 by Melbfcblog

Pre-season 2009 is done and dusted after going down to the Western Bulldogs yesterday 14.17.101 to 10.3.63 at Casey Fields. 

Once again I wasn’t at the game, but from what I’ve read it seems that the first three quarters were pretty good, but the last quarter was very poor. We were in the game at three-quarter time, trailing by just 2 points, but they kicked 5 goals to nothing in the last to win comfortably in the end. Green was the only multiple goal scorer for us, kicking 3 in a best on ground performance, with Miller, Jetta, Newton, Davey, McLean, McDonald, Jones all single goal-kickers. 

However, there is worse news. Aaron Davey (bruised heel), Ricky Petterd (hip) and Daniel Bell (broken hand) all finished the game on the sidelines, and on top of that, Clint Bartram was reported for front-on contact with Giansiracusa. Did anyone honestly believe we’d come out of pre-season with no injuries? Let’s hope none of the injuries are too bad, especially Davey because he is just about our best player when fully firing as I’ve said countless times on this blog.

After the game, Bailey said:

I thought our last quarter was pretty poor. All we did was defend, we really let ourselves down. It was really disappointing.You review the game and you look at where you have to improve on. Our decision-making and our competitiveness let us down in that last quarter, while in our last three games we have kicked the ball better.

In every game this pre-season, it seems we have showed glimpses of our best throughout the course of each match. It’s just that those moments when we just seem to lose our way, such as the last quarters against Hawthorn and the Bulldogs, just kill us in games and are stopping us from winning matches. I don’t think fitness is the problem, I think it’s more to do with the mental side of footy. And if it happens in pre-season, who’s to say it won’t happen in the season proper?

And just to finish off, that Footy Show last night was one of the worst I’ve seen in a long time. The new set looked more like Ellen MacPherson than the Footy Show. I don’t know what they were thinking with the chicken joke, but it was some of the least humourous television I’ve seen in a while. Hardly any mention of us, just a bit with Hutchy. Disappointing, Garry.

But anyway, that’s pre-season 2009 done and dusted. Now we begin the long 2 weeks of waiting for the home and away season to start.

The countdown is on- 15 days to go.

P.S. Remember you can follow Melbfcblog’s updates on Twitter. Feel free to leave me an @reply as well if you want to chat about the Dees. Quite handy, Twitter, you should all get into it.

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About time + same old story for Sylvia

March 12, 2009 by Melbfcblog

It’s finally over. The announcement that all Dees fans had been praying for for the last four months has finally been announced. In a deal worth $2.1 million over 3 years,  L.D. Wholesale Tyres, major distributor of Hankook tyres, will be one of two major sponsors of the Melbourne Football Club.

Well THANK GOD FOR THAT. I guess we knew it was coming any day now, but just to know that we will definitely be going into the season with a brand name on the shirt, with all due respect to the Bushfire Appeal (and please keep the donations coming in).

Jimmy says:

This partnership takes the Melbourne Football Club a considerable way towards meeting its sponsorship targets for 2009, while maintaining the opportunity for another partner to sponsor the back of the Club guernsey.

The rest of the articles are all about Hankook, and it turns out the owner is a Dees fan and thinks we have a bright future:

I believe Melbourne has a good board of management, comprising of committed people with varied business skills. Together with a good coach and a young, developing list, there are strong foundations for the future success of our football club. I am also buoyed by the proposed move to the City of Casey, where I live, because it will be a tremendous move for the future development of Melbourne Football Club and will enhance its membership and image.

Was this deal ever a chance not to go through with an owner like that? Good to see he’s taking the initiative and supporting the club financially. Every one of you can do that too if you haven’t already by signing up as a member on the right hand side of the screen.

1 down, 1 to go, and it seems the AFL will be assisting us with that search for the second major backer, according to the back end of the Age article. I’m not too sure what it all means, but we should be expecting some more details in the next few days, starting hopefully tonight on The Footy Show.

In other news, Colin Sylvia has been suspended by the leadership group for our final NAB Challenge match against the Western Bulldogs at Casey. Hmm, let’s see…out late…breached club’s expectations…yep, it’s March. For god’s sake, this is getting ridiculous. He was suspened last year on exactly the same day, would you believe, for a very similar discression. The guy does not learn his lesson, and I think he has a problem. I think he is associated with the wrong people and he just can’t continue like this. That’s all I’ve got to say on that.

There’s been rumours going around that Mark Jamar has been placed on the long term injury list, and that Jake Spencer will be elevated to the senior list. deegirl from Demonology has reported, who is apparently always on the money, although I don’t often read ‘ology so I’m not sure.

Anyway, if it’s true, I’d have to say it’s not neccecarily a bad decision by the club, but not the one I’d be making in this situation. From all reports, the Spence has been ordinary in the last two practice games, and I reckon a year in the 2’s with no pressure would be good for his developement. I’d like to see Meesen have a go as the number one ruckman. It’s got to the point where we’ve either got to play him, or delist him, because him playing for Casey week after week will not do anyone any good. Let’s see if he’s good enough. I’d rather see Valenti get a go, that kid will be a star, make no mistake. 

That’s all for now. Footy Show tonight, will be interesting to see how they go without the incredibly (un)humourous Trevor Marmalade. Some good publicity for Melbourne would be nice, too.

More soon.

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A night to remember

March 7, 2009 by Melbfcblog

Friday 6th of March 2009

Melbourne 11.7.73 defeated Brisbane Lions 4.12.36

Michael Newton has assured himself  of a place in the Melbourne Hall of Fame with a 3 goal best on ground effort in the club’s first pre-season victory in three years. Although there has been no official word that the game actually took place, sources claim that we actually played reasonably well.

Sorry I couldn’t give you more than that. I’ve been sick since Thursday, and when I say sick, I mean I could barely make it out of bed.

So yeah…we won. How good does it feel to say that, even though it’s still early March? And from all reports, we won pretty convincingly. Vossy isn’t too concerned because of the apparent torrential downpour, but a win’s a win, and we’ll take it any way we can get it.

we head to Casey Fields next week to take on the Western Bulldogs, and hopefully can put on a better showing than last year’s corresponding NAB Challenge fixture in Bendigo. And then two weeks later, it’s North in round one, who got smashed by Port today. Are we any chance of beating them, and in doing so cracking the top 8 after round one???

And just to end off, well done to whoever does the official website. They have scrapped the membership thermometer thing and replaced it with actual numerical digits. The tally at the moment reads 21 986. Seems like a pretty good number at this stage of the year, but we really need 30,000 by the deadline. If you haven’t signed up yet, there is a link on the right hand side of the screen.

More soon.

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Duel sponsors???

March 1, 2009 by Melbfcblog

UPDATE: Okay instead of posting on BigFooty and Demonland when I post, I will now post updates on Twitter. You can follow me if you want. But you should be checking every night anyway. Also, I know the blog is a tad boring at the moment. I am really trying my hardest to get it up to the standard of some of the other blogs around with all the flashy buttons and what-not, so please bear with me.

So, we lost yesterday.  Umm…yeah.

I’m not going to talk much about the game yesterday, mainly because I wasn’t at the game and I’m not going to just read other people’s opinions and pretend I’m some sort of genius who can just tell instantly what happened and what we should and shouldn’t have done. This blog is about my opinion, and any sort of post match analysis from me would not be my opinion. And besides, Demonblog has a more than satisfying post match wrap.

So anyway. This year, the club will be hosting a 2009 AFL Season Launch luncheon. It seems the idea came about after the success of the North Melbourne Grand Final breakfast last year. Jimbo says:

We need to be open to new ideas and opportunities to allow the greater community – not just Melbourne supporters – to be involved in some of our activities. North Melbourne put on their breakfast . . . which draws people from all walks of life, as well as VIPs and politicians, and it gets them into the mood of the day. There is no official event for the general public at the start of the season. There is no club that owns that space, so we’d love to do that.

And good to see we’re getting support from other clubs, too. Eddie McGuire, Jeff Kennett, Frank Costa and Jim Stynes will be debating all the key football issues, refereed by Garry Lyon. Hopefully they get a good turnout and also some good publicity.

Some even more exciting news in the same article, with Stynsey saying that another company have made a proposal in the last few days:

We’ve had someone else jump in a few days ago to show an interest. They have put up a certain amount of money. It is a little bit short, but they could well be a part of the overall deal. We are getting closer. It looks like it will be more than one company that will come on board. We might have a front and a back sponsor.

Who would’ve thought there’d be two companies in the world who want to sponsor us. Realistically I can’t see us having two sponsors at this stage, but we’ll wait and see. A nice old win wouldn’t do us too much harm.

And Robbo could be back sooner than first thought. He says in the Herald Sun that it had been painful to train in his footy boots and was having injections just to be able to play. It was noticable in the way he played the first 10 rounds last year. He just didn’t seem to be able to get off the ground. And I don’t just mean like he used to, I mean at all. But it will be good to have him back hopefully better than last year.

Not much, but that’s all I’ve got for today.

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Team news + Watts and Blease to sit the next 10

February 27, 2009 by Melbfcblog

So, after losing to Hawthorn last week in the first round of the NAB Cup, our NAB Challenge campaign begins tomorrow against Sydney at Visy Park.

Five changes have been made to the team that faced the Hawks last week. First year players Jamie Bennell, Neville Jetta and James Strauss will play their first competitive games for the club, while Brent Moloney will make his comeback to footy after being out injured since round 11. Recruit John Meesen is also in the squad. 

I’ve so far been able to work out three players who have been left out, all due to injury. They are Matthew Whelan, Austin Wonaeamirri and Clint Bartram. I’ve gone through the list of players who played last week a number of times, and cannot for the life of me figure out which other player has been left out. I’m assuming it has something to do with the emergencies or substitutes, or whatever.

Anyway, Sydney’s squad for tomorow is quite weak as it always is at this time of year. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but there are quite a few players who I’ve never heard of. Mike Pyke, Nick Smith, Brendan Murphy, Matt O’Dwyer, Jake Orreal, the list goes on. So this seems like a pretty good chance for some of the young players to get some experience at the top level. A chance for some of the more experienced players to find some form going into the season proper (I’m looking at you, Sylvia). And a chance for the team to finally win a pre-season game.

If my memory serves me correctly, we have won a total of 1 pre-season game for the last three years. It is a myth that pre-season form means nothing. You only have to look at our results to know this. Last year we went into the season off the back of smashings to Geelong and the Kangaroos, and a game against the Bulldogs in which we were up by 5 goals at quarter-time and lost by 5 goals. No-one on BigFooty was concerned that night, while Supermercardo was kindly giving updates from Bendigo, at how badly we fell away after quarter-time. I don’t remember an exact number, but we didn’t kick more that 5 goals for the rest of the game. How could anyone expect any team to suddenly be able to turn that form around in Round 1. Winning is everything, whether it is pre-season or Round 1.

I won’t be able to make it to the game tomorrow, but there will be plenty of matchday coverege on BigFooty and Demonland. I think whelan=legen will be posting updates on BigFooty.

In other news, we won’t be seeing Jack Watts or Sam Blease at any level until around mid-April. Both are doing year 12 this year, and are undergoing a 10 week training program at the moment. Developement coach Kelly O’Donnell says:

Sam and Jack are on a 10-week program, which leads them into about the middle of April before they will play a match. Basically it’s getting them up the minimum volume that is required to start playing games in the view of the conditioning people. That’s taking into account that they’re 17 and have young bodies and just where they’re at physically. They’ll start to play after that 10-week program, although it might be eight weeks – as long as they’ve been ticked off by the conditioning people. The maximum is 10 weeks, but it could be eight. Once they give the okay, they can then start either playing practice matches or matches for the start of the VFL season or they’ll be very close to the start of the VFL season.

Disappointing that we won’t see our top two draftees for such a long period of time, but I guess we’ll just have to be patient. School is the priority for kids, even ones who will go on to take over the world like big Wattsy.

Some post match reaction after the game tomorrow hopefully.

Until then.

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Injury update + the scarf is back!

February 24, 2009 by Melbfcblog

We just got hit with the news a couple of hours ago that Austin Wonaeamirri is the first to go down with an injury this pre-season. The membership campaign continues. Hopefully it is just a precaution and we will still see the stronger, fitter and leaner Aussie we were promised this season.

Robbo still seems to be a fair way off, according to football operations manager, Craig Notman:

He is just being monitored and brought along nice and slow, so we’ll make sure he doesn’t do too much, but is ready to go throughout the year. Robbo will need a little bit more time, given the serious injury he’s had, but will be aiming to train with the group fully by March. He won’t be available at the beginning of the season, one wouldn’t think at this stage, but he’s made some great progress since Christmas. He hasn’t got age on his side anymore either, so we’ve got to be very careful with him, but the steps that have been made with him have been great. He’s one of the old heads in the group now, so he won’t be too far away.

Let’s be honest, as much as he struggled in the first half of last year, we need him back desparately. As Supermercardo pointed out on Demonblog a few days ago, our forward line is dreadful. We were convincingly beating the Hawks all over the ground, yet we were only 33 points up at three-quarter time.

Our forwards gave us absolutely nothing. Matthew Bate was our only forward who actually looked dangerous (god only knows why on earth he was moved up the ground in the last quarter), but he won’t be as effective against a half-decent defense during the season. 

Miller was at his devastating worst, and hopefully that was just a one off, as he was starting to get better towards the end of last year, but it really was a pathetic effort.

Newton is just not as good as we all thought he would be a couple of years ago. It’s not his fault really. You could say he doesn’t work hard enough to win the footy, but I’d put it down more to a lack of talent rather than work ethic.

And as for Sylvia, well we all know that he can play. He was drafted at #3. However, I do think it’s getting to the point where he needs to go back to Casey and find some form, because he just seems to lack confidence. Let’s just leave it at that.

Jamar and Wheatley also seem to be coming along well:

Mark’s actually back running now and he’s just had some trouble with his foot and has been in a boot for a while. He’s progressing pretty well too, so it’ll be good to get him back up and running and after seeing young big bloke Jake Spencer play alright on the weekend, he’ll want to get back a little bit quicker, but he’s going alright too.Wheatley is progressing nice and slowly with his calf strain. He’s back running.

Matthew Whelan will also miss the game against Sydney at Visy Park, while Junior and Bartram are a possibility, but you wouldn’t think it is likely they will be risked.

And just to finish off, I recieved my Melbourne membership gear on Sunday. I had already received my AFL membership, but I got all the actual Melbourne stuff that you get every year like the car stickers which you never see on the road anymore, a fixture magnet which is terrific because I don’t have a magnetic fridge, and a letter from Jim Stynes. All the usual stuff in that. Thanks for signing up, exclusive membership merchandice, and also a bit about the Demon Heartland Community Bay which I think is a terrific idea that was raised at the Demon Summit. But what got me most excited was that the scarf is back. The free memership scarf that was such a great innovation during the last four years of the Daniher era is back! None of that tie crap we had last year. Honestly, did anyone actually wear that thing?

Anyway, that’s just something I’m excited about.

More soon.

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No new draftees on Saturday

February 18, 2009 by Melbfcblog

So we are now three days away from our first NAB Cup match. Whilst it is only a pre-season competition, and the main goal is getting as many players ready for Round 1 as possible, I think this year’s Cup presents a good opportunity for us to not only win some good money (the prize money for winning the NAB Cup is almost as much as winning the real Grand Final), but also to gain some good media exposure and possibly attract a sponsor, and maybe a few extra members while we’re at it.

Now, I could be reading this the complete wrong way, but it looks like the club is thinking the same way, with Dean saying that no new draftees will be playing on the weekend.

Although there may not be any of the first year players playing [against Hawthorn], the guys who were drafted last year are certainly going to get their chance.

I reckon the coach is thinking, “let’s go all out against an immensely depleted  Hawthorn, and if we win we get another TV game, and if we lose we can just play the kids in the NAB Challenge matches.” And I don’t blame him. We have four pre-season games, irrespective of results. Let’s try and get as many games on prime time television as possible.

Bailey touches on our superior injury sitiuation in comparison to last year:

We’re more advanced that we were 12 months ago. We’ve got a healthy list; they’re fit, so they should be competitive longer. They’ve trained for a fair time now, so I think the players are at a stage where they are edgy and itchy to play on Saturday, so that’s pretty good.

And McLean:

He’s taken a while to get over his ankle. But he’ll certainly be a big chance to play, ‘Chook’. I don’t think he’d want to miss out on this week.

And Rivers:

He rolled his ankle about six or seven minutes into it. He’s pulled up okay and he was icing it straight after the game. Although he was on a modified program, I think he’ll be able to walk and run on Friday, so he’ll be training next week. He just tweaked a few ligaments, but he’ll be fine, which is good.

 So all sounding good at the moment. It seems Aurora Stadium have changed the dimensions of the groundahead of the game. One of the wings will be reduced in size so as to promote a higher scoring game than what’s been seen so far at the ground. Only 11 out of 28 times has a team cracked the tonne. It is said to now be the same as Telstra Dome, which isn’t great news, I guess, because we play shit there.

So anyway, this will be my last post until either Sunday or Monday night. I am going away tomorrow and will get back on Sunday. Shit time to go away, I know, but I’ll have the Foxtel iQ working overtime. So you’ll have my full post-match thoughts and analysis when I get back.

Until then.

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Did we honestly expect anything less?

February 14, 2009 by Melbfcblog

So our first real hit-out was played today in the form of an intra-club practice match at Casey Fields. I wasn’t able to be at the game, unfortunately, however after sniffing around at various forums and websites, I think I’ve got the general idea of what happened. I won’t go into too much detail on certain players, because really there’s only one thing to talk about. 

I think, going into the game, that if you had asked any Melbourne fan who he or she wanted to get through the game unscathed, I think the answer would have been Jared Rivers. Was it too much to ask, football gods, for Jared Rivers to be allowed to play one full game of footy? Even a tiny little intra-club match? I just don’t understand it. And this time it’s his ankle, too. He reminds me of a guy who was in my year at school and also was in my junior footy team. He was always injured. If it wasn’t his hamstring, it was his groin, or his knee, or his shoulder, or even his big toe at one point. Anyway, the point is, Jared Rivers was born to occupy the recovery room. Bailey says, however, that he has merely twisted it, and that he’ll be alright:

He just twisted his ankle, so he’ll be OK. He’ll be fine with some ice in the next 24 hours. In Jared’s words it was ‘bleep, bleep, bleep ankle’ … He was really looking forward to playing today. He’s worked incredibly hard over the last six months. Today if he was able to get through the game, he would’ve got some confidence from it. It was really disappointing, he was able to only play five or seven minutes, but it’s five or seven minutes that he didn’t have last year, so we’re progressing with him.

I think you could call that looking on the bright side. I hope he’s right though, because we really need a fully fit Rivers this season. He’s part of our best six defenders, no debating that. Hopefully he can get himself fit in time for next week’s NAB Cup game against Hawthorn, because I think we all desparately want to see where he is at, and whether he is still the same Jared Rivers as the one who won the Rising Star award in 2004.

Moving on to some more positive news from the game, relating to Austin Wonaeamirri. Aussie was the best player on the ground, from what I’ve heard, kicking four goals and looking in much better shape. He is apparently a lot fitter, a lot stronger and is moving a lot better. That’s a lot of a lots. But seriously, if we can have Aussie, Jetta and Jurrah all playing well, it will allow Davey to move to the wing, a position which I personally think would suit our style of play. He is wasted in the forward line. A guy with his speed, energy and sublime skill should be involved in the play as much as possible.

I mentioned Neville Jetta before, and, according to the coach, was the most impressive of our recruits. He kicked two goals in the first half, including a check side from the boundary. I think he was a good pick by Barry Prentergast. He is someone I think who could make an immediate impact in the seniors, ala Cyril Rioli.

Our team is quite Aboriginaled this year. Davey, Aussie, Whelan, Jetta and Jurrah. I think that is something that is important, as they add a new dimension to the team that not many white boys can do, with their speed, skill and excitement. Hopefully they can provide that much needed spark.

There were also a few players not playing. Not nearly as many as this time last year though. Liam Jurrah, Daniel Hughes, Jordie McKenzie, Jack Watts, Sam Blease, Russell Robertson, Paul Wheatley, Mark Jamar and Addam Maric all sat the game out, the latter four were because of injury. Davey also missed after playing in the Aboriginal All-Stars match last week.

And as for the crowd? Well it was a healthy 2,500 strong group of supporters who made the journey to Casey Fields, Bailey saying:

It was great to get the crowd out here. There are a lot of people coming down to watch us train, which is brilliant. The more we connect with the community, the more we actually get involved with the local community. I think the fact that we hung around for another half-an-hour to sign some autographs and have some photos with people was a good finish to a good practice match.

And that’s about it for today. With only seven days until the Hawthorn game, the blog will probably be active most days from now until the end of the season. So please, keep jumping on the site at around 6 or 7pm like you all have been since the start, and tell all your Melbourne supporting friends about it.

GO DEES 

P.S. The final score was MFC White 12.8 (80) defeating MFC Red 11.6 (72). First win on the board! And first loss. Oh well.

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