NEITA'S LAST MINUTE

by The Oracle

Melbourne put in its best performance for the year on Sunday against Hawthorn but it still wasn't good enough to bring home the four premierships on offer. It was however, a much better performance than the one the Demons put on a short space of eight weeks ago against the same opponent when they lost by 104 points. Had fate and a couple of dodgy umpiring decisions not intervened, we might have seen a turnaround of close to 100 points rather than the final figure of 85.

All that is pretty much irrelevant however, at this stage of proceedings. What we saw at the MCG was a look at the future - at the new and emerging face of the Melbourne Football Club. A club without David Neitz to be sure and one without Jeff White and some of the others who have been familiar fixtures for so many years. What we saw was a team that took Alastair Clarkson's unbeaten Hawks almost to the wire - something very few others have been able to achieve to date this year.

It was done by aggression and hard tackling and a desire to prove to the world how much the club has improved in recent weeks. There was a marked improvement in the precision of the team's ball movement and the purpose with which each individual took on his allocated task for the day.

It was all there from before the game started when retiring skipper David Neitz, finished his cavalcade around the ground and addressed the players for a minute as they stood bunched together giving one of the club's all-time greats their rapt attention and coming out showing they meant business. It was Neita's last minute as an on-field presence for the Melbourne Football Club and he was determined to ensure when he passed the baton on to the next generation of Demons, that they were not going to dismiss their 150 year heritage lightly.

Brent Moloney and Nathan Jones led the charge when they stood up to the arrogance of Lance Franklin. Brock McLean, with his 13 possessions in the first quarter, was ferocious in the packs and demonstrated that he is ready to claim the crown of the heir apparent for the club's leadership - an honour he let slip through his grasp with some off field indiscretions over the pre-season. Despite receiving much closer attention from opponents these days, he is showing by his performance and demeanour on the field that his day is about to come.

There were so many others who were all contributing to the cause, particularly Matthew Bate and Brad Green who added to the team's intensity as it charged to its first winning opening term and then its first winning opening half of the season - a far cry from the gaping mid game deficits of earlier in the season.

Then there was the youth - first year players like Cale Morton, Austin Wonaeamirri and Shane Valenti, the emerging Simon Buckley who had over twenty touches for the second week in a row and young defenders Colin Garland and Matthew Warnock who did their jobs against the competition's most dangerous key position forward combination of Franklin and Roughead.

In the end, the competition leader wore the young Demons down. They outscored Melbourne by 10 goals to 6 in the final half thanks to the run of midfielders Mitchell, Bateman and Sewell. That's still a long way from 16 to 5 as was the case in round 1 when the team had older legs and was uncompetitive. Times are changing.

Melbourne 4.3.27 6.4.40 9.5.59 12.6.78

Hawthorn 3.3.21 4.7.31 10.9.69 14.13.97

Goals

Melbourne Holland 3 Jones Robertson Wonaeamirri 2 Bruce Davey P Johnson

Hawthorn Franklin Rioli Williams 3 Campbell Clarke Ellis Ladson Roughead

Best

Melbourne McLean Bate Moloney Wonaeamirri Green Garland Warnock.

Hawthorn Mitchell Bateman Sewell Ladson Brown Birchall

Injuries

Melbourne Robertson (cork thigh), Holland (shoulder)

Hawthorn Dew (hamstring soreness)

Changes

Melbourne White (back) replaced in selected side by Jamar.

Hawthorn Lewis (cork thigh) replaced in selected side by Morton

Umpires James Grun Armstrong

Official crowd 41,341 at the MCG