ANYONE BUT SYDNEY!!!

by The Oracle

One of the first initiatives announced under the new regime at Melbourne was the push for two matches in Canberra next year to enable the club to pocket more than $600,000 if the AFL allows it to double up on its presence in the national capital. According to Melbourne CEO Paul McNamee, Canberra is the place where the Demons have a "preference to build a little hub."

From the point of view of making money it's not a bad idea to make 600k by playing away instead of losing money at home. Any organisation that finds itself $4.5m in debt and with mounting losses needs to have an eye on the bottom line and given that Melbourne is at rock bottom, it's well placed to look fairly, squarely and closely at that line.

But the club’s application for an additional presence in the ACT should also be also be made on the understanding that Melbourne is part of a national competition and it's important in that context for it to be competitive. For that to happen, it has to compete on more or less a level playing field.

Now, I'm not suggesting that Manuka Oval slopes one way or another but I do think that the club's request for another Canberra game should be predicated on it playing against two of the interstate clubs that have lesser drawing power in Melbourne such as the Dockers, Port Power or the future GC17 and WS18 teams.

The Sydney Swans, with their association with the old South Melbourne Football Club, still have a significant base of supporters in Melbourne so it makes sense for the Dees to play their home games against them here in Melbourne to take advantage of those numbers.

Playing the Swans in Canberra also gives the supposed "away" team a virtual home ground advantage. At Manuka, Sydney is much closer to its own home as the crow flies than Melbourne and the Swans also field their reserves team in the local Canberra competition. This effectively gives Sydney an enormous advantage over the so-called "home side" in terms of crowd support, travel time and local knowledge.

The Demons need to build an identity in the ACT as a team in its own right and it must maximise its winning chances playing at the ground - something that won't happen as often if they give away any advantage and play there against the Swans who are perennially in the top four.

So, I'm all for making some dough out of a couple of trips a year to the national capital but let's be smart about who we have to play against in those games.

Just imagine a future match up against the Gold Coast Dolphins in Canberra with all those pretty boy blond haired surfers freezing their you know what’s off. We would have the clear advantage over our opponents in the wintry conditions in the national capital, make some money and bring home the four points - all while I'm lounging on my living room couch with the fire blazing away and me sipping away on a tinnie fully of the frothy stuff. Sounds good to me - as long as we're not playing the Swans!

On the question of Sydney, I wonder what happened to the rivalry that the clubs were trying to build up around Anzac Day? The quest to build up a blockbuster game around the clubs named after and representing the two most populous cities in the land seems to have fallen by the wayside. The Demons should look to bring this concept back with the clubs alternating their Anzac Day appearances between cities every year (with the game on Anzac eve at the G every year when it's in Melbourne). If promoted well we could develop a blockbuster our own without the need to always attract opposition supporters like the one who slagged off at Fev last Sunday.

I'd like to see that!

THE GAME

Melbourne v Sydney at the Manuka Oval 22 June 2008 at 1.10pm

HEAD TO HEAD

Overall Melbourne 91 wins Sydney 107 wins 1 draw

At Manuka Melbourne 0 wins Sydney 1 wins

Since 2000 Melbourne 6 wins Sydney 10 wins

The Coaches Bailey 0 Roos 0

MEDIA

TV Fox Footy Channel at 1 pm (live)

RADIO SEN 774 ABC

THE BETTING Melbourne to win $8.00 - Sydney to win $1.06

LAST TIME THEY MET Sydney Swans 17.10.112 defeated Melbourne 9.10.64 Round 18, 2007.

Melbourne travelled a long way to play this "home" game but it certainly didn't take long for the Swans to snuff them out. The Demons failed to kick a goal in the opening stanza and the Swans kept them in a vice-like grip for the rest of the games with Adam Goodes in outstanding form. The best of the Demons that day were Nathan Brown and Nathan Carroll. Ironically, neither of them will be in the nation's capital for Sunday’s rematch.

THE TEAMS

MELBOURNE

Backs James McDonald Colin Garland Matthew Warnock

Half backs Brad Green Paul Wheatley Cameron Bruce

Centreline Colin Sylvia Brock McLean Lynden Dunn

Half forwards Jace Bode Matthew Bate Aaron Davey

Forwards Paul Johnson Brad Miller Austin Wonaeamirri

Followers Jeff White Clint Bartram Nathan Jones

Interchange James Frawley Mark Jamar Chris Johnson Matthew Whelan

Emergencies Cale Morton Shane Valenti Adem Yze

In Mark Jamar Matthew Whelan

Out Cale Morton Adem Yze (both omitted)

SYDNEY SWANS

Backs Nick Malceski Leo Barry Martin Mattner

Half backs Craig Bolton Ted Richards Tadhg Kennelly

Centreline Adam Goodes Jarrad McVeigh Amon Buchanan

Half forwards Ryan O’Keefe Barry Hall Luke Ablett

Forwards Paul Bevan Michael O’Loughlin Lewis Roberts-Thomson

Followers Darren Jolly Brett Kirk Jude Bolton

Interchange Craig Bird Kieren Jack Jarred Moore Henry Playfair

Emergencies Luke Brennan Nic Fosdike Ben Mathews

No change

Umpires Sully Grun Head

SWAN DIVING

We are barely beyond the halfway mark of the season and already they're talking about tanking. The talk at the moment centres on the West Coast Eagles and the way their team was structured for last Friday night's game against Essendon - especially the omission of some key premiership players such as Daniel Kerr, Braun and Fletcher.

It's just as well people aren't accusing Melbourne of tanking because this year's Demons have proved conclusively that they can lose with the best of them without even doing anything that looks remotely suspicious.

When will people ever learn and understand the truth of Andrew Demetriou's AFL 11th commandment - thou shalt not, will not and do not tank? It just doesn't happen.

End of story.

That said, Sunday's game at Manuka looks like a mismatch to me. The Swans have been cruising along nicely over recent weeks and the inclusion of Barry Hall, back from suspension last week, was virtually seamless. Sydney went on its merry way and demolished the Saints to grab fourth position on the AFL ladder. Unlike the dour Swans of old, they did it in the attractive, high scoring style which they have adopted of late. This spells a lot of trouble for Melbourne because you can't just shut the Swans down by pushing your players back and hoping for the best. They will smash you if you try that - just ask the Tigers who were held to one goal in the first half of their game in Sydney a few weeks ago.

The game will give Melbourne the opportunity to see how its new look young defence can withstand the slings and arrows of a professional attacking unit containing the likes of Hall, Michael O'Loughlin and O'Keefe to name a few. The challenge will be absorbing, interesting and give the club an idea of where youngsters like Colin Garland, James Frawley and the resurgent Matthew Warnock (fresh from a tough gig against Richo) really sit at this early stage of their careers.

There was a time when I would review games and pick some of the more fascinating match ups - the ones that were crucial in determining the direction of any particular game. This has unfortunately become a useless exercise of late because players are rotated one and off so often during a game that the match ups often mean little. These days, players aren't always matched up upon each other for large portions of a game. The exceptions might be the rucks and the key back and forward positions but otherwise, players generally have a larger roving (or roaming) commission than in the past.

My fascinating match up for this week is in one position where I think the Demons will win - the contest between Jeff White and Darren Jolly who left the Dees a few years ago because he didn't want to play in Jeff White's shadow. He has done exceptionally well for himself up in Sydney and has a premiership medallion to prove that proposition but he's never quite had the wood over White. I expect the master to control the rucks despite giving away plenty in terms of height and size.

I look everywhere else on the field and I find the Swans holding a significant edge over the Demons. Brock McLean has been good in the middle and has a few capable back ups but they're competing with the likes of dual Brownlow Medallist Adam Goodes, Brett Kirk, Jude Bolton and Jarrad McVeigh who have been in sparkling form of late.

Melbourne has been competitive in its last two games against Collingwood and Richmond but the worry is the spectre of a total collapse such as the 16 minute breakdown it suffered in the second term against the Tigers when the Demons looked like a junior school ballet troupe rather than an elite football team. Take away the black hole of those 16 minutes and Melbourne would have been back in town but with it, they're somewhere in the backblocks beyond the dog on the tucker box at Gundagai.

So until they prove they can perform for four quarters, week in, week out, I can't select them to beat a team with the class of the Sydney Swans which is settled with an unchanged line up.

Sydney by 57 points