What are your feelings from being at games between other sides not our beloved Demons? There are several aspects to comment on - the atmosphere and supporters, how they act. And the game itself, the strategies and different styles.

I was at the Bulldogs/Swans game last Friday night. It was interesting and I left actually glad that I followed Melbourne.

Part of that is obviously sentimental, irrational bias on my part. But I would hate being a Swans supporter and having to watch that negative style of play week in, week out. No wonder they only got 19,000 to the Sydney final. Plus aging players carrying obvious injuries. Not much to look forward to. Bulldogs were exciting in patches, especially once the opposition dissipated. But again their style left me a little flat. Flashy in patches, fundamentally just battlers. Despite the hopeless year we've had, I found I enjoyed watching Melbourne's attempts to play quick, chancing their arm and searching for space more than either of these finalists.

Then the supporters. I can't stand booing of opposition players who have marked or got a genuine free and taking a shot on goal. And I reckon us Melbourne supporters are more passionate, certainly more noisy (and I don't think you could blame that on numbers this year!).

I'm going Saturday night to the Hawks/Saints game. I expect I'll enjoy it more than last week. Just watching Buddy (not carving up the Dees) will be fun.

One general observation from all the finals I've seen, including on TV, is how hopeless you look without genuine marking, leading forwards and a good quick forward strategy.

The other thing about being at other games is you get a chance to watch the umpires closely. Some are incredibly self-promoting (James Hird's mate in particular). I watched them making atrocious decisions, then getting more attention when players reacted to a very bad decision and the whole thing just snow-balled. He was loving it. And he had started it. And the four boundary umpires. They don't realise how silly they look running across the playing area simply to try and get to throw the ball in before the ruckmen get there. I'm sure it's a personal challenge for some of them. They don't get any better even when it's not the Dees copping their crap. Gooses all!

I agree. (bet you weren't expecting that to happen on the internet)

Melbourne does it's best to play at a truly breakneck pace... unfortunately at the moment it quite often does break it's neck.

My crystal ball (blessed as it is by the Invisible Pink Unicorn) is telling me that this will be a fun and crazy ride the next few years.

There will be horrible blowouts right up until we're perfect.

There will be the occassional big win too (hopefully more over time)

And there will be a good number of games where the score see-saws from one quarter to the next, as one team gains the ascendency and the other gets the fumbles again, and the counter-attacks come thick and fast. Think of the Freo game... that was definately fun.

There will be some massive shootouts, too, games with 40 goals kicked in them.

I'm kind of glad I'll get to be a part of this, now that I think we're gonna survive and maybe even get our act together again.

Also, you're quite right, the umpires are rubbish everywhere you look. And I can't completely blame the umpires themselves - the AFL is putting money in the wrong places, an extra million dollars a year to support umpire at the mid to upper levels would make a huge difference to the talent pool, 'selection pressure' and confidence of umpires, and would help limit one of the main things people don't like about AFL - the 'what happened? Huh?' factor.

I noticed there were'nt any players from Sydney headed to the draft camp. Just two from NSW, both from the Murray Bushrangers. So there's still more AFL talent coming out of Wagga and Albury than Sydney.

Put that together with the Swans playing their reserves games in the ACT league because it's at a higher standard than they can get in Sydney, one might be led to the ever-so-tentative conclusion that a bit of grass-roots investment and support of local level clubs might help the long-term West Sydney expansion plan...

How did I get on to that? Oh that's right - places the AFL should be spending it's money.

And I agree with you! (hey it's the off season, good time to be agreeable all round)

I'm interested if anyone has any general comments on this theme from watching the grand final.

I also went to the Hawthorn/St Kilda final on the Saturday night. Very over-umpired and Scott McLaren featured largely (again). Incidentally he had a poor GF too I felt.

My other observations - with all the slipping over that night, it was a good demonstration of why not to have a night GF. And Hawthorn again did their thing of cribbing on the mark, sometimes by a good metre or more (the man standing the mark jumps around in a circle and comes back significantly in front of where he started). The umpires in that game got that right and awarded a couple of 50 metre penalties. The tactic had disappeared from the Hawk's game come the grand final.