THE R WORD (AND HOW ECONOMIC THEORY CAN SAVE THE MELBOURNE FOOTBALL CLUB)

by The Oracle

Yes, it's official. The Melbourne Football Club is in recession. For two consecutive games the Demons, who last made the finals in 2006, have started their games in this new season brightly, holding hopes of a win at half time before hitting the self-destruct button and falling in a heap in the latter stages.

All classic symptoms of a recession.

The last time the Demons were in a deep recession was in the mid-1980's when the Federal Treasurer was one Paul Keating, considered by the mavens in Wall Street as the "world's best treasurer". It turned out that Keating, allegedly a Collingwood supporter (which hardly qualified him for the role of treasurer or prime minister for that matter), was a complete fiscal failure when he tried to get the country out of the recession "we had to have". He did however, come up with a formula that was applied with success in only one known instance. John Northey, the Demons' coach at the time, applied the J curve to lift the Melbourne Football Club out of the abyss in 1987 and it seems that current coach Dean Bailey has the team on the same course.

The J curve theory suggests that before things can get better, they have to get worse in much the same shape as the letter "J". So hold on to your seats Demon fans, we're heading downwards on the Big Dipper but when we reach the bottom there's only one way to go and that's up!

Melbourne started yesterday's game like a team on a mission. The club has an injury list as long as your arm including Russell Robertson, Paul Wheatley, Matthew Whelan, Mark Jamar, Daniel Bell, Colin Garland, Simon Buckley, Austin Wonaeamirri, Jack Grimes and James Strauss but this didn't prevent them from flying out of the blocks with great purpose.

There was system, fluidity of movement and, for the most part some intensity and excellent technique. Cameron Bruce, Brad Green, Aaron Davey, Brent Moloney and Nathan Jones gave the team early drive, Brad Miller was in excellent marking form up forward and the defence continued where it left off last week against North Melbourne. Newcomer Jake Spencer was holding his own in the ruck. Collingwood was sluggish, inept and extremely fortunate that the inexperienced Demons committed a few unforced errors that allowed them to stay in the game in the early going because otherwise the Pies might have even been scoreless at the first break.

They turned things around in the second term when Josh Fraser lifted in the ruck and then took over the game (in much the same way McIntosh did last week) but there was still plenty of fight in the Demons. Unfortunately, they were also turning it over more than in the first quarter and you simply can't afford to do that when the likes of Didak and Davis are lurking around the football. Kyle Cheney learned that lesson when his kick off skewed off target and was snaffled up by Didak for a goal. Late in the quarter Nathan Jones bore down on the ball, ran to the 50 metre line and sprayed a kick out of bounds on the full. There was no pressure on the kicker and, like last week, examples such as these were the difference between going into the rooms with a half time lead and the alternative of heading off the ground with heads bowed and the team's collective confidence on the wane.

And like last week, things went into rapid decline after the main break. The nasty dip in that J curve when things get worse and then they go real bad in the last quarter. Things weren't helped by the fact that two of Melbourne's steadiest players on the day, Brad Miller (by friendly fire) and Jared Rivers (by a crude late hit) both took heavy knocks that dulled their effectiveness. These things tend to hurt teams that are already injury ravaged.

And at around about this time, the world's best economists, coaches and psychiatrists can't help young tired bodies out of the mire. Melbourne was now being killed in the clearances and suddenly the forward line was as completely dysfunctional as it was predictable. Just bang it forward where a slightly built Ricky Petterd was going to be monstered by two opponents and nobody was there at his feet to pick up the crumbs.

Well, at that point the players all need to go back to work, practice and train harder and allow time to give them more games in their legs and meat on their bodies. And the coach needs to get the grey cells working and come up with some more plans and strategies to get the scoreboard ticking over with more regularity.

History tells us that it's possible to get out of recessions and I return to the mid to late '80s when our esteemed federal treasurer was floating his J curve theory to a disbelieving public. Only the idiots on Wall Street believed him then and look where they are now!

But in the early part of the 1987 football season Melbourne had a promising young team that was floundering and struggling to win matches. The youngsters were encouraged by their coach to keep at it and at it. Soon they were playing better. Making less mistakes …. and one day they eventually clicked and began to play as a real team for four quarters every week. That day came sooner than anybody imagined; by the end of the year they were playing finals, and a year later it was a grand final!

Now, I'm not suggesting things are going to change overnight at Demonland but if the team keeps plugging away and keeps playing as it did in the opening term of yesterday's match against Collingwood, then better things will come. At that point in time, we will put the R word behind us and concentrate on moving our way merrily on the upside of the J.

Melbourne 5.2.32 7.2.44 9.4.58 10.4.64

Collingwood 3.1.19 8.3.51 14.7.91 17.15.117

Goals

Melbourne Green 3 Bate Bruce Johnson McLean Miller Morton Petterd

Collingwood Anthony 4 Didak 3 Cloke Lockyer 2 Beams Brown Davis Fraser Medhurst Swan

Best

Melbourne Davey Warnock Bruce Green Miller Jones Morton

Collingwood Fraser Didak Swan Maxwell Anthony Lockyer Davis Beams

Injuries

Collingwood Dale Thomas withdrew from the selected side with gastro. He was replaced by Dayne Beams.

Melbourne To be advised at team selection next Thursday night

Reports Heath Shaw (Collingwood) for rough conduct (TBC) against Jared Rivers in the third term.

Umpires Donlon, McLaren, Ryan

Official crowd 43,176 at the MCG