TERRY TOWELLED

[Demonland 73,140]

by The Oracle

The legend goes that when he was young Terry Wallace was a Melbourne supporter. As a teenage footballer with talent he was residentially tied to Fitzroy but a way was found to enable him to join Hawthorn where he played in three premiership teams before moving to Richmond and then on to Footscray. He never had much reason to regret not playing for the team he loved as a kid except perhaps once about 20 years ago when he crossed paths with Rod Grinter at the Whitten Oval. It happened again yesterday when he was KO'd by a whole team of Demons.

Wallace was on a hiding to nothing this week. He was under the pump before his old team, the Bulldogs, destroyed Richmond on Easter Monday. After the game it was pandemonium with headlines such as "Death Row" dominating a hungry media lusting for blood: Wallace's blood.

Melbourne, which had an equally poor record of 0-3 was left alone by the pack dogs in the media. As a result Dean Bailey and his Demons quietly went about their business during the week and were primed and ready to play a more direct form of football.

Well, that's my story and it sounds pretty good to me although I have this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that this was a contest between two teams currently exhibiting low levels of competence and it was the least competent that rose to the occasion when the game was there to be won and lost in the first half.

Then again, I don't think it's wise to take too much away from a Melbourne team that has been showing a great deal of endeavour and which overcame its collective lack of experience and the fact that its long injury list was extended significantly with the loss in the first quarter of Brad Green to a broken jaw. Green has been one of the best (if not THE best) of the Demons so far this season and, at the point when he was removed from the game he was well on his way to another fine game having already accumulated eight possessions.

But it was that sort of day. The Tigers flew out of the blocks and had a goal on the board before the Dees even had a sniff of leather. Matty Warnock's name was in the umpire's book for an alleged strike on Tiger Tom Hislop before the first bounce. When the second Richmond goal followed, there were Melbourne supporters covering their faces and thinking that it was going to be a hard day at the office. Then the team regained its composure but its kicking was all over the shop. How often do you hit the post four times in a quarter? Surely, that's a skill you don't see in the game very often. Mind you, the Tigers' skills were equally poor and somehow, they managed to concede the lead by quarter time.

Then followed an eight goal quarter from Melbourne that saw the resurrection of a number of names that had hitherto been conspicuously missing so far this season. Colin Sylvia came up with a bottler of a quarter winning it out of the middle and booting two long, long goals, Brock McLean put in his best effort of the day and Jared Rivers took over the leadership of the defence in a manner characteristic of the way he played before those injury problems hobbled his career and Brad Miller put in his best effort for the season. Aaron Davey playing the speedy, loose midfielder role to perfection continued on with his fine season and the wheels started turning for the Demons who simply wanted the ball more.

By half time, we couldn't believe what the scoreboard was telling us; it was only the fact that one or two Richmond supporters were jumping off the balcony that finally convinced us.

The Tigers then proceeded to drag the Dees back down to their own level in the third quarter and managed to narrow the gap to 28 points at orange time but only thanks to some mediocre kicking for goal which prevented Melbourne from wrapping up the issue at that stage of proceedings.

The Demons were under fire in the last quarter and seemed to be running out of legs as the Tigers, led by experienced war horses in Matthew Richardson and Joel Bowden fought back late in the game. It was however, too late and Melbourne held on to win only its fourth game in 26 matches under coach Dean Bailey who would have been happy with the way his ruck division and forward line performed after being wasted in the opening weeks of the season. Now, if only some of those players can put it together on a consistent basis …

Melbourne's winning effort should pay the club handsome dividends this week as its membership numbers slowly climb towards the magic 30,000. With only one home game so far in the season, a club membership is still a worthwhile investment to make as the team emerges from the difficult times endured by all whose hearts beat true for the red and the blue. All Demon fans are welcome to take up a membership if they have no already done so and if things go badly in the coming week for Terry, he might even want to join up.

Melbourne 2.6.18 10.7.67 13.11.89 14.16.100

Richmond 2.3.15 5.6.36 9.7.61 13.14.92

Goals

Melbourne Miller 3 Newton Petterd Sylvia 2 Bate Davey Dunn Green Jetta

Richmond Richardson 4 Brown Collins 2 Deledio McGuane Moore Morton Nahas

Best

Melbourne Davey Bruce Miller Warnock McLean Moloney Sylvia Morton

Richmond Bowden Richardson Foley Collins Rance

Injuries

Melbourne Brad Green (broken jaw)

Richmond nil

Changes

Melbourne nil

Richmond nil

Report

Matthew Warnock (Melbourne) reported by Umpire Findlay for striking Tom Hislop (Richmond) before the first bounce.

Umpires James Wenn Findlay

Crowd 40,763 at MCG