DEJA VU REVISITED AGAIN

DEJA VU REVISITED AGAIN by The Oracle

On Saturday afternoon two of the AFL's hardest hit teams in terms of injury will face off against each other in a true test of the mettle.

It seems as if the Demons and the Hawks, once looked upon seriously as merger partners, now spend more of their time in infirmaries rather than at board tables or on football grounds and both are this year's version of the walking wounded.

Naturally, barring a draw, one of these clubs will be breathing many sighs of relief on Saturday after gobbling up four early premiership points in spite of the busy state of their medical rooms. Logic and history both suggest that the winning club will be Hawthorn.

Melbourne's injury woes have been steadily mounting and peaked at Casey Fields last Saturday week when Austin Wonaeamirri did his right hamstring in a comeback game with the Scorpions and, an hour or so later, Colin Sylvia suffered a broken jaw in an off the ball clash with an Eagle player.

The Demons had previously lost Cale Morton (knee) and Liam Jurrah in consecutive NAB Challenge matches and their injured list had ballooned into the teens.

Hawthorn is almost as badly hit by injuries as Melbourne. Most of its ruckmen are injured and Brent Renouf is left as the sole big man with previous AFL experience available to go around on Saturday. The Hawks also have Burgoyne, Rioli, Sewell and Young missing through injury and Bateman and Franklin sidelined by suspension. At some other time, Melbourne might be given a chance to win but those who set the betting odds don't believe such a possibility is even worth contemplating.

The obvious reason for this is that when you eliminate the players missing from the game and concentrate on who will be taking part for both sides, you're still left with one team that contains a substantial number of players with premiership experience and some of the game's real star players and another that is very youthful and very, very inexperienced.

Even the Hawks' supposed glaring weakness in the ruck might not be as significant as some might believe because they have the capacity to make up for it with a much stronger and more experienced on ball division including Sam Mitchell, Luke Hodge and Jordan Lewis. Pitted against them will be a midfield led by players all with less than 100 games AFL experience and including a couple of promising first gamers.

In attack, the Hawks have Roughhead, tall, strong and capable of amassing big goal hauls. The Demons have ... um, let's just say they've been struggling up there. Hawthorn's is reconstructing its defence and has recruited Josh Gibson from North Melbourne to fill the gap left by the retirement of Trent Croad. Given Gibson's recent off field problems, I don't exactly expect him to be a driving force in defence but he should be adequate for the job of holding Melbourne's weak forward line.

Apart from the logical reasons for Hawthorn to be starting out a firm favourite, recent history confirms its right to be quoted at $1.16 to win a two football team race.

Two years ago, the same teams kicked off their 2008 campaigns in similar circumstances. The Demons had a longish injury list with Sylvia out suspended by the leadership for turning up late for a training session.

Meanwhile the Hawks, hard hit by injuries and tribunal imposed suspensions, went into the game minus four of their biggest names Campbell Brown. Shane Crawford, Hodge and Lewis.I duly fell for the three card trick and not only did I predict a Melbourne win but I also put some hard earned cash on the result. For all my trouble and all of my optimism at the beginning of a new season, I had to sit through an afternoon while the Hawks' blitzed the inexperienced Demons in Dean Bailey's first game as coach when Al Clarkson unleashed his rolling zones that produced a 104 point annihilation and set the scene for a year in which his team won the flag and mine came out with nothing more than a migraine and a simple wooden cooking utensil.

Today, with the benefit of over 700 days of hindsight I feel as if it's a case of deja vu revisited.

THE GAME

Melbourne v Hawthorn at the MCG Saturday 27 March 2010 at 2.10pm

HEAD TO HEAD

Overall Melbourne 74 wins Hawthorn 75 wins

At MCG Melbourne 35 wins Hawthorn 35 wins

Since 2000 Melbourne 5 wins Hawthorn 8 wins

The Coaches Bailey 0 wins Clarkson 3 wins

MEDIA

TV Fox Sports 1 at 2.00pm (live)

RADIO 3AW MMM 774ABC SEN

THE BETTING Melbourne to win $5.20 Hawthorn to win $1.16

LAST TIME THEY MET Hawthorn 17.12.114 d Melbourne 13.14.92 Round 9, 2009, at the MCG

The Hawks pushed to a big lead in mid-game before a heartening comeback, led by Colin Sylvia who polled three Brownlow votes for his 37 possession (4 goals) game, saw the Demons get to within a few goals of an unlikely win but time ran out.

THE TEAMS

MELBOURNE

Backs Jamie Bennell Matthe Warnock Jared Rivers

Half backs Jack Grimes James Frawley Joel Macdonald

Centreline Aaron Davey Cameron Bruce Nathan Jones

Half forwards James McDonald Matthew Bate Ricky Petterd

Forwards Brad Green Brad Miller Jack Trengove

Followers Mark Jamar Lynden Dunn Brent Moloney

Interchange Jordie McKenzie Tom Scully Jake Spencer James Strauss

Emgergencies Rohan Bail Clint Bartram Addam Maric

New Joel Macdonald (Brisbane) Tom Scully (Dandenong Stingrays) James Strauss (Oakleigh Chargers) Jack Trengove (Sturt)

HAWTHORN

Backs Birchall Gibson Murphy

Half backs Guerra Gilham Ladson

Centreline Lewis Mitchell Ellis

Half forwards Osborne Schoenmakers Hooper

Forwards Morton Roughead Brown

Followers Renouf Hodge Moss

Interchange Kayler-Thomson Peterson Shiels

Emergencies Duryea Stratton Williams

New

IT'S NOT THAT BAD, IS IT?

Of course it isn't!

A great modern day poet wrote that "when you got nothin', you got nothin' to lose and if you want to hang your hat on that trite little piece of homespun philosophy then the Demons have nothing to lose this week. Does it mean though, that they will actually win against all the odds?

Well, there is a chance. Indeed, if they can't win this week against the Hawks who boast five players Franklin, Hodge, Mitchell, Rioli and Sewell in Mike Sheahan's top fifty players but will have three of them missing on Saturday, when will they ever win against them?

Melbourne has had a tendency in most of its practice matches to start with great intensity but mainly due to poor kicking in front of goal, has been unable to push any early ascendency. For it to win on Saturday, it will need to score goals quickly early and not miss those easy chances.

Hawthorn's form of late hasn't been all that flash. It won its first NAB Cup round game in Launceston by a comfortable margin but that was against Richmond and since then it lost all three remaining NAB games.

Melbourne, which has been successful in a preseason game only once in the past three years (last year against Brisbane in cyclonic conditions at Cairns) almost made it against Adelaide a few weeks back but has generally faded badly in its other games. Still, practice match results are not the best indicators of how teams are going to perform when reality comes along in the form of genuine premiership matches.

And when reality hits, it's expected to bite in this case. The Demons will showcase some seriously talented youngsters on Saturday, most of them early draft picks with enormous wraps on them. Tom Scully and Jack Trengove have already given supporters some cameos of what is to come in the future. There is some seriously good emerging second, third and fourth year talent at the club and some of them might become stars one day but they're not quite there yet and unfortunately for Melbourne, it's March 2010 and not March 2012.

On the latter date, I believe I won't be compelled to hesitate about tipping the Demons to win a big game or worry about revisiting deja vu again but for now, I'm going for the Hawks to win by 35 points.

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