JUDGEMENT DAY 2011 by The Oracle

They've done it again. For the second week in a row they have lost an eminently winnable game, mostly for the fact that they cannot avoid inflicting the wounds upon themselves. 

 Forget about the fact that the team was undermanned and lost another player to injury in the opening minutes of the game. The Saints were ripe for the plucking and Melbourne gifted them a game of football through playing to a game plan that it could not only not perform properly but one of which the opposition was awake to and prepared to exploit.

After watching the game from the night before between Geelong and Carlton it was painful and embarrassing to watch these teams going through their routines. 

The Saints were down on confidence and played no better than they have for most of the season - a team shattered, lost and lacking in self-respect and confidence. Melbourne won statistically in nearly every aspect with the exception of the one that mattered - on the scoreboard. They also lost the inside 50 count although they were well ahead at half time and led at every break until a final quarter 9-21 put them behind. This was because the team insisted on playing laterally across the ground and in a game that devolved into a matter of which team would make the most mistakes this spelled disaster and, for that ...

Take a bow, Demons!

I wrote earlier this year (after the NAB Cup game against Essendon) that Melbourne has gone backwards since last year and I was criticised for this. Let me say now that the team has gone further backwards and the trend appears to irreversible as long as they are coached to do the things that were done yesterday.  

Unlike last year when it was shaping as a strong unit under Sean Wellman, the defence simply has no clue. It's regular default position is to switch play, then switch it back again until the inevitable brainfart occurs and results in an opposition goal. How many times did that happen yesterday? Enough to make a difference in the result of the game.

The forward line has no focal point, particularly when Liam Jurrah is out of form or out of sorts. He kicked three goals but two of them were in junk time. (although the cynics will say that every minute of a Melbourne game these days is "junk time"). There was little pressure to keep the ball inside 50 and once it was swept out, Melbourne made things easy for the opposition by providing inadequate coverage on opposition playmakers, particularly Stephen Milne in the first quarter and Brendon Goddard and Leigh Montagna all day.

The midfield actually held up reasonably well with Martin winning in the ruck and getting the ball down to Brent Moloney, Jordan Gysberts, Nathan Jones and Colin Sylvia.

However, when you overuse handball and do it sloppily in defence then you really don't give yourself much of a chance. Rather, you play people like Goddard and Montagna right into form.

The game will long be remembered for a series of classic clangers. Michael Newton's failure to convert when running loping into an open goal is one that comes quickly to mind, especially given that the Saints ran the ball down the ground to punish the Dees with a goal immediately thereafter.

But the cake was taken in the first play of the final term. With Melbourne trailing by two goals, St. Kilda got the first clearance only to see Joel Macdonald take a solid mark on the 50 metre line. Inexplicably, he played on with an opponent on his hammer, was tackled and penalised. Aaron Davey, who was having a shocker of a game, threw the ball to Macdonald and gave away a 50 metre penalty to deliver yet another gift goal at such a crucial stage of the game.

Disaster.

And speaking of Davey and disaster, he is so far out of form that a trip to Casey or a week off beckons. I'd recommend a trip to the club psychologist but I understand that he's fully booked up this week treating traumatised Demon fans in the wake of the past two weeks.

There are always some rays of light and I would nominate Jack Watts who is really turning into a quality footballer, Jordan Gysberts who keeps on improving from week to week and Michael Evans for his fine 27 possession debut. Jordie McKenzie's return from injury was also a boon. On the strength of Evans' return, I believe it's time to bring more youth into the team in the coming weeks.

Saturday 21 May 2011 was supposed to be Judgement Day - the end of the earth. It seems however, that most of the planet came out of the day unscathed but not the Melbourne Football Club. Nothing will cover the club's deficiencies now.  It has a third world coaching set up and therefore other developing sides will do a leapfrog over Melbourne unless it can start playing a more positive and purposeful style of football.

Melbourne 5.1.31  7.5.47 10.7.67 13.8.86

St. Kilda 5.4.34 9.5.59 12.6.78  16.10. 106

Goals

Melbourne Jurrah 3 Green Maric Newton Watts 2 Gysberts Petterd

St Kilda Milne Riewoldt 3 Cripps  Montagna 2, Jones Peake Polo  Ray Schneider Siposs

Best

Melbourne Gysberts Watts Evans Sylvia Moloney Martin

St. Kilda Montagna Riewoldt Goddard Gilbert Fisher Gwilt

Injuries

Melbourne Tapscott (hamstring)

St. Kilda Nil

Changes

Melbourne Nil

St. Kilda Nil

Reports

Melbourne Nil

St. Kilda  Jason Blake for striking Clint Batram 

Umpires Stevic Dalgleish Pannell

Crowd28,863 at Etihad Stadium

Jones bog

no--damn it--you can't just treat an injury list like ours as being something to "forget" It's ridiculous and it's irritating that a decent gutsy performance gets treated like this.

Simply--we ran out of players who could play 120 minutes--sorry because it's likely to happen for the next week or 2.

JUST AS IT HAPPENS TO OTHER CLUBS WHO HAVE 5 OF THEIR BEST 10 OUT. Footscray hard hit today by injury--what happened to them? Freo equally hard hit last week, kiled by W.C. Defence without Grimes/Garland, loses Tapscott after 10.

Yes I know we have to find players to replace them--we hadn't lost them 2 weeks ago! Give the club a break!

Scathing review.

To be fair, I dont think that macdonald, warnock, bate and newton are going to be long term players. There were still quite a few players down.

The lack of creativity from the backline is beginning to show. I suppose that this role has been played by Grimes, Garland, Frawley and Tapscott. Frawley struggled with it on the weekend and the other three are injured. Someone will need to replace Tapscott, so that will most liely be another new player (Blease, Straus). We really need to get Macdonald out of the team. He doesn't give us anything and more importantly, i dont think we need him. Rivers, Frawley and Warnock can cover the tall division for the meantime.

The forward line was average again too. The kicking into the forward line wasn;t much better though! Its amazing they did not beat us by more. Hopefully we can put in a better performance on Friday, especially since im going to with two carlton supporters!!!