CATS AND DOGS by George on the Outer

[Demonland 66,568]

Well it certainly rained Cats and Dogs at Simonds Stadium or whatever the latest name for Kardinia Park is, but it was the Demons who played like Dogs, while the Cats showed why they are serious premiership contenders, regardless of the weather.

Lowest number of inside 50s since records were kept, was only more annoying than Eddie reminding us of this every 10 seconds. All we could really learn from this was that no matter what sort of forward line we might have next year a la Clark, Dawes, Hogan, Watts, Howe ... if you cant get the ball inside to them it all means nothing.

Our mids were smashed again, and highlighted the courageous efforts put in by the Jones twins yet again, and the complete lack of input by the others like Col Sylvia and Dan Nicholson.

Nicholson supposedly tagging Steve Johnson who had 38 touches on a field of slop, ensures that Jordie McKenzie wont have any trouble fitting straight back into the side. Sylvia in his 150th game played exactly like he did in the previous 149 ... 5 minutes of work and plenty of standing around doing nothing, a sharp contrast with the work rates of the Geelong mids all day.

Max Gawn showed he has plenty of upside and fought all day long. With a pre-season under his belt, he will be our first ruck come round 1 next year. Pity he just doesnt have the support around him to take advantage of his height and efforts.

And once again credit goes to the backs in Col Garland, James Frawley and Tom McDonald under intese pressure with continuous ball coming their way. It wasnt their opponents kicking goals, but the 10 goals+ that came directly from upfield turnovers.

Just think about how different the game would have been if Geelong had 10 less goals! Once we get rid of the spuds who keep doing this week after week, we could have a competitive side.

Good to see Jimmy Toumpas is getting accustomed to the pace of the game. While he has always had the skills, he was getting caught by the speed and intensity of AFL level football. Today it clicked for him, even in the wet conditions. Twenty + disposals and exhibiting the apparent time that all good players have, mean we have a genuine positive for next season. He will only get better, and more confident. If he only had some targets to give the ball to, he would have been far more damaging.

Overall, the team has stabilized since the takeover by Neil Craig. Earlier this year the scoreline would have seen a 100+ point blow-out, and while 10 goal losses are nothing to be pleased about, this was a top two side we were playing on their own dung heap.

The message now to the recruitment staff for year end is mids, mids and more mids. Not that they probably dont know that, but just pick a bucketload of them, and maybe just maybe we will get a couple of good ones.

Otherwise we will continue to play like Dogs ... when we need to play like Cats!

Melbourne 1.2.8 2.4.16 3.5.23 4.6.30

Geelong 4.5.29 7.10.52 11.12.78 13.20.98

Goals

Melbourne Byrnes 2 Dawes Howe

Geelong Caddy Hawkins Horlin-Smith Podsiadly 2 Duncan Johnson Motlop Smedts Stringer

Best

Melbourne Byrnes M Jones N Jones Garland Gawn

Geelong Johnson Selwood Kelly Caddy Podsiadly Simpson

Injuries

Melbourne Nil

Geelong Nil

Changes

Melbourne Nil

Geelong Mathew Stokes (groin) replaced in the selected side by George Horlin-Smith

Reports

Melbourne Nil

Geelong Nil

Umpires Ryan Hosking Wenn

Crowd 23,172 at Simonds Stadium