CLEANING HOUSE by The Oracle

The result of the game was pretty much expected after the coach spent the week explaining that his team was going to school and it would help if they did away with the scoreboard. The boys lived up to the coach's expectations playing like a year 10 remedial class against a collection of university graduates preparing to collect their PhD's - it was that much of a mismatch and, despite the coach's wishes it was nowhere more evident than on the ... ahem ... scoreboard.

Melbourne was destroyed in the ruck duels by what is possibly the best ruck combination in the competition but then what would you expect when you're putting up possibly your fourth and fifth best big men and your upper echelon of talls are languishing in the infirmary?

And once you're getting killed by the opposition out of the ruck, the next step is that you're getting slaughtered in the midfield and at the stoppages (not a single centre clearance in the first quarter) and before you can say Jay Kennedy-Harris, you're ten goals down at half time and the game has been well and truly lost.

It was not all bad though because somehow, Melbourne finished with more disposals which means that the Demons were inefficient and wasteful and, as has been the case of late, unable to convert possession into score but at least they're getting their hands on the footy.

No doubt, having a power forward or two on board would help but when a midfielder gets the ball and looks forward only to see a dwarf calling for the ball opposed to two decent sized defenders then ... well, um, you're going to hesitate and perhaps take the wrong option and turn the ball over and more than likely you'll end up kicking no more than an average of one goal per quarter. Come to think of it, that's exactly what happened.

Still, it's no mean feat to finish with a possession count such as this in a 15 goal defeat (has that ever happened before?) whereas twelve months ago the different was -67. The reason is that the club has some better inside players in the midfield but is still are missing outside run and a forward line. Nathan Jones is getting better. Tyson, Vince and Cross have added to the midfield depth but they have no targets up forward, nor will they have them for the foreseeable future so the whole team will continue to be disfunctional until the Paul Roos broom cleans up the house. And that will definitely take time.

Melbourne 0.1.1 1.3.9 2.4.16 4.6.30

West Coast 6.5.41 10.7.67 14.10.94 18.15.123

Goals

Melbourne Byrnes 2 Kennedy-Harris Toumpas

West Coast Kennedy 4 Darling 3 Le Cras Masten Shuey 2 Cripps Mackenzie Naitanui Sinclair

Best N Jones Tyson Dunn Cross Toumpas Byrnes

West Coast

Kennedy Shuey Gaff Masten Priddis Cox

Changes

Melbourne Nil

West Coast Nil

Injuries

Melbourne Michie (cut eye)

West Coast Hurn (knee)

Reports

Melbourne Nil

West Coast Nil

UmpiresChris Donlon Sam Hay Shane McInerney

Attendance 22,226 at the MCG.

Attendance 22,226 at the MCG.

Wow, that's inescapably depressing. Wonder how low attendance will be next week up in GWS territory?

Hopefully this is the low point of the season.