THEY STOPPED RUNNING by JVM

How is it possible for a team to dominate the first quarter and a half of football in every facet of the game and to lead by four goals and yet, to lose by ten?

That scenario is becoming something of a habit with Melbourne this year after the team meekly surrendered a big lead in Canberra against the GWS Giants and then repeated the dose at the weekend against an out-of-form Port Adelaide in Alice Springs.

The Power were teetering on the brink after abysmal efforts against Brisbane and Richmond and when Jeff Garlett slotted home two majors to give the hosts the comfort of a four goal lead, they were staring down at the precipice.

It would be easy to say that what happened next was a surrender by the Demons because that is what appeared to be the case. There was a period of ten minutes when they maintained their lead and neither side scored but then, inexplicably, they just stopped.

They stopped running.

Where the Demons had previously been running, chasing, tackling and placing enormous pressure on their opponents, they gave them latitude and space. Port Adelaide suddenly were in control and they piled on goal after goal a little over ten minutes to take a 14 point lead into the rooms at half time.

In that short space of time, Port scored 6.1.37 to zip, winning the contested possessions 22 to six and uncontested possessions 18 to one while the Demons were reduced to being spectators with the coaching bench seemingly powerless to stop the rot as they had been in Canberra and even in a practice match in Ballarat against the Bulldogs earlier this year.

The Demons put up some resistance early in the third and even fought back with a goal to narrow the margin to eight points but when the Power applied the blowtorch again, the Dees were shot. The end result was an embarrassing ten goal defeat in front of small crowd in the middle of the continent.

So was it surrender, the heat, lack of mature bodies after a six day break, poor coaching, but team selection or poor preparation?

There's no simple answer but it reflects poorly on the team when it's best players in such a rout are in the first senior year of their careers. Kudos to Angus Brayshaw and Jesse Hogan who stood up all day but where were the rest of you?

Melbourne 3.2.20 6.2.38 7.3.45 8.6.54

Port Adelaide 1.2.8 8.4.52 12.6.78 18.7.115

Goals

Melbourne Garlett Hogan 2 Fitzpatrick M Jones Lumumba Spencer

Port Adelaide Schulz 4 Monfries 3 Westhoff Wingard 2 Amon Ebert R Gray Hartlett Krakouer Stewart White

Best

Melbourne Brayshaw Hogan

Port Adelaide Ebert Boak R Gray Wines Schulz Wingard Hartlett

Changes

Melbourne Nil

Port Adelaide Nil

Injuries

Melbourne Nil

Port Adelaide Nil

Reports

Melbourne Nil

Port Adelaide Nil

Substitutions

Melbourne Jack Viney replaced Neville Jetta in the third quarter

Port Adelaide Nathan Krakouer replaced Karl Amon in the fourth quarter

Umpires Bannister Ryan Pannell

Official crowd 4,866 at TIO Traeger Park Oval, Alice Springs

Has there ever been a team that has so consistently found new and creative ways to gut its supporters?

Disgusting. Shameful. Pathetic. Gutless.

Midfield "effort" was a disgrace.

Apart from Brayshaw everyone in that midfield should be ashamed of that display.

We didn't give a yelp after quarter time.

Undid all the good work of last week.

Just sick of it.

Not only did we learn nothing from the GWS game, we just produced a carbon copy of it.

Jack Watts - 0 tackles.. enough is enough. [censored] off and play netball, you're a disgrace to the jumper

Has there ever been a team that has so consistently found new and creative ways to gut its supporters?

Different sport, but the Chicago Cubs have a lot to answer for. They've kept their fans waiting for over 100 years.

It was just soo Melbourne Geessus this is a hard team to support

Brayshaw, Hogan and Garland had decent games.

Beyond that......

If Darwin's survival of the fittest theory applies to football,we're farked.

Does McDonald have to give up the obvious incompetent FK when we are already farked?

Putrid. That effort should be flushed and sent to Werribee.

Never gave a F%#$@ as soon as the umpires exposed their corruption !!!

Hope we can end this NT experiment soon, selling home games to stay afloat, what a sad state. Our lapsed members should take a good hard look at themselves and support the club so we don't have to be the gypsies of the AFL. Look at Richmond, over 60,000 members and they've been a joke for the past 20 something years. A large section of our "so called" supporter base is as weak as a good third of our list

Wow. What a depressing turn around.

Wines killed us again

Watts is done as are a few others IF we are ever to climb the ladder again...

Ok. I start with the good points. Ok now that their out of the way.

Once again we lost the tackle count despite having significantly less of the ball. The best measure of how hard a playing group is competing is the tackling. We have the softest, weakest, most non-competitive group that the AFL has possibly ever seen. The clock is ticking.

As long as bail and m jones are running around we don't have a hope. The sooner players like these are replaced the better

Poor coaching ! We were all over them for 45 minutes then decomposed because of a few umpire [censored] ups Get a grip you soft [censored] excuses for elite footballers

Once again we lost the tackle count despite having significantly less of the ball. The best measure of how hard a playing group is competing is the tackling.

And Watts had zero of them

wow tuned back in what a disgrace. What are pendles, swan and sidebottom going to do to our midfield next week?

Christ all mighty, we have gone from chocolates to boiled lollies in a week.

They only got 4,866. We would have got over 20,000 there today. Yes I know we have a good deal and got some good money but this should have been at the mcg.

Rohan Bail just played his last ever game for this club.

putrid footballer.

And again ee got beaten in the selection table..

Can excuse this sort of thing once a season, but not when it happens every couple of weeks. Still not enough fight in the team when it matters. We gave Port a good run for their money last year twice too, this was an abomination

We're having real trouble running out games. I though Mission would improve the fitness base of the group. Didn't seem much different to 2012-2013 fitness levels.

Wonder how much Ryder was screwing up their gameplan, because they looked much better without him today.

Kind of wish he'd played.

I'm pleased to see my expression for premature ecstasy and limp behaviour have been censored by this magnificent upholder of society's values!