ANGRY by The Oracle

Spring is just around the corner and it's rather inspirational that the Demons have the opportunity this year to contest a game in September.

It won't be a final but next week's "home" game at Etihad Stadium against the Giants will provide them with the opportunity to prove that the events of the month since their last win against Collingwood hasn't been an aberration.

Against Fremantle at Domain Stadium in Perth, the recurring nightmare of the month duly eventuated after the team which was instructed to play angry managed to make its supporters (who are the cause of all their problems after all) really angry by conceding the first 10 goals of the game to lead by 60 points when the second quarter was a little more than ten minutes old.

Jeff Garlett kicked their first goal at the mid point in that term and Melbourne came back a little to have four goals on the board by half time. By then, it had lost skipper Nathan Jones to an ankle injury which soured his 200th game and second ruckman Jake Spencer had followed him when a head knock caused him concussion leaving the team one short for the remainder of proceedings.

In the normal course that would be a major issue in a game of football but, in this instance, it was offset by the circumstance that Fremantle was assured of top position going into the finals (meaning they're unlikely to have to front up to Hawthorn in a fortnight's time) and they let the intensity drop off dramatically. As a result, the Demons were able to stumble and fumble their way to an even par finish for the rest of a game that had long been rendered meaningless. Indeed, had they managed to hold on in the final ten minutes and avoided conceding the last three goals when the fatigue had really set in, they might have even won the second half and added a false aura of respectability to the outcome.

As it was, the 54 point defeat was a positively better result than some of the hidings handed out to the competition's other lesser lights and when you consider that there a difference of 1352 in games played between the two sides and Melbourne had 10 players on the ground who had played less than 50 games including promising Oscar McDonald in his first, you have your answer - it's not not negativity but rather, a lack of experience and know how, particularly when you're another 200 games down when your skipper gets subbed out. More so, when you consider that the club rested two of its promising youngsters in Angus Brayshaw and James Harmes and there's a fair whack of other good players missing from the mix.

In those circumstances, the Demons would be encouraged that some of their better players were their youth. You couldn't go past the 30 possession game of Jack Viney (with 12 tackles and six clearances) and the hard work in the ruck of Max Gawn agains one of the AFL's maestros or the run of Christian Salem. Daniel Cross had a standout 39 touches and worked his butt off belying his age.

Unfortunately, the depth just wasn't there and the bottom half dozen weren't good or interested enough for this standard and consequently might be angry at themselves in a month or two's time when they're told their truth that their AFL careers are over.

Melbourne 0.1.1 4.2.26 6.5.41 8.6.54

Fremantle 5.1.31 11.3.69 14.5.89 17.6.108

Goals

Melbourne Garlett Hogan 2 Gawn Grimes Vince Watts

Fremantle Pavlich Pearce 3 De Boer Neale 2 Barlow Hill Ibbotson Mayne Mzungu Sandilands Sheridan

Best

MelbourneCross Viney Salem Dunn Gawn Vince

Fremantle Mundy Neale Barlow Hill Suban D Pearce

Changes

Melbourne Nil

Fremantle , M Walters (calf) replaced in selected side by P Duffield

Injuries

Melbourne N Jones (ankle) J Spencer (head)

Fremantle C Sutcliffe (shoulder)

Substitutions

Melbourne N Jones (ankle) replaced by J Grimes in the second quarter

Fremantle M Pavlich replaced by P Duffield in the third quarter

Reports

Melbourne Nil

Fremantle Nil

Umpires Dean Margetts Luke Farmer Nick Brown

Official Crowd 33,529 at Domain Stadium

s ...

Could have been worse

What is Roos teaching these players? Why would Hogan not go forward in the dying minutes with the ball about to go inside 50?

The mind boggles. Maybe I just don't understand modern football.

A team bereft of leaders.

Freo just went in to cruise control after they got up by an easy 10 goals.

Disappointing again. Roos must really know how to rev up the player's, the way they came out breathing fire today. FMD.

3 word summary: Roos - Predictable and boring

Take away the first qtr and i thought we had a genuine crack. Especially considering we had only 2 on the bench after half time.

Its our simple skill errors that continue to kill us..

Looked like being a 120+ point loss after halfway through that second quarter. I don't know how we managed to break even for the rest of the game.

Really could have been worse. There is something in the cupboard which is nice. Sad that 10 years on and we still need to get the games into the kids, but we want sustained success not overnight. So I guess keep the hope.

What is Roos teaching these players? Why would Hogan not go forward in the dying minutes with the ball about to go inside 50?

The mind boggles. Maybe I just don't understand modern football.

The other thread got locked before you could answer, so I'll try asking here again:

Is that (i.e. Hogan being in the wrong place) necessarily Roos' fault?

Well done after quarter time, despite another totally gutless and mystifying umpiring performance. We all know it's always worse out west, but do we have to expect them to be this bad? Someone of bravery and vision needs to fix umpiring, and soon.

A team bereft of leaders.

More like an entire football department bereft of intelligence.

Always loathe to write players off. However,M Jones and Michie should not be allowed in a Demons jumper ever again unless it's Rye Demons. And even then they'd want to be hit by injuries.

10 goal to 0 start

Doesn't matter after that.....

I blame the club for tweeting us losing all day, that and the ground showing a score where we were losing!

How could our players play with so much negativity surrounding them.

Certainly we require yet a further 18 players culled !

Take away the first qtr and i thought we had a genuine crack. Especially considering we had only 2 on the bench after half time.

Its our simple skill errors that continue to kill us..

Yep I thought so too. We were probably the better team for the last 2.5 quarters....not too bad an effort when we were 2 players down and over in the west. Effectively 3 players down if you count Matt Jones.

That was a mercy killing. Freo wasnt in full stride and had quality players out.

A handful of guys did there part, but as per usual... abysmal starts, poor running and nightmarish disposals killed us. Umpiring didnt help either.

We simpy can not field a team of AFL quality as it stands.

Good luck getting more than a few saddists to rock up next week MFC.

Happy 200th Chunk!

At quarter time, would definitely have taken that. Battled manfully - well, most of them. Considering that we were missing most of our first-choice midfield for most of the game (Jones, Tyson, Brayshaw) kind of did OK. Good to see a few of the younger players starting to show glimpses. Billy Stretch has what it takes, not only knows how to get it, but knows how to use it. Add him to the list of positives for the season(s) ahead. Gawn continued on in the right direction as well.

But.

Skills skills skills. Absolutely killing us. Never going to get anywhere when we can't keep possession or hit targets.

Would love to see the "goals from turnovers" stat - there were 3 in the last quarter alone.

Always loathe to write players off. However,M Jones and Richie should not be allowed in a Demons jumper ever again unless it's Rye Demons. And even then they'd want to be hit by injuries.

Rich?

Looked like being a 120+ point loss after halfway through that second quarter. I don't know how we managed to break even for the rest of the game.

It's called Fremantle putting the cue in the rack and desperately trying to avoid any injuries.

Take away the first qtr and i thought we had a genuine crack. Especially considering we had only 2 on the bench after half time.

Its our simple skill errors that continue to kill us..

Take away the first quarter and we were less raped by umpires and Fremantle didn't try.

Condolences to N Jones.

Feel for him.

We lost by 9 goals.

We lost 2 players before half time.

AND, Stretch, OMac are no where near ready for AFL.

M.Jones played.

Could have been worse.

Gives us some hope against GWS I would have thought.

We lost by 9 goals.

We lost 2 players before half time.

AND, Stretch, OMac are no where near ready for AFL.

M.Jones played.

Could have been worse.

Yeh, Bail could have been playing as well.