The Demons suffered their worst defeat of the year.

THE TEAMS  

HAWTHORN

B: Conor Glass, James Frawley, Blake Hardwick
HB: Taylor Duryea, Ben Stratton, James Sicily
? Ricky Henderson, Jarman Impey, Isaac Smith
HF: Luke Breust, Jack G unston, Tim O’Brien
F: Paul Puopolo, Jarryd Roughead, Cyril Rioli
Foll: Ben McEvoy, Tom Mitchell, Liam Shiels
I/C: Daniel Howe, David Mirra, Harry Morrison, Jaeger O’Meara
Emg: Ryan Burton, James Cousins, Mitchell Lewis, Brendan Whitecross

In: Conor Glass, Davi d Mirra, James Sicily

Out: Kaiden Brand (omitted), Ryan Burton (omitted), Will Langford (omitted)

New: David Mirra (Box Hill Hawks)

MELBOURNE 

B: Christian Petracca, Oscar McDonald, Neville Jetta
HB: Michael Hibberd, Jake Lever, Bernie Vince
? James Harmes, Nathan Jones, Jordan Lewis
HF: Alex Neal-Bullen, Sam Frost , Tom Bugg
F: Jake Melksham, Jesse Hogan, Dean Kent
Foll: Max Gawn, Christian Salem, Clayton Oliver
I/C: Angus Brayshaw, Bayley Fritsch, Jeff Garlett, Josh Wagner, 
Emg: Mitch Hannan, Jayden Hunt, Billy Stretch, Sam Weideman 

In: Angus Brayshaw

Out: Dom Tyson (ill) 

We are such an improved side with player and role changes since the Hawthorn game. 

Dees take the Hawks to the sword in this one! ?  ? 

Assuming we name an unchanged line up this week, that makes it - 

In: Dom Tyson, Tom McDonald, Sam Weideman, Jack Viney, Mitch Hannan, Charlie Spargo, Aaron vandenBerg

Out: Jake Lever, Bernie Vince, Tom Bugg, Jesse Hogan, Dean Kent, Jeff Garlett, Josh Wagner

The players “in” mostly speak for themselves and I would add that Angus Brayshaw who did play against the Hawks was a trifle underdone at the time. 

The main “outs” would be Jesse Hogan and Jake Lever. Hogan had a good game but Lever was still finding his way.

 I think we have a far superior team now, one that’s playing with a lot more purpose and cohesion and is more dangerous in every aspect of the game - in attack, defence and the midfield. 

They seem to have most of their stars from that day intact (Stratton and Rioli who won’t be playing on Friday night were just so-so on the day from memory) but I haven’t closely scrutinized their current line up.

The difference in the make up of the team’s appears to suggest that we will make a much better fist of things this time around.

So much for keeping the lid on or not getting ahead of myself, when I opened this thread I expected to read about our coming-of-age game against West Coast that guaranteed finals just 3 games ago. I think I’ve already mentally moved on from the Hawthorn game.