HOME AND AWAY

by Whispering Jack

Oh, the agony of it all.

I hate watching live games of football involving my own team on television. It removes me far enough from the action so that I can have no influence whatsoever on the result of the game. I can't cheer the team on, call out "ball" at the top of my lungs when an opposition player is caught with the footy and I can't abuse the umpires when they pay a decision against my team.

That was just one of the things that gave Fremantle an advantage over Melbourne when it consigned the Demons to the football wilderness for yet another year; 42,505 fans, the majority of them generating endless kilowatts of energy to get their team over the line. That, and the local ground where Dockers played four of their last five home and away games, where the local weather conditions can overwhelm the visitors as they did on Friday night and where Fremantle pure and simple outplayed Melbourne in most facets of the game.

Demon coach Neale Daniher said after the game that "we ran out of legs." Pardon me, but that happened to be blindingly obvious to us punters but why was it so? Why did Melbourne capitulate to the elements and lose its intensity after just a quarter and a half, while Fremantle kept running all night? Weren't the Dockers coming off a six-day break as against Melbourne's seven days. Hadn't they played a tough game in difficult windy conditions against the Crows last week in Adelaide?

The fact is that the Dockers exploited their advantages well. The first of these was their home ground advantage, the second was the ruck advantage which was apparent when the teams met at Subiaco in Round 16 and wasn't countered this time, the third was the midfield advantage which, in part flowed from their ruck superiority and the fourth was that their game plan worked more effectively. In some ways you could roll all of the above factors into one package and say that Melbourne was beaten by the better team on the night but that would again be stating the obvious.

I'm concerned that we're really not learning from our mistakes. We blew four premiership points in Round 1 when we lost to Carlton and, although we regrouped and started winning games and were well placed for a top four spot (and possibly a home final by finishing in the top two) by the end of Round 17, we blew it a second time against Carlton in the return match by repeating some of the same errors from the first game.

Teams rarely win flags when they lose twice to the wooden spooner.

Similarly, when Sandilands smashed Melbourne's rucks single-handedly at Subiaco, it was obvious that the situation had to be redressed. This was made more difficult by Mark Jamar's injury but was the answer to bring in a player in who the selectors have had no faith for the whole season?

When opposed to a 211cm giant with ruckmen in the 195-198cm range you have to nullify his effectiveness in getting the ball to his players. You can attack the giant himself or you can focus the attack on his midfield.

The first option was a difficult ask for White or anybody else and the second was going to be harder with Clint Bartram and Matthew Whelan out injured. Cameron Bruce was used as a stopper on Peter Bell, an initiative that has worked in the past but was ineffective this time. To make matters worse, apart from Brock McLean, the midfield was well beaten. The Dockers got the first half dozen clearances out of the middle and this effectively set them up because it averted the possibility of an early blow out when Melbourne was running hot. Then, with the initial midfield set up not working there wasn't enough done to change the midfield flow in favour of the Dockers. Our youngsters were overawed, we tired and the Dockers just kept on getting better.

The Demons missed their main opportunity when they went to a 16-point lead halfway through the second quarter. With the ball near the boundary at half forward, skipper David Neitz tapped the ball on the ground to keep it in play, it was snapped up by the Docker defence and moved forward for a goal. It was only one piece of play in two hours and I'm not blaming Neita, who worked pretty hard and had limited opportunities, but it was an important time of the game. A time where we had to apply the screws on Fremantle but instead they got the even break. They saw the opening and after that, they played us for the suckers. After that, we were the ones who were smashed just about everywhere on the ground.

Fremantle did that by controlling the centre corridor; they switched the play and travelled down there as often as they could and set up their opportunities in that way. By contrast, Melbourne played the possession game, slowing the tempo and trying to control proceedings with stop-start football. More often than not the Demons ended up playing wide and getting into trouble.

Melbourne did well however, to cover two areas that were considered problematic before the game. Nathan Carroll did a more than serviceable job on Matthew Pavlich and Daniel Bell was fantastic subduing the Wizard. In many way, Bell has "arrived" as a footballer in the past month. I hope he goes on and is groomed to join McLean in the midfield because he has the pace that this game clearly demonstrated is badly needed in the club's engine room.

The stand out for Melbourne was Brad Miller at centre half forward who played a close to career best game after a disappointing season in which he needed to discover himself. Perhaps the club's coaching panel needed to discover him as well. If I have one criticism of his game is that he led too often to the flanks (perhaps that was the plan). I would have preferred him to be taking his marks inside the corridor so that the team could have straightened up a little but perhaps, it's just that were too used to playing well at the MCG where the win/loss ratio was 11/12 compared to 3.5/8.5 away from home. Which is the crux of it all, isn't it? Melbourne has to start winning more games away from home.

In order to do things like that, I see the future of the club lying with the four horsemen McLean, Colin Sylvia, Bell and Brent Moloney along with Matthew Bate and Nathan Jones (who were both overawed by the occasion on Friday night). These blokes will spend the summer along with most of their team mates stewing that they couldn't contribute more in their team's hour of need. I read recently about how McLean took the Calder Cannons' loss badly in the 2002 TAC Cup Grand Final when he conceded a couple of goals in a close finish and swore to his coach that he would make it up to him the next year. Melbourne might have done better on the night at Subiaco had Simon Godfrey and/or Phil Read played but it would have been a much bigger loss for the club in the long run.

I hate losing and I hate having to try to rationalise defeats and looking for the positives at a time like this but I feel a lot better now for the fact that Bate, Bell and Jones were in the side than had they not been. It's a pity that Chris Johnson, Lynden Dunn, possibly Matthew Warnock and definitely, Clint Bartram receive the experience of finals football as well.

The team was let down by some of its leaders. We all know who they are and a couple of them are in for some heavy soul searching in the weeks and months to come. I know that a youngster like Brock will come out of this season with one purpose and that is to ensure that next time round, his team gets it right and goes all the way. Nothing else should be acceptable from those in leadership positions at the club and for that reason, he should be anointed vice captain for next year with the aim of taking over the team's ultimate on ground leadership for 2008.

Melbourne 3.0.18 7.3.45 10.4.64 11.8.74

Fremantle 3.3.21 7.9.51 11.15.81 14.18.102

Goals Neitz Robertson 3 Davey 2 McLean Miller Yze

Best Miller Carroll Bell Brown Green McLean Johnstone

Injuries Nil

Reports Nil

Umpires Vozzo McInerney Goldspink

Crowd 42,505 at Subiaco Oval