TRAINING: Wednesday 3rd February 2021
-
-
Recently Browsing 0 members
No registered users viewing this page.
-
Match Previews, Reports & Articles
UNDER MY SKIN by The Oracle
The story goes that there’s a certain player from Geelong who has been seen in Moorabool Street crooning the old Sinatra classic, “I’ve got you under my skin.” His name is O’Connor and he’s been tasked to achieve one thing on Sunday by his coach, Chris Scott: to get under the skin of a Demon midfielder on Sunday and thereby tag him out of the big contest at the G. The idea behind the tactic is to not only blunt one of the team’s most destructive weapons but to distract them all from producing th
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT by George on the Outer
A 34-point win in the nation’s capital has seen the Demons kill the Giants hopes early in the 2021 season. It wasn’t only the scoreboard, but a succession of injuries to major players for GWS that has put paid to their aspirations. The winning result wasn’t just due to the opposition losing players, but also to the relentless pressure from this 2021 Melbourne side that put them in the winners circle. In past years, a 16 point deficit at the first change combined with a rampant Toby Greene w
POWER AND THE PASSION by Whispering Jack
The Demons ran out for their Qualifying Final match against the Fremantle Dockers at Casey Fields as the sounds of Midnight Oils’ “Power and the Passion cascaded over the mainly friendly pro-Melbourne crowd. It was a far cry from the season opener at Carrara in late January where few of their fans were in attendance in high 20’s heat and humidity and silence greeted every score from the slow-starting Demons. They ran away from the lowly Suns, won comfortably in the end and followed that with ano
BREAK OUT by Whispering Jack
Despite the chaotic events occurring in Canberra over the past few weeks, one thing is for certain. This weekend’s game at Manuka Oval in the nation’s capital between the GWS Giants and Melbourne will decide which of Scott Morrison or Leon Cameron is the most under the pump at this point in time. This time twelve months ago, the Giants were coming off a season in which they had played off in a grand final. They opened up their 2020 campaign with a resounding 32-point victory in round 1 aga
MARVELOUS PRESSURE by George on the Outer
Is this a new form of Melbourne which has suddenly emerged in 2021? In the past, whenever the pressure was applied, the team would falter early and as a consequence, it would more often than not, be forced to confront its own self-inflicted failure. But perhaps not so this year. The match at Marvel Stadium against the Saints provided an insight into how creating pressure, actually relieves it on the club, players and coach. Right from the start, Melbourne was there to make a stat
STUCK IN THE MIDDLE by The Oracle
Throughout the off season, St Kilda was touted as an improver and a possible challenger for a top four position mainly off the back of another good trade and draft period at the end of last year. Then in Round 1, the undermanned Saints made a shaky start and almost succumbed to the Giants but they managed to come home from a wet and woolly Sydney with the four points intact. For Round 2, they have a couple of handy players returning so they come into the the game at Marvel Stadium choc
A SCRAPPY, SLOPPY SUCCESS by George on the Outer
After what seemed like an eternity without Footy in Melbourne, the Demons and their fans produced a scrappy, sloppy yet successful return to the MCG. Yet is was against an interstate team from the furthest reaches of the country, but the 21K fans who made it through the gates, was way below expectations for numbers. Sure it can’t have helped with all the difficulty that Ticketek imposed just to get a ticket, and since you just couldn’t walk up, perhaps the number wasn’t that surprising.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS by Whispering Jack
The Melbourne Football Club has unfinished business with Fremantle after that unexpected loss in their previous clash at Cazaly’s Stadium in Cairns cost it a place in last year’s finals campaign. Back then, the tired Demons spluttered listlessly through the humid conditions in tropical far North Queensland playing in and losing two games in the space of four days and against two lowly clubs. The end result was much more than an embarrassment for the club given what was at stake at th
PRACTICE PUMMELLING by George on the Outer
Was this a practice for what lay ahead for the Demons in 2021 or was it an outcome to expect because it was used as a true practice game? Those of us on the outside will never know, but a 39 point loss to the Western Bulldogs was a pummelling in anyone’s language. We can draw some consolation from the players that Melbourne put on the field, with Toby Bedford, Jake Bowey, Kade Chandler, James Jordon and Tom Sparrow each getting a guernsey whereas they probably would not normally be in the f
A WALK IN THE PAST by Whispering Jack
On Monday night, the Melbourne Football Club handed out four life memberships. Two of those awards went to men who are long gone. Charles ‘Chubby’ Forrester and James ‘Jas’ Byrne played for the club in the 1870s, even before the Victorian Football Association was formed. The other two are current skipper Max Gawn and swingman Tom McDonald, who almost left the club at the end of the pandemic-affected 2020 season. Some fans might have raised their eyebrows and wondered whether the emphasis on hist
SOUNDS OF SILENCE by Whispering Jack
This was my first game for points involving the Demons in more than a year and a half and the long march to Carrara turned out to be worthwhile. The game was won in a single withering quarter that was dominated by Melbourne on the back of an outstanding display from Karen Paxman. The four-time All Australian picked up 13 touches for the stanza to set up a five goal to nothing second term after a lacklustre start in which the cleaner, sharper Gold Coast notched up the first two goals of the game
BRIDESMAIDS AGAIN by Whispering Jack
Historians of the future will have little difficulty in finding words to define the year 2020. “Covid-19”, “pandemic” and “plague” come readily to mind. The Covid-19 pandemic dominated the year in every aspect of life and it certainly didn’t spare AFL football or the Melbourne Football Club. In the circumstances however, it didn’t treat it as badly as the Spanish Flu epidemic which raged a century earlier from February 1918, through 1919 and into 1920 when it finally petered out in April of
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.