THE BAD, THE UGLY AND CHRIS JUDD

by The Oracle

In my younger days before I was wise in the ways of the world, I always associated the West with Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns. You know the stuff I'm talking about - The Good, the Bad and The Ugly and the rest of that collection of ultra bad movies about the early days of America that were usually made in Italy by directors who did a poor job of covering up their lack of authenticity.

Well, I travelled west last week to attend a business conference on the west coast of our great nation, and to catch the footy, but I only got two out of three. I was rewarded for my troubles by enormous lashings of the Bad, great dollops of the Ugly but there was precious little of anything good. Those footballing vultures from the West were so mean and ornery that they gave away nothing as they inflicted Melbourne's eighth consecutive defeat of the season. It wasn't just a common garden variety defeat - this was an absolute shellacking; a 77-point mauling that allowed the small band of red and blue fanatics who made the trip across the Nullarbor no place at all in which to hide their heads in shame.

I can't believe that I entered the Subiaco Oval with so much hope in my heart before the game. The Demons were coming off two consecutive narrow losses while West Coast has been demolished to the tune of 39 points by Geelong at Skilled Stadium so I turned up half thinking that Melbourne might just make a good fist of things on the day. However, only two or three minutes had elapsed when it became crystal clear that the Dees were out of their league.

The visitors were literally blown (or at least pushed) off the park by a side that was so far superior that it wasn't funny. And it would have been even less funny had the Eagles managed to kick accurately for goal. Midway through the first quarter they had seven scoring shots on the board to one but led by only a solitary goal - 1.6.12 to 1.0.6. After that, the goals started coming and despite, a few short spirited bursts from the Demons in the third and fourth quarters, the home side powered to the easiest of victories - 19.23.137 to 9.6.60.

Our game starts with the ruck duels at the centre bounce and that's exactly where the rout started on Sunday. Mark Seaby and Dean Cox dominated proceedings in the big man department to the extent that they turned Jeff White and Paul Johnson into virtual onlookers for the day. The statistics of hit outs and possessions from this division tells the story very vividly with the Eagles gaining more two out of every three hit outs for the game. Now, that's really Bad!

The sad part of this is that I came to the realisation that, at the other end of the continent, one of Melbourne's ruck discards of recent years, Darren Jolly, managed to collect 17 hit outs for Sydney playing second fiddle to Peter Everitt against Port Adelaide - the same number of hit outs achieved by Demons for the whole game (and that figure includes third men up and the like as well as the nominated ruckmen who got six each). Now, that's really Ugly!

The ruck dominance gave the Eagle on ball brigade an armchair ride with virtually every early clearance taken by a West Coast player. There was so little resistance from the Demons that they seemed to be wasting their time standing there flatfooted as their counterparts ran rings around them pumping the ball up to their forward line with consumate ease. They were lucky that Quinten Lynch had the kicking yips up forward because he looked as if he was on his way to an all time goalkicking record the way he was amassing possessions early in the game. You might want to add that Melbourne was also unlucky to lose Ryan Ferguson with a broken thumb early in the first quarter but the reality was that Ashley Hansen was already leading him a merry dance when he was injured. By then, the back line was already buckling under the pressure and Demon defenders were being brushed aside with ease.

Melbourne could do very little to stem the utter dominance of Eagle midfielders Chris Judd (31 touches, three goals) and Daniel Kerr (29 disposals). So good was Judd's performance, that the player who supported the Demons as a youngster, had half time statistics that bettered all but a small handful of Melbourne players total outputs for the whole day. Now, that's really Chris Judd and he is Bloody Good!

For the Demons, there were very few winners because very few players were prepared to play accountable football. Out of the disaster, I could find only Colin Sylvia (three goals) and Travis Johnstone (29 touches, two goals) who could hold their heads high after the game. The rest played like members of team that is sitting with an 0-8 win-loss record - the club's worst start to a season since they lost nine straight at the beginning of 1974.

There's little more that I can add to that other than to say that, for once, the umpires did nothing to influence the outcome of the game.

Looking to the near future, I think it's time to stop mollycoddling players at Sandringham with the tired excuse about them not being ready for the hurly burly of the big show. When your top goalkicker is averaging one goal per game then why not give a chance to a kid who kicked 6 and 5 goals in consecutive games at VFL level? The worst thing he could do is fail which is no worse than what I saw from almost the entire team on Sunday.

Looking further out to the end of the year, I think it's time to reprise another Clint Eastwood shocker and suggest to the Football Department that it might not be such a bad idea for them to consider luring Chris Judd back home with the early pre season draft selection that will inevitably come its way at the end of the year. And in order to do just that I imagine that it's going to take a Fistful of Dollars.

Melbourne 1.0.6 3.3.21 7.4.46 9.6.60

West Coast 5.8.38 8.14.62 13.18.96 19.23.137

Goals

Melbourne Sylvia 3 Johnstone 2 McDonald Neitz Petterd White

West Coast Lynch 5 Judd Morton Wirrpanda 3 Hansen Hurn Kerr Staker Stenglein

Best

Melbourne Johnstone Sylvia McDonald Petterd Green Bell

West Coast Judd Kerr Judd Lynch Judd Hansen Judd Stenglein Judd Wirrpanda Judd Hurn Judd B Jones Judd Kerr

Injuries

Melbourne Ferguson (broken thumb)

West Coast Nil

Reports Kerr (WC) for front-on contact on Bruce (Mel) by umpire McBurney in the first quarter.

Team Changes Nil

Umpires McBurney Head Hendrie

Crowd 40,068 at Subiaco Oval