The Demons started strongly but after holding a 27-point quarter time lead, were just three points in front at half time. After a third term armwrestle, the Giants took the ascendancy through the straight kicking and strong marking of former Dee Jesse Hogan who kicked 4.0 and they looked home halfway through the final term when they led by 27 points. Melbourne finished strongly with four goals but the final siren held them up with GWS up by two points at the end. Trent Rivers and Jack Viney worked hard all game for the Demons.

MELBOURNE 5.5.35 6.7.43 8.9.57 12.11.83

GWS GIANTS 1.2.8 6.4.40 9.6.60 13.7.85

GOALS

MELBOURNE Chandler Fritsch 2 Gawn Langdon Melksham Neale-Bullen Petty Pickett van Rooyen Viney

GWS GIANTS Hogan 4 Greene 3 Daniels 2 Bedford Green McMullin Ward

BEST

MELBOURNE Rivers Viney Lever May Oliver Langdon

GWS GIANTS Green Greene Hogan Daniels Callaghan Whitfield

THE TEAMS   

MELBOURNE

B Tom McDonald, S. May, J. McVee 
HB J. Bowey, J. Lever, A. Moniz-Wakefield
C E. Langdon, C. Oliver, C. Windsor
HF K. Pickett, J. van Rooyen, J. Melksham
F K. Chandler, B. Fritsch, H. Petty
FOLL M. Gawn, J. Viney, T. Rivers
I/C J. Billings, B. Laurie, A. Neal-Bullen, D. Turner, T. Woewodin
EMG K. Brown, B. Howes, T. Sparrow

IN M. Gawn, B. Laurie, T. Woewodin

OUT C. Salem (hamstring), T. Sparrow (omitted), K. Tholstrup (concussion)

GWS GIANTS  

B C. Idun, J. Buckley, H. Himmelberg

HB L. Whitfield, S. Taylor, H. Perryman

C C. Ward, T. Green, T. McMullin

HF B. Daniels, Jake Riccardi, T. Bedford

F T. Greene, J. Hogan, D. Jones

FOLL K. Briggs, F. Callaghan, J. Peatling

I/C L. Ash A. Cadman, J. Fonti, X. O’Halloran, H. Thomas

EMG N. Haynes, L. Keeffe, C. Stone

IN S. Taylor

OUT I. Cummings (hamstring)
 

I was there for my annual game last year. Coldest night I have ever been in. I've had to sleep in the snow and wasn't as cold as that night. Mrs Right and I went to 'the lounge' from the MFC hospilitaly. Thankfully too, the venue, food and drinks were great, as were the level 2 seats; however, we were so cold (from Brisbane) we had to spend the second half inside. 

This year we have gone one better and booked for the President's club and were are taking our Son as a wedding present. I look forward to the lunch, being much warmer, and hopefully going the team also going one better.

Looking forward to hopefully seeing Langford play, and to see Tracc and Clayton back to their best. I also find Windsor very watchable and if he can come to grips with halfback he we will be a huge meterage player. Excited to say the least.

P.s. last time we went to round 1 was the flag raising vs the Bulldogs. I hope we emulate that result.

Still trying to defrost from last year!!!

Edited March 10Mar 10 by Left Foot Snap
Added

Why do ex club member always play so well v their old teams?

Hogan was the difference in that last quarter and pretty much stole the game from underneath us.

Is he injured ATM?

4 minutes ago, leave it to deever said:

Why do ex club member always play so well v their old teams?

Hogan was the difference in that last quarter and pretty much stole the game from underneath us.

Is he injured ATM?

Yes he isn't playing this week

6 hours ago, DistrACTION Jackson said:

Yes he isn't playing this week

And I thought the key forwards for GWS were pretty ordinary v Collingwood 

6 hours ago, leave it to deever said:

Why do ex club member always play so well v their old teams?

Hogan was the difference in that last quarter and pretty much stole the game from underneath us.

Is he injured ATM?

Human nature to show them what they let go

6 hours ago, Farmer said:

And I thought the key forwards for GWS were pretty ordinary v Collingwood 

Dropped a lot of easy marks, didn't they? You'd expect them to clean that up. Had incredible delivery.

On 09/03/2025 at 17:21, Demonland said:

The Demons started strongly but after holding a 27-point quarter time lead, were just three points in front at half time. After a third term armwrestle, the Giants took the ascendancy through the straight kicking and strong marking of former Dee Jesse Hogan who kicked 4.0 and they looked home halfway through the final term when they led by 27 points. Melbourne finished strongly with four goals but the final siren held them up with GWS up by two points at the end. Trent Rivers and Jack Viney worked hard all game for the Demons.

MELBOURNE 5.5.35 6.7.43 8.9.57 12.11.83

GWS GIANTS 1.2.8 6.4.40 9.6.60 13.7.85

GOALS

MELBOURNE Chandler Fritsch 2 Gawn Langdon Melksham Neale-Bullen Petty Pickett van Rooyen Viney

GWS GIANTS Hogan 4 Greene 3 Daniels 2 Bedford Green McMullin Ward

BEST

MELBOURNE Rivers Viney Lever May Oliver Langdon

GWS GIANTS Green Greene Hogan Daniels Callaghan Whitfield

THE TEAMS   

MELBOURNE

B Tom McDonald, S. May, J. McVee 
HB J. Bowey, J. Lever, A. Moniz-Wakefield
C E. Langdon, C. Oliver, C. Windsor
HF K. Pickett, J. van Rooyen, J. Melksham
F K. Chandler, B. Fritsch, H. Petty
FOLL M. Gawn, J. Viney, T. Rivers
I/C J. Billings, B. Laurie, A. Neal-Bullen, D. Turner, T. Woewodin
EMG K. Brown, B. Howes, T. Sparrow

IN M. Gawn, B. Laurie, T. Woewodin

OUT C. Salem (hamstring), T. Sparrow (omitted), K. Tholstrup (concussion)

GWS GIANTS  

B C. Idun, J. Buckley, H. Himmelberg

HB L. Whitfield, S. Taylor, H. Perryman

C C. Ward, T. Green, T. McMullin

HF B. Daniels, Jake Riccardi, T. Bedford

F T. Greene, J. Hogan, D. Jones

FOLL K. Briggs, F. Callaghan, J. Peatling

I/C L. Ash A. Cadman, J. Fonti, X. O’Halloran, H. Thomas

EMG N. Haynes, L. Keeffe, C. Stone

IN S. Taylor

OUT I. Cummings (hamstring)
 

Two points… so close!

But very different teams are playing in this match from last time. We’re likely to have as many as eight changes to the above team. Obviously McVee, AMW, Pickett, Melksham, and ANB. And I’m guessing McDonald, Laurie and Woewodin will also miss. GWS will be without Hogan, Greene, Briggs, Peatling, Perryman and maybe some others I’m unaware of. We’ll know in a couple of days.

I think it was a freezing Saturday night

One of those crowd killer games that the AFL gave us last year

Sunday arvo in broad daylight, we will destroy the Giants

22 hours ago, jnrmac said:

Human nature to show them what they let go

Yea it's true.

Jackson has torn us up a few times.

Have we had a few come to us and do similar?

Would be great to capture that in some sort of bottle.

1 hour ago, Fanatique Demon said:

Two points… so close!

But very different teams are playing in this match from last time. We’re likely to have as many as eight changes to the above team. Obviously McVee, AMW, Pickett, Melksham, and ANB. And I’m guessing McDonald, Laurie and Woewodin will also miss. GWS will be without Hogan, Greene, Briggs, Peatling, Perryman and maybe some others I’m unaware of. We’ll know in a couple of days.

Cheers FD

I've been trying to ascertain who has the greatest loss of talent.

Hogan and TG are massive but so are KP and Anb.

I think the latter is going to be a big loss for us overall for the entire season.

I felt that Nibbler had an ordinary season last year by his standards and I think it played a significant part in our final position.

He is such an underrated player in the comp and his work ethic is second to none. Huge loss

I don't feel we have enough talent to be able  to let Tracca and KP play fwd as much as we would like and unfortunately need.

The fwd line looks rather sketchy for mine and like last year we will struggle to accumulate scores around the Benjamin Franklin Mark or as I like to say in my invented Aussie parlance, a watermelon. ( The one hundred dollar note).

Alas speaking of food, I'm waffling now.

If only we could entice a Hogan like fwd to play for us.i don't want to see Petty there again and Jvr while doing well, seemed to not really progress last year .

I'm really hoping for Turner to be the surprise package this year alongside Kozzie who although unlucky needs to reign in the agro and elbow .

Despite all this with Petty back where he belongs, our backline will do well and as such I think we will win this game and the two after which should set us up nicely .

It's going to be a tough season.

I think also our midfield will be tested. Obviously their are clouds still over the heads of Tracc and Oliver but with Max and Jv getting older, this will also be a factor and  Tom Sparrow after a long time still seems in no man's land .

I don't mean to sound so negative but I feel the club has relied too much on the backline for too long and hasn't been as proactive as they could have been in bolstering our midfield and fwd line.

Hopefully I'm all wrong on this and we have a bumper season with a massive harvest of goals and defeated opponents.

Cheers.

So close now.

 

 

Edited March 12Mar 12 by leave it to deever

Just watched the 1st qtr from last year. 5g 5b to 1g 2b the Dees were on fire in the 1st.

Huge pressure and they stopped the Giants running game. This was at a time when the Dees weren't playing well so it was good to refresh the memory.

I suspect they know exactly what they need to do to beat the Giants

Interesting that the game was so close when we were in full stumbles mode, with Petracca gone, Oliver lacking impact, the forward line sputtering, and our second-tier runners ranging from Billings to Woewodin were not very effective and Windsor had his worst game for the year before copping an ankle injury near the end.

Meanwhile GWS were at their peak, in the middle of a seven-game winning streak which only ended when they got the jitters for finals. #straightsets #sackKingsley

Might be worth noting that their three clearance winners, with more than the rest of the team combined, were Greene (test), Peatling (Adelaide) and Briggs (concussion) so it could be a very different midfield battle this time around.

Odd stat of the day; Metres gained. 

In Round Null, Collingwood had a very, very high 5,990 metres gained for the game, while GWS had a frankly ridonkulous 6,600.

In July last year, we managed 5,200 against GWS' 5,530 - more than a kilometre less gained!

Some of that will be because of the high tally of behinds for the game, but it shows a pretty clear picture that Collingwood were not able to close down GWS' preferred game, and obviously paid the price. No surprises that our game also featured a much higher (eyeballing it, about 20% difference) ratio of contested possessions.

Obviously the area supporters worry about the most is our entry and effectiveness in the forward line. It is particularly concerning after, in Round Meh against Collingwood, Sam Taylor had 12 intercept possessions, 13 marks including 4 contested, and a disposal efficiency above 90%. I'd honestly say we should just put a tall tagger on him. A learning experience for Turner or maybe we swing Petty forward for that specific task. (I'm joking. I'm joking. Seriously, I'm joking. No, put the knife down, I was just having a wind-up.)

 

 

19 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Just watched the 1st qtr from last year. 5g 5b to 1g 2b the Dees were on fire in the 1st.

Huge pressure and they stopped the Giants running game. This was at a time when the Dees weren't playing well so it was good to refresh the memory.

I suspect they know exactly what they need to do to beat the Giants

Yea was a crucial game. Shame we lost.

We really seemed to have the ascendency up to the end of q3.

Alas Gws did what we were famous for and throw a bang, bang and bang at us and the rest as they say was history.

In perspective it was still a great effort from us. I mean Gws are a top side and got evicted out of finals by a goal or less in both their finals. Finally being eliminated by the premiers so there's that. I also reckon the umpiring was soft in both those finals.

Will be a tough opening game but I'm hoping  the home ground advantage will help.

Edited March 12Mar 12 by leave it to deever

Just now, Little Goffy said:

Interesting that the game was so close when we were in full stumbles mode, with Petracca gone, Oliver lacking impact, the forward line sputtering, and our second-tier runners ranging from Billings to Woewodin were not very effective and Windsor had his worst game for the year before copping an ankle injury near the end.

Meanwhile GWS were at their peak, in the middle of a seven-game winning streak which only ended when they got the jitters for finals. #straightsets #sackKingsley

Might be worth noting that their three clearance winners, with more than the rest of the team combined, were Greene (test), Peatling (Adelaide) and Briggs (concussion) so it could be a very different midfield battle this time around.

Odd stat of the day; Metres gained. 

In Round Null, Collingwood had a very, very high 5,990 metres gained for the game, while GWS had a frankly ridonkulous 6,600.

In July last year, we managed 5,200 against GWS' 5,530 - more than a kilometre less gained!

Some of that will be because of the high tally of behinds for the game, but it shows a pretty clear picture that Collingwood were not able to close down GWS' preferred game, and obviously paid the price. No surprises that our game also featured a much higher (eyeballing it, about 20% difference) ratio of contested possessions.

Obviously the area supporters worry about the most is our entry and effectiveness in the forward line. It is particularly concerning after, in Round Meh against Collingwood, Sam Taylor had 12 intercept possessions, 13 marks including 4 contested, and a disposal efficiency above 90%. I'd honestly say we should just put a tall tagger on him. A learning experience for Turner or maybe we swing Petty forward for that specific task. (I'm joking. I'm joking. Seriously, I'm joking. No, put the knife down, I was just having a wind-up.)

 

 

You shine some significant light on this .

It makes me believe that when we play our best we are up there with the best.

1 minute ago, Little Goffy said:

Obviously the area supporters worry about the most is our entry and effectiveness in the forward line.

Well said. As opposed to giants efficiency it played its usual part.

Sadly the praccy game v freo didn't show any improvement in this department.