THE HORSE HAS BOLTED - A MID YEAR REPORT

by the Oracle

I've always regarded myself as one of those people who doesn't sit around philosophising on whether my glass is either half full or half empty. However, at this stage of the footy season I'm beginning to have my doubts. I am looking at the Melbourne Football Club's performance to this stage of the year and I find myself staring at a glass so scarce in liquid matter that I can only discern a few drops and that is so disappointing given the high hopes I had just a few months ago.

Back in March, I had Melbourne pegged for a third place finish at the end of the home and away series behind Fremantle and Sydney with West Coast making up the top four. It all looked so easy then - beat the Swans first up at Telstra Stadium (where we have never been beaten!), storm into a home Preliminary Final and then knock off the Dockers in front of 100,000 punters at the G to not only avenge last year's semi final humiliation at Subiaco but to recapture the Holy Grail after more than four decades of wallowing in the mire.

I now accept that I was badly mistaken.

Fremantle win not finish on top of the ladder. In fact, they will struggle to make the finals.

As for Melbourne, I'm having my doubts as well.

To tell you the truth, I've reached the point of admitting that, despite the mathematical possibility guff I hear, it's over and we're back in wallowing mode. It's a pipedream to suggest that Melbourne might even come close this year - the season's shot and I say that knowing that the Demons don't have to play the three best performed teams in the competition in the run home (four if you count Adelaide after last night's walloping of the Kangaroos).

Here's why the mathematics don't work. After eleven completed rounds, the top two sides are Geelong and West Coast with 8 wins and 3 defeats. A rejuvenated Melbourne simply cannot be expected to perform better in the second half than the Cats and the Eagles have done in the first half so the best case scenario for Melbourne is going to be 10 wins for the season. Given that Port Adelaide is currently in 10th place with 6 wins at the half way mark, the best we can hope for is to finish eleventh or twelfth. The only good news that brings with it is that to finish 10/12 after a 0/9 start would make a good springboard for 2008; it would still give the club the 5th or 6th choice in the National Draft. Brock McLean was picked at number 5 in 2003!

Speaking about 2003, Melbourne's first half of 2007 is even worse than that year which we all regarded as a horror season. At the halfway mark of that last annus horribilus, the Demons were 14th on the ladder with 3 wins and 8 losses. You have to go back further to 1997 when Joseph Gutnick was President, Neil Balme had just been deposed as coach, Greg Hutchison had a 1 win 1 loss ratio and Garry Lyon was struggling with a bulging disc in his back to find a first half worse than that of 2007. It was only marginally worse however, because ten years ago it was last with a 2/9 record and a percentage of 60.9. There was a mathematic possibility then that the Dees would get up off the floor to make the finals but things didn't work out that way and they finished 4/18 with a percentage of 60.8!

In the past three seasons, Melbourne's half way record was at least consistent – 8/3, 8/3 and 7/4 so what went wrong this year and why were we unable to pick it?

It probably stems from our wanting to believe what we're told about the club's aims and from accepting that they were capable of being achieved. The reality however, is that all the signs were there that the policy of introducing "run and carry style" might not work. This is not to say that it wasn't worth experimenting with a different style and a different fitness regime in order to achieve it but the problem was that we weren't flexible enough to alter the style when it was clearly not working. We had too much faith!

The problems emerged early but we didn't see them clearly enough. The club went into the pre season matches without the benefit of sufficient preparation. The drought curtailed the first intra club match practice during the club's week in the bush. The heat restricted the next hit out at Moorabbin to some shortened quarters that were of little use and the Telstra Dome practice match before Channel 7's watchful cameras was also far too brief. Melbourne went into its the opening NAB Cup match against Hawthorn which had already gone through a few full scale hit outs with close to their best on the park while it had up to 10 of what one would regard as its best 22 missing. Despite that, the Demons were well in control with a few minutes to go in the third quarter with a lead in excess of thirty points. Fact is, they could have been much further in front but for their pitiful execution of the run and carry style. Handballs were landing at players' feet, short passes went nowhere and there was no semblance of cohesion.

What happened next is what, in my view, defined the season. In the shadows of a hot three quarter time break, the team relaxed and allowed two 9 pointers and suddenly the Hawks had a sniff. They went on to win and we were making excuses. The experiment continued unabated in the coming weeks as Melbourne took run and carry into the country. While commentating on 5AA during the Mount Gambier practice match against the Crows, Chris McDermott scoffed at what the Demons were doing and declared they "wouldn’t make the eight". Those comments were made relatively early in the piece in a game where Melbourne was slaughtered. The writing was already on the wall.

Further, as the practice match series continued, players were starting to succumb to injury and it was becoming obvious that we weren't going to have a full list of players available for the start of the season.

The injuries really hit home immediately the season started but they were no excuse for the appalling displays of ineptitude of the opening two or three rounds as Melbourne stumbled and bumbled its way around the ground turning the science of trigonometry on its head seeking to travel short distances by the longest possible route. Any possible momentum for the coming season was lost and, unlike in 2006, there was no chance for recovery after the early defeats. The staggering thing to my mind was that run and carry was persisted with for so long. It should have been shelved or modified well before the opening round. If it was designed to better the team's performances on the longer, narrower grounds interstate, it failed at Subiaco even more badly than it did on the MCG.

I believe the problems with the team's playing style have now been checked for the most part. The team is playing more direct football and is executing its moves more precisely than was the case early in the season. Unfortunately, unless miracles happen, it's too late. The horse has bolted.