ON THE LONG ROAD HOME

[Demonland 73,140]

by Whispering Jack

And I dreamed I saw the bombers

Riding shotgun in the sky

Turning into butterflies

Above our nation

- Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

When you fly into the nation's capital at this time of year you pass nearby snow-capped peaks as you descend into the gloom. On your way down you will see one feature that looks so bleak and desolate in the fading afternoon light of winter that I call it Desolation Peak in honour of the iconic American writer, poet and social commentator Jack Kerouac whose work inspired my generation when I was young.

Kerouac was a lost soul who travelled and worked across his country and chronicled his experiences in books such as "On the Road", "The Dharma Bums" (for truly 'Lost' souls) and "Desolation Angels", the latter of which were written of his life transforming experiences while he worked as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in North Cascades National Park, Washington. Kerouac's writing gained little critical acclaim but it influenced a generation of alienated young people and taught them that they were more than just cogs in something turning. We were stardust. We were golden. And we had to get ourselves back to the garden.

Canberra is no garden. It is dour and austere and it provides the perfect setting for the capital city of a conservative nation. I hate the place and I hate it even more now that it has become a home venue for my football club even if this is a place we only have to call "home" once a year. The very fact that the Melbourne Football Club must play its Round 18 encounter against Sydney at the Manuka Oval in Canberra is indicative of the club's current plight. It is doing so not due to the fact that is enamoured with the nation’s capital or its people but by virtue of its own precarious financial situation. It has by necessity been forced out of its own garden and in doing this for the dollars, it has sold its very heart and soul.

Meanwhile the old mortal enemy has swept down from the plains and occupied Melbourne's traditional home base. The ironic and ultimate put down for the Demons is that while they are forced by circumstance to take up residence for the week near snowfields, the army of the Black and White is sitting mockingly inside the MCG citadel for eight consecutive weeks in the rundown to the end of the year. On Saturday, they will feature in front of a crowd of about 60,000 fans while on the following day, Melbourne will not even host a quarter of that number because Manuka’s ground capacity is 14,000 and there would be great doubts about whether so many would turn up for what appears to be a monumental mismatch.

The game between Melbourne and Sydney presents as bleak and as desolate a picture as one could possibly imagine for the Demons and their supporters. The season has been studded with a number of small catastrophes that collectively have spelt disaster for a year that promised so much for the club which finished best placed of all Victorian sides in 2006. Hobbled by injuries and loss of form that ultimately and prematurely ended Neale Daniher's coaching career at the club, this season has given its battle weary supporters little from which to find comfort.

I know this game means a lot to the coaches, the players, the officials, the support staff and the many fans who will watch the game in person and on pay TV and I really do care a lot about how the team fares. I hope in my heart that it will be competitive and that the younger members in particular are not disheartened by their experience if things continue to go as they have in the past few weeks. But I simply can't warm to the thought of this contest.

The Swans are building in momentum as they surge towards another finals series. They have two giant ruckmen in Darren Jolly and Peter Everitt who are in solid form and a hard working midfield that will give Barry Hall, Michael O’Loughlin, Nick Davis and Ryan O'Keefe plenty of opportunities to kick a big score. And they have the Brownlow Medallist Adam Goodes. Melbourne on the other hand, is all over the shop every week. Players come and go and the lineup is a moving feast but it's really more like a famine than a feast. David Neitz and Russell Robertson are nowhere near 100% fit and it's sad to watch them struggle to help their side in that condition. Veterans like Jeff White and James McDonald are hard up against it every week. There are others like Nathan Jones and newcomers James Frawley and Michael Newton who are young and will battle their hearts out but the chain has weak links and many are just going through the motions.

I can't help but think that the place and the time are all wrong. Like many Demon fans I'm concentrating on what happens after this season and on the long road home and beyond …

THE GAME

Melbourne v Sydney at the Manuka Oval 5 August 2007 at 1.10pm

HEAD TO HEAD

Overall Melbourne 91 wins Sydney 106 wins 1 draw

At Manuka Melbourne 0 wins Sydney 0 wins

Since 2000 Melbourne 6 wins Sydney 9 wins

The Coaches Riley 0 Roos 0

MEDIA

TV Fox Footy Channel at 1 pm (live)

RADIO SEN 774 ABC

THE BETTING Melbourne to win $6.75 - Sydney to win $1.07

LAST TIME THEY MET Sydney Swans 17.7.109 defeated Melbourne 8.12.60 Round 5, 2007.

Melbourne travelled to the Harbour City with a depleted side and received a spanking. The Swans had total control of the centre clearances and constantly bombarded the ball forward where they took advantage of the undermanned Demon defence kicking six goals to one in the opening quarter in what has become a familiar pattern for this season. Despite the efforts of Cameron Bruce and Aaron Davey, the game was well and truly over by half time and the Swans cantered away to a convincing 59-point victory.

THE TEAMS

MELBOURNE

Backs Ben Holland Nathan Carroll Ryan Ferguson

Half backs Daniel Bell Brad Miller James Frawley

Centreline Brad Green James McDonald Paul Wheatley

Half forwards Nathan Brown Russell Robertson Simon Godfrey

Forwards Bryon Pickett David Neitz Matthew Bate

Followers Jeff White Brock McLean Nathan Jones

Interchange Aaron Davey Brent Moloney Michael Newton Daniel Ward

Emergencies Jace Bode Simon Buckley Mark Jamar

In Nathan Carroll Aaron Davey Byron Pickett

Out Cameron Bruce (hamstring) Colin Sylvia (groin) Simon Buckley

SYDNEY SWANS

Backs Tadhg Kennelly Craig Bolton Nick Malceski

Half backs Paul Bevan Adam Goodes Ben Mathews

Centreline Luke Ablett Brett Kirk Amon Buchanan

Half forwards Ryan O’Keefe Michael O’Loughlin Jarrad McVeigh

Forwards Adam Schneider Barry Hall Nick Davis

Followers Darren Jolly Jude Bolton Nic Fosdike

Interchange Luke Brennan Peter Everitt Heath Grundy Ted Richards

Emergencies Sean Dempster Matthew Laidlaw Tim Schmidt

In Luke Ablett

Out Tim Schmidt

BEYOND THE LONG RUN HOME

It might be unfair of me to say this because caretaker coach Mark Riley is said to be a challenger for the club's coaching vacancy but I am positively inspired by the fact that Kevin Sheedy is one of the candidates for the job. The decision as to whether he is up to speed with respect to the latest tactics and strategies or if he still has the fire in his belly (and I see no evidence to the contrary) is of course, in the hands of others but subject to those things he has my vote of confidence and the prospect fills me with optimism for the future.

Sheedy is after all, a product of an age that I have lived through and while he and I are different people whose lives have been very different, he does evoke certain shared experiences of our time. Our paths must have crossed unknowingly in the distant past, during a period in time that roughly corresponds with the first occasion when the Melbourne Football Club turned its back on him. It must not repeat the same mistake.

Sheedy played his junior football with the Try Boys Youth Club in Prahran before joining Prahran in 1963 where he spent a year with the thirds. I also spent some time in my early teens helping out and working with some of the underprivileged kids with the Try Boys. We might have even met somewhere along the way but Sheedy could play football and by 1964, at the age of 16, he was already playing in the seniors with the Two Blues. He soon became a regular there.

Prahran was in Melbourne's metropolitan zone and legend has it that he played a few practice matches with the Demons but returned to Prahran where he played in the club's VFA Second Division Premiership of 1966 as a centreman. Richmond showed some interest in the young Sheedy and Melbourne released him to the Tigers. The rest is history.

He managed a handful of senior games with Richmond in 1967 before injury cut short his first season. He established a place in the team the following year and in 1969 when man first stepped foot on the moon and hundreds of thousands congregated at Max Yasgur's farm for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, Sheedy the young man was on his way to playing in the first of his three premiership teams. By the end of his playing career a decade later, he had won a best and fairest and had captained the team. He made the Richmond Team of the Century and was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2002.

Sheedy went on to coach Essendon to four premierships during his 27 year reign. Even as his club announced that this would be his final year as coach, Essendon remains a finals contender despite finishing second last in 2006.

Sheedy is the quintessential showman. He is both innovative and idiosyncratic, he can spruik for a club like nobody else can and he is a winner. If he takes the Melbourne job, he is likely to take the Demons to places where they have not been for a long time. In many respects the fearless Sheedy makes the perfect fit for a club that over the past four decades has lived in fear of going outside the pale of the ordinary and has always been slow and steady and incapable of going the hardest over the final yards of the race. Sheedy has tasted premiership success as both a player and a coach. He has been there before and is capable of taking Melbourne to that place again. He will bring with him characteristics that will enhance the standing and image of the club along with a wealth of the experience and knowledge needed to break down the long barrier of time that has left the club starved of success.

It is impossible to discuss Sheedy's coaching career without mentioning the contribution he has made to the indigenous people of this country. When Sheedy made his playing debut with Richmond in 1967 in the then VFL, our original inhabitants were not even considered citizens of the country in which they had lived since before the dreamtime. Sheedy championed the cause of the indigenous footballer and their numbers in our elite competition are today extraordinary in that they exceed seventy (more than 10% of AFL listed players) thanks in part to the encouragement he gave them at the Essendon Football Club.

That is just one of the things that endears the people to Kevin Sheedy - he can coach but he is also a man of humour and a man of humanity and while there are no promises of instant success, he will do his best to help the Melbourne Football Club achieve what it needs the most at this stage of the journey - a life transforming experience to recover its lost soul.

THE HUNGER

Given that I have spent most of my time discussing one prospective coach noted for his support of the native people of this country, it is fitting and it gives me much pleasure to mention that Byron Pickett will play his 200th AFL game on Sunday.

The Byronator has been much maligned for his sins this year. It's true that he's been a naughty boy and it's also true that his career very much hangs in the balance. His detractors however, have forgotten the wonderful gift he gave us for a brief moment or two in our club's recent history. I speak of the time when he played such a significant role in transforming a team that lost its three opening games of the 2006 season to become one of the form sides of the competition with a record of 12/5 exactly a year ago. The club peaked on the day that Byron Pickett suffered his first hamstring injury. Neither he nor the Melbourne Football Club have been the same ever since but if he can recapture the form that preceded his injury, Sydney will not be the convincing winner that its current odds of $1.07 to win a two horse race might suggest.

The Swans are hungry for a win in this game. They are masters at timing their push for the finals to an absolute tee and I can’t go past them to win. I’m tipping a margin of about 39 points.

FOOTNOTE

Two months after Woodstock and one month after Kevin Sheedy played in his first premiership team at Richmond, Jack Kerouac whose writings inspired a generation died in St. Petersburg, Florida, at the age of 47 from an internal haemorrhage, the result of alcoholism. Kevin Sheedy is a teetotaller and though it might surprise you after reading the above, so am I.