THE WINNING STREAK

by the Oracle

Why is everyone dumping on Melbourne?

I don't understand why the Demons are so on the nose that they are just about everybody's favourite for the wooden spoon when this time last year they were considered a leading contender for the flag and certainly, the best of the Victorian teams and ahead of Geelong who eventually won the flag.

So they had a bad year - due greatly to a horror run with injuries but, in a sport where the cliché tells us that you're only as good as your last game, they are among the few who can boast such a win as we enter the new AFL season.

After much speculation, it's now official that back in Round 22, Melbourne won its last game in brilliant fashion when it overran Carlton. The AFL has dispelled any doubts about that last round victory by making the definitive pronouncement that the Blues weren't tanking as scurrilously alleged by some observers of the game. The win against them was our last game for 2007. We won it and we were officially very, very good despite an injury list that saw some 15 or so senior listed players sitting on the sidelines.

Things should be so much better now. The pundits say that the club has recruited well and we know the injury list has been pared back from the astronomical numbers of last year. The club has dispensed with its makeshift coach, it has ditched that god-awful old game plan that never worked, said farewell to one or two of its lazier types, rid itself of players whose disposal of the football and general decision making were nothing short of pathetic and it changed tea ladies in the office (we know that because the redundancy pay out was massive).

The Melbourne Football Club is celebrating its 150th year and it's going to do it in style. There's a new broom sweeping through the club bringing new faces with it both on and off the field. We have a new CEO who has tasted success at the top of his own chosen sport and then as an administrator, a new general manager of football, a new head coach, an almost new coaching panel and hallelujah – a new game plan!

There should be so much excitement and anticipation ahead of the new football season but, alas, there isn't. In fact, things are so bad that I was accosted in the street yesterday by a person who described me as "the last Melbourne fan left in the world".

Why the doom and gloom?

You might point to four forgettable pre season games in which the team was totally crushed and outplayed but for heaven's sake – they were only Mickey Mouse stuff - a NAB Cup game with its bells, whistles, nine point goals and whacky rules at Skilled Stadium and the rest were practice matches played at bush venues where the mozzies outnumbered spectators!

Get real Demon fans – the season starts on Sunday. What's gone before is just the foundation for a marathon of football that lasts for over six months. It's just a warm up and we all know that you never show your real hand too early.

When a new season starts, everything that has come before is history. The first true test for the Melbourne Football Club in its 150th year will come this Sunday at the MCG.

THE GAME: Hawthorn v Melbourne at the MCG - 23 March 2008 at 4.40pm

HEAD TO HEAD:

Overall: Hawthorn 73 wins Melbourne 74 wins

At the G: Hawthorn 33 wins Melbourne 36 wins

Since 2000: Hawthorn 6 wins Melbourne 5 wins

The Coaches: Clarkson 0 Bailey 0

MEDIA:

TV: Fox Sports 1 at 4.00pm

RADIO: 3AW, SEN, TripleM, ABC774.

THE BETTING: Hawthorn to win $1.30 - Melbourne to win $3.25.

LAST TIME THEY MET: Hawthorn 17.14.116 defeated Melbourne 14.10.94 at the MCG in Round 2, 2007.

The game was to become a metaphor for Melbourne 2007. The Demons had lost Matthew Whelan and Brock McLean to injury the week before in Round 1 against St. Kilda and Clint Bartram to what became a season ending knee injury at training during the week. By quarter time in this game, David Neitz had gone down with a knee injury and Russell Robertson followed suit later in the game. There was a spirited fight back near the end but it was not to be and some ordinary umpiring decisions killed whatever sprit was left in the team. The season was shot there and then.

THE TEAMS:

HAWTHORN

B Brent Guerra Stephen Gilham Grant Birchall

HB Rick Ladson Trent Croad Thomas Murphy

C Stuart Dew Sam Mitchell Clinton Young

HF Cyril Rioli Tim Boyle Chance Bateman

F Mark Williams Jarryd Roughead Lance Franklin

Foll Simon Taylor Brad Sewell Travis Tuck

I/C Robert Campbell Xavier Ellis Michael Osborne Cameron Stokes

EMG Tim Clarke Josh Kennedy Jarryd Morton

New Stuart Dew (Selection 45 - 2007 National AFL Draft from Port Adelaide) Cameron Stokes (Rookie Selection - 2007 National AFL Rookie Draft from Darwin) Cyril Rioli (Selection 12 - 2007 National AFL Draft from St Marys NT)

MELBOURNE

B Paul Wheatley Nathan Carroll Colin Garland

HB Ricky Petterd Daniel Bell James McDonald

C Brad Green Brock McLean Simon Buckley

HF Cameron Bruce Brad Miller Adem Yze

F Michael Newton David Neitz Russell Robertson

Foll Jeff White Aaron Davey Nathan Jones

I/C Paul Johnson Brent Moloney Cale Morton Isaac Weetra

EMG Jace Bode James Frawley Mark Jamar

New Cale Morton (Selection 4 - 2007 National AFL Draft from Claremont) Isaac Weetra (Selection 62 - 2006 National AFL Draft from Port Adelaide Magpies)

FIELD UMPIRES Farmer Kennedy M Nicholls

WHO WILL WIN AND WHY:

I indicated above that everything that has come before is history and, on that basis, I am discounting the fact that Hawthorn is starting as the firm favourite paying just $1.30 for the win. So what? When the teams me early last season, it was the Demons who were the raging hot favourites against the Hawks who had been thrashed mercilessly up in Brisbane. It was less than twelve months before that when Melbourne beat Hawthorn by 75 points in a Round 8 game under lights. Things change rapidly and overnight in this sport.

Despite its shaky start, Hawthorn soon became one of the glamour sides of 2007 and was headed for a top four placing until some heads started getting a little big and a lack of discipline crept into their makeup. That's one of the reasons why they are going into this game minus four of their biggest names – Luke Hodge, Shane Crawford, Jordan Lewis and Campbell Brown.

Melbourne has had its share of recent discipline problems as well with Nathan Carroll, Brock McLean and Colin Sylvia all transgressing off the field and suffering the club's self-imposed discipline as a result. Sylvia will miss this week due to a one-week suspension for missing a training session. That sort of discipline might be considered by some as penalising the team but that's a piss weak excuse for use by losers like Carlton, which went soft on Brendan Fevola and paid the price last night. On the other hand, Melbourne will benefit from the stand it has taken both in the short and the long run.

On that subject, even if you look at the exposed form of the two clubs over the last month, the Hawks don't stand up all that impressively. In the opening round of the NAB Cup, they fell in by less than a goal against the heavily undermanned Swans in a result that was so suspect that it warranted an official AFL investigation. They then thrashed Carlton but big deal! The Blues were without the Me$$iah and their full forward spent most of the night standing around contemplating the goal posts as if they were trees or a perhaps a nightclub window. The Hawks last two practice matches saw them on the losing end both times and we shouldn't forget that they were allowed to use their suspended players for those games.

The battle of the midfields will be telling on Sunday and this is where I think the Demons will come up trumps. With Brock McLean, Nathan Jones, James McDonald and Aaron Davey in the middle and backed up by the likes of Cameron Bruce, Brad Green and speedsters Paul Wheatley and Simon Buckley, I expect the Dees to have too much class and pace for a Hawk midfield bereft of three players who are worth 75 possessions a week. The Hawks will be left relying on skipper Sam Mitchell and a bevy of second stringers. I can't see them managing the workload and preventing the Demons from controlling the corridor.

The Demon midfield lineup will be far superior to what it has put on the field so far in the practice match games, which were, as I said above, really Mickey Mouse stuff. That was the feeling I got when I saw the game at Casey Fields a fortnight ago. For instance, coach Dean Bailey had Davey and Jones operating in tandem in the midfield early in a closely fought game but then he simply packed them away for when the real stuff starts.

Melbourne will need to be on top of its game up forward and, if David Neitz can regain his touch and beat Trent Croad, the Demon forward line should be well on its way to posting a winning total. It's time for Michael Newton to come out of his shell and display the freakish magic he showed to some of the fans who followed him at Sandringham. If he happens to arrive this week, the rest of us are in for a treat. The other forward worry for the Hawks is Robbo. The big rumour sweeping the entertainment industry is that the It Takes Two camera crew are booked to film his duet with Kate Ceberano in the club rooms after the game singing "It's a Grand Old Flag".

There's been a lot said about the Hawks' twin towers of Franklin and Roughhead and you can't get away from the fact that it's a big gig to prevent them from stamping their class over this game. Sometimes however, the weight of expectation can do strange things to players. In the absence of the big four suspended Hawks, the burden of having to be their game breaker could prove too much for Buddy who will receive more attention than normal for his troubles.

Now that we are in "fair dinkum mode", I expect a change in the team's overall intensity and attack on the ball, which was somewhat lacking in the rural settings the club was forced to play on throughout the pre-season. This week they are back at the home of football and the home of the Melbourne Football Club for virtually all of the past century and a half. This is where the Demons thrive and I'm tipping Melbourne to revive its supporters' hopes for the season, shock the football world and continue on with its winning streak by beating the Hawks by 27 points.