SUNDAY STROLL AS DEES HAVE FUN AGAINST THE SUNS by Scoop Junior
An Aaron Davey contested mark in the goal square at the Eastern end of the Gabba pretty much summed up this game. It's not very often you'd see Davey out-body his opponent with ease and stroll in for an easy goal … well, unless you were playing the Gold Coast Suns. Hard to imagine Andrew Carrazzo or Clinton Jones being brushed aside so easily.
That one moment encapsulated the difference between the teams. Gold Coast was out of its depth in the strength department (understandably so given the youth and inexperience in its side) and was no match physically for a Melbourne team that can hardly be labelled as one of the competition's most physically developed teams.
This was known to all pre-match, and without the strong bodied and experienced Ablett and Brown, the difference in physicality between the sides was further increased. As a result, there was almost an air of inevitability about the result, with the major interest being in how Melbourne would respond after a poor performance against the Lions and how large the final margin would be.
With this in mind, combined with the small crowd and the humid conditions, as I took my seat at the Gabba I felt as though I was attending a pre-season practice match rather than a home-and-away game. The tension and excitement in the atmosphere that is usually present just wasn't there this time.
In the end, while a 15-goal victory was a great result, Melbourne supporters wouldn't have been too excited about the manner of the win.
At certain stages of games this year, the Demons have looked all at sea from a defensive structure point of view (by this I mean "whole ground" defence rather than just the backline) and have been opened up and scored heavily against in patches. The first quarter against the Lions and the third against the Hawks are prime examples of this.
And again this weekend there were certain periods of the game where Gold Coast too easily moved the ball from defence to attack and scored without enough pressure being applied and with what appeared to be some holes in Melbourne's defensive structure. The third quarter in particular was extremely poor, with the Suns managing to pile on four consecutive goals. If the young Suns can kick four in a row against us, what does that mean when we play sides that can actually compete physically at AFL level?
Last year Melbourne generally became a far more difficult side to score against than it had been in 2008 and 2009 and this was a major reason for its improvement. At the moment, the Dees' "team defence" appears to be well down on last year and it is something they need to get right as they move onto more difficult assignments than the Suns and Lions.
The other reason why Melbourne fans felt satisfied but not thrilled after Sunday's game is that you simply cannot draw any conclusions from the game, as the team did not play against genuine AFL opposition. I'm not having a go at the Suns as they performed okay given their incredibly young side and they will be a force in the years to come. But right at the moment they cannot maintain a consistent level of AFL intensity and pressure. They made numerous errors when in possession, missed tackles, gave away cheap easy goals and allowed the Demons far too much space at times. It was a real life example of men-against-the-boys with the Gold Coast players simply unable to compete physically for long enough.
Anyway, that's probably enough for the negatives after a 90 point win!
There were at least some positives. Guy McKenna said that if the game was stopped early in the last term the final margin would have only been 37 points. This is true. But if the game was stopped at half time the margin would have been 50 points. Or why not take it to the next level and say if the game was stopped after 5 minutes Gold Coast would've won. This just highlights the ridiculous spin by McKenna.
While the 90-point margin was undoubtedly flattering for the Dees, over the course of the four quarters Melbourne was clearly superior and at least a 10-goal better side. Make no mistake, the second and fourth quarters were absolute domination by Melbourne (13 goals to 2 in this period) and Gold Coast was comprehensively outplayed for three quarters of the match.
Another positive was that we at least showed some ruthlessness in burying the Suns in the final quarter. It would've been easy to accept a comfortable eight goal win and put the legs up. But the players kept running and spreading at the end and it was good to see them really putting a side away rather than taking the foot off the pedal as has been the case so often in the past.
The midfield dominated for most of the day. Mark Jamar was again strong in the ruck and gave the midfielders first use for much of the day. Brent Moloney bounced back from a difficult week to take full control of the first half, picking up possessions at will, while Colin Sylvia carried on from Beamer's first half work with a prominent second half display. Rohan Bail continued his solid season with another impressive showing, while Jack Trengove played his best game for the year after a couple of quiet weeks in Rounds 2 and 3.
There wasn't as much work for the backline this week, though Jack Grimes did provide some good rebound and was more effective with his disposal than he has been this season.
Up forward, Liam Jurrah again showed glimpses of brilliance but despite threatening to kick a bag never really imposed himself on the contest. Jamie Bennell I thought was handy, his speed and spread important at times across half forward and Aussie was lively as well with two goals and some clever work inside 50.
The most baffling call of the game in my opinion though was the decision to use Jack Watts as the substitute. I just cannot work it out. Here was a game where we were always going to rack up a high numbers of inside 50s and be up against a young, inexperienced defence. To me, that's the perfect game to let Watts run around inside 50 and try to get some confidence. Obviously the footy department saw it differently and chose instead to give him one quarter of footy.
I just don't see how this helps his development. I would rather him play a full game at full forward for Casey than sit on the bench for three quarters at senior level. Bails spoke after the game in relation to Watts that he thought he could provide a spark up forward when subbed on. So the footy department thought we'd need a spark at three quarter time to beat the Suns? Somehow I don't think so.
Perhaps it was more of a decision along the lines of "if you don't perform, you're not in the starting 21". While this may be understandable, the principle of only getting games on merit hasn't been applied throughout Watts' development so far. So why would it be starting now all of a sudden? It was a strange decision and I still can't quite understand it.
So we go into the bye at 2-1-1 sitting seventh on the ladder. Looks pretty good on paper. But reality is a different thing and if Melbourne are to improve on last season they would want to start delivering a more consistent performance across four quarters. I still think Sydney was our best performance so far and we were probably only reasonable that day. The good news is that there is a large scope for improvement and hopefully that begins straight after the bye in a tough trip west to face a much-improved Eagles outfit.
Melbourne 6.2.38 11.9.75 15.14.104 23.21.159
Gold Coast Suns 3.2.20 4.5.29 8.11.59 9.15.69
Goals
Melbourne Jurrah Morton 3 Davey Dunn Green Jamar Trengove Wonaeamirri 2 Bail Bennell Jones Moloney Sylvia
Gold Coast Suns Smith Swallow 2 Fraser Magin Matera Shaw Stanley
Best
Melbourne Moloney Trengove Sylvia Jamar Bail Grimes
Gold Coast Suns Rischitelli Brennan Tape Bock Fraser
Injuries
Melbourne Nil
Gold Coast Suns Coad (hamstring)
Changes
Melbourne Nil
Gold Coast Suns Ablett (calf) replaced by Magin in the selected side
Reports
Melbourne Nil
Gold Coast Suns Nil
Umpires Keating Ryan Meredith
Crowd 12,111 at Gabba
