Demonland

Good to see Mitch finally make his debut for the Dogs. Good luck Mitch.

BTW Based on last weeks report Laurie should have been 5 as he was 6 last week and Smith should have been 5-7 Weeks as he was 6-8 Weeks last week. So Laurie has gone from 6 Weeks to 6-7 Weeks. Smith has gone from 6-8 Weeks to 8 Weeks.

The football world was reminded this week about the last time Melbourne opened a season with six wins or more in a row. That was in 1965 when Sir Robert Gordon Menzies was Prime Minister of Australia and the country was fighting a war in faraway Vietnam. It was before Jack Viney’s father, Todd, was born — a time when the game was played almost exclusively on Saturdays and when Demon fans used to wake up in the morning mostly safe in the knowledge that there was not even the remotest possibility that their team would lose that day. And so it was when the final siren blared over the MCG on Saturday 22 May, 1965. The scoreboard bore witness to a narrow victory for the Demons over their bitter rivals, the Magpies — a total of 6.13.49 was enough to better their opponents’ 7.5.47 for a sixth consecutive victory. However, not a single member of the crowd of 56,808 who attended was aware of the ill wind building overhead preparing to descend upon the Melbourne Football Club carrying with it a curse of monumental proportion. The Norm Smith Curse was to take its time (the Dees won another two before the losses began) and a further two months would elapse before the zephyr rose in strength to reach force 12 hurricane magnitude. By then it was a vicious, destructive and deadly wind. On a dark and gloomy Saturday 24 July, 1965, Demon supporters woke to the news that their coach had been sacked and replaced by old war horse Frank V “Checker” Hughes. A small number trekked out to a windswept City of Coburg Oval (the day’s crowd was 8,312) to watch Melbourne fall on its sword by 21 points. Coach Norm Smith was reinstated a week later but the damage was done. The one thing that was clear from the experience was that the Demons were no longer a cohesive unit with everyone on the same page. They missed the finals for the first time since 1953 and the curse remained in the hearts and minds of the Melbourne faithful for years to come, constantly returning to the memory of that fateful day in July, 1965 when a brood of witches sat in a windstorm under thundery skies and cast a spell over them:- “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” Some 5½ decades passed until 2020 when a plague came and brought with it a massive dislocation to our normal lives. We stayed at home, businesses closed down, the old and infirm died. Our sport stopped dead in its tracks until respite came in the country’s north. Football teams were taken into hubs and games were played in exotic locations like tropical Cairns where, one day, the Demons landed in the eye of a storm. They lost both of their eminently winnable games played over a four day span in oppressive conditions but something magical occurred up there. The damned spot was removed and the Norm Smith Curse suddenly evaporated. Melbourne has not lost a game since that visit to the stormy tropics. From out of the experience of defeat came a steely resolve to play selfless football. The players gelled together as one and this has carried through the pre season and into the opening rounds of 2021. It helps that there’s a fair bit of hardness, class, determination and natural improvement among the playing group starting from the top with the leadership. Max Gawn and his young sidekick Luke Jackson are not only winning plenty of ruck duels but winning the ball both in the air and on the ground. They give the team a virtual extra player. They have at their feet an elite midfield with Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver performing ball- winning feats in perfect harmony along with a magnificent support cast in Angus Brayshaw and Jack Viney. Around them gather wingers and half back flankers who run like the wind and accumulate the footy. The key defenders won’t even let the wind through — Steven May, Jake Lever and Adam Tomlinson are about as miserly as you can get. Then there’s a forward line where selectors have struggled to date to fit in the likes of Ben Brown and Sam Weideman! Against them this week is a team in a state of disarray. North Melbourne is a young side that’s been kicked around the park in all of its games this year and last week ended up in quarantine playing the Dockers in an otherwise empty stadium. They spent the best part of the week not even knowing whether they would be playing on their home away from home, Blundstone Arena. Some might argue that this forced bonding will advantage them and that they are a chance to cause an upset against a cocky opponent at a place where they have triumphed over them three times in the recent past by 5, 4 and 5 points respectively. I have news for them. Blundstone Arena in 2021 is not the the City of Coburg Oval of 1965 and unlike then, the Melbourne team is playing as one, with steely determination whether in fine and sunny weather or in thunder, lightning, or in rain. Those things no longer matter. The curse is over and the Demons will be too good for the hapless Kangaroos. Melbourne will win by 63 points. THE GAME North Melbourne v Melbourne on Sunday 2 May, 2021 at Blundstone Arena, Hobart at 1.10pm HEAD TO HEAD Overall North Melbourne 82 wins Melbourne 85 wins 1 draw At Blundstone Arena North Melbourne 3 wins Melbourne 0 wins Last five times North Melbourne 3 wins Melbourne 2 wins The coaches Noble 0 wins Goodwin 0 wins MEDIA TV live and on demand on Kayo and live on Foxtel. Check your local guides. Radio - check your local guides. THE LAST TIME THEY MET Melbourne 13.14.92 defeated North Melbourne 5.5.35 at Adelaide Oval, Round 11, 2020 After a relatively even first half caused by some wastefulness in front of goal, Melbourne careered away thanks to the dominance of midfielders Petracca, Oliver and Brayshaw. THE TEAMS NORTH MELBOURNE B: A. Bonar 16 B McKay 23 S. Atley 18 HB: J. Ziebell 7 J. Walker 19 A. Hall 43 C: L. Young 17 J. Simpkin 12 J. Stephenson 2 HF: K. Turner 28 C. Taylor 5 C. Zurhaar 44 F: Jack Mahony 1 N. Larkey 20 T. Thomas 26 Foll T. Goldstein 22 B. Cunnington 10 T. Powell 24 I/C: A. Bosenavulagi 15 T. Campbell 42 C. Lazzaro W. Phillips 29 Sub: C. Menadue 31 Emerg: E. Ford 40 B. Scott 8 D. Tyson 21 In: A. Hall C. Lazzaro Out: L. Davies-Uniacke (personal reasons) C. Menadue (omitted) MELBOURNE B: J. Lever 8 S. May 1 M. Hibberd 14 HB: C. Salem 3 A. Tomlinson 20 J. Hunt 29 C: O. Baker 33 C. Petracca 5 E Langdon 15 HF: J. Jordon 23 T. McDonald 25 J. Melksham 18 F: C. Spargo 9 B. Brown 50 B. Fritsch 31 Foll: M. Gawn 11 A. Brayshaw 10 C. Oliver 13 I/C L. Jackson 6 A. Neal-Bullen 30 K. Pickett 36 T. Rivers 24 Sub: N. Jones 2 Emerg: K. Chandler 37 H. Petty 35 In: O. Baker B. Brown Out: K. Chandler (omitted) J. Viney (toe) Injury List: Round 7 James Harmes (wrist) — Available Jay Lockhart (calf) — 1 Week Aaron vandenBerg (quad) — 3 Weeks Bailey Laurie (eye socket) — 6 to 7 Weeks Joel Smith (knee) — 8 Weeks Marty Hore (knee) — Season Aaron Nietschke (knee) — Season

I got the impression that he wasn’t a user of Demonland the website. I plug the show on our various social media channels plus I’m sure there are people that have found the podcast just by searching the various podcast apps for Demons content.

There has been a huge learning curve and now that we have ditched Skype to communicate remotely between the hosts the audio quality is much better lending to an overall better product. Without boring people with specifics the individual hosts audio is now recorded locally on their own computers and then mixed together in post so that it sounds a lot cleaner rather than the distortion you get from Skype. Using Skype also presented issues where cohosts couldn’t hear each other if they began talking over each other. Because we are not physically in the same room there are no visual cues when one person wants to interject. I’ve contemplated adding a video component so that hosts can see each other but then you can get into bandwidth issues if someone’s internet is flaky.

Or we could do it the old fashioned way and both WB and the Dees go undefeated until our Round 11 clash and then we beat them percentage be damned.

I’ve been remiss in posting a podcast thread when the show is live. i haven’t done that because at the top of each page when the show is live has the live feed, chat link and phone number. The show is live every Tuesday @ 8:30pm and anyone can join the chat or call in (link & number provided at the time of the show).

Cats got a massive advantage last year with the shorter quarters and hardly traveling in the second part of the fixture.

You almost have to chuck 10 on them in an attempt to alleviate the shame of losing.

Can I have your ticket if the game gets moved to Melbourne ? Just kidding. Enjoy the game.

It would be the safest and most logical thing to do.

In this brave new world I guess we have to wait until the first bounce.

What a shambles.

It's never rained under the roof at Marvel.

Yeah I don't get this. Obviously the final decision rests with the Tasmanian State Government so I don't see why a decision hasn't been made yet.

#freekickmelbourne