Whispering_Jack

Wouldn’t it be great if he came of age with his first big bag against his grandfather’s old team with Eddie in the commentary box or the studio reminding us for the nth time about the family history?

I suspect that there’s going to be a fair amount of trading going on when the trade period actually happens. With so many unknowns about this year’s draft selections on top of the large number of academy picks, it might well up as a free for all. The quality of each club’s drafters could well be determined by this draft. In the meantime, picking up Kossie wasn’t a bad outcome for us at last year’s draft table.

What I like about the game today is that we did it with a young side - 3 first year players in their teens in Pickett, Jackson and Rivers plus Swallow who just turned 20. We’ve also picked up a good ‘un in Langdon and Tomlinson adds to the mix. Very much like Port Adelaide last year.

West Coast have been woeful throughout the game but they put on a show for about five minutes and suddenly lead by 11 points. Reminiscent of the last five minutes of the first quarter of round 1.

The leadership group was changed a few weeks ago with the addition of Jake Melksham and Jake Lever. One of them was interviewed in the media and explained that the club wanted an extra leader for the forward line and the backline. Hence, Melksham and Lever will be the two official on field leaders today. It goes without saying that a number of others will be called on to provide leadership to provide a winning outcome.

Thanks for the reminder - it was my only AFL game this year too. That’s good news for a few of today’s players. Jake Melksham and Angus Brayshaw were the standouts and Charlie Spargo was good both up forward and in the middle. Kozzie Pickett was exciting and Trent Rivers and Tom Sparrow showed out. Rhyce Shaw was experimenting with a crazy game plan that involved moving the ball any way but forward and our kicking for goal was pathetic. We need to be on target tonight.

Today’s game against North Melbourne is one of those make or break games for Melbourne. With both Max Gawn and Jack Viney out of the side, others will be expected to step up, be counted and show leadership all over the ground. A couple of weeks ago the pundits were describing them as “irrelevant” but a win today could see the Demons in a position to prove them wrong and remaining in the mix to challenge the top sides as we move towards the business end of the season

The value of good small forwards.

That would be up to the AFL when they prepare the fixture for Rounds 14 to 16.

Wondering if the Tigers reintroduce the squirrel grip in their game with Port Adelaide today?

The thing about future fixture rankings, a lot depends on where the clubs are drawn to play. I hope therefore that Melbourne isn’t sent to play Fremantle in Perth given that it hasn’t had a single instance of true home ground advantage once this year, been moved from hub to hub and has already been sent to WA once to play the Eagles.

Possibly in Round 15 but it doesn’t matter. Every club is going to end up with one bye in 2020. The Essendon v Melbourne game from Round 3 has been designated as the “bye” for both clubs which means they can be drawn against each other in any future AFL round.

The Herald Sun looks at every team’s run home. Looking at the list, I think the top eight will remain unchanged :- THE RUN HOME FOR YOUR CLUB 1 PORT ADELAIDE Played 10, 32 pts, 144.7% TO COME Richmond Geelong Hawthorn Collingwood Essendon North Melbourne Sydney 2 ST KILDA Played 10, 28 pts, 123.0% TO COME Geelong Essendon Brisbane GWS Giants Hawthorn Melbourne West Coast 3 BRISBANE LIONS Played 10, 28 pts, 117.9% TO COME Western Bulldogs North Melbourne St Kilda Carlton Collingwood Gold Coast Sydney 4 RICHMOND Played 10, 26 pts, 123.4% TO COME Port Adelaide Gold Coast Essendon Adelaide Fremantle Geelong West Coast 5 GEELONG Played 10, 24 pts, 122.2% TO COME St Kilda Port Adelaide Adelaide Essendon Richmond Sydney Western Bulldogs 6 WEST COAST Played 9, 24 pts, 114.8% TO COME Carlton Hawthorn GWS Giants Essendon North Melbourne Richmond St Kilda Western Bulldogs 7 GWS GIANTS Played 10, 24 pts, 104.7% TO COME Sydney West Coast Adelaide Carlton Fremantle Melbourne St Kilda 8 COLLINGWOOD Played 10, 22 pts, 112.5% TO COME Adelaide Melbourne North Melbourne Brisbane Carlton Gold Coast Port Adelaide 9 W. BULLDOGS Played 10, 20 points, 92.2% TO COME Brisbane Adelaide Melbourne Fremantle Geelong Hawthorn West Coast 10 ESSENDON Played 9, 20 points, 88.7% TO COME Gold Coast St Kilda Richmond Geelong Hawthorn Melbourne Port Adelaide West Coast 11 GOLD COAST Played 10, 16 points, 101% TO COME Essendon Richmond Carlton Brisbane Collingwood Hawthorn North Melbourne 12 MELBOURNE Played 9, 16 points, 100% TO COME North Melbourne Collingwood Western Bulldogs Essendon Fremantle GWS Giants St Kilda Sydney 13 CARLTON Played 9, 16 points, 97.6% TO COME West Coast Fremantle Gold Coast Adelaide Brisbane Lions Collingwood GWS Giants Sydney 14 HAWTHORN Played 9, 16 points, 86.6% TO COME Fremantle West Coast Port Adelaide Adelaide Essendon Gold Coast St Kilda Western Bulldogs 15 NORTH MELB Played 10, 12 points, 88.1% TO COME Melbourne Brisbane Collingwood Fremantle Gold Coast Port Adelaide West Coast 16 FREMANTLE Played 9, 12 points, 84.6% TO COME Hawthorn Carlton Sydney GWS Giants Melbourne North Melbourne Richmond Western Bulldogs 17 SYDNEY Played 10, 12 points, 78.2% TO COME GWS Giants Fremantle Brisbane Lions Carlton Geelong Melbourne Port Adelaide 18 ADELAIDE Played 10, 0 points, 55.1% TO COME Collingwood Western Bulldogs Geelong Carlton GWS Giants Hawthorn Richmond

Knightmare’s analysis of a difficult draft to analyse. 2020 AFL Draft: Who's still playing, top prospects, clubs holding the aces

The winning streak comes to an abrupt end. Round 16, 1964 Melbourne vs Essendon Saturday 8 August Venue: MCG Attendance: 70,385 B Crompton Massey Tas Johnson HB Anderson Williams Leahy C Dixon H Mann Watson HF Vagg Groom Kenneally F Jacobs Bourke Adams Foll Wise Barassi Rov Townsend 19/20 Emselle McLean Things were going well at half time for the Demons in Ron Barassi’s 200 game milestone as they were in full command with a 5.5.35 to 2.5.17 lead and early in the third term that advantage was turned to 31 points after two goals from Hassa Mann. However, the sluggish Bombers came to life when Ken Fraser broke Don William’s shackles and before a crowd of over 70,000 proceeded to cause a major upset. They reduced the deficit to only nine points at three quarter time, kept the Demons scoreless in the final term and kicked the only goal of that period to fall in by a mere two points. The end of Melbourne’s winning streak was soured by a confrontation between Norm Smith and umpire’s adviser Harry Clayton over the Coach criticising umpires during matches. Melbourne 2.2.14 5.5.35 7.6.48 7.6.48 Essendon 1.2.8 2.5.17 5.9.39 6.14.50 Goals Jacobs H Mann 3 Watson Best H Mann Dixon Adams Williams Barassi Jacobs Reserves Essendon 8.12.60 defeated Melbourne 7.13.55 Goals Carlson Leitch 2 Slade Vearing Wood Best Rowe Leitch Vearing Under 19s Melbourne 8.10.58 defeated Essendon 6.9.45 Goals Osborne Schultz 2 Minton-Connell Pritchard Russell Wight Best Russell Pritchard Adams

We were cooked. It was the end of a long hard season and we had a massive injury list. We had both Max and Preussy in the same side and were playing them at Blundstone Arena where we always lose by less than a kick and we obliged ... Aren’t we glad we’re playing them at our fortress, the Adelaide Oval this time? THE TEAMS NORTH MELBOURNE B Marley Williams Scott D. Thompson Jasper Pittard HB Jamie Macmillan Robbie Tarrant Shaun Atley C Trent Dumont Shaun Higgins Jared Polec HF Kayne Turner Nick Larkey Jack Ziebell F Tarryn Thomas Ben Brown Cameron Zurhaar FOLL Todd Goldstein Jy Simpkin Ben Cunnington I/C Sam Durdin Taylor Garner Nathan Hrovat Mason Wood EMG Tom Campbell Lachlan Hosie Ben McKay Tom Murphy IN Mason Wood OUT Jed Anderson (hamstring) MELBOURNE B Jayden Hunt Sam Frost Christian Salem HB Jordan Lewis Jake Lever Nathan Jones C James Harmes Angus Brayshaw Billy Stretch HF Jay Kennedy Harris Bayley Fritsch Jake Melksham F Corey Wagner Braydon Preuss Christian Petracca FOLL Max Gawn Jack Viney Clayton Oliver I/C Michael Hibberd Marty Hore Alex Neal-Bullen Charlie Spargo EMG Kyle Dunkley Declan Keilty Jay Lockhart Josh Wagner IN Jayden Hunt Braydon Preuss OUT Kade Chandler (finger) Kyle Dunkley (omitted)

This is from a few days ago but things move quickly in Covid19 times so it might no longer apply now that we’re in a state of disaster. Country AFL draft hopefuls are getting an edge over city players

They stole this one ... THE TEAMS MELBOURNE B Michael Hibberd Sam Frost Josh Wagner HB Marty Hore Oscar McDonald Jayden Hunt C Angus Brayshaw Jack Viney Oskar Baker HF Nathan Jones Tom McDonald Christian Petracca F Jeff Garlett Tim Smith James Harmes FOLL Max Gawn Mitch Hannan Clayton Oliver I/C Bayley Fritsch Christian Salem Charlie Spargo Billy Stretch EMG James Jordon Jay Kennedy Harris Corey Wagner Sam Weideman IN Mitch Hannan Michael Hibberd Christian Salem OUT Harrison Petty (knee) Jay Lockhart (knee) Corey Wagner (omitted) ADELAIDE CROWS B Luke Brown Daniel Talia Kyle Hartigan HB Brodie Smith Alex Keath Rory Laird C Wayne Milera Brad Crouch Rory Atkins HF Paul Seedsman Taylor Walker Tom Lynch F Lachlan Murphy Josh Jenkins Eddie Betts FOLL Reilly O'Brien Bryce Gibbs Rory Sloane I/C Cameron Ellis-Yolmen Jordan Gallucci Hugh Greenwood Jake Kelly EMG Elliott Himmelberg Chayce Jones Riley Knight David Mackay IN Bryce Gibbs Josh Jenkins Tom Lynch OUT Elliott Himmelberg (omitted) Chayce Jones (omitted) Riley Knight (omitted)

Eleven in a row! Round 15, 1964 Melbourne vs St. Kilda Saturday 1 August Venue: MCG Attendance: 33,212 B Crompton Massey Tas Johnson HB Anderson Roet McLean C Dixon H Mann Adams HF Vagg Groom Kenneally F Jacobs Bourke Emselle Foll Wise Barassi Rov Townsend 19/20 Leitch Watson Melbourne’s winning streak continued to 11 games on end when it brushed aside St Kilda by three goals in the wet on the MCG despite a scoreless final quarter. The win meant that the Demons had beaten every other team in the competition since their fourth round defeat at the hands of the Saints. The opening quarter was all Melbourne with the home side playing tough, dry weather football to keep their opposition scoreless at the first break when they led by 23 points. The Demons had a winning centre line of experienced wingmen Brian Dixon and Frank “Bluey” Adams with Hassa Mann dominant in the centre and the team maintained the ascendency through to three quarter time. The blanketing of the Saints’ star centre half forward Darrel Baldock was instrumental in establishing a 34 point lead at three quarter time. With a big lead and the damp conditions and heavy ball making scoring difficult, Melbourne switched off and failed to score in the final term. The Saints were inspired by ruckman Carl Ditterich but only managed two goals while the Demons were held scoreless. It was the second, and to date last, time in league history that Melbourne have gone scoreless in a last quarter and still won. Melbourne 3.5.23 6.5.41 8.7.55 8.7.55 St. Kilda 0.0.0 2.2.14 3.3.21 5.7.37 Goals Bourke 3 Jacobs H Mann 2 Barassi Best H Mann Dixon Barassi Adams Jacobs Keneally Reserves Melbourne 8.20.68 defeated St Kilda 7.8.50 Goals Andrew Vearing 2 Carlson Mounter Slade Zinko Best Bartlett Zinko Davis Under 19s Melbourne 6.9.45 defeated St Kilda 4.8.32 Goals Schultz 3 Lockwood Minton-Connell Osborne Best Millard Griffiths Lockwood

Time in forward half - Melbourne 55% Port Adelaide 45%

Schoolboy stuff.

This is one of those teams that constantly seems to be a thorn in our side. It’s time to make a statement and to bloody their noses (metaphorically of course).

No surprise that Harley’s being rested and Nev needs the break too.

That story has to come out one day.

The Casey game? Please explain.