I'll declare my hand early by saying I’m an unabashed fan of Aaron Davey.
I’m only an occasional visitor to Demonland (longtime lurker, first-time poster as they’d say on the radio), and I generally enjoy the passion of the site and the wit and insight of many of the posters. However, I was disappointed to return recently and see Aaron Davey’s image removed from the banner above, yet unsurprised given the steady knock on him here and elsewhere through the year.
It was especially sad to see echoed here through the year the character assassination handed out to Davey by Luke Darcy on one Channel 10 broadcast (and from what I saw, Luke Darcy, aside from being a not very illuminating broadcaster with a terrible haircut, was as a footballer little more than a glorified netballer, just a long streak of mediocrity like Harley and Maxwell behind him). Now he uses the microphone as a bully pulpit, and a half-lame Aaron Davey was a very soft target. All that BS about body language and effort, pointing to a single, misjudged contest. Anybody who genuinely thinks or actually said Aaron Davey wasn’t trying in that match or in this season is a poor judge of both football and character or at best is relying on lazy truisms and generalisations.
As a bit of backstory, my family and I only moved to Victoria from Sydney 8 or 9 years ago. At the time, like I think the vast majority of people in NSW (certainly then and probably now), I don’t think we had ever watched an entire game of AFL/VFL, though I had played a few seasons of ‘Aussie Rules’ as a kid. People in Melbourne couldn’t believe I had never heard of James Hird, much less David Neitz and Russell Robertson.
Fortunately for me, I had old school friends who were working for MFC at the time, and over the next few years we attended plenty of home games and even spent some time with the team in the rooms after matches. It was 2004-2006 and the way Aaron Davey played football was a revelation. He was a lovely unassuming kid to boot. It wasn't long before my family and I were addicted to the Dees and to the AFL in general, and the game now happily rules our winter months.
Like everyone here, we've enjoyed relatively few only-relative highs and endured more than a few lows watching the Demons over the past half-dozen seasons. But in that time nobody has brought us more pleasure than Flash.
The running bounces, the closing speed, the scything passes from half-back (one from a couple of seasons ago Gerard Healy declared kick of the year on ‘On The Couch’), the fingertip control, his two best-on-ground, three-Brownlow-vote performances in the matches against the eventual premiers only last year, the many goal of the year nominations, including the preposterous volleyed effort from a few years ago, and the ground he covers - and the pace at which and the grace with which he covers it - all game, every game to make contests, to apply actual pressure, to win or receive the ball and to help-out teammates.
Before this year, I saw Aaron Davey described by a good judge as perhaps the only player to have ‘invented’ two roles that have since become standards: early in his career he was the prototype defensive small forward; and later the attacking small quarterback – the latter role reprised and perfected this year by Davis at Collingwood and Yarran at Carlton. More recently, I saw Mike Sheahan describe him as a pre-Cyril Rioli Cyril Rioli (high praise indeed).
I think there’s a tendency among some of the crankier sections of the commentariat and fanbase to overlook or underplay the importance of the obviously gifted players in favour of overstating the impact of the honest toilers, people they can more readily identify with: the James McDonald-type busting a gut for ‘his club’; Nick Maxwell, in the GD bib, doing all the one-percenters and precious few of the ninety-nine-percenters, making all the difference with his ‘perceived' or 'referred' pressure; or the death or glory of a Mitch Robinson, the poor man’s Jonathon Brown, with no respect for his own safety or anyone else’s.
I respect the bull-at-a-gate endeavour of players like Moloney, but you can see the same in the Rugby codes, especially in the teams being thumped by better teams. Heedless, head-down barging at stoppages is not what sets the AFL apart. It’s not what makes the game a great spectacle. It’s also not what wins big games or premierships. In the same way Robinson tends to win more ball and have his best games only in Carlton’s worst results, Melbourne is unlikely to win a flag while Moloney remains the team’s ‘best’ player. You need your best players to be better than that. I know I’m being unfair to Moloney, who has an important role to play and whose clearances, at least when he puts boot to ball, put him up there with Nathan Jones ;-0. (In any case, the set piece stoppages and clearances will become steadily less of a factor as the AFL looks for ways to keep the quarters shorter, the ball moving and the players out of the hands of the trainers.)
If Melbourne is to contend next year, the team doesn’t need the effort of Brent Moloney as much as it needs the skills of Aaron Davey. We all know he’s had a lean season by his standards. But he had a difficult and interrupted year in 2008 and came back to win the B&F the very next year.
Mark Neeld is talking tough, as perhaps he needs to, but I hope when he talks about making Melbourne the hardest team to play he’s also thinking about the part he played in the way Dale Thomas and Leon Davis play their football. It’s especially hard to play against somebody who’s too good for you.
I hope Aaron Davey isn’t too good for Mark Neeld, and I hope Mark Neeld can give Aaron Davey the confidence to again be too good to leave off the Demonland banner.
