firstdogonthemoon
05-05-2010, 10:31 PM
Western Bulldogs Vs Melbourne Demons
9 May - Round 7 – MCG Friday Night – 7.40 PM
Apparently this game is already Sold Out
Head to head
Melbourne 83, Western Bulldogs 68, one draw
Last Time
We met the Demons at the MCG in round 8 2009. It was a Saturday afternoon in May, and a quick look at the Bureau of Meteorology website reminds us that the weather was a balmy 16 degrees, the wind was from the South West with a hint of rain, but of course with the stadium roof closed it made little difference. I remember it being a frustrating game because we never quite put Melbourne away, they really took it up to us. Robert Murphy did a hammy and this was also Chris Grant’s final game, Barry Hall’s 400th and Daniel Giansiracusa actually became pregnant when Austin Wonaeamirri kicked a long torp from just outside 50 to goal just before the half time siren. Wonaeamirri hasn’t played a game since. Coincidence? I don’t think so. After this game we were 4 and 4.
This Time
We are 3 and 3 having soundly beaten teams who have won one (1) game between them. Did I mention that the teams we have beaten have won one (1) game between them? Specifically Richmond, The Adelaide Poos and The Launceston Squirts. We have been soundly trounced by the Essenbom Collingpies, The St Kilda Slots and The Travis Johnstones. We have struggled greatly to run out games against the other 3 quality sides.
Meanwhile, after a round one smashing, the Dees have surprised most punters. That defeat prompted moving to a smaller forward line structure and virtually handing the ruck duties to Jamar because he is taller than some of the others. A valiant defeat against the Pies (they were robbed and the laws of nature contravened) was followed by 3 straight wins. The Baby Dees might have got ahead of themselves last week against the Roos because they lost in a game in which their opposition scored more points than they did.
Next Time
The 2011 season will unexpectedly be cancelled with the arrival of an armada of alien battlecraft from Alpha Centauri. We will not in fact play Melbourne again until 2140 when the game is reinstated on the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Great wall of Pluto and the Dawning of the Universal Space Truce. The Game will played in the specially designed Low Orbit Space Stadium known as the Commetti Dome. Interestingly, the the coin toss for the opening game will be undertaken by Galactic Emperor Andrew Demetriou’s Brain in a Jar using remote telekinesis from his Ice Palace on Pluto. The Dogs will win by four quazbon to minus eleven six but our team of 74 cloned, Barry Hall cyborgs will deviate from the three laws of robotics in the change rooms and go on a rampage, partially destroying the stadium and causing it to shift from its orbit around Enciladus (one of Saturn’s 62 moons) and to fall slowly and beautifully into the sun.
http://jek2004.com/1149-Saturns-enceladas.jpg
Selection Table – Us
Roughead hurt his shoulder against the Saints like a big baby and we might be looking at giving him a rest. Also even though he is really tall, he is only like 14 years old so I mean honestly, what is Rodney thinking? Minson should come in because it is unlikely he has forgotten how to do the whole rucking thing even though he has been away.
Johnno is out, but he never contributes much anyway seeing as he is too old except for all that smiling which is charming but not very helpful. With Melbourne’s lack of tall forwards (or quality ones anyway), Williams will struggle for a match up but I can’t see them dropping him because he might break.
Boyd should be back wielding his new bionic arm with which he can crush a tennis ball just like Lindsay Wagner used to do in the credits for The Bionic Woman which I used to watch when I was 8. That was so cool! She had a bionic dog too but it wasn’t a bulldog because who would do that?
Selection Table – Them
A massive out for the Dees with Petterd looking like he is goooooone for the season. His head fell clean off last week in the third quarter, and while he played on valiantly (in contravention of the AFL’s new rules relating to concussion) he didn’t really make a contribution afterward. They might be forced to go back to Miller to get some structure in their forward line. Or perhaps a Meccano set.
Johnson might come in for Stefan Martin in a shifting of the deck chairs on the Titanic type move. But lets face it, if there is no iceberg in the dogs forward line that is not going to help. They were rubbish at the end of last year, they are much better now with a pretty much similar crew so they were obviously tanking. That means we really don’t know if they are any good or not. But then perhaps we have been foxing all along – here we are, 8th on the ladder and we have the rest of the competition right where we want them – Rodney Eade you sly fox!
Sooks and Malingerers
Melbourne
Rohan Bail (quad) - test
Max Gawn (knee) - indefinite
Liam Jurrah (shoulder) - 8 weeks
John Meesen (acne) - 4-6 weeks
Cale Morton (knee) - test
Ricky Petterd (head reattachment) - 16 weeks
Luke Tapscott (gender reassignment surgery) - indefinite
Western Bulldogs
Tim Callan (cyborg implant) - 1 week
Ayce Cordy (shoulder) - TBA
Christian Howard (hip) - 1 week
Brad Johnson (teeth whitening) - TBA
Liam Picken (pickle) - 3-4 weeks
Shane Thorne (freckle) - 11 weeks
Jason Tutt (ankle) - 1 week
Callan Ward (new head) - 4 weeks
St Kilda
Nick Reiwoldt (hammy) – weeks and weeks
Match ups:
Dogs defence vs Dees forward line
I really don’t rate Miller and Martin/Johnson and hope we try to exploit them by zoning off and trying to create rebound. Lake should cut them up but not literally because think of the mess. I don’t think we should play Williams but assume we will due to wanting him to get the experience. He is tall as well and that seems to be a theme for some of these AFL players. Their real threat is in the small forwards. Petterd is a massive out though; he has been great for them and their forward structure this season.
Lake vs Miller/resting ruck
Perfect immobile dud tall opponent for Lake to zone off and get a truckload of marks. No one-step kicks please though Brian.
Shaggy vs Bate
It has been suggested Shaggy is best suited to small deep forwards or medium sized talls or decaf lattes, but Bate is a tall in height only. Most of his possession comes from either taking marks on the lead or at ground level. A medium forward who just happens to be 192cm. What were they thinking?
Morris vs Sylvia
Our best lock down defender on their most dangerous forward. Hot diggety! Sylvia’s size and style would suit Dale. They are also good friends off the field as they both have a partnership in a Cheese Doughnut franchise in Altona
Everitt vs Green
Green’s a difficult match up for us. We could drop Dre onto him from a great height, but if things aren’t going well, he can swap over with Shaggy who is bouncier.
Eagleton
Stick him in there anywhere and he will run up and down and the light will gleam off his bald head and with any luck he might kick a goal or two for a change I mean really what has he been doing out there. When I first saw Barry Hall I thought “ooh Eagleton got big in the pre-season” but no, what an idiot I am sometimes. Barry is as big as two Eagletons sticky taped together and probably at least twice as useful.
Harbrow/Gilbee/Williams
One can play on their weakest small forward, probably Bennell. I would like to see the other one exploiting one of their tall forwards whenever/if they have two up there. If Williams plays, he will probably have to play on one of their talls, not sure how we will free up both our rebound small defenders if their small forwards are their main targets. Perhaps we could just arrange to have one of our guys blow them up or shoot them.
Dogs forwards vs Dees defence
Warnock and Frawley have been two of the better talls this season. Warnock is more of a lock down defender and should get Hall who may crush his skull with his bare hands. Hall will probably get two weeks for that because the tribunal is biased against him. Frawley is able to offer some rebound as well, he will get one of our many medium forwards or Grant who is also only 12 years old and quite tall.
Macdonald and Rivers are also there to cover our medium forwards.
Grimes has been great for them off HB for over a year now. A defensive forward tag might be the go. Apparently Eade had a loose one on Drummond with Hahn perhaps that will be the go again. Bruce McAvaney also offers them drive off HBF and needs to be watched because he is a pain in the arse to listen to so just turn the sound down.
Ruck
Other than Sandilands, Jamar has had the most minutes on ground for a ruckman so he is probably really tired already, he will get very brief support from either Martin or Johnson. He is a bit of an old school ruckmen like Hudson and Minson, hopefully our duo can tag team him long enough for Barry to run over and crush his skull like that other guy.
Runners
Dunn vs Griffen
Dunn has been in good form over the last two weeks and I think he will get the job on the red hot Griffen. Of course, he will not touch him because Griff is playing out of his box as they say. I love Griff and if I was a single lady and he was…
anyway where was I?
McDonald vs Cooney
I think McDonald’s job will be more head to head than a tag and hopefully Cooney will cause more damage his way or trick him into running past Barry and CRUNCH! Ewww brains everywhere! Gross!
Trengove, Moloney vs Cross, Boyd
These are more head to head match ups except Boyd will have the edge because of his bionic arm and Trengove’s head is a tennis ball.
Davey vs Addison
It would be a huge assignment for Dylan but I don’t see a better option. Perhaps the DFA magic will work in our favour for once and his random disposal of the Sherrin may see it ending up with a Western Bulldogs player every now and then. That would be nice wouldn’t it.
Verdict
The loss of Petterd really hurts their forward structure. Lake should really dominate his opponent and hopefully he can help out his team mates just this once by zoning off and creating rebound and not making a total donk of himself by kicking it directly to the opposition over and over again or out on the full.
Their defence is solid across the board and our forwards will need to consistently work hard to offer options.
I think Cooney and Griffen will be too classy for their midfield them and they don’t have the depth to expose our lack of running depth. Basically their depth is not deep enough for our lack of depth which is obviously deeper.
Jamar suits the Minson and Hudson tag team and once again, I hope they tire him out or just taze him and tie him up in a sack.
It will be nice to be back at the G again, they will make us look silly for a bit but I reckon we should get them by 5 or 6 goals. But of course they could win but not by that much say 1 or 2 goals, but I couldn’t stand that so really I would take any kind of win except a close one would be demoralising so lets split the difference and call it 4 goals and no injuries to us except maybe Dylan gets a splinter from the bench in the fourth quarter.
Thanks to Mantis for asking me to do this preview, it is an honour! And especially to my spiritual adviser and mentor Rocco Jones who, the master at the feet of whom I sit.
9 May - Round 7 – MCG Friday Night – 7.40 PM
Apparently this game is already Sold Out
Head to head
Melbourne 83, Western Bulldogs 68, one draw
Last Time
We met the Demons at the MCG in round 8 2009. It was a Saturday afternoon in May, and a quick look at the Bureau of Meteorology website reminds us that the weather was a balmy 16 degrees, the wind was from the South West with a hint of rain, but of course with the stadium roof closed it made little difference. I remember it being a frustrating game because we never quite put Melbourne away, they really took it up to us. Robert Murphy did a hammy and this was also Chris Grant’s final game, Barry Hall’s 400th and Daniel Giansiracusa actually became pregnant when Austin Wonaeamirri kicked a long torp from just outside 50 to goal just before the half time siren. Wonaeamirri hasn’t played a game since. Coincidence? I don’t think so. After this game we were 4 and 4.
This Time
We are 3 and 3 having soundly beaten teams who have won one (1) game between them. Did I mention that the teams we have beaten have won one (1) game between them? Specifically Richmond, The Adelaide Poos and The Launceston Squirts. We have been soundly trounced by the Essenbom Collingpies, The St Kilda Slots and The Travis Johnstones. We have struggled greatly to run out games against the other 3 quality sides.
Meanwhile, after a round one smashing, the Dees have surprised most punters. That defeat prompted moving to a smaller forward line structure and virtually handing the ruck duties to Jamar because he is taller than some of the others. A valiant defeat against the Pies (they were robbed and the laws of nature contravened) was followed by 3 straight wins. The Baby Dees might have got ahead of themselves last week against the Roos because they lost in a game in which their opposition scored more points than they did.
Next Time
The 2011 season will unexpectedly be cancelled with the arrival of an armada of alien battlecraft from Alpha Centauri. We will not in fact play Melbourne again until 2140 when the game is reinstated on the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Great wall of Pluto and the Dawning of the Universal Space Truce. The Game will played in the specially designed Low Orbit Space Stadium known as the Commetti Dome. Interestingly, the the coin toss for the opening game will be undertaken by Galactic Emperor Andrew Demetriou’s Brain in a Jar using remote telekinesis from his Ice Palace on Pluto. The Dogs will win by four quazbon to minus eleven six but our team of 74 cloned, Barry Hall cyborgs will deviate from the three laws of robotics in the change rooms and go on a rampage, partially destroying the stadium and causing it to shift from its orbit around Enciladus (one of Saturn’s 62 moons) and to fall slowly and beautifully into the sun.
http://jek2004.com/1149-Saturns-enceladas.jpg
Selection Table – Us
Roughead hurt his shoulder against the Saints like a big baby and we might be looking at giving him a rest. Also even though he is really tall, he is only like 14 years old so I mean honestly, what is Rodney thinking? Minson should come in because it is unlikely he has forgotten how to do the whole rucking thing even though he has been away.
Johnno is out, but he never contributes much anyway seeing as he is too old except for all that smiling which is charming but not very helpful. With Melbourne’s lack of tall forwards (or quality ones anyway), Williams will struggle for a match up but I can’t see them dropping him because he might break.
Boyd should be back wielding his new bionic arm with which he can crush a tennis ball just like Lindsay Wagner used to do in the credits for The Bionic Woman which I used to watch when I was 8. That was so cool! She had a bionic dog too but it wasn’t a bulldog because who would do that?
Selection Table – Them
A massive out for the Dees with Petterd looking like he is goooooone for the season. His head fell clean off last week in the third quarter, and while he played on valiantly (in contravention of the AFL’s new rules relating to concussion) he didn’t really make a contribution afterward. They might be forced to go back to Miller to get some structure in their forward line. Or perhaps a Meccano set.
Johnson might come in for Stefan Martin in a shifting of the deck chairs on the Titanic type move. But lets face it, if there is no iceberg in the dogs forward line that is not going to help. They were rubbish at the end of last year, they are much better now with a pretty much similar crew so they were obviously tanking. That means we really don’t know if they are any good or not. But then perhaps we have been foxing all along – here we are, 8th on the ladder and we have the rest of the competition right where we want them – Rodney Eade you sly fox!
Sooks and Malingerers
Melbourne
Rohan Bail (quad) - test
Max Gawn (knee) - indefinite
Liam Jurrah (shoulder) - 8 weeks
John Meesen (acne) - 4-6 weeks
Cale Morton (knee) - test
Ricky Petterd (head reattachment) - 16 weeks
Luke Tapscott (gender reassignment surgery) - indefinite
Western Bulldogs
Tim Callan (cyborg implant) - 1 week
Ayce Cordy (shoulder) - TBA
Christian Howard (hip) - 1 week
Brad Johnson (teeth whitening) - TBA
Liam Picken (pickle) - 3-4 weeks
Shane Thorne (freckle) - 11 weeks
Jason Tutt (ankle) - 1 week
Callan Ward (new head) - 4 weeks
St Kilda
Nick Reiwoldt (hammy) – weeks and weeks
Match ups:
Dogs defence vs Dees forward line
I really don’t rate Miller and Martin/Johnson and hope we try to exploit them by zoning off and trying to create rebound. Lake should cut them up but not literally because think of the mess. I don’t think we should play Williams but assume we will due to wanting him to get the experience. He is tall as well and that seems to be a theme for some of these AFL players. Their real threat is in the small forwards. Petterd is a massive out though; he has been great for them and their forward structure this season.
Lake vs Miller/resting ruck
Perfect immobile dud tall opponent for Lake to zone off and get a truckload of marks. No one-step kicks please though Brian.
Shaggy vs Bate
It has been suggested Shaggy is best suited to small deep forwards or medium sized talls or decaf lattes, but Bate is a tall in height only. Most of his possession comes from either taking marks on the lead or at ground level. A medium forward who just happens to be 192cm. What were they thinking?
Morris vs Sylvia
Our best lock down defender on their most dangerous forward. Hot diggety! Sylvia’s size and style would suit Dale. They are also good friends off the field as they both have a partnership in a Cheese Doughnut franchise in Altona
Everitt vs Green
Green’s a difficult match up for us. We could drop Dre onto him from a great height, but if things aren’t going well, he can swap over with Shaggy who is bouncier.
Eagleton
Stick him in there anywhere and he will run up and down and the light will gleam off his bald head and with any luck he might kick a goal or two for a change I mean really what has he been doing out there. When I first saw Barry Hall I thought “ooh Eagleton got big in the pre-season” but no, what an idiot I am sometimes. Barry is as big as two Eagletons sticky taped together and probably at least twice as useful.
Harbrow/Gilbee/Williams
One can play on their weakest small forward, probably Bennell. I would like to see the other one exploiting one of their tall forwards whenever/if they have two up there. If Williams plays, he will probably have to play on one of their talls, not sure how we will free up both our rebound small defenders if their small forwards are their main targets. Perhaps we could just arrange to have one of our guys blow them up or shoot them.
Dogs forwards vs Dees defence
Warnock and Frawley have been two of the better talls this season. Warnock is more of a lock down defender and should get Hall who may crush his skull with his bare hands. Hall will probably get two weeks for that because the tribunal is biased against him. Frawley is able to offer some rebound as well, he will get one of our many medium forwards or Grant who is also only 12 years old and quite tall.
Macdonald and Rivers are also there to cover our medium forwards.
Grimes has been great for them off HB for over a year now. A defensive forward tag might be the go. Apparently Eade had a loose one on Drummond with Hahn perhaps that will be the go again. Bruce McAvaney also offers them drive off HBF and needs to be watched because he is a pain in the arse to listen to so just turn the sound down.
Ruck
Other than Sandilands, Jamar has had the most minutes on ground for a ruckman so he is probably really tired already, he will get very brief support from either Martin or Johnson. He is a bit of an old school ruckmen like Hudson and Minson, hopefully our duo can tag team him long enough for Barry to run over and crush his skull like that other guy.
Runners
Dunn vs Griffen
Dunn has been in good form over the last two weeks and I think he will get the job on the red hot Griffen. Of course, he will not touch him because Griff is playing out of his box as they say. I love Griff and if I was a single lady and he was…
anyway where was I?
McDonald vs Cooney
I think McDonald’s job will be more head to head than a tag and hopefully Cooney will cause more damage his way or trick him into running past Barry and CRUNCH! Ewww brains everywhere! Gross!
Trengove, Moloney vs Cross, Boyd
These are more head to head match ups except Boyd will have the edge because of his bionic arm and Trengove’s head is a tennis ball.
Davey vs Addison
It would be a huge assignment for Dylan but I don’t see a better option. Perhaps the DFA magic will work in our favour for once and his random disposal of the Sherrin may see it ending up with a Western Bulldogs player every now and then. That would be nice wouldn’t it.
Verdict
The loss of Petterd really hurts their forward structure. Lake should really dominate his opponent and hopefully he can help out his team mates just this once by zoning off and creating rebound and not making a total donk of himself by kicking it directly to the opposition over and over again or out on the full.
Their defence is solid across the board and our forwards will need to consistently work hard to offer options.
I think Cooney and Griffen will be too classy for their midfield them and they don’t have the depth to expose our lack of running depth. Basically their depth is not deep enough for our lack of depth which is obviously deeper.
Jamar suits the Minson and Hudson tag team and once again, I hope they tire him out or just taze him and tie him up in a sack.
It will be nice to be back at the G again, they will make us look silly for a bit but I reckon we should get them by 5 or 6 goals. But of course they could win but not by that much say 1 or 2 goals, but I couldn’t stand that so really I would take any kind of win except a close one would be demoralising so lets split the difference and call it 4 goals and no injuries to us except maybe Dylan gets a splinter from the bench in the fourth quarter.
Thanks to Mantis for asking me to do this preview, it is an honour! And especially to my spiritual adviser and mentor Rocco Jones who, the master at the feet of whom I sit.