AFL Round 2 – Essendon v Melbourne: Avert your eyes

It’s bloody hard to know how to start a summary of this game.  Being a one-eyed Don you always hope that you come away from a game with a win, and usually the bigger the win the better. But I don’t know, this game was not  so much a win but a series of training drills performed with brutal precision again a hapless, fumbling, disorganised, dispirited mob.  If they had of substituted witch’s hats for Melbourne it wouldn’t have made much difference.

But back to the contest, which lasted approximately ten minutes, and you couldn’t help but feel that in those  minutes it was a contest between the Davey brothers.  Aaron for Melbourne snapped a great goal over his shoulder which was quickly followed by Alywn’s goal for the Dons a few minutes later. And that  my friends is it.  No contest.  The trouble was, there was still about eighty minutes of football left in the game, and The Don’s were on song, so by quarter time they led by 25 points.  Now I guess 25 isn’t a huge margin but to look at the way Melbourne was playing ,and their lack of confidence in going for the ball things looked dark for the miserable Demons.

The second quarter confirmed my fears, apart from an early goal from Melbourne, the Dons just hammered them all over the ground. The only Demon who was putting up any fight was Nathan Jones.  When he managed to wrestle a kick out of the centre it usually bounced off the chest  of one of his team mates and  immediately  kicked back over his head to an Essendon player. Essendon added 46 points to  their score, Melbourne added a paltry fifteen. Essendon had winners all over the ground, it would be unfair to single out individual players.

But things got worse for Melbourne, a lot worse.  The Don bandwagon was unstoppable, they were far too skilful by foot and hand and far too tough and scored at will.  I found myself clapping politely every time we scored rather than my normal boisterous manner. The Melbourne faithful near me were silent, a sort of disbelief that they were watching their Melbourne FC.  Mid-way through this third quarter many of the gentrified Melbourne chaps and their good ladies  decided enough was enough, and departed.  I almost felt sorry for them, but I didn’t.  At three quarter time the Dons were up by 102 points, Melbourne had only added one goal to their tally.

I watched the Melbourne group at the three quarter time huddle and wondered what on earth the dozen or so coaches could say to the players. But whatever they said had no effect. Essendon absolutely crushed them, they showed no mercy and Melbourne showed no fight.  Dons who hadn’t scored a goal were encouraged to come forward and join in the fun and they did, Courtney Dempsey and Paddy Ryder said yes and added to the score. The only interest I had was could we kick thirty goals?  Could we kick two hundred points?  The answer was no but we had a good crack at it . We added another 47 points to Melbourne’s solitary point.  So much for the Melbourne coaching team.

The one thing for sure is that Essendon won’t have another game like this in 2013, so I hope the multitude of Essendon supporters don’t get carried away.

Final scores        Essendon  28.16  184

Melbourne   5.  6   36

Goals                    Essendon     Crameri 6  Bellchambers 4  Watson 3  Davey 2  Howlett 2  Heppell 2  Stanton 2  Merritt 2  Hurley 2  Dempsey 1  Ryder 1  Goddard 1

Melbourne   Davey 2  Grimes 1  Clark 1  Jones 1

Best Players       Essendon    The whole team but standouts were,  Heppell, Watson, Crameri, Bellchambers, Ryder, Fletcher (will he go on forever?)

Melbourne   N. Jones   Frawley

 

PS   I thought Alwyn and Aaron Davey were brothers but The Age called them cousins.  Who is correct?

Comments

  1. Really enjoyed the read Rod

  2. Sean Gorman says

    Alwyn and Aaron are brothers.

Leave a Comment

*