Last Year
The Melbourne Demons had an expectedly bad year at the bottom of the ladder. The Dees struggled with a few injuries, and they used the equal most players this year; 40. Let’s be frank though, the Demons were never going to challenge for the eight this last year. Melbourne was rightly accused of tanking this year. The Richmond game served as the best example of Melbourne’s unwillingness to win. All that aside Melbourne showed that they were definitely among the worst teams in the league but with the additions of picks 1 (Tom Scully), 2 (Jack Trengove), 11 (Jordan Gysberts) and 18 (Luke Tapscott) in the 2009 AFL draft they are looking pretty for the future.
Backline
With the addition of Joel MacDonald from the Brisbane Lions the Dees have even more depth in their backline. As we have reported previously, the Dees have some great young backline talent. Players like Jack Grimes, James Frawley, Colin Garland, Jamie Bennell, Cale Morton and Stefan Martin played some good games in defense this year. Cale Morton still needs to put on about 7kg for mine, he looks very skinny on the field. When you think that there is also Jared Rivers, a very talented defender, especially against the bigger bodies, you think that this could be a backline that can really stop a lot of goals. The addition of MacDonald has allowed Melbourne to start flirting with the idea of pushing Jack Grimes further up the ground and in to the midfield.
Midfield
With Melbourne starting to think about pushing Grimes in to the midfield and the additions of Scully and Trengove in to the side, the Dees’ midfield young talent pool has increased drastically. In my dream world that will mean that Davey can be rotated through the forward line because there are enough midfielders to make up the numbers rather than playing as a behind the ball midfielder. Nathan Jones and Brent Maloney were good last year; their harder bodies will be needed to make up for a lack thereof in Scullgove (Scully and Trengove) and Grimes. Not to mention the old stayers of Bruce and, the captain, McDonald (not to be confused with the ex-Lion) that will go at least one more time around next year. Brad Green should be right for round one. The Midfield should be improving but I can’t see it being too dramatically better than last year when it was often convincingly beaten.
Forwards
There is some exciting talent in the Demons’ forward line with Austin Wonaeamirri and Liam Jurrah already proving to be crowd pleasers. That being said, Melbourne is rather deficient in the forward line. Brad Miller has never really stamped his authority on the centre-half-forward position. With the departure of Russell Robertson, Melbourne has desperately reduced their chances of scoring in favor of developing young talent. Colin Garland has been rumored to be making a move to the forward line, which probably won’t happen this year. For me, Colin Sylvia and Jack Watts are the key to Melbourne’s forward line success. Colin Sylvia can play at half forward and take a good defender off Watts then the Demons will go a long way to kicking more goals. Watts has already shown that he can build muscle (I worry he will lose some of his fantastic pace and agility for a big guy) and looks visibly more built now than he did when he played his last game in the blue and red. Once Watts gets to optimal weight and settles in to AFL I think he will prove a lot of his critics wrong and turn in to a more than adequate full-forward.
Rucks
Yikes. Melbourne can’t decide what to do with their ruck division. Sometimes Stephan Martin is rucking, sometimes not. This is compounded by the need for ruckman to play in the forward line due to a serious lack of bulk and height down there for stages of the season. Mark Jamar and Paul Johnson seem to cycle through the team with little to no reason why they should be dropped or selected. Jake Spencer looks as uncoordinated as ever and really needs to start looking like a footballer soon. The rucks did okay this year, but I am a bit worried about their consistency and ability to shut down the Sandilands (great at stoppages) and Cox’s (great around the ground) of the world.
Summary
Melbourne do not want to be seen to be bottoming out anymore and with Gold Coast stealing all the draft picks next year, you can’t blame them. Melbourne want to win more matches than they did last year… you’d hope so… but won’t say what their target is. Melbourne will push a lot of teams this year and they will win more than 4 games, but hope many more? I’d say they could easily have won 6 last year if they weren’t tanking, so you would think that they would want to win 7 or 8 games. Wins against Fremantle and Richmond as are keys to make making that happen. That many wins will normally land you 13th or 14th on the ladder.
Expected Finish: 13th-15h
Best 22
FB: James Frawley, Stephan Martin, Colin Garland
HB: Matthew Warnock, Jared Rivers, Joel MacDonald
C: Cale Morton, Cameron Bruce, James McDonald
HF: Matthew Bate, Colin Sylvia, Brad Green
FF: Austin Wonaeamirri, Brad Miller, Liam Jurrah
Fol: Paul Johnson, Brent Moloney, Aaron Davey
Int: Mark Jamar, Nathan Jones, Jack Grimes, Clint Bartram
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