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Melbourne have pulled off a sensational last minute win over the West Coast Eagles at Subiaco.
With twenty four seconds to play, Demons forward Tom McDonald kicked an unlikely goal, as he swung his boot at the ball as he was falling to ground while in a strong tackle, to put his team in front.
It came after the Eagles had lead by three goals deep into the final quarter, and had opportunities to go further in front.
But despite appearing exhausted after a bruising game on the road, Melbourne found their best footy in the final minutes to kick the last three goals of the match.
This result breaks a long standing hoodoo for the Demons, who hadn’t won in Western Australia since 2004.
It had been a close game all evening. The Eagles had the better of the first quarter but could never break away, and in fact trailed the more efficient Demons at quarter time.
While Melbourne in turn had their periods on top in the second quarter, they also struggled to take advantage, and after a scrappy, tense first half the margin was still within a kick.
The star of the first half was Melbourne’s Jack Viney, who dominated the contests and was the game’s leading possession winner to half time.
When he copped a knock early in the third and went off for several minutes it looked like it could be a match turner.
At this point the game started to open up, as the Eagles found more space on the wings and the Demons continued to counterattack with some success.
After kicking three majors in a row, West Coast went into the final change with an eight-point lead.
A brilliant goal to Mark Hutchings gave the Eagles their biggest lead of the game at fourteen points, and from then on it looked like the home team were going to do just enough to keep the plucky Demons at bay.
While Viney had returned to the ground, he didn’t quite have the same influence, and when he conceded a holding the ball free kick deep in defence it looked like it might have been a critical error.
But with just eight minutes to play Lewis Jetta missed the resulting set shot, and the Demons stayed within three kicks.
With the minutes ticking away Cam Pedersen stepped up to take a superb contested mark and goal to bring the margin back to ten points.
Minutes later, Pedersen again was influential was a superb pass to set up a soda for Tom McDonald, and cut the Eagles’ lead to less than a goal.
Pedersen then had a chance to put his side ahead with four minutes to play, but missed a difficult shot.
With time running out West Coast appeared to have done enough, forcing stoppage after stoppage and denying the Demons any kind of real scoring opportunity.
But in the dying seconds McDonald’s desperate goal gave Melbourne a win that seemed unlikely at times.
McDonald’s match-winner capped off a superb night for the Melbourne forward, whose match-winner was his fifth goal of the night. He and Viney were probably the game’s two best players.
At the other end, the Eagles were well served by their forward targets of Petrie and McGovern, who kicked four and three goals respectively. Gaff, Sheed and Jetta also played well for the hosts.
This result – Melbourne’s fourth win in a row – puts them within touching distance of the top four. And in the form they’re in it’d be a brave person to bet against them finishing inside that mark. After some inconsistent performances at times they now appear to be growing every week.
For West Coast, this will be a painful loss. They need to win these games at home, and they certainly had their chances to do just that.
They have big matchups in the next few weeks against other finals aspirants in the Bulldogs, Power, Dockers and Magpies, so their destiny is still very much in their own hands, but on form you wouldn’t expect them to rise much higher than the lower spots of the eight, if that.
But if this season has taught us anything it’s never to count anything out. And tonight’s game was yet another fine example of that.
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