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When the siren sounded at the MCG on Sunday, it wasn’t just a sad day for the Melbourne Football Club but also for the entire AFL community.
When the game had ended Melbourne finished 10 goals behind a Gold Coast team that they failed to compete with. At stages they made the Suns look like Geelong as they allowed them to have 34 scoring shots to their poultry 19.
Not only that but the Suns had 100 more disposals, 14 more inside 50s, 36 more contested possessions and 33 more tackles.
A lot of questions need to be asked of the Melbourne Football Club, a team that has fallen so far from being competitive that they needed a 12-goal final quarter in Round 4 just to get over a team full of 18 to 19 year olds in Greater Western Sydney.
The culture at Melbourne is toxic and it isn’t entirely Mark Neeld’s fault. Whilst Melbourne was cleared of tanking earlier this year during the Bailey era (they still received a $500,000 fine), you can’t help but feel that this had affected the players in more ways than one.
They fielded a side in 2009 that was well under their best, won just four games and received the first draft pick (Tom Scully) and second draft pick (Jack Trengrove) for that year’s draft.
When losing has become part of the culture of a club, it is hard to change the mindset of the players over a short period of time, and the lack of senior leaders at the club doesn’t help the situation either.
Their captains Jack Trengrove and Jack Grimes are 21 and 23 respectively, whilst both are good players in their own rights. They shouldn’t have to carry the burden of the Melbourne Football Club on their shoulders, and you can see it is affecting the way they both play.
Trengrove was well under done before he was rested for Sunday’s game, averaging just 14.4 disposals a game, well under what you would expect for a midfielder. While Grimes was a little bit better before he broke his collarbone, getting an average of 18.3 disposals a game.
What is alarming is that these two didn’t play on the weekend against the Suns and the lack of leadership that was shown by the mature players who did was appalling.
Nathan Jones, the stand in captain for the game against the Suns, got just 20 disposals at an efficiency of 60 per cent. Even worse is Colin Sylvia, one of Melbourne’s better players, who had 24 disposals at just 54.2 per cent efficiency. Not only that but his high shot on Jared Brennan was stupid and reckless.
What about their recruits who played in the game? Chris Dawes was far from a hulking figure up forward with nine disposals and no goals (for a player who was expected to kick goals), while Shannon Byrnes was expected to add some run to the Melbourne team. He had just 12 disposals at 50 per cent efficiency. It’s just not good enough from these players.
With an expected financial loss of $1 million coming at the end of the year for the Demons, it’s hard to see anything getting better for the 154-year old club. It may be that the club has dug themselves a hole so deep that even they can’t get out of.
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