Saints vs Demons: the match of the round

It’s hard to imagine that 16th placed St Kilda, with two wins, and 17th placed Melbourne, who have tasted victory just once this season, could win match of the round billing for this split Round 13.

However, with what both teams have gone through this week, it seems like a no brainer.

Melbourne have replaced their beleaguered coach, Mark Neeld, with former Adelaide mentor Neil Craig, while the Saints have had to endure the news that police have charged veteran forward Stephen Milne with four counts of rape from an incident nine years ago.

Milne has been stood down from playing for the time being, with his first appearance in court being July 5th, but if he had played it would have added to the sub plots that exist with this match involving two of the bottom three teams.

Among those sub plots, even with Milne not playing, are how will the Saints perform after the drama of the week, which has obviously taken away from special milestones for current club greats Nick Reiwoldt and Nick Dal Santo, who both play their 250th games at the MCG this week.

There will no doubt be the attiude ingrained into the group of ‘we have to do it for Dal ( Dal Santo) or Rooey (Reiwoldt) and even do it for Milney’. But coach Scott Watters faces a massive challenge to ensure his players are focused on the job at hand and the distractions are in the background.

He also has the task of taking on a team who have changed their coach, and history indicates when this happens in the AFL, those teams either win or improve dramatically.

It would be a big call to suggest Melbourne could beat the Saints who, despite only winning two games, have lost the majority of their matches by small margins. The Saints have been pretty competitive and deserve to be warm favourites, as the Demons have been terrible, being thrashed in all ten of their defeats so far.

It would be a huge turnaround if Melbourne beat St Kilda with Neil Craig only taking over on Monday, but his reputation at Adelaide was of being a coach with a method and that was implementing a defensive bent in the game plan.

With all his experience and knowledge, you would think he would be able to make them more competitive and harder to play against, which ironically was the aim of his predecessor, Mark Neeld, when appointed senior coach in 2011.

They were a long way from that – as we know – and Neeld seemed to lose many of his players in such a short space of time. Although Craig was appointed as Director of Sports Performance and to act as a mentor for Neeld, he should be able to have them all on the same page.

After being sacked on Monday, Neeld still seemed to be in denial as to why he lost his job in the media appearances he has made. But the right decision was made, as the job seemed to be beyond him, and Melbourne can start rebuilding yet again.

No doubt Demon supporters’ hopes will spring eternal at the MCG this weekend. Their team has nothing to lose, which I am sure Neil Craig will be drumming into his charges.

The Saints on the other hand probably have more to lose and have been criticised for leaving Milne out but, like the Neeld dumping, it was the correct outcome.

Let’s see what both teams are made of this weekend as those sub plots continue to thicken.