Rohan Connolly5 Minute Read
The football world moves on relentlessly. And in age of ever-shorter attention spans, it gets bored very quickly, always looking for the next flavour of the month.
There’s been several already this season. Collingwood has so far proved the most enduring attention-grabber, which is entirely fair enough. St Kilda’s super start under the second incarnation of coach Ross Lyon certainly raised plenty of eyebrows, Brisbane and Port Adelaide have both won six in a row, and Geelong — until a slight speed hump on Friday night — has been declared back in town.
And Melbourne? Oh yeah, well, the Demons are just doing what they should, really. OK, perhaps the attitude isn’t quite that blasé, but the Dees certainly aren’t grabbing the headlines at the moment.
That’s partly a consequence of having gone “off-Broadway” a little, Melbourne’s last three wins over two of the bottom three teams in North Melbourne and Hawthorn, and a narrow scrape against the hardly show-stopping Gold Coast on the road. Two of those games have been in the “blink and you’ll miss it” Saturday twilight slot as well.
But it’s also that we’ve come to expect a lot of Melbourne quickly. The Demons should be getting those sorts of results, and it’s only when they don’t, like that upset against Essendon a month ago, that they become the subject of conversation. And I suspect that won’t upset coach Simon Goodwin one little bit.
The Demons have won their drought-breaking flag, and been a good side long enough not to need the approbation of others so much. Which is just as well, because they haven’t necessarily been getting a lot, despite having now won five games this season by 50 points or more, five times topping 100 points, and boasting a percentage of 143.6 (with the next-best side Collingwood with 129.6).
Indeed, the Essendon defeat is their only truly poor performance of the season, the other loss by just 11 points to Brisbane at the Gabba, these days arguably the most intimidating away venue for teams outside Geelong’s GMHBA Stadium.
Melbourne is winning in the variety of ways accomplished teams do, too. It was imperious against Western Bulldogs and Sydney earlier in the season, again against North Melbourne a couple of weeks back. In contrast, it had to cling on for dear life against the Suns under fierce assault, but ultimately ground out the win it needed.
They do everything well, the Demons. They’re currently No. 1 for points scored, and No. 3 for fewest points conceded, no other rival with anything like that sort of ranking for both categories. Their skills stand up under pressure, both when it comes to kicking efficiency and percentage of goals scored from their forward entries.
This column addressed the issue of conversion a week ago, and how costly or valuable it might prove to teams in the run towards the finals. And that’s another area separating Melbourne from its rivals.
Prior to Round 9, the Demons were not only the AFL’s highest-scoring team, but its most accurate, converting its shots for goal at 64%, significantly more than next-highest ranked team Geelong, which was coming in at 59%, and even more so relative to top team Collingwood, which was going at 51%.
That’s no accident, either, with Pie turned Demon Brodie Grundy recently conceding to having been shocked at the sheer amount of goalkicking practice the Dees put into their goalkicking when arrived at the club.
There’s an army of players kicking them this season, Melbourne boasting a dozen individual goalkickers on Saturday night against Hawthorn, and 10 players on the list averaging at least a goal per game, Ben Brown and Tom McDonald accruing just seven games between them, but hardly missed this season in pure scoreboard terms after the ascent of the likes of Jacob Van Rooyen and Kade Chandler.
At the other end, Steven May and Jake Lever continue to marshal the defensive troops with tremendous effect, Melbourne the No. 1 ranked defensive team for the last two completed seasons, and well in contention to take that mantle again.
And midfield supremos Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver, meanwhile, just go on dominating as they have for several years now, Oliver averaging 33 disposals per game, Petracca 29. But is there a midfield duo in the AFL as consistently damaging as well as prolific? Both players are in the top five in the competition for average score involvements.
Certainly they have the sort of influence on games coaches appreciate, Oliver third in the AFL Coaches Association award and Petracca sixth heading into last weekend and another performance in which you’d expect both to poll votes.
As terrific as Collingwood has been this season (and the Pies are a game ahead of everyone, even Melbourne), when I watch the Dees rip a side apart as ruthlessly as they did Hawthorn in the first half on Saturday night, I feel like Melbourne has an explosiveness which even the Magpies can’t necessarily match.
That Round 13 Queen’s Birthday clash between the Dees and the Pies is looming as an absolute belter, and not just because of Brodie Grundy’s first game against his old club, nor solely because it’s the much-anticipated “Big Freeze” fundraiser for research into MND.
It’s because right now, simply, they are probably the best two teams in the AFL. Even two years ago, it still felt novel saying that about Melbourne. But no longer. The Demons are a bona fide heavyweight of this competition.
And the longer they take care of business as swiftly and efficiently as they have been lately, the more likely the prospect one very memorable season becomes several.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly’s work at FOOTYOLOGY.