St Kilda vs Melbourne Round 11

[Barra13]

SO by The Oracle

So apart from Aaron vandenBerg who was subbed off after a hamstring injury in the first half last week's game and Jack Viney who copped a corked calf around the same time,  Col Garland broke his hand in the first quarter and before that, Christian Salem injured his previously "good" hamstring on Saturday morning at training. It hasn't really been a good week ...

So that doesn't really inspire one to confidently look forward to the next set of two matches facing the Melbourne Football Club against clubs that (whilst admittedly both are outside the top eight) are holding a long string of consecutive wins against it and at venues where Demon victories have been as scarce as hen's teeth. That's not really such a good thing in the scheme of things ...

So take this week's game against St Kilda at Etihad Stadium - a venue where Melbourne's losing run stretched to twenty by the end of last year. The Saints haven't been much chop lately but they somehow grow legs when they play the Demons and they have only one senior list player on their injury list. That doesn't really auger well for this week ...

So the Demons aren't the highest scoring team in the competition and in fact, they only surpassed the struggling Gold Coast Suns who have an even longer injury list in points scored for the season by a mere four points. That doesn't really suggest that we can expect enough scoring to beat even the Saints ...

So why am I so supremely confident about Melbourne's ability to win this week?

THE GAME

St. Kilda v Melbourne at Etihad Stadium Sunday 14 June, 2015 at 4:40 pm

HEAD TO HEAD

Overall St. Kilda 87 wins Melbourne 118 wins 1 drawn

At Etihad St. Kilda 5 wins Melbourne 3 wins

Past five meetings St. Kilda 5 wins Melbourne 0 wins

The Coaches Richardson 1 win Roos 0 wins

MEDIA

TV - Fox Footy Channel at 4.30pm (live)

RADIO - LiveTriple M 3AW SEN ABC

THE BETTING

St. Kilda to win - $1.80 Melbourne to win - $2.00

THE LAST TIME THEY MET St. Kilda 10.8.68 defeated Melbourne  6.15.51 in Round 1, 2014 at Etihad Stadium

Melbourne started favourite to beat the Saints despite a big injury list which limited its ruck and key position stocks but after early goals to Jimmy Toumpas and Dean Terlich things went awry. Tom McDonald was injured after blanketing Nick Riewoldt and Jack Fitzpatrick had to be subbed off due to concussion. To compound matters the team kicked ten consecutive behinds before half time and Riewoldt ended up best on the ground in the Saints' 17 point win.

St Kilda

B: Jarryn Geary, Sean Dempster, Sam Gilbert
HB: Jack Newnes, Luke Delaney, Jimmy Webster
C: Leigh Montagna, David Armitage, Blake Acres
HF: Sebastian Ross, Nick Riewoldt, Darren Minchington
F: Tim Membrey, Josh Bruce, Jack Lonie
FOLL: Billy Longer, Jack Steven, Luke Dunstan
I/C: Shane Savage, Dylan Roberton, Farren Ray, Maverick Weller.

EMG: Hugh Goddard, Cameron Shenton, Daniel Mckenzie

Melbourne

B: Daniel Cross, Tom McDonald, Jack Grimes
HB: Jeremy Howe, Lynden Dunn, Neville Jetta
C: Jimmy Toumpas, Dom Tyson, Heritier Lumumba
HF: Jack Watts, Cam Pedersen, Jack Viney
F: Jeff Garlett, Jesse Hogan, Angus Brayshaw
FOLL: Max Gawn, Nathan Jones, Bernie Vince
I/C: Billy Stretch, Viv Michie, Aidan Riley, Alex Neal-Bullen

EMG: Jake Spencer, Dean Terlich, Jack Fitzpatrick
IN: Jack Grimes, Viv Michie, Dom Tyson, Alex Neal-Bullen, Billy Stretch

[Big Mac]

Oh no

Not Terlich

Anything but Terlich

[Bill Manspeaker]

should be a good game this. both teams on the bottom but on the up, if that makes sense

hoping my boys can extend our winning streak against your boys to 11

[Purple 77]

Oh no

Not Terlich

Anything but Terlich

[Purple 77]

St Kilda are no easy beats, don't get me wrong, but...

If we lose this match, I think I'd be close to labelling our year a non-improvement.

[GoLions]

St Kilda are no easy beats, don't get me wrong, but...

If we lose this match, I think I'd be close to labelling our year a non-improvement.

I disagree. Both teams have been a lot better than last year. Providing it isn't a one-way contest, I don't think the losing team should consider this year a "non-improvement".

[Pkbaldy]

St Kilda are no easy beats, don't get me wrong, but...

If we lose this match, I think I'd be close to labelling our year a non-improvement.

I disagree. Both teams have been a lot better than last year. Providing it isn't a one-way contest, I don't think the losing team should consider this year a "non-improvement".

+1.3 for Davos

[Barra13]

For some reason the Melbourne section here seems to have more input than any other club. Whether it is us die hards or people from other clubs stopping by to give their opinion on a match and keen to see how the games go makes me enjoy creating these threads. I think majority of the AFL want to see Melbourne succeed. Hopefully it comes sooner rather than later.

[Barra13]

Side note: I hope the cuts for this week are Terlich, Spencer and Riley.

[Big Mac]

St Kilda are no easy beats, don't get me wrong, but...

If we lose this match, I think I'd be close to labelling our year a non-improvement.

It would definitely be disappointing but I'm not sure how much weight this game has given our injury list

[Pkbaldy]

For some reason the Melbourne section here seems to have more input than any other club. Whether it is us die hards or people from other clubs stopping by to give their opinion on a match and keen to see how the games go makes me enjoy creating these threads. I think majority of the AFL want to see Melbourne succeed. Hopefully it comes sooner rather than later.

I just want to see Hogan succeed.

[Barra13]

Haha, don't we all. I just hope he sticks around. If we lose him later on it would really hurt the club.

[Purple 77]

St Kilda are no easy beats, don't get me wrong, but...

If we lose this match, I think I'd be close to labelling our year a non-improvement.

It would definitely be disappointing but I'm not sure how much weight this game has given our injury list

I'm leaning towards that, if Melbourne were 3-8, I don't think it's an accurate reflection of how we have been this year.

Yes we have had the second hardest draw (I read that in an AFL article), but I won't back Melbourne to win every match against the bottom clubs in the second half of the year... we aren't quite good enough I think.

With that in mind, my pre-season target of 8 wins seems hard to reach if we drop this one, and I don't think anything less than 8 wins, given our woeful form against the top teams, would be seen as that large step of improvement that we oh so need to challenge for finals next year.

[Purple 77]

For some reason the Melbourne section here seems to have more input than any other club. Whether it is us die hards or people from other clubs stopping by to give their opinion on a match and keen to see how the games go makes me enjoy creating these threads. I think majority of the AFL want to see Melbourne succeed. Hopefully it comes sooner rather than later.

I've noticed that too... that recent AFL fan survey showed that Melbourne polled less votes than any other team in regards to "The team you love to hate"

I think people want to see us succeed, that, and I reckon people like Melbourne and might be their second or third team, purely because we aren't are threat to them  :-X

I also think opposition supporters are curious to think whether we think we are a chance against them or not, but yeah, love being the most active club section  8) I think the biggest factor in that is we magnificent three though haha

[Barra13]

Well, I ate my words. Neal-Bullen to debut this weekend. Good luck to him.