But this week, arguably the best thing for football and certainly the best thing for Melbourne, is for the Demons to adopt a game plan straight from marketing hell.
National bookmaker Sportsbet yesterday listed Melbourne at $34 to beat Geelong and Geelong at $1.01 to win. These are not so much odds as malicious slander. Never before in 111 years of VFL and AFL football has a team been treated with such naked disdain by pundits and punters.
Melbourne coach Dean Bailey has a choice. He can coach proper football, where players are told to take risks and run the lines and back their team-mates and attack the game as best they can; or he can slow the game to a trickle, run down the clock, hog possession in his defensive half and frustrate the hoops off that freaky-good team from Geelong.
In truth, Bailey has no choice at all. Fight the good fight and his team will almost certainly lose by close to 100 points for the third consecutive week. Channel Ugly Betty and Melbourne just might pull off the greatest upset of all.
The rest of the article is here:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23469108-5012432,00.html
I'd like to see it!