CO-CAPTAIN Nathan Jones has urged the red and blue faithful to come out in full force for its ‘traditional’ Saturday afternoon clash against Carlton at the MCG.
The Demons are taking on the Blues at 1.45pm and although the clash isn’t quite the previously regular 2pm or 2.10pm timeslot, Jones was hopeful of a big crowd at the ‘G.
“We’re looking forward to playing at the ‘G on a Saturday afternoon and it’s a great opportunity for us to get out there again,” he said.
“Publicly they’ve (Carlton) said they’re going to come out pretty strong and I’m pretty sure they’ll be pretty keen to bounce back. I think it’s more important for us to worry about the position we’re in.
“It’s another challenge – we haven’t started the year as we’d want to, but it’s another team and another challenge at the ground we love playing at. It’s not too often that we play on a Saturday afternoon either, so the boys are pretty excited about it and we’re taking a pretty positive approach and we’re looking forward to it.”
The match is a replacement home game for all Melbourne members, with all members able to scan in and attend as normal. The club will still have The Demon Shop open, with Melbourne merchandise available from gate two. Club memberships will also be sold inside gate two and outside gate three.
Jones said the Demons needed to “confront” every team head on at the moment.
“That’s what we’re going to do this weekend – we’re going to stay positive and we’ve done that as a group this week.”
Jones said the Demons still had the confidence that they could win. He added that the players had the full trust of Paul Roos and the coaching staff and “believe in the direction that we’re going in now”.
“For sure – we go out every week thinking we can win,” he said.
“There’s a lot of circumstances that haven’t allowed us to play our best footy – it’s more our control than anything – we haven’t implemented everything that Roosy and the boys have wanted us to play.
“The quicker we can do that – the more we can play at 100 per cent … if we can serve up what we know we can do, we should be in the game and we can definitely be within reach of winning.”
Jones said it would be “great” to have Chris Dawes return, if possible, this round. He said the addition of some key forwards would help the Demons “pinch a game or two” in the near future.
“If he’s right to play in the AFL – I don’t know where he’s going to play this week – but it’d be good to have any of our forwards up and going,” he said.
“Jesse [Hogan’s] not too far away and to have Dawesy – guys like that will straighten us up a bit.
“The boys that we had down there [last] weekend, Dunny [Lynden Dunn] and Chip [James Frawley], it was a good little change for us. Even just seeing that and a little bit of structure forward of the ball – we played a bit better and a bit more direct.”
