Herald Sun

Melbourne to defy travel trend against West Coast
By Jon Ralph

MELBOURNE captain Brad Green says the stakes are huge for the clash against West Coast with the Demons intent on taking a "scalp". The Eagles have won two games this year but pushed Sydney and Hawthorn, and are one of the form teams of the competition. Having lost their last 10 games at Patersons Stadium dating back to 2004, Green says it is time for the Demons to make a stand. "They are in good form. The talk coming out of Hawthorn (last week) with the way they pressured Hawthorn and the press they put on, it was amazing. They are up there with the good sides in their defensive side of their game. "We are judged on these games, and we look forward to taking a scalp over here against West Coast. "We are judged on teams around us like West Coast and Richmond and Brisbane and North Melbourne, and we are all in the same boat trying to win games of footy like this."

The Age

Match preview: West Coast v Melbourne
By Will Brodie

The Eagles need to win to consolidate their encouraging start to the season, while Melbourne is desperate to kick-start a so-far underwhelming campaign.

The Demons, expected to inexorably rise up the AFL ladder as they get more games into talented young players, have been far from terrible in 2011 - a draw with Sydney and two wins from four games is not shocking form. But the capitulation to Hawthorn in round two was a brutal reminder of the fragility of developing teams. The Demons were unable to arrest the mountainous Hawk momentum and were over-run. It was a performance that exposed the senior leadership lost when club stalwarts Cameron Bruce and James McDonald departed at the end of 2010. Coach Dean Bailey has an admirable concentration on the long-term build, and continues to pour games into 'second wave' prospects like Jordan Gysberts and Luke Tapscott. The Demons will improve as such talented players gradually become the team leaders, but in the short term, progress will appear sporadic, and the result of matches such as these will depend on more experienced teammates.

Dees tweak schedule in bid to end hoodoo
By AAP

MELBOURNE hopes a new travel schedule will help it end a worrying Perth hoodoo when the Demons confront West Coast at Patersons Stadium tonight.

The Demons have lost their past 10 encounters in Perth, with their last victory in round 11, 2004, against Fremantle. Only Jared Rivers, Brad Green and Aaron Davey remain from that side, but midfielder Nathan Jones said the new breed of Demons were desperate to start a new winning trend in Perth. In a bid to improve its record on the road, Melbourne has tweaked its travel schedule this season, arriving at all interstate games two days before the match instead of the customary one. The adjustment worked well in the Demons' 90-point win over Gold Coast in Brisbane in round four and Jones has his fingers crossed it will work against the Eagles. ''Because we're playing a night game, there's a little bit more time to kill,'' he said yesterday. ''But it worked for us in Brisbane. We went up two days early and the boys got a lot out of it.

Perseverance and adaptation finally pay off
By Rohan Connolly

MARK Jamar isn't getting too caught up in the business of celebrating his 100th AFL game tonight at Subiaco, but does concede it's a significant moment. Particularly when you consider how much water has gone under the bridge at Melbourne since he's been there. It's certainly been a milestone more than a little while in the making. Ten years, in fact, as Jamar, now 27, first bobbed up as a Demon on the rookie list in 2002. While Jamar was coping with too many injuries and the generally slower progression of a ruckman, Melbourne had more than its share of ups and downs - and so many players come and go that skipper Brad Green remains the only one Jamar started with who's still there.

It's a tribute to persistence. But it's also one of the best football rags-to-riches for some time. Only a couple of years ago, Jamar was still finding his way, and plagued by a series of injury setbacks that he couldn't even get on the ground. These days, he's an All-Australian ruckman, an opponent to be genuinely feared rather than exploited. ''I just kept plugging away, trying new things, working with new coaches we've had on board, and really doing all I could,'' he explains. ''When you're younger, you probably just worry about getting a game, but as you get older, you realise more that you have to actually perform when you do get a game, and to identify the areas you need to improve and channel all your efforts into that.''

The Australian

Dees face plain truth about travel
By Stephen Rielly

MELBOURNE last won in Perth when Luke Tapscott was 12 years old. The powerfully built half-back flanker, then a starry-eyed South Australian schoolboy, is now 19. The West Australian capital hasn't been hospitable to the Dees. Not since 2004 have they crossed the country and come back with the points, a run as barren as the Nullarbor they have flown over close to a dozen times since. More ominously still, they have not beaten West Coast, tonight's opponent, at Patersons Stadium since 2002. Of tonight's 22, only captain Brad Green, Aaron Davey and Jared Rivers know what it is like to come off the biggest ground in the game leg-weary and happy. To an extent, some of this has to do with Melbourne's decline in the mid-to-late part of the last decade. Through the late 2000s, it wasn't so much that the Dees didn't travel well. It was more that they didn't play well, period.