“Yeah, it could be the last game for a few of the boys,” Bell said after Melbourne’s 78-point loss to Port Adelaide. “You never know what’s going to happen at the end of the year when you’re still 16th; there’s going to be boys get cut. Everyone will be playing like it’s their career on the line.
“It’s going to be a tough game to win, but we’re going to give it everything.”
Singled out after the Power game for praise by coach Dean Bailey, Bell, 23, has been part of a young Melbourne defence which has in most cases held up reasonably well in the face of sustained pressure throughout 2008.
Matthew Warnock, Colin Garland and more recently Stefan Martin have stood up, and at 192, 191 and 198 centimetres respectively have shown they just might turn into the key position players the Demons have been craving.
“The backline has been reasonably solid given the amount of ball that’s been coming down,” Bell said. “That’s been the case most of the year. Not so much myself, but those boys have really stood up.
“Matty and Garlo have been good, and Stef has been a revelation since he’s been in the side. So there’s a bright future there. And Matty Whelan has been awesome since he’s been back.”
Fielding 11 players yesterday with fewer than 50 games experience, the Demons copped a hammering from a Port Adelaide side which has itself suffered a horror season and was sitting in 14th place prior to the match.
Recruited from SANFL club Glenelg with pick 14 in the 2002 National Draft, Bell has now played 62 games since debuting in 2004 - and Melbourne has not experienced a win in Bell’s home town during that time.
“It would be nice to have a win in front of the family,” he said.
“(But) it was massively disappointing. Bails put it down as one of our worst losses of the year, going back to even the Bulldogs and Hawthorn games at the start of the year (104 and 95 point losses). We just didn’t have enough blokes competing and it almost felt like we’d lost it after the first 10 minutes, so it wasn’t good.
“It’s hard to explain. You can make all the excuses you want – you can say we’re a young side and we’re travelling, but in the end we just didn’t come to play. That’s not good enough, it’s part of why we’re sitting last on the ladder, and it’s one of many things we’ve got to improve on.
“But I don’t want to make any excuses because it was just a terrible game (by us).”
