FIND out what’s being said about the club in the major daily newspapers on Sunday, August 14, 2011
The Age
What’s next?
By Martin Blake
ASIDE from preparing for the challenge of West Coast, one of Jack Watts's tasks during the week was to lecture some secondary school students about the dangers of cyber bullying. Melbourne's young centre half-forward, not too advanced in age from those he was addressing, did it gladly, and posed for plenty of photographs afterward. Watts recalled that while he was at Brighton Grammar, a close friend had suffered from the curse of the internet era. “The thing was, we were completely unaware until he stopped coming to school for a while,” he said. But there was an irony in the idea of the No. 1 draft pick from 2008 talking about bullying with the students in a corporate room at the MCG. Football people have wanted Watts to become some sort of bully on the football field for a while now. Plainly, he is not ready yet. But the signs are OK — and growing.
Green’s season of hell
By Michael Gleeson
THE dark had engulfed Kardinia Park, but the gloom had descended much earlier. Brad Green and Dean Bailey sat in the changing rooms beneath the stands.Everyone was gone but captain and coach. They sat and mulled over a pitiful day. Geelong had toyed with Melbourne as a kitten does a ball of wool and the Demons had lost by a breathtaking 186 points. There was little to say publicly of the day, but captain and coach fronted the media to say what they could. "We went back in and sat in the changing rooms just ourselves and talked and we didn't get out of there for a good hour or so afterwards. We spoke about a whole heap of things about the team and where we were at and what we could do and, yeah, we spoke about the fact Dean was out of contract and what the loss might mean," Brad Green said. "And then I had the long drive home alone and after a loss like that it is certainly a lonely drive back from Geelong. I [jokingly] said to my wife 'it is lucky they have put up those fences on the West Gate Bridge'." Note: Saturday, August 13