Under Paul Roos, these Demons are different

Paul Roos

The downtrodden supporters relished Melbourne's 14-point NAB Challenge victory over Richmond, with livewire draftee Jay Kennedy-Harris starring at Etihad Stadium on Friday night.

It was far from perfect, but the Demons showed they're fair dinkum. They ran hard both offensively and defensively, put their heads over the ball, stuck to a game plan and moved the ball with patience.

Of course, the match had its February fumbles too.

The most remarkable was Jake Spencer's kick from the last line of the defence, which travelled less than 10 meters and straight to Tyrone Vickery, resulting in a goal.

Then in the dying minutes Richmond's David Astbury cramped in the thigh while attempting to kick on the wing, delivering the ball to Kennedy-Harris who converted the blunder into the game's decisive goal.

"At least what we showed is that we're not going to be reliant on Nathan Jones all the time, there's not as much pressure on (Jack) Trengove and Wattsy (Jack Watts), even though he didn't play tonight," Roos said.

"The intent was there and the guys were just excited to get out there and play. And that showed.

"You saw Bernie Vince, Daniel Cross, Dom Tyson and Viv Michie, those guys had really good games, so that helps the existing midfielders and takes pressure off them."

With Richmond comparatively uninterested in the result, Melbourne cannot afford to give the win too much credence.

But a genuine cause for excitement was the emergence of goalsneak Kennedy-Harris.

The 18-year-old indigenous draftee impressed with three last-quarter goals, all from crumbing efforts.


Jay Kennedy-Harris could become a regular in Melbourne's attack. Photo: Michael Dodge (Getty)

"He's exciting and has done everything right. I tend to want to keep those guys out of the fray a bit. But he certainly got in on his merits," Roos said.

"Had a few others been available he probably wouldn't play. Is he in the best 22, time will tell. I really like the way he goes about it. He's a really good kid, he trains hard and has good habits. If you've got good habits and you work hard, good things happen."

At the other end of the ground, Roos was impressed with rookie defender Alexis Goergiou – a mature-aged recruit who matched up against Richmond's tall forwards.

"He's an experiment guy. He's come from the SANFL and he's played a lot of footy over there. I thought he looked really good.

"He certainly didn't look at of place in that back six. We lost nothing we he came on the field."


First gamer Alexis Georgiou, 24, was used in the backline. Photo: Michael Dodge (Getty)

While Roos downplayed the significance of the win, he acknowledged it was a confidence booster for players still learning his style.

"Richmond are a lot better team than that – they're just at a different stage. It's the NAB Cup, they're not really trying to stop us from doing much and we are not trying to stop them," Roos said.

"The win's irrelevant, but perhaps for a group that has been pretty fragile, it gives them a bit of confidence. So it was probably important that we hung on in the end. It was probably more important for us more than the Tigers, to be honest.

"We all know it's a very different game to Round 1 so we have a lot of work to do."

Melbourne will hold an intra-club match next week, with tall forwards Jesse Hogan and Chris Dawes, as well as ruckman Max Gawn, expected to play ahead of the next official match against Collingwood in Alice Springs in a fortnight.

"We will have a bigger team going into Alice, touch wood. In a sense, this result takes a little bit of the pressure off them having to come back but you would still like to have your bigs down there to give you a different way of moving the ball forward," Roos said.

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