I am not a Melbourne supporter, but I have seen a lot more of their games than would most impartial footy followers. I like to watch games involving players that make me happy. Blokes like Gary Ablett, Steve Johnson, Jonathon Brown and Jimmy Bartel, for reasons entirely different in each case, make me want to turn on my TV and watch them do their thing.
In the case of Melbourne, I’ve been tuning in on a ridiculously consistent basis, often when the game being played at the same time on the other channel was of a much higher quality, in order to watch Jeremy Howe. Like most people, I love the specky, and no one has been doing it more regularly, spectacularly and with the same nonchalant ease as the new Jezza.
As a by-product of my desire to chase the art of the specky, I have seen a heap of horrible, terrible, miserable footy. The Dees, it must be said, haven’t been good. I’m a Richmond supporter, so I know bad footy when I see it, and the Dees have been coughing it up like they’ve been smoking 40 a day for 30 years.