943, 375, 563, 5, 40 – seemingly random numbers – numbers of little significance.  However 40 is an important number in Jewish, Christian and Islamic religion, 5 and 563 are both prime numbers, 9 carat gold is 375 parts per hundred gold and 943 is used to denote SAR943 – a rapamycin analogue used in the treatment of brain tumours – now come on it was the best I could come up with!

But besides all this, these numbers have a huge significance to me as the Mighty Demons have played 943 games since I started following them, they have won 375 of these games, losing 563 and drawing 5 for a (sadly) win percentage of 40%.  Why am I mentioning this?  Because of any of the 563 losses I have to say last weeks’ loss left me with more hope for the future than any other I can remember.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am hardly about to start writing that I am now happy with ‘honourable losses’ but the Demon worshipping bad karma certainly came back to bite us on Saturday as injuries again cruelly robbed the Dees of a win against the in form Dockers.  I know the club have come out and said there was no excuse, and they are right but losing Jamar early, then sadly Bennell and needing Grimes to courageously play on with a crook ankle, was a horrible blow.

What has got me enthused about the future of our beloved club is the elements of our future game plan becoming more and more successful and obvious every week and the blossoming of our young kids as they gain more confidence and experience as the season goes on.  We had some serious teething problems early in the year that now appear to be ironed out.  You can certainly be confident with the fact that if we had the full compliment of our senior list available we would definitely not be 3rd last on the table. There are happy times ahead.

And there were happy times on the weekend only to be snuffed out as our boys were steamrolled in the last quarter on the back of the Demons having more walking wounded than combatants in The Battle of the Somme.  Our first quarter was undoubtedly our best quarter for the year – 20 inside 50s (when we have only been averaging a total of 45 per game this year), winning the possession count and kicking six goals, is a barometer of things to come.  We had some good performances on the back of the loss and here are a few that deserve mentioning.

• Colin Sylvia led our possession count with 23 and kicked a goal and is showing why he is one of the most important players on our list.
• In a remarkable recovery from a serious lung injury, Tom McDonald quickly slotted back into his pre – injury form with 17 touches in another solid game from the young Demon.
• Stefan Martin took full advantage of the Big Russian’s misfortune playing an admirable game against Griffin with 19 disposals, 26 hit outs and 2 goals and reminding Demon fans just what we have missed this year with Stef out through injury.
• Jack Grimes battled well through injury notching up 22 possessions, as did Joel Macdonald in arguably his best game for the year.
• A welcome return to the team from our ex skipper Brad Green with 3 goals and I liked the way Daniel Nicholson worked hard all day – 18 disposals his reward.
• Solid efforts also by our other co-captain Jack Trengove and Nathan Jones and it was great to see James Strauss running around again (albeit at the misfortune of Luke Tapscott and Mark Jamar).  A special final mention to Tom Couch who made his long awaited debut and picking up 13 touches and laying 9 tackles showed just why the Demons’ brains trust were so keen on him.  I for one am looking forward to seeing many more games from him in red and blue in the years to come.

This week we are up in Darwin against the Power.  We remarkably are undefeated up the Top End and on Saturday night I am 100% sure the boys will be out to keep it that way!

Enjoy the weekend and Go Dees!

Comments are closed.

Sign up to our newsletter: