Round 10, 2000
Melbourne vs Brisbane Lions
Monday 15 May
Venue: Docklands
Attendance: 24,908
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Final | |
| Melbourne | 3.3 | 8.5 | 10.8 | 15.12.102 |
| Brisbane Lions | 6.4 | 8.9 | 8.15 | 11.18.84 |
Melbourne win by 18 points
Goalkickers: Jeff Farmer 3, Jeff White 3, Cameron Bruce 2, Andrew Leoncelli 2, Adem Yze 2, Anthony McDonald 1, James McDonald 1, Russell Robertson 1
Brownlow Votes:
3 - Andrew Leoncelli
2 - David Neitz
Best and Fairest
36 - David Neitz
29 - Andrew Leoncelli
27 - Adem Yze
19.5 - Stephen Powell
15 - Troy Simmonds
Milestones:
Nil
Monday night football returned to Docklands with Melbourne's first visit to the stadium since their financially disasterous fixture against West Coast, and the Demons consolidated their place in the top eight with a win over the Lions. In the league's original draw the game was meant to be played at Princes Park the previous day, but a change of fixture saw it moved to the Monday night. Despite the crowd of nearly 25,000 the Demons lost $67,700 for playing the match at Colonial Stadium. They claimed that the same game at the MCG would have earned them a profit of at least $45,000.
The Demons started brightly with Jeff White kicking two goals early, matched up against nine centimetre shorter namesake Darryl, before Brisbane clicked into gear and took a comfortable lead into the first break. They should have kicked Melbourne out of the match when they held a 27 point lead in the second quarter but booted 11 behinds in a row while at the same time the Demons, perhaps spurred by a furious blast from Neale Daniher, were piling on eight straight goals.
In the last quarter the Demons kicked the first two goals of the term and looked set to run over the top of the Lions, but Brisbane got their act back together again and started kicking straight again to hit the front. Rookie Cameron Bruce - having not had a touch in the first three quarters - booted two goals to put Melbourne back in front and they held on to win in their tenth straight last quarter victory of the year.
Best were Leoncelli, Neitz and Yze. Jeff White was forced to ruck most of the game solo after Troy Simmonds was injured, and Steven Febey hurt his ankle.
Daniher said "If we keep our composure and realise we're just a blue-collar team with a serious work ethic. If we start to think we're top four, we'll end up down the bottom four again."
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Herald Sun - 16/05/2000
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