Hey! Eagles!

JOHN Worsfold stopped on the way into his post-match media conference to watch Black Cavia''s 25th win.

The West Coast coach had developed an appetite on Saturday for drubbings.

After being challenged early in their AFL match at the MCG, the Eagles kicked at the turn and thumped Melbourne by the length of the straight.

Their 94-point win featured an astonishing third term where they kicked a club-record 11.3.

That followed a first half where the Demons tested West Coast, who had lost their opening two games.

“As much as we haven't playing our best football over the last couple of weeks, we haven't been far off it,” Worsfold said.

“We showed some improvement in the way we played throughout the game.”

Ruckman Dean Cox starred and key forwards Jack Darling and Josh Kennedy kicked five goals apiece.

Kerr was subbed out for the last term and had ice on the knee, but said he was better for the run.

The star onballer was prominent when the game was in the balance during the second term.

“I haven't pulled up sore at all,” Kerr said.

“I was a little bit tired towards the end - I wasn't unhappy to be subbed.

“It was just precautionary.”

Kerr also paid credit to Melbourne, saying he had some sympathy for their plight.

“I don't think they're as bad a team as the media have said - they just haven't played four quarters of football,” he said.

“We knew at some stage in the game they were going to challenge us.”

Kerr knows what Melbourne are going through, given West Coast finished last only three years ago.

“I can see where they're going. I can see they're building a list,” he said.

“We went through a similar thing and it can turn around very quickly.

“They are playing good patches of football.

“If they weren't playing any good football at all, you'd probably be worried if you were Melbourne.”

Beau Waters hurt his calf in the warm-up and is in doubt for next Saturday's home game against Carlton.

Under-pressure Demons coach Mark Neeld saw plenty of encouragement in his side’s performance.

“I know it's a little win - it's a tiny little thing - but we were really proud of the response the players gave in the first half,” Neeld said.

“We're driving forward and that's where it is.

“There will be ups and downs.

“Our third quarter was clearly not good enough, but we showed today there's certainly enough to keep forging on and working hard and driving these boys as hard as we possibly can.”

There was severe fallout from the disaster against Essendon a week ago, with chief executive Cameron Schwab tapped on the shoulder and the team having a one-night camp at coastal Sorrento.

But by Friday the mood had changed to defiance, with a big group of fans turning up to training and co-captain Jack Grimes showing his faith by signing a three-year deal.

AAP

Rort that, South Sydney!

THE contenders threw down the challenge but Melbourne once again proved why it remains the NRL yardstick.

The Storm were resolute in their 17-10 victory over South Sydney in tonight's battle of the league's only two unbeaten teams.

Now only the Storm can boast a perfect record after six rounds, the premiers unbeaten since July last year after emerging three-tries-to-two winners in a match which lived-up to its blockbuster billing.

In their first visit to ANZ Stadium since securing the 2012 title, the Storm were directed brilliantly by halfback Cooper Cronk, who set up tries with both passes and kicks before icing the game with a field goal four minutes from fulltime.

The Rabbitohs only made two errors in the opening half but both were punished as Cronk first set up Kevin Proctor and then Mahe Fonua.

A minute later the Storm were out by 10 points when Gareth Widdop beat three defenders from 10 metres out.

Some Souths heads dropped but there was still life when Andrew Everingham dived over in the corner with eight minutes to go, but this is a Storm side that just knows how to win as Cronk extended their lead beyond a converted try.

Late drama threatened when Slater was sin-binned after a try-saver on Nathan Merritt with less than two minutes remaining, but time and a relentless Storm were against the Rabbitohs.

Despite the dominant start to the season, Storm skipper Cameron Smith warned his side had yet to hit top gear.

“Being 6-0 is a pretty good spot to be in leading into all this rep footy,” Smith said.

“The good thing about the way we're going about things is we're not satisfied with the way we're playing at the moment.

“Obviously we're very pleased with the results, but we've still got our best footy ahead of us.

“You can still feel out on the field that we're a little bit off the mark with the things we want to do.”

Storm coach Craig Bellamy said he anticipated having as many as 10 players involved in next weekend's representative fixtures.

The Rabbitohs are also likely to have a heavy representation, but coach Michael Maguire said the loss to the Storm highlighted the gulf between the the premiers and the rest.

“It came down to moments in the game which the Storm have been doing for a long, long time - they take their opportunities when they arise,” Maguire said.

“We're building as a group - each week we're taking lessons as we go.”

MELBOURNE 17 (M Fonua K Proctor G Widdop tries C Smith 2 goals C Cronk field goal)SOUTH SYDNEY 10 (A Everingham G Inglis tries A Reynolds goal) at ANZ Stadium. Referee: Shayne Hayne, Alan Shortall. Crowd: 32,671.

AAP

Margaret Thatcher is dead....

Police officer resigns over Margaret Thatcher tweets

Sergeant Jeremy Scott, who allegedly wrote he hoped Lady Thatcher's death was painful, quits Met force

Vikram Dodd
guardian.co.uk, Friday 12 April 2013 09.00 EDT

The police officer is said to have tweeted that Margaret Thatcher's death was '87 years too late'. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod

A police officer who allegedly tweeted that he hoped the death of Lady Thatcher was "painful and degrading" has resigned from the Metropolitan police.

Sergeant Jeremy Scott quit as the Met prepared to suspend him, a prelude to disciplinary action that was likely to lead to a severe sanction.

Scott's alleged comments, revealed by the Daily Mail, were posted on an account called@thinbluespeck which has now been deleted from the social messaging site.

Met chiefs branded his behaviour as unacceptable and moved quickly to limit the damage from the episode.

Scott is alleged to have greeted the demise of Thatcher, saying her death was "87 years too late" and writing that the world was a "better place".

Commander Allan Gibson said: "This officer's behaviour was completely unacceptable and it is right he has resigned.

"The officer chose to resign immediately prior to his suspension being put in place."

In a statement the Met added: "The officer concerned today submitted his resignation and it was accepted with immediate effect."

The Met said the officer served in an operational support role and had reported himself to the force's directorate of professional standards on Wednesday, after the story broke. Scott's alleged tweets were published by the Mail on Thursday evening.

In reaction to so-called death parties that greeted the former prime minister's death on Monday, Scott reportedly tweeted: "Marvellous stuff! Margaret Thatcher's death greeted with street parties in Brixton and Glasgow."

He attacked other politicians, allegedly posting: "Goodnight Twitter. The world is a better place today now that c*** is dead. Now for Cameron, May and Osborne."

The Scott case comes as figures show 38 claims have been substantiated against Met officers over their use of social media.

"We'll blow the others off the ground..."

CLAIMS and counter-claims about the validity of a lopsided penalty count last night couldn't cloud the fact the Storm can't be beaten by 60 minutes of good football.

Wests Tigers took to AAMI Park with what Storm coach Craig Bellamy said was a clear plan to slow his team down and for two-thirds of the game it worked.

But when the home side finally fired up, the visitors' game plan unravelled as the premiership favourites romped home.

After falling behind twice, Melbourne rallied to secure a club-record 13th straight win, 26-12.

BEST PICS: Storm v Tigers

And Bellamy hoped the 14-7 penalty count, which cruelled the Tigers in the final 20 minutes, would sound a warning to any rivals who thought they knew the way to bring down the Storm.

"The Tigers came here to play a slow game. The rucks were as slow as we've had all year," Bellamy said. "I didn't know the (penalty) count, but we got some in the second half. Perhaps we could have got some more.

"I know everyone is going to be saying that's how you beat the Melbourne Storm.

"If that's what they want to do we have to trust the referees that if they want to slow us down in the ruck and they do have hands on the ball, we are going to get penalties.

"We are not going to change."

The feeling was the reverse in the Tigers rooms, where coach Mick Potter hinted the "adversity" his team had to overcome wasn't as much about what Melbourne was doing with the football.

"The influence people have over other people to cause results, we just couldn't withstand that pressure," he said.

"There is a lot of influence from senior guys and I just don't think we get the rub of the green sometimes. Different people have different influences. It does effect what happens out there."

or all the bluster about penalties, Potter conceded his men had to learn to play for 80 minutes, having twice secured six-point leads on Melbourne.

In the first half especially the Tigers were more energetic and more efficient.

But that didn't result in any more than a single first-half try, which was matched by Melbourne just before half-time.

A blast from Bellamy at half-time didn't spark Melbourne straight away and again the Tigers scored first as they put the Storm under pressure with kicks.

While it took 20 minutes for Bellamy's men to fully respond, when they did they were hard to stop.

Down 12-6 and on the back foot with an hour gone, Melbourne seized on a penalty against former Storm boy Adam Blair.

The Tigers prop was put on report for pulling the leg of Kevin Proctor, and from the next play Melbourne worked their best move of the night for Mahe Fonua to score in the left corner.

Scores were level and from the restart Melbourne worked the ball to halfway before an unforgivable miss by Tigers winger James Tedesco allowed Storm centre Will Chambers into space.

All he had to do was to pass left and Cooper Cronk took the ball to score, and put Storm up for the first time.

Returning winger Sisa Waqa put the icing on the cake with a double-pump effort that confounded Tedesco, and the Fijian flyer raced 30m to put the game out of the Tigers' reach.

The Storm now play South Sydney in a top-of-the-table clash at ANZ Stadium on Saturday night.

MELBOURNE 26 (C Cronk M Fonua S Vave S Waqa tries C Smith 4 G Widdop goals) bt WESTS TIGERS 12 (B Marshall J Tedesco tries B Anasta 2 goals) at AAMI Park. Referee: Jason Robinson, Adam Gee. Crowd: 18,866.

Louisville: 2012-13 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Champions

ATLANTA -- Rick Pitino capped the greatest week of his life with the prize he wanted most of all.

Luke Hancock produced another huge game off the bench, scoring 22 points, and Pitino became the first coach to win national titles at two schools when relentless Louisville rallied from another 12-point deficit to beat Michigan 82-76 in the NCAA championship game Monday night.

This title came on the same day Pitino was announced as a member of the latest Hall of Fame class, a couple of days after his horse won a big race on the way to the Kentucky Derby, and a few more days after his son got the head coaching job at Minnesota.

This was the best feeling of all. The Cardinals (35-5) lived up to their billing as the top overall seed in the tournament, though they sure had to work for it.

Louisville trailed Wichita State by a dozen in the second half of the national semifinals, before rallying for a 72-68 victory. This time, they fell behind by 12 in the first half, though a stunning spurt at the end of the period wiped out the entire deficit.

For that, they can thank Hancock, named the most outstanding player. He came off the bench to hit four straight 3-pointers after Michigan got a boost from an even more unlikely player, freshman Spike Albrecht. He, too, made four straight from beyond the arc, blowing by his career high before the break with 17 points. Coming in, Albrecht was averaging 1.8 points a game and had not scored more than seven all season.

While Albrecht didn't do much in the second half, Hancock finished what he started for Louisville. He buried another 3 from the corner with 3:20 remaining to give the Cardinals their biggest lead, 76-66. Michigan wouldn't go away, but Hancock wrapped it up by making two free throws with 29 seconds left.

While Pitino shrugged off any attempt to make this about him, there was no doubt the Cardinals wanted to win a national title for someone else -- injured guard Kevin Ware.

Watching again from his seat at the end of the Louisville bench, his injured right led propped up on a chair, Ware smiled and slapped hands with his teammates as they celebrated in the closing seconds, the victory coming just 30 miles from where he played his high school ball.

Any pain he was feeling from that gruesome injury in the regional final, when he landed awkwardly, snapped his leg and was left writhing on the floor with the bone sticking through the skin, was long gone as he hobbled gingerly onto the court with the aid of crutches, backing in a sea of confetti and streamers.

March Madness 2013: Louisville vs. Michigan

ATLANTA -- Russ Smith looked at the scoreboard, then at the clock, then over at the bench.

Louisville needed a run, but he had no idea where it was going to come from. The starters were struggling, the fouls were piling up and the only lift injured Kevin Ware could give the top-seeded Cardinals was an emotional one.

"It was like, 'Man,'" Smith said. "I was actually waiting for our run. And it happened. Luke exploded. That was actually what I was waiting for. Then Chane exploded. Then Peyton made a big layup. Then Tim Henderson. It just kept going and going."

And Louisville rode it all the way to the title game.

Luke Hancock scored 20 points off the bench, Henderson sparked a second-half rally with a pair of monster 3s, and Louisville reminded everyone it can grind it out, too, advancing to the NCAA title game after escaping with a 72-68 victory over Wichita State on Saturday night.

Louisville will play Michigan for the national title Monday night. It will be the Cardinals' first trip to the national championship game since 1986, when they won it all.

The Cardinals (34-5) have had this game in their sights since losing to Kentucky in last year's Final Four, and they got added motivation after Ware's tibia snapped during last weekend's Midwest Regional final, the bone poking through the skin.

Ware was on his feet when the final buzzer sounded, grinning and throwing his arms into the air.

"We've got to bring our best game," Ware said. "It's the last game of the season. If we lose, everything we've worked for just goes down the drain. That's the last thing we want right now."

Especially after such a close call against the ninth-seeded Shockers (30-9), who nearly pulled off their biggest upset of all.

Wichita State had knocked off No. 1 seed Gonzaga and No. 2 Ohio State on its way to its first Final Four since 1965, and the Shockers had a 12-point lead on Louisville with 13:35 to play. It was the largest deficit all tournament for the Cardinals, who seemed lost after the emotional week following Ware's gruesome injury.

But Louisville had come back to win five games after trailing by nine points or more already this year, including rallying from a 16-point deficit in the title game at the Big East tournament. Even coach Rick Pitino's horse, Goldencents, had to rally to win the Santa Anita Derby, and a spot in the Kentucky Derby, on Saturday.

This rally trumped them all.

"We just played super hard," said Smith, who led the Cardinals with 21 points. "Nobody wanted to go home."

Henderson, the walk-on who was forced into increased playing time because of Ware's injury, made those back-to-back 3s to spark a 21-8 run. While Hancock and Behanan were knocking down shots, Smith and Peyton Siva were turning up the heat on the Shockers, forcing them into seven turnovers in the final seven minutes after they'd gone more than 26 minutes without one.

The first came when Siva darted in to strip the ball away from Carl Hall. Siva fed Hancock, who drilled a 3 that gave Louisville a 56-55 lead, its first since the end of the first half.

"Down the stretch, we were just loose with the ball, we just didn't take care of it, pretty much," said Wichita State's Malcolm Armstead, who had just two points on 1-of-10 shooting. "I can't give you an explanation -- it just happened."

Cleanthony Early would give the Shockers one more lead, converting a three-point play. But Siva scored and then Smith stole the ball and took it in for an easy layup that gave Louisville a 60-58 lead with 4:47 left. Louisville fans erupted, and even Ware was on his feet, throwing up his arms and clapping. The Cardinals extended the lead to 65-60 on a tip-in of a Smith miss and another 3 by Hancock.

Wichita State had one last chance, pulling within 68-66 on Early's tip in with 22 seconds left. But the Shockers were forced to foul, and Smith and Hancock made their free throws to seal the victory.

As the final buzzer sounded, Chane Behanan tossed the ball high into the air and Henderson and Hancock did a flying shoulder bump at midcourt.

"It's just a mix of emotions, of feelings. It hurts to have to lose and be the end of the season," said Early, who led the Shockers with 24 points. "But these guys fought to the end, and we had a great season and keep our heads high and know the grind doesn't stop."

The Cardinals were the overall No. 1 seed in the tournament, and they steamrolled their way through their first four games, winning by an average of almost 22 points. They limited opponents to 59 points and 42 percent shooting while harassing them into almost 18 turnovers a game, setting an NCAA tourney record with 20 steals against North Carolina A&T.

The presence of Ware was supposed to provide even more motivation for Louisville. He urged his teammates to "just go win the game" before being wheeled off the court on a stretcher last weekend. Three days later, he joined the Cardinals as they made the trip to the Final Four in Atlanta, Ware's hometown.

The Cardinals have modified their warm-up T-shirts in Ware's honor -- they now read "Ri5e to the Occasion," with Ware's No. 5 on the back. He had a seat at the end of the bench, his right leg propped up on towels, and every one of the starters went to shake his hand after being introduced.

But whether it was the roller-coaster of the last week, the expectations or just Wichita State, the Cardinals seemed out of sorts much of the night. Wayne Blackshear and Gorgui Dieng went scoreless, and Siva was just 1-of-9.

"There's a reason our starters played poorly, because Wichita State is that good," Pitino said

Wichita State may not have the names or pedigree of a Louisville, Syracuse or Michigan. But what the Shockers lacked in star power they more than made up for in hustle and heart. This, after all, was a team with one player (Carl Hall) who salvaged his career after working in a light bulb factory and two more (Armstead and Ron Baker) who paid their own ways in their first years.

The Shockers barely seemed to notice that vaunted Louisville press until the final minutes of the game. They didn't rush shots, working it around until they got a look they liked -- Louisville was called for more than one foul late in the shot clock, including one on Smith with only a second left -- and they were relentless on the backboards.

And that "play angry" defense? Now the Cardinals have an idea of how their opponents have felt. Wichita State bottled Louisville up inside, never letting Gorgui Dieng be a factor, and the Cardinals were continually forced to put up awkward and bad shots from outside.

"We were kind of waiting to make our run," Hancock said. "Obviously you're a little concerned when you're down by 12 in the second half. We just had to turn up our intensity, maybe gamble a little more."

Louisville was struggling so badly that Ware actually got out of his seat at one point, hobbling over to the Louisville huddle.

"He just wanted to tell us that we needed to pick it up," Siva said. "We know how much it would mean for him to be out there. He just tried to give us whatever we needed, the extra motivation, the extra boost to get over the hump. That's what he did."

The Shockers have had trouble hanging onto leads, and this game was no different. After Henderson's 3s, the Cardinals were off and running, all the way to the last game of the season.

"Coach Pitino kept telling us to go out there and have fun and keep playing and we were going to win. Stop hanging our heads," Siva said.

"That's what we did."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

ATLANTA -- Michigan is more than just five fabulous players.

No, this is quite a team -- all the way down the roster.

Fearlessly attacking Syracuse's suffocating zone in the first half, getting big contributions off the bench, and hanging on for dear life at the end, the Wolverines advanced to the national championship game with a 61-56 victory over the Orange in the Final Four on Saturday night.

So put away those comparisons to the Fab Five.

This group of young stars is determined to leave its own legacy.

"We've been a team all year," said coach John Beilein, whose Wolverines were playing in the Final Four for the first time since 1993, when the Fab Five lost for the second straight time in the national title game. "It was great."

Michigan (31-7) will be going for its first national title since 1989 when it faces Louisville on Monday at the Georgia Dome. Syracuse (30-10) failed to complete an all-Big East final in the fabled league's last season before a major overhaul.

Louisville was established as a 4 1/2-point title game favorite.

Don't expect that to bother the brash young Wolverines a bit. They showed they could win even when their best weapon, Associated Press player of the year Trey Burke, was having a really ugly night.

He scored just seven points on 1-of-8 shooting.

"We know Trey is our leader, and sometimes he's not going to have a game like he's had all season," said Tim Hardaway Jr., who led Michigan with 13 points. "That's when our team stepped up."

Trailing 58-56, the Orange had a chance to force overtime. But Brandon Triche was called for a foul when Jordan Morgan stepped in to take the charge with 19.2 seconds left.

"Jordan is our best charge-taker," Beilein said. "He stood in there and took a good one."

After Jon Horford made only one of two free throws, Syracuse called timeout and set up a play. Curiously, the Orange didn't attempt a tying 3-pointer. Instead, Trevor Cooney drove the lane looking to put up an easier shot. But the ball was swatted away, Michigan saved it from going out of bounds and Morgan wound up taking a long pass the other way.

He threw down a thunderous slam with just over a second remaining to cap the triumph.

Triche blamed himself for driving the ball recklessly into the lane when Syracuse had a chance to tie it.

"I was just trying to make a play for the team," he said. "I probably should have made a better decision, probably should have pulled up for the jump shot. ... I did see him, but I figured, I was already in the air jumping."

With Burke struggling to get open looks and misfiring even when he did, Michigan got an unexpected contribution off the bench from freshmen Caris LeVert and Spike Albrecht.

LeVert scored eight points and Albrecht chipped in with six -- all of them crucial after the Wolverines went cold in the second half and struggled to put away the Orange.

"We had a lot of guys in there," Beilein said. "You never know who the outlier is, you never know who's going to come in and get that done."

Of course, there's nothing unusual about Michigan getting big performances from first-year players. This team starts three freshmen -- Glenn Robinson III, Mitch McGary and Nik Stauskas -- which, of course, rekindles memories of the great Fab Five teams.

These kids want nothing to do with the comparisons, saying they haven't done nearly enough to be mentioned in the same breath with a team that changed the face of college basketball.

Well, if the Wolverines can win their next game, they'll accomplish something that eluded the Fab Five: a national title.

Syracuse was looking to give 68-year-old Jim Boeheim another title, a decade after the Orange won it all in their last trip to the Final Four. Boeheim has no plans to retire, but his quest for a championship is on hold for another year.

"I told you I'm not going to answer that question unless you ask that of every coach," Boeheim snapped at a reporter when asked about his future. "I never indicated at any time that I'm not coming back."

Michigan won this game in the opening 20 minutes, doing exactly what it needed to do against Syracuse's suffocating 2/3 zone: knock down open 3s, crash the boards, and work the ball inside and out with crisp, rapid-fire passes.

"I thought we got off to a really bad start defensively in the first half," Boeheim said. "We just didn't have the movement that we've had, and Michigan took advantage of it. Our offense was not good in the first half or the second half. Second half, we got our defense going a lot better, and got back in the game in spite of our offense."

When Syracuse started extending its perimeter defense, looking to cut off the long-range shots, Michigan created an open look late in the half with a nifty bit of ball movement. Robinson -- like Hardaway, the son of a former NBA star -- took a pass, whipped it ball to LeVert, who dribbled a couple of times and fed the ball back to Robinson for an open 15-footer.

Nothing but net.

The Wolverines began to pull away from Syracuse even without much of a contribution from Burke. He finally scored his first points with just under a minute remaining in the first half, swishing a 3 from nearly the same spot on the court where he made the long shot that stunned top-seeded Kansas.

It would be Burke's only basket of the night.

"At the end of the day, it wasn't offense," he said. "A lot of us didn't have good shooting nights, but it was defense that allowed us to advance."

Burke came up huge in the South Regional, leading Michigan back from 14 points down with less than 7 minutes remaining against Kansas. He forced overtime with a long 3-pointer at the end of regulation, and Wolverines finished off the 87-85 upset in overtime.

Syracuse, meanwhile, had taken its trademark defense to new levels of stinginess in the NCAA tournament.

The Orange arrived in Atlanta having surrendered a paltry 45.75 points over four games, holding Montana (34), top-seeded Indiana (50) and Marquette (39) to their lowest scoring totals of the season. Overall, Syracuse's tournament opponents had combined to shoot just 28.9 percent from field (61 of 211) and 15.4 percent from 3-point range (14 of 91).

Syracuse was brimming with confidence heading into the Final Four, believing its zone could shut down the Wolverines and its more experienced lineup would take advantage of Michigan's youth.

But the Wolverines had more points by halftime than Montana, and nearly as many as Marquette managed in the regional final. Even though Hardaway missed a trey just before the buzzer sounded, Michigan sprinted off the court with a commanding 36-25 lead.

Syracuse didn't have enough offensive firepower to come all the way back, shooting just 42 percent (23 of 55).

C.J. Fair scored 22 points, doing his best to rally the Orange all by himself. But Triche, with 11 points, was the only other Syracuse player in double figures.

With Michigan's starters also struggling, the guys off the bench picked up the slack.

LeVert, who seemed headed for a redshirt early in the season and was known more for defense than offense, made a couple of 3-pointers in the opening half. He had connected just 11 times from that range coming into the Final Four.

Albrecht was another surprise. He, too, buried a couple of shots beyond the arc -- one of them going through from the corner while he was sliding on his backside toward the Syracuse bench. Coming into Atlanta, he had made only a dozen 3-pointers the entire season.

There's still another game to go.

"It's going to be a great matchup," said McGary, one of those Michigan freshmen. "They're a team like Syracuse that also plays in Big East and they remind me of VCU the way they trap and can turn over the ball, so it should be a great matchup."

The Wolverines routed VCU 78-53 in the second round of the tournament.

If they can win one more time, they'll have bragging rights on the Fab Five.

---

Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

Poor, poor Ririchiyo-sama

"I can't believe what I'm seeing.

My team sucks!"

Melbourne are under pressure again after another uncompetitive performance in a 148-point hammering by Essendon at the MCG.

And Melbourne AFL supporters thought they were bad last week.

For a second successive match, the Demons were uncompetitive and simply appalling in a 148-point hammering by Essendon at the MCG on Saturday night.

Essendon forward Stewart Crameri booted six goals, ruckman Tom Bellchambers four and midfielders Dyson Heppell and Jobe Watson were outstanding in the 28.16 (184) to 5.6 (36) rout.

As they did in their 79-point season-opening loss to Port Adelaide the previous week, the Demons fell apart completely in the second half.

But this time they were not competitive at any stage, trailing by 55 points at halftime and beaten in every key aspect of the game - especially deficient in their tackling and clearance work.

Coach Mark Neeld is certain to be under further pressure this week as the Demons attempt to make sense of a season in which they believed they would improve, but clearly haven't.

In fact, they may well have regressed.

Any hope Melbourne would fire up after their humiliation the previous week was laid to rest 15 minutes into the match.

The Demons had no answers as Heppell, Watson and David Zaharakis tore them apart in midfield - Heppell having 23 touches to halftime and doing what he liked.

But it was 14 unanswered goals from early in the third term to game's end which showed the depths the Dees are plumbing - the Bombers able to move the ball to goal with embarrassing ease.

Melbourne managed just 1.1 for the second half, and Essendon had 50 more inside-50s for the match.

Masked by the Dees' shambolic efforts was an excellent performance from Essendon - starting the year with a second successive victory to show they have put aside their tumultuous off-season.

They had winners all over the field, nine multiple goalkickers, and their tackle count nearly doubled that of the Demons.

Watson finished with 39 possessions and three goals, while Heppell had 36 touches and two goals.

Defender James Frawley was easily Melbourne's best.

Jack Watts, Melbourne's No.1 draft pick a few seasons ago, was subbed off midway through the third quarter after another ineffective performance.

Essendon took an injury concern away from the match, with Crameri barely playing in the final quarter because of what appeared a knee injury.