OPENING day of the Loddon Valley football season, and ‘Mello’ was anything but mellow.
Bears Lagoon Serpentine’s combative full-forward Josh Mellington kicked off his year with a goal off the ground early in the first quarter, and then a protracted jumper-punch wrestling match with Bridgewater’s Jack Symons.
After missing the second half of 2024 with a serious hamstring injury, Mellington was in the mood for a contest.
Over the course of the game the senior assistant coach tangled verbally with umpires, teammates, his bench and Bridgewater fans.
Interspersed with all the argy-bargy were eight goals – some from strong chest marks, some from free kicks, and almost all snapped left-foot around the body.
Mellington, as is his want, didn’t stray beyond the 50m arc, and rarely departed far from the goal square.
He could see enough, though, to complain loudly to the bench about a teammate kicking on the wrong foot, to which came the plaintive reply, “It’s not my fault!”
By the second quarter he was lying on the grass stretching his right hamstring and starting to limp. In the third term, when the Bears took control, he kicked five goals from a mix of frees and marks, but also lost focus, complaining vociferously to the umpire when his opponent wasn’t penalised in a marking contest.
Play continued around him as he berated the umpire, leading a Bears official standing near the Loddon Herald to suggest, albeit quietly to a colleague, that Mellington should get on with the game.
He leant on the goal post and talked to the goal umpire as play went on, and he got a pat on the back from a field umpire after another animated discussion.
Amusingly, he tried to pinch a free kick from a teammate about 30m from goal, who declined his offer, had the shot and missed, to Mellington’s chagrin.
At three-quarter time, the former Fremantle player lay on the turf having his hamstring worked on, and in the final term he could barely raise a gallop.
Midway through the last quarter he slowly limped towards the bench, leaving the 50m area for the first time, and signalled to the runner that his day was over.
Mellington’s departure from the field was accompanied by some warm advice from cheerful Mean Machine fans, and soon his troublesome hamstring was heavily iced. The combustible Mellington is the league’s most watchable and divisive player – for all the right and wrong reasons