{"id":131769,"date":"2021-09-20T09:46:40","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T09:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=131769"},"modified":"2021-09-20T12:59:08","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T12:59:08","slug":"veteran-duo-thought-dees-would-be-pretty-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=131769","title":{"rendered":"Veteran duo thought Dees would be 'pretty poor'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melbourne<\/a> forward Tom McDonald has admitted he thought the team would be "pretty poor" this season after he was shown the door during the off-season last year.<\/p>\n

After being central to Melbourne's preliminary final appearance in 2018 with 53 goals, McDonald had fallen out of favour and was encouraged to look around, but remained at Melbourne after there were no suitors. <\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/strong>'Outrageously bad' tackle slammed as rugby star faces 'very very lengthy' ban<\/a><\/p>\n

The 29-year-old's playing time looked set to be diminished further when the team added Kangaroos spearhead Ben Brown<\/a> during last year's trade period. <\/p>\n

However, McDonald rebounded from a tumultuous off-season in tremendous fashion, playing 22 games and kicking 31 goals, his best return since 2018, while Brown has overcome an injury-interrupted start to kick 22 goals in 12 games. <\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/p>\n

On the verge of their first career grand finals, McDonald said both he and his teammate are winning regardless of Saturday's result.<\/p>\n

"Looking elsewhere no one wanted me," he told 9News Melbourne. "To be in that position was disappointing and you think, 'Geez, could this be it after this year?'."<\/p>\n

"North Melbourne essentially pushed [Brown] out the door as well. We thought Melbourne were going to be pretty poor, we didn't think Melbourne were going to be at this level. <\/p>\n

"To both be here playing in a grand final side, regardless of whether we win or lose, I think we're both winning on a personal level there."<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/em>For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melbourne forward Tom McDonald has admitted he thought the team would be "pretty poor" this season after he was shown the door during the off-season […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131769"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131771,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131769\/revisions\/131771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}