Melbourne's demonic start to the AFL season

When the 2019 AFL fixture was released, Demon devotees would have thought an undefeated start through the first three weeks was absolutely achievable.

Instead, Melbourne Football Club find themselves winless to start the season, in a significant spot of bother.

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This club had a lot to be excited about heading into the season, having not only broken an 11 year AFL Finals drought but also having stormed into the Preliminary Final weekend last September on the back off smashing both Geelong and Hawthorn at the MCG.

By the time they landed in Perth for their big game against the West Coast Eagles, Melbourne was arguably the best team in the competition.

However, September 2018 seems an awfully long time ago for Melbourne fans now.

On that afternoon the Demons were pulverized from the get-go, down by ten goals at half time and having not registered a single major themselves.

What’s most unfortunate, is that many of the ingredients which went into the failed Demon recipe are being used again this campaign.

When that kind of score is run up by a team en route to the AFL Premiership - against a club in their first Preliminary Final in 18 years - there exists a fatalistic angle among fans and pundits alike to dismiss the result as something of a wonderful redemption story finally running out of gas.

As though 'breaking through' was enough, and that simply making the ‘Final Four’ is a cause for celebration.

And that would be a terrible way to exonerate the woeful performance, however, it is a crutch too many at the Melbourne Football club seem happy to lean on.

The cold reality, however, is that the Demons were unacceptably terrible that afternoon, beaten comprehensively in every metric or statistic that has a direct correlation with effort.

And it’s these same areas where Melbourne are performing deplorably again early on in this young season.

Melbourne lost the 'metres gained' in that Preliminary Final beat-down by a massive 810 metres. Through the first three games of 2019, they are conceding - on average - 525 metres to their opponents each game, which places them third last in the league.

Watching Melbourne get scored on time and time again in transition against Essendon on Friday night was directly in concert with what was happening over the first two rounds. Creating scoring attempts against the Dees has been like a hot knife cutting through butter.

When they don’t have the football, Melbourne simply doesn’t seem bothered about chasing, or have either failed to understand - or chosen to ignore - the defensive structures put in place by their coaching staff.

The Demons are allowing their opponents an extra 50 uncontested possessions per game. Their opponents are taking a league-high nine running bounces a game which is a further blight on Melbourne’s seeming disinterest in applying pressure on the ball carrier. 

They rank dead last where 1%'er and pressure acts are concerned.

It’s at this point it should come as little surprise that even when Melbourne have the football they don’t seem to prioritise keeping it, with a disposal efficiency percentage of just 68.6%, a number only Carlton can claim to be worse in.

A lot has been said and written about the calibre of the Demon list, which also speaks to a pre-season optimism shared by the bookmakers.

And it’s true. 

Melbourne have a seemingly very good list at its disposal, however, the nature of this competition means they’re not alone in having a lot of ‘good’ players. The difference at this level - when talent is so evenly dispersed - continually boils down to effort, application and execution.  

And the Demons are failing terribly on all those counts at the moment.

At the conclusion of Round 5, 2018, Melbourne had won just two games, their percentage was below 90%, and they were fifth last on the AFL ladder.

Clearly, they were able to resurrect their season and turn their awful start into a relatively memorable year for the Melbourne Football Club.

This year’s Demons, however, simply won’t be returning to the AFL Finals if the effort is even remotely in the neighborhood of what they’ve produced through the first three rounds. 

Their clash against Sydney on Thursday night will go a fair way to showing us how Melbourne plan to tackle the rest of this season.

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