Finding mental strength to rescue season is Melbourne’s greatest challenge, writes Matthew Lloyd
IT IS finals or bust for Melbourne in 2018 after going from a likely top-four team to a team in disarray over the past month and building greater mental resolve remains the Demons’ greatest challenge, writes MATTHEW LLOYD.
Matthew Lloyd
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IT IS finals or bust for Melbourne in 2018 after going from a likely top-four team to a team in disarray over the past month.
This is more than just about the loss of Jake Lever, this is about a playing group which has been mentally weak and fragile for far too long when big moments have arisen.
The Demons have simply fallen apart since they were embarrassed by Collingwood in the Queen’s Birthday match in Round 12.
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How could Melbourne have gone from a team that conceded 62 points per game on average from Rounds 6-11 to a team that has leaked 109 points a game in its last three losses - to
Collingwood, Port Adelaide and St Kilda. It has to be mental.
The Port Adelaide performance wasn’t a bad one, they just didn’t use the ball well going inside 50m but the Collingwood and St Kilda losses were extremely poor.
St Kilda’s midfield has lacked both leg speed and slick ball movement all year, yet they had the ability and confidence to expose Melbourne in both of those areas last Sunday.
St Kilda moved the ball with ease from defence to attack with the likes of Jack Steven, Jade Gresham, Jack Sinclair and Shane Savage all breaking the lines with run and carry and in the process kicking six goals between them.
The Demons have become the easiest side to score against in the past three weeks when the ball exits their forward 50m and they have also conceded the most points from turnovers due to their inability to hit a target.
The blame from the outside has unfairly fallen on to the shoulders of veterans Bernie Vince and Jordan Lewis, both who lack leg speed but not football smarts. The two of them are now most likely playing for the one spot in Melbourne’s defence.
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Vince is currently in the VFL and Lewis well down on form, but it is the Melbourne midfield that needs to take a good hard look at themselves, not just the ageing defenders.
Melbourne just have too many of the same type of player in their midfield.
The Demons have five inside ball hunters who lack outside speed, spread and at times, class.
At the moment, you can also add a lack of defensive pressure to their deficiencies.
Jack Viney, Clayton Oliver, Nathan Jones, Angus Brayshaw and Dom Tyson are all quality players who only know one way. Their game is based around hardness at the contest that
coach Simon Goodwin continually speaks of in post-match press conferences about what he wants his side to be known and respected for.
The problem for Melbourne is that they all hunt the footy and if they are matched in that area like they have been of late, the opposition has a far better representation of players on the outskirts of the contest.
Once the ball has been released to the outside, the Melbourne players were given windburn in transition by both Collingwood and St Kilda.
The Melbourne defence has looked extremely vulnerable ever since Lever ruptured his ACL in Round 11 but no side with top four aspirations should ever fall apart like Melbourne has, off the back of one injury.
Goodwin is an innovative coach but it’s time he went back to some of the basics of football and settled his team down.
The Melbourne defence needs to start defending an opponent rather than zoning an area of the ground as the lack of accountability for some of the St Kilda forward last week was extraordinary.
At one stage, Melbourne had 10 players inside their defensive arc when Jake Carlisle kicked the ball inside 50m and Tim Membrey still took an uncontested mark on the lead.
Jordan Lewis was the closest player to him but where was Oscar McDonald or one of the other key defenders at Melbourne with an arm across Membrey’s chest?
Every forward in any level of football loves an easy run at the ball like that.
It is also time Christian Petracca became the player Melbourne hoped he would be when he was drafted with pick No.2.
Petracca needs to be the Demons’ point of difference with bursts through the midfield, just as Jade Gresham was for St Kilda last week, kicking four goals.
Petracca has the burst speed that the rest of his teammates don’t but does he have the workrate to become the consistent player he should be? The jury is still out.
Petracca has had 15, 17 and 15 disposals in Melbourne’s three losses. He has also kicked just two goals in that time and I hope he is getting some tough love behind closed doors around his output.
What has happened to Jake Melksham, Jesse Hogan and Alex Neal-Bullen, who all look to be shadows of the players they were earlier in the season when Melbourne were up and
going.
The midfield ball use hasn’t helped them but applying greater pressure inside 50m would be a great place for them to start finding some form.
They only need to replicate the pressure the Richmond and Collingwood forward lines apply and the goals will come.
Goodwin also needs to drop the experiment of playing Tom McDonald off a wing at different stages.
Forget the ducks and drakes, McDonald is Melbourne’s best key forward and he and Jesse Hogan needs to remain in the forward half of the ground from the first bounce to the last. The opposition would love seeing them both further up the ground as midfielders.
Sam Frost or Cam Pedersen need to be given a month of AFL football to prove themselves in the Melbourne defence to support Oscar McDonald.
With the key posts covered, it is then over to the midfield group at Melbourne to play with greater discipline and honesty than they have in recent weeks.
For all the doom and gloom, this season is salvageable with the talent Melbourne has, but it will take a realignment of the game plan along with an adjustment in some of the players’ mindsets when things start going against them for Melbourne to get back on track.
Talent only takes you so far and building greater mental resolve still remains the Melbourne Football club’s greatest challenge.
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Originally published as Finding mental strength to rescue season is Melbourne’s greatest challenge, writes Matthew Lloyd
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