Stats show Melbourne is ready for finals success but big mental battle awaits
IT’S been 12 years, but Melbourne is playing the sort of footy history says is king come September. Now, can they hold their nerve? SAM EDMUND looks at why the Demons can go deep in the finals.
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MELBOURNE has the weaponry, but does it have the nerve to fire it when it counts most?
The Demons enter the finals as the team with this year’s most impressive resume — a set of numbers that belies their fifth-place finish and sets them apart from their September rivals.
Simon Goodwin’s side are the only team to live in Champion Data’s respected “premiership quadrant”, having averaged more than 100 points per game offensively (104.5) and conceding less than 86 points defensively (79.5).
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Fourteen of the last 19 premiers have met this formula, but this is only scratching the surface.
The Demons finished the home and away season with a percentage of 131.4, second only to minor premier Richmond.
An underrated flag indicator, 35 of the last 36 grand finalists have finished the regular season ranked in the top four for percentage, with the Western Bulldogs of 2016 the lone exception.
But like the Dogs before them, are Melbourne this year’s big sleeper?
The inescapable question mark comes in the form of a playing group largely oblivious to finals heat.
The Dees haven’t been here for 12 years — virtually a player’s on-field lifetime. Richmond and the Dogs at least had a taste of finals action in the years before their dramatic flag breakthroughs.
A maximum of five Demons players with previous finals experience — Jordan Lewis, Jake Melksham, Nathan Jones, Michael Hibberd and Jeff Garlett (if selected) — will run out to face Geelong next Friday night. Bernie Vince and Jake Lever would add to that experience, but are out injured.
In the Cats, they face a side with a sprinkling of hardened finals performers and one that has beaten it in 14 of their past 15 meetings, including twice this year by less than a kick.
But Melbourne, who finished only a game outside the top four, got the monkey off the back when they finally got a win against a top eight side against West Coast in Perth in Round 22.
The belief needle would have spiked further with that 45-point dismantling of Greater Western Sydney at the MCG last weekend.
What the Demons lack in finals experience they may compensate for by playing a style that history says is wedded to September success.
Melbourne rank No.1 in contested possession differential, time in forward half differential and points scored from forward half turnovers.
That is finals in a nutshell.
But so is the need to be mentally as strong. To have that belief, that killer instinct and that resilience when the best laid plans goes up in smoke.
Everything says Melbourne is ready. Now they need to prove it at the place where there’s nowhere to hide — the MCG on a Friday night in September.
Originally published as Stats show Melbourne is ready for finals success but big mental battle awaits