Four-time premiership player Jordan Lewis describes Melbourne’s finals momentum as ‘huge’

JORDAN Lewis has come up against his former side twice, for two defeats. But with Melbourne coming off its biggest win in a decade, is all that about to change? Lewis spoke to CHRIS CAVANAGH about the blockbuster clash.

FOUR-TIME premiership player Jordan Lewis says the momentum Melbourne is building is “huge” as he sets his sights on steamrolling his old side on Friday night.

The Demons have won five of their past six games including the past three against West Coast, Greater Western Sydney and Geelong, which Lewis said provided confidence the side could go all the way this September.

“I think it’s huge,” he said of the importance of momentum.

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“I think it gives you confidence that your game style stacks up in big games. Certainly going into Friday night against Geelong we had that belief that if we played the way we wanted to play we could get up.

“Going in against any side now you know if we play the way we want to play we’ll be hard to beat.”

Nathan Jones, Jordan Lewis and Charlie Spargo celebrate Melbourne’s finals win. Picture: Getty Images

Since crossing from the Hawks after 264 games at the end 2016, Lewis has come up against his old side only twice for two losses.

The most recent of those came in Round 4 this year when the Demons went down by 67 points, Lewis saying that second loss in four weeks to start the season proved a turning point in Melbourne’s year.

“It’s hard to look that far back but I think it’s still in the forefront of our mind, the lessons that we’ve learnt from that game,” Lewis said.

“We understand the way that we want to play and we didn’t do a good enough job of trying to stop that. They probably controlled the ball for the majority of the game and were able to score at will so our pressure needs to be right up.”

Lewis said there was always a “nervousness” ahead of playing against his old club and that was heightened by the fact the Hawks were coming off a disappointing defeat to Richmond in their qualifying final.

“There’s obviously a change through (Ben) Stratton going out and someone will have to come in and play that role,” Lewis said.

“But certainly after a loss any side is backs against the wall and it’s do-or-die this week whereas last week there was that second chance. They will understand they need to win to move but so do we.

“We want to keep ourselves rolling and get ourselves in a position to play in a prelim final.”

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