Melbourne’s loss to Fremantle last week stands alone as the Demons’ worst loss since their time as premiership contenders began in 2021. By comparison, their 38-point defeat at the hands of Collingwood on King’s Birthday wasn’t anywhere near as bad – but if you bleed red and blue, there’s every chance this one was even more disheartening. This was a loss so deflating, so frustrating, so utterly indicative of everything going wrong with the Dees at the moment and everything that was already wrong with them even when they were properly good, that it might as well have signalled to the rest of the AFL that Melbourne is over.
10th on the ladder, having sat in the top four just a month ago, the Dees face an almighty fight to so much as make finals, never mind win one for the first time since the 2021 grand final. And the way they’re playing, this doesn’t strike as a team up for that challenge, or one capable of facing it even if they were. More AFL This was a match that the Demons simply had to win heading in – not just to redeem themselves from their Alice Springs obliteration, but also simply because a Magpies team without a score of their best players, compared to just Jake Lever and, if you’re being really generous, Jake Melksham, was about as vulnerable as a reigning premier ever gets.
So how did they respond? By kicking abysmally for goal, as per usual. By spurning chance after chance to make something of their inside 50s, as per usual. By getting ripped .
