NEIL Craig gave a fascinating insight into where Melbourne is at when he was posed the notion following his side’s 68-point loss to his former team, the Adelaide Crows, at AAMI Stadium on Saturday.

“We’re a long way away. We’re a long way away as a total footy club,” he said adamantly.

But it was his follow up response that quickly showed the difference between his time as coach of the Crows, as opposed to the young Demons. 

“People often talk about the quick turnaround at Adelaide, but the reality is that when you reflect on the quality of players in that squad – [Mark] Ricciuto, [Simon] Goodwin, [Andrew] McLeod, [Tyson] Edwards, Benny Hart – there was a lot of quality in that squad,” he said.

“We, as a club [at Melbourne], have lost for so long that we need to break that habit. Losing is easy and I think we demonstrated that again today. We put ourselves in the game, and it’s easy to give away a free kick off the ball. It’s easy to mouth off at an umpire, and it’s easy to cause an easy turnover.

“We need to be bold enough and have enough courage to grind out a win.”

Craig said change was imminent, and it would come via a “whole range of things”.

“Sometimes you want the magic answer and it’s not [that easy]. This year’s draft – we’ll get at least one or two good picks there, so that’ll add to the playing pool, but that’ll be young talent coming again,” he said.

“That’ll be guys who haven’t played AFL footy, and you saw two of our guys today in [Jack] Viney and [Jimmy] Toumpas. They tried really hard, but they need some more help.

“Every club’s got access to draft and free agency, so we’ll be no different to that, but that rolls off the tongue for every club. When it comes to reality, we’ll see what’s there.

“Then there is the really high quality, consistent training over the pre-season. Whoever’s coaching the side will need to make absolute use of every bit of time that’s available for this squad, because you can’t waste a minute when you’re out where we’re at.”

Craig added that new president Glen Bartlett had already spoken about a “football first” mentality, which will drive the club forward.  

“All decisions need to be football first,” Craig said.

“So it’ll be a combination of a total club getting organised and making good decisions.

“What I do know is that, from a coaching perspective, it’s certainly going to need an enormous amount of patience and it won’t be for the fainthearted. There is a lot of work to do.”

In terms of his own future at the club and if he would like to coach Melbourne in 2014, Craig said he had already had a “good, healthy discussion” with the coaching panel last Wednesday.

But Craig said he needed to consider some things before becoming a serious applicant for the job.

“It was more about where I saw the club at the current time. Some of the questions were asked about what needs to happen for the club to progress,” he said.

“I need some things in place in first, but that’s fine, if that happens that would then make me think that you’d put your hand up to be considered. If that doesn’t happen – that’s fine as well. It’s not a stand over tactic by any means. That’s the last thing the Melbourne footy club needs That’s just myself for having coached for seven years in the AFL and being out of it for two years.

“It’s just that if you went back into it, what would you need? That’s all. It was a good, healthy discussion, and we’ll see where it goes.”