MAX Gawn says one of the biggest factors to emerge from Melbourne’s poor loss to Hawthorn at the MCG last Sunday was its offensive game.
Although Gawn said Melbourne wasn’t great defensively, he said it was the side’s attacking game that broke down.
“We had a chance to get some time off straight away and yesterday we did the review, and I always think it’s good to review those games,” he said.
“You always hear some people say ‘we’re not going to review that game, because it was a bit out of the blue’, but there was definitely some key learnings coming from that game, so I’m glad we reviewed it. Hopefully there is a better performance this week.
“We only managed to score that six or seven-goal mark, which is not what we’ve shown over five weeks,” he said.
“We had some really poor offensive stuff that came up and hopefully we can improve on that.”
Gawn said Melbourne was determined to win on the big stage, starting with Tuesday’s Anzac Day Eve clash against Richmond at the MCG.
“You definitely need a scalp and you definitely need to beat an opposition team at least once in a two-year period,” he said.
“We had a chance with Geelong, but some tall dork missed the kick [for goal near the final siren].
“Then we were able to beat Brissy and North, and unfortunately we let ourselves down against the Hawks.
“We’ve got a chance against Richmond and there are going to be chances throughout the year, because it’s a pretty even competition.
“We travel over to play Port, which will be a fun game, and we travel to play West Coast, so there are definitely going to be some games this year, where we put our front foot forward.”