I woke at 6am Sunday morning thinking, ‘Why do we do it to ourselves? Why do we willingly and knowingly subject ourselves to such torment?

It’s the masochistic nature harboured by all diehard footy fans – when the chips are down, you just keep at it.

So we were all there again, to witness eight measly goals, to ponder a long season and to cling to a glimmer of hope that our first win can’t be too far off. The guy behind me said going 0-8 is a real possibility with our run coming up. Initially I laughed but stopped when I realised that it isn’t out of the question.

I don’t want us to be a side like that, we were meant to be making a tilt at the flag this year and so many people (club officials, players, the general public, footy pundits) promised us it wouldn’t be like this.

After Carlton came back and beat the Bombers on Saturday it got me thinking – you don’t have to be the best side on the park to win; belief and momentum go a very long way.

With this in mind and a few bevvies under my belt, I started mouthing off to my boyfriend (a Cats man) that we were a very good chance of doing the same. My rationale was simple; Melbourne will be so hungry for a win that it will be worth an extra few men on the field. He pointed out that Carlton had a Fevola and we don’t have a forward at the moment.

Come Sunday and with a little more clarity, I retracted my statements with the realisation that it would take a 22-man contribution and more to overcome Geelong.

I was slightly encouraged by the fact that Nathan Ablett was a late withdrawal: perhaps this was a sign? And for the first ten minutes, through the tidy work of Beamer (he’s a good kid and yet another to add to the injury list) we all thought the Dees were going to have a dip, although the man-child was giving us a toweling (I wish we had the man-child).

But we fell to pieces, again. We turned the ball over, we stop-started, we kicked and handballed to the opposition in their forward 50 and we didn’t support each other enough. In the end we didn’t have the man-power to match that of the Cats and we lacked fight.

There were some encouraging signs from a couple of youngsters yesterday and a few of our out-of-form players performed better than in previous weeks. But we definitely need more fight, anger, a greater belief that we can win and the chance to see more youngsters getting a go.

We take on Freo at the ‘G next week and it’s stating the obvious that this is a must-win game. One of us will be 1-3 by games end.

There needs to be a turning point, a defining moment and hopefully a bit of luck and momentum will start to swing our way. If we win I’ll be drunk with happiness and I can cop it if we fight and go down swinging. But it’s time to fight.

Please Note:The views and opinions expressed in the above article are that solely of the author and do not reflect the opinions of MELBOURNEfc.