Neale Daniher reviews Melbourne's Round One loss to St Kilda exclusively on melbournefc.com.au

Pre Match
• We had a good build up during the weeks leading into round one, with training at a high intensity and everyone looking forward to the start of the season.

• Had been focused on the St Kilda game all preseason, streamlining our focus after we were knocked out of the NAB Cup.

• Had a few players unavailable for selection (Pickett, Rivers, and Wheatley) due to injury or lack of match practice. Overall, had a good group to select from after a solid preseason campaign.

• The first time we’d had the chance to put the majority of the team on the field. We really struggled over the preseason competition to get most players on the field at the one time.

• We were aware that St Kilda would be very keen to beat us, given that we knocked them out of the 2006 finals series, their last game prior to round one this year.

• We’d prepared our players for a tough game and indicated to them that St Kilda would try and frustrate us by getting numbers behind the ball, clog up our forward line, and make stopped plays very congested.

• Our focus going into the game was to have a high work rate offensively & defensively, win the contested ball and use the ball well through the midfield and entering the forward line.

During the Match:
• Kicking four goals to two in the first quarter was a good start but we were possibly fortunate the quarter time scores weren’t closer as St Kilda missed a few conversion opportunities. It was a high pressure first quarter with plenty of errors by both teams.

• Our second and third quarters were probably the worst I’d seen us play for some time. We lacked the confidence to kick the ball from the back half and through the midfield. This created the over possession game that was very evident from the sidelines. St Kilda kicked five goals to two during the second quarter which gave them a ten point lead going into half time.

• Injuries to McLean and Whelan left us with two players on the interchange.

• At half time I encouraged the players to lift their work rate, tackle harder (St Kilda 55 tackles to Melbourne 44 for the game), and use the ball better when kicking into the forward line and to continue in their efforts to use the ball more effectively going forward and not to bomb it to the opposing ruckman (Clarke) sitting in the hole.

• We were thrashed in the third quarter, and really struggled to get the ball into our forward 50 metres. Not only did we not give our forwards any chance of scoring but allowed St Kilda to kick four goals themselves. We only got the ball inside our forward 50 metres 33 times as opposed to St Kilda’s 56 entries. We struggled to generate run and counter attack across half back.

• We kept trying, outscoring St Kilda by four goals to three in the final quarter but we had to do better than that to win the match. They just worked harder and played harder than us for most of the game and deserved their victory.

Post Match:
• Disappointing loss and a poor start to the season.

• We over possessed the ball, over handballed, which allowed St Kilda plenty of opportunities to tackle us and re-posses the ball. We had 145 handballs compared to St Kilda’s 117.

• St Kilda were more determined to win the hard ball, they worked harder than us when they had the ball and tackled exceptionally well when we had the football.• Our forwards didn’t lead to the ball or the kicker which only increased the over possession of the ball and the high number of tackles from St Kilda.

• Our use of the ball through the midfield and also approaching inside 50 wasn’t to the required level and we’ll need to show more composure with our kicking decisions in future games.

• We have a long turn around until round two against Hawthorn and have a lot of work to do to get our game back on track. Hopefully Friday’s loss has stung our players sufficiently to produce a more honest effort next Monday