CO-CAPTAIN Nathan Jones, key forward Chris Dawes and young-gun midfielder Jack Viney were absolutely adamant that it was a missed opportunity.

But coach Paul Roos wasn’t so sure, following Melbourne’s loss to Gold Coast at the MCG on Sunday.

It was that sort of match. It contained mixed messages. There were some strange moments throughout. The statistics, in particular, produced some weird outcomes. And the wash-up didn’t feel like it was an eight-point loss. But Melbourne was never dramatically out of the contest either, even if at times it appeared that way.

In fact, up against a club that’s similar in games experience and age, Melbourne managed to win three of the four quarters, yet trail at three of them. And still it lost the game by little more than one straight kick.

To add further intrigue, the Demons lost nearly every key statistic: kicks, marks, handballs, contested possessions, uncontested possessions, clearances, tackles, inside 50s, frees for and goals.

Melbourne might’ve won the hit outs – 41 to 36 – yet out of the match’s two key ruckmen, Gold Coast’s Tom Nicholls had 28 hit outs to Jake Spencer’s 27.

If all of that wasn’t forehead scratching enough, Gold Coast had eight more scoring shots – the same number as its winning margin.

And for the record, Melbourne’s eight-point loss was its ‘best’ defeat since it went down by seven points to Richmond in round 22, 2011, when now manager of player personnel Todd Viney was interim coach. An eight-point loss two matches later in round 24, 2011, against Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval, was Melbourne’s next ‘best’ until this clash against the Suns, reinforcing the incredible amount of blow outs and significant losses the club has endured in recent years.

Certainly from the players’ perspective, you can understand their feeling that it was a game that slipped from their grasp, but from a senior coach’s point of view, it was easy to see why Roos needed further time to analyse the match, rather than give a firm answer post-match.

“You’d need to look at the game again, but certainly we had periods of dominance and they did as well – they kicked 11.20 … [but] I’m not sure if it’s the one that got away,” he said.

“Certainly it was a winnable game for both teams … even late in the last quarter.

“They (Gold Coast) didn’t take their chances and probably could’ve easily been 40 [points] up at half-time, particularly in the second quarter.

“I thought the first quarter was reasonably even, even though they (Gold Coast) had difficult shots. Then the momentum swung and we didn’t take advantage of it either – and that’s the game.”

What appeared to frustrate Roos most about the loss was the fact that his team had 40 fewer tackles than it did against Carlton at the MCG last round – when the Demons won by 23 points.

He was adamant that an 83 to 43 tackle count – in favour of the Suns – was never going to get the job done for the Demons.

“We’ve just got to keep driving minimum standards that AFL teams do week in week out,” Roos said.

“We’re a long way off that … but the lapses that we have as a club are just too great at the moment.

“The frustrating thing is that you go down by eight points, so we’ve got to make sure our effort levels are consistent every week. I know the fans get frustrated with turnovers – don’t get me wrong, I get frustrated in the [coaches’] box as well – but I can cope with them, provided the effort levels [are there].”

Still, and this highlighted the quirkiness of the whole match, Roos said it was a positive that his side was still able to remain in the hunt, without doing a lot of things right. 

“The positive is that we were only eight points down and we didn’t really have a lot of good players to be honest,” he said.

“So that’s positive from one sense, but frustrating in another sense.

“[And to] win three quarters …”

You could almost hear the bemusement in Roos’ last quote.

Maybe it was a lost opportunity after all.