KEY forward Chris Dawes says Melbourne’s eight-point loss to the Gold Coast Suns at the MCG on Sunday was the “one that got away”.

A shattered Dawes said it was a “really disappointing” result, as he believed his side should’ve made it two from two on the back of its 23-point win against Carlton at the MCG in round four.

“I felt we should’ve won that, but that’s what happens when for too long a period throughout the game, we go through these patches where we didn’t put enough pressure on,” he told Dee TV.

“At times, we played like a second rate footy side and we probably deservedly to lose the game.”

Although Dawes had 10 contested possessions from 17 touches, six inside 50s and kicked 2.4 from just his second match back from injury, he was bitterly disappointed with his own performance.

“From my own point-of-view, I was really poor today and I had my colours lowered,” he said.

“[Rory] Thompson from the Gold Coast is a good player, but I had opportunities and he snapped them up, so that was pretty disappointing.

“Physically, I felt fine. I felt like I moved a lot better than last week, but I didn’t put it to good use and didn’t have enough of an impact on the game. When I had opportunities to, I missed out on them.”

Dawes said it was a stinging loss, but the Demons couldn’t dwell on it, as they needed to bounce back hard against the Sydney Swans at the MCG next Saturday night.

“[It was] pretty disappointing – that’s what happens when you don’t play hard enough and don’t tackle well enough. If you pick and choose when you do [the fundamentals of the game] you get beaten,” he said.

“We’ll learn from it and we’ve got to brush it off pretty quick.”