BIG MAN Max Gawn says he’s hoping to build on his ruck/forward work with veteran Mark Jamar for the rest of the season, after the duo performed strongly against the Western Bulldogs last round.

Although Gawn acknowledged the pair had a slow start, they hit their straps to the point where Melbourne combined for 69 hit outs to the Dogs’ 38. With Gawn back in the side last week, it also allowed Jamar to spend further time up forward, which resulted in three goals.

Gawn said the duo was looking to take it to the next level against Fremantle at TIO Stadium on Saturday night. 

“In terms of percentages – it’s 70 per cent Russian (Jamar) in the ruck and 30 per cent me in the ruck. I’m still a bit young and Russian is well developed and one of the better ruckmen in the competition,” he told melbournefc.com.au.

“This time around, when I went back to the VFL, I was up against a few good ruckmen in the VFL, and that helped me on the weekend against [Will] Minson, who I thought I held my own against.

“If we can work on that 50/50 a little more, it could be a good ruck combination.”

Gawn, who has played four matches this year after another injury-interrupted pre-season and a hamstring early on in the season, said he was determined to make the most of the rest of 2014. 

“It goes quickly. I’ve only played four AFL games this year and four VFL games and I can’t believe there are only eight games left,” he said.

“It goes quickly, but hopefully we’ll get a couple more wins.

“We’ve got a tough draw with Freo, Geelong and Port Adelaide in the next few weeks, but we’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing.”

Although Gawn said his wish of completing an AFL pre-season had yet to come to fruition, he said it was about adapting to the situation presented.

“It’s still in my dreams so far to have an uninterrupted pre-season, but that interrupted pre-season stuffed me around until about round three or four,” he said.

”In round two, I was a chance to get a game, but I got a hamstring injury at training and then it hung around for about four weeks and I had to bide my time in the VFL. I played two or three games there and then played in the Richmond game and clunked a few in that Richmond game.

“I played three [matches in a row] and then the team wasn’t going too well and we were too big for the Collingwood  game and I was probably the least performed out of the talls that were playing, so I had to go back to the VFL and bide my time again.

“But I got another look in against the Doggies and unfortunately we didn’t get the win, but I’d like to think I had an all right game.”

Gawn said he was left out of the round 12 win over Essendon at the MCG, largely due to match-ups.

“I played the game against the Pies and then we had a few guys over the 190cm mark. We had Pedo (Cam Pedersen), Chipper (James Frawley), Dawesy (Chris Dawes) and Wattsy (Jack Watts),” he said.

“When you lose by 40 points, one of the things people look at was ‘did we go in too tall?’

“It was probably fair enough. Pedo can ruck, so it’s probably not too much of a loss, when you just drop the second ruckman.”

But Gawn said he needed to take his game to another level, before he returned to the side last round.

“I definitely had to work on my forward line work. I’d played three games there and had only kicked one goal. It was probably my downfall, because I’d played well in the ruck. But when you’re playing 50 per cent in the ruck and 50 per cent up forward, you’ve got to do the forward stuff well,” he said.

“I went back to the VFL and worked on that. I was pretty much the only ruckman down there, so I had to play in the ruck. Casey hasn’t been playing too well … so when I played two full games in the ruck and was clunking them around the ground.

“I might’ve given the coaches some confidence that I was able to clunk them around the ground and I could also push forward against the Bulldogs.”