COACH Neil Craig says it will take some time before Melbourne earns back respect from the competition, both as a club and for its match day performances.
Although the Demons produced one of its ‘better’ performances for the season against the Sydney Swans at the MCG on Sunday, it still went down by 31 points, which Craig said wasn’t good enough.
“That’s a time thing … [respect] doesn’t come within one or two weeks. We don’t expect it to. It’s about consistency over the journey,” he said.
“To use a racing term, we’ve played a group one horse today – not John Longmire horse, but his side. They are a fair dinkum footy club and a fair dinkum footy side over the journey … and that’s how we need to be judged over time.
“You’ve got start somewhere and the guys have taken some small steps in that area, but now it’s a matter [that we] keep driving really hard and we’ll be judged on our merits.”
Craig said Sydney’s fierce style of play was something Melbourne needed to experience.
“I was encouraged by our mental ability to keep coming and to stay at the task,” he said.
“What we’ve got to channel it into is a bit more know-how, so there is a fierceness in your mind that you need to keep doing that.
“I thought our guys, to their credit, held that for most of the day.”
Craig added that no team in the competition could live with the statistic of -44 for contested possessions. He added that Sydney’s 16 more scoring shots were unacceptable.
“That’s a long way away from being a successful footy club,” he said.
“In a lot of ways, you could say that we were dominated, but I do admire – and I’ve said this from day one – the resilience of this playing group.”
Meanwhile, Craig was hopeful key defender James Frawley (hamstring) would be available for next Saturday’s clash against the Geelong Cats at Simonds Stadium.
Frawley was subbed out for Shannon Byrnes against the Swans.
“There’s some tightness there - hopefully he’ll be OK for the weekend against Geelong and we certainly didn’t want to risk it,” Craig said.
“Jade Rawlings had great confidence in Colin [Garland], Lynden Dunn and Tommy McDonald to be able to handle that big fella, No. 8 [Kurt Tippett], who is a man mountain, with a fierce attitude.
“I thought the guys hung on pretty well in that area.”