COACH Neil Craig says his side’s 122-point loss to North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium on Saturday was a “reality check”.

Speaking post-match after Melbourne’s second worse loss of the season, Craig said his team was not that bad on a consistent basis, but a dismal second half when it booted 1.2 to 16.9 was a genuine wake-up call.

“We weren’t able to dig in and show the resilience required to hang in with the game, let alone try and win it,” he said.

“It’s a really bitter pill to swallow for our club and our playing group … because they’re out there doing it.

“I know Jack [Grimes] said we were past this, but we’ve got a lot a work to do, before we become a hardened footy club – a lot of work to do. So it’s just another really tough lesson that when you’ve come from where we’ve been to where we’re going – and we’ve set ourselves really high expectations – those sorts [of performances] readjust your thinking.”

Craig said “it was a really poor day for us as a club”.

“We were the classical team that had come to play versus perform,” he said.

“To use a term ‘we got what we deserved’ is probably a bit strong, but we’ve been pretty good in the last few weeks in terms of our competitive nature and [we’ve been] prepared to start the game aggressively. But today (Saturday), we weren’t anywhere near it, against a side that’s in pretty good form and is really dangerous offensively.

“We got exactly what our supporters saw, so it was a bad day for our club.”

Craig was adamant the loss was a big step backwards.

“That sort of performance takes our club back, make no mistake about that,” he said.

“I need to accept responsibility for it, which I do and I will.

“We’ve now got another challenge on our plate … our preparation this week and how we actually respond on the playing field. [It’s] not by what we say, but by what we do next week.”

Craig said he felt empathy and not sympathy for his charges in the second half. 

“My feeling is for the players. Our players don’t want sympathy, but when you’ve played a high level, I know the emotions that are going through them and I have empathy for the emotions they’re experiencing out there,” he said.

“It borders sometimes on the helplessness … so I understand that.

“It’s also an understanding of why those things happen to a group.”

Still, Craig said he was “up for the fight”, reiterating his absolute commitment as coach until at least the end of this season, when Melbourne’s coaching landscape will become clearer.

“I see this as a great challenge – to do what we’re doing at the moment,” he said.

“If we expect it to be like that all of the time, good luck. Improvement is never a straight line – never ever a straight line. I have an understanding that these things happen. I don’t like it. It’s important that they don’t become acceptable and you respond really quickly to it.

“We’ll work our way through it.”

On the back of Melbourne’s best ‘loss’ for the season, when it went down to the Brisbane Lions at TIO Stadium by 19 points last round, Craig there were no excuses coming back from the Top End trip in Darwin.

“I’m not interested in [excuses]. The last thing we need as a club are outs or excuses,” he said.