COACH Neil Craig says Melbourne’s 95-point loss to Fremantle at the MCG on Sunday was far from an honourable loss, despite the Demons losing three players to injury and playing one of the premiership contenders.

Craig was adamant in his assessment when posed the notion during his post-match media conference that it was an honourable loss.

“No 100-point loss is an honourable loss,” he said.

“You can’t go down that path, otherwise you don’t move forward. The sooner our club starts winning, the better off we’ll be. We’ve lost consistently for so long, you’ve got to be really careful it doesn’t become an acceptance.

“It’s easy to lose in any field. It’s always the easy option to take, and it’s hard to win a game of AFL footy. We need to be really strong with that, about our playing group.”

But Craig warned that it was simply not going to turn around with hard work next year.

“It’s not a matter of saying ‘we’re going to win next year’ and flick the winning switch, because you’ve got to be able to play the game and you’ve got to have people in good positions, you’ve got to have form and there are a whole range of things to go with it, but you’ve got to have a winning mindset,” he said.

“To a certain extent, I saw that today with our group, even though it was a 100-point loss, but it’s not an honourable loss. That’s a big loss – 100 points.”

James Strauss, Sam Blease and Shannon Byrnes all suffered injuries in the loss, but Craig said it was too early to tell how the trio was.

“That’ll unfold tomorrow (Monday), but we’ve got a shoulder [injury] for Strauss, an ankle [injury] for Blease and a foot injury for Shannon Byrnes,” he said.

“We also had some guys on the field, in the end, that if we had a few more numbers, we would’ve taken off, but that’s what you get.”

Craig was pleased with the performances of Jack Viney, Jack Trengove and Jake Spencer, plus Colin Sylvia, who he added had been a strong contributor in the second half of the season.

He added that Sylvia’s 16 contested possessions were “an unbelievable stat” in any competition, but “particularly against this mob”.

“His second half of the year has been not dissimilar to what you saw today,” Craig said.

“The good thing there is that because of his form, in his last few matches, Colin’s been tagged instead of Nathan Jones, so that gives Nathan a bit of relief.

“We’ve been really pleased with Colin’s consistency and the way he’s going about his footy. We’ve been happy with Colin.”

With two matches remaining for Melbourne in 2013, Craig said the new couple of weeks were “really important” for the club.

“I want to see the same commitment as I saw today and I want to make sure – and it’s not me, but what the players want to do – and we’ve committed to the best of our ability to run past the line with speed,” he said.

“Time is a premium for our football club – to squeeze in as much learning and education as we can.

“We need to play with a winning attitude in the last two games, and that’ll come out and you’ll be able to see if we’re doing that or not, with the way we go about our business.

“It’s another two games of AFL footy that most of our younger players – because we’ve got a very young side – [can experienced].”

Craig was hopeful James Frawley and Chris Dawes would play next week.