RUCKMAN Max Gawn says the wet conditions he endured against Geelong at Simonds Stadium on Saturday were among the most difficult he’s ever played in at any level.

Although the big man said it was a tough day for football, he said it was a great learning experience for the young Demons. 

“That’s some of the worst conditions I’ve ever played in personally, but the boys kept going, which is good,” a freezing Gawn told melbournefc.com.au after the red and blue’s 68-point loss.

“A 60-point loss is never good, but I thought the boys kept going and we had more than 100 tackles, so that was good.”

Gawn said the Demons were eager to test themselves against the Cats on their home turf, having produced a reasonable display against another first-class outfit last round when they took on the Swans.

He said the fact that it was just two years ago since Melbourne suffered its 186-point loss against Geelong – the second worst loss in VFL/AFL history – was not an issue. Nor was the fact that the Demons have barely won at the venue in almost 50 years. For the record, Melbourne has won just five matches and drawn once from its past 36 outings at Kardinia Park since 1967. 

“No one mentions two years ago – that big loss,” Gawn said, who finished with a career-best 48 hit outs in his 13^th AFL match.

“Coming down, it was a clean slate and the boys knew what they had to do, even though it was raining on the way down.

“We had a bit of time to get it in our mind that [we were playing] wet weather footy and I thought we came out really well, but they’re (Geelong) a really classy outfit and hopefully we’ll get there in the next couple of years.”

Overall, Gawn was pleased with the way his team had not given up against two of the best in the business in the past two weeks.

“After the win against the Western Bulldogs, we’ve played two pretty good teams in Sydney and Geelong,” he said.

“They way we’ve gone about it, we’ve kept going and we’ve done well in last quarters, which is a credit to the boys.

“We go up to Darwin this week against a team (Brisbane Lions) that we think we can beat, so we’ll go up there and try our hardest.”