MARK Neeld doesn't know when he will coach his first AFL win. It is hard to see it happening any time soon.

Melbourne has lost its opening seven games of the season and with the Sydney Swans, Carlton, Essendon and Collingwood coming up in the next month, there is no respite in sight.

And even after another disappointing loss, this time to Hawthorn by 66 points, Neeld said notching the first win of his coaching career was not as important as shaping his team for years down the track.

"It can be tough at times and you learn all the time. We're certainly taking the long-term view with the players and going through the actions and behaviours of what we think eventually finals footy looks like," Neeld said after Friday night's loss.

"Losing is hard to take on a weekly basis, however, the environment we're trying to create is one of looking for continual improvement.

"I still maintain that in a really strong AFL organisation, if you sit in a review on a Monday and are true to the way you are coaching, you probably shouldn't be able to work out if it was a loss, a win or a draw."

The Demons showed patches of form, winning the first quarter and drawing level in the third term.

Neeld said the common thread of those two periods was his hobby horse - contested possession.

"It was near even in the first quarter and it was even in the third. We split that and people ask me 'what about the uncontested possession?' Well I'm concerned by that, but a little bit less," he said.

"When you are coming in new and you are starting from scratch, you want to make sure the effort and contested possession is there, so we took a little step backwards with that tonight I reckon."

Melbourne's flashes were not good enough and were not for long enough, which Neeld put down to a temporary problem.

"We had a formation, or a structure or a plan in the second and fourth quarters," he said.

"It was a structure based around getting the Hawks to compete and trying to pull their game style apart and it didn't work. That's a short-term frustration but the teams that are in development phases and going through things, that's what you gravitate towards."