Although the Dees were right in the hunt for the most of the match, Sylvia said the bar had risen internally in recent times, with more now expected.
“For us now, it’s not good enough and we should demand more from each other. It’s disappointing and we’ll definitely hurt for the next day or so, because it was a good opportunity for us and we had as much to play for as they did, but it wasn’t meant to be,” he told melbournefc.com.au.
“We’ll just look forward to the next two weeks and hopefully we’ll notch up another couple of wins and finish the season on the high - that’s our main aim now. Even if we’re a mathematical chance [of making the finals] it could be out of our reach.
“We don’t need to think about that; we need to think about this week’s game, which is against Port Adelaide and there is a lot to play for this week with James McDonald’s 250th.”
With Melbourne winning two matches on the road this year - one a ‘home’ match against Port Adelaide in Darwin and the other coming against the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba - Sylvia said the players will cross the border with confidence.
“We need to keep going in that direction and build that winning culture on the road, because good teams win on the road,” he said.
“If we’re going to be a top four team, we’ve got to win those games on the road and give ourselves every chance. It’s a big game this week and we’re a red-hot chance, if we go over there in the right manner.”
Analysing the round 20 loss, Sylvia said critical errors and an inability to be ahead in key measurements proved costly in the wash-up.
“You look at it statistically and they had us across the board in just about everything,” he said.
“That’s really disappointing, but in saying that, we had opportunities and even in that last quarter there was a window of opportunity to get back in the game and win it.
“We were 10 points in it and had a couple of chances to score, but we didn’t. If we had have kicked one of them, then all of a sudden we’re four points [down], a real chance and sniff to win the game.”
Still, Sylvia couldn’t fault his team’s endeavour over the four quarters.
“I thought we finished the game off not too bad … and we’ll reassess that this week,” he said.
“The season is pretty much over, which is the most disappointing part, but we need to really grab onto these last two games for the year.
“We showed some good signs and we need to finish off the season with some good momentum, so we can set ourselves up for a good pre-season and year next year, because we’ve come a long way.”
