Although the Demons went down by fewer than four goals, the Tigers had 13 more scoring shots, and finished with 13.23 to 11.12.
On the back of a much scrutinised week at Tigerland following the sacking of Daniel Connors, and a two match suspension to Dustin Martin, plus seven changes, McKenzie said the Demons strongly believed they could win the four points.
But he said a sluggish opening term proved costly.
“Overall, it was really disappointing. That first quarter, you can’t afford to give sides a jump and that’s exactly what we did. We’ve done it a few times now, which is really disappointing,” he told melbournefc.com.au.
“We let them get so many inside 50s early in the game, and we weren’t very competitive. Although we leveled it after quarter time, there were no excuses for the way we did.
“As poorly as we started, they started well too. Although it was only 23 points, for a large part of the day they were quite dominant. It was a game that we saw as very winnable, especially after they made so many changes.
“It was a game we came into with a positive attitude, but we didn’t carry that out on the field at the start.”
McKenzie had the difficult task of running with Trent Cotchin and Brett Deledio. Although he gave his usual all and collected 20 disposals, he wasn’t happy with his own game.
“It was pretty average and I was pretty disappointed,” he said.
“Whenever you lose, you don’t look positively on your game, and it’s a team game. There were parts of my game I was frustrated with, and I’ve got a long way to go.
“When I was in the midfield, I was trying to get to Cotchin and I felt he got the better of me, when I was on him. If I was on him, I’d try and get to Deledio or someone of that to negate their influence.
“They were influential players throughout the day, which was disappointing, but I’ll learn a lot from it.”
But McKenzie, who signed a new three year deal with the club, which was announced before the match, was able to find some positives with the efforts of ruckman Stef Martin and Jake Spencer, who battled manfully.
“There were some good individual efforts. It was good to see big Steffy Martin back in the team, and his big partner in crime, Jake Spencer,” he said.
“Their effort throughout the day was good and it was good to see big Pencil in there competing. He always gives 100 per cent effort.
“We’re developing and we’ve got a long way to go, but no doubt there were some performances from we should take some positives from.”
