Grimes said that, after some promising patches early against the Hawks, there simply wasn’t enough consistency across four quarters.
“It did feel like we took a bit of a step back, so that was really disappointing. When you make inroads, you want to keep going and you don’t want to go back to where you’ve been,” he said.
“Footy is good in that you get another opportunity next week to prove yourself, and Sydney is going to be a massive challenge, because they’re in great form.
“But, if we could play with the intensity that we did in the first and third quarter, then we’ll be able to match them.”
Grimes said the loss cut him deep after the Demons upped their ante against the Western Bulldogs, St Kilda and Geelong.
“We did feel like we were showing improvement, but it was two quarters that let us down - the second and last quarters, which really cost us,” he said.
“We know that we can’t do that against quality teams. We can’t go to sleep for a quarter.
“We just need to focus on what we’re doing well, but make sure that we’re persisting over the whole game.”
But Grimes was with pleased with Melbourne’s “exciting start”, particularly with the efforts of Mitch Clark, who booted three consecutive goals.
“We were in the game early on. We defended well and put them on the back foot a bit, and then we moved the ball on well and we took the game on and got the ball inside 50,” he said.
“Clarky was clunking a few up forward and then it just seemed like, in the second quarter, they got on top and we went back into our shell with our ball movement and played a bit safe. We didn’t take it on enough, and we were too easy to defend.
“Good teams come back at you and we needed to respond, but we managed to make it too easy for them to take over the game in the second quarter. We’ve got a lot to work on.”
Despite being annoyed by a winless start, Grimes said that the players were remaining upbeat about the challenge ahead.
“It may surprise people, but we are really positive among the group,” he said.
“We can see when we play the way we want to play that it works, but when it’s not working, we’re going away from that game style.
