That was the blunt message delivered by the second-year Melbourne senior coach after the Demons suffered a 66-point loss to Collingwood at the MCG on the Queen's Birthday on Monday – the red and blue's worst defeat of 2009.
"We're a long way off – that's why we've won one game (for the season),” he said.
“That's where we are. It is what it is, and we've going to continue to work with it and work with the players," Bailey said.
He addressed the issue during his post-match media conference when asked what message he had for the Melbourne fans.
"I think it's disappointing how we represented the support we've had for the whole year," Bailey said.
"We've got a lot of support and our membership is fantastic, and we really let those people down who are supporting us from the outside.
"Having said that, it is a year of rebuild still, and we've still got to play young players and we're going to give them some experience and games to play with each other.
"Patience is something we've all got to grab hold of at some stage, [because] there are young players today who will learn from the experience.
Bailey said he was disappointed his players did not handle the big stage – Melbourne's biggest home match of the season. In round 12, Bailey’s charges have a Friday night clash against Essendon at Docklands in the second week of the split round.
"We've got a Friday night one coming up, so that's going to be a really important showpiece for us to perform. Certainly [we need to perform] better than we did today,” he said.
Although Bailey is adamant his team has progressed this season, he indicated his side was starting to feel the strain of the year.
"We've been more competitive this year … it was a big game for us, but probably the last couple of weeks, we've showed a couple of signs where we were just starting to come off the boil a bit," he said.
Bailey was also full of praise for the Magpies.
"We got a lesson in pressure and we got a lesson in the ability of creating turnovers and not taking the opportunities," he said of Collingwood.
"They were pretty clean in wet conditions. I thought they were very good.
"[They're a] very well drilled team … [they] really showed us how to play a competitive game in a big game. I thought their experience really showed out today."
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