What is going on at Melbourne? Who are they?
That’s the question Melbourne champion Garry Lyon was asking on Fox Footy’s On The Couch on Monday night, after his club suffered a horrifying 92-point defeat to Fremantle in Alice Springs.
The Dees were battered in every facet of the game against the Dockers, a demolition job so bad you almost couldn’t believe what was happening.
“It was bad. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Hawthorn legend Jason Dunstall said.
“The skill level, the attitude, the body language wasn’t great. What I took from this [was]… can you have a performance like this and win the flag in the same year? History would suggest you can’t. That’s the big challenge for the Dees because the premiers, if you look at the last 20 years, they don’t have a 90-point plus shellacking.”
Collingwood champion Nathan Buckley questioned the fitness of Simon Goodwin’s side and says this is the Dees “at their worst”.
“I was watching the game early and [I thought], ‘It must be hot in Alice. It must be 35 degrees’. I looked it up, it was 18 and a temperate day,” he said.
Buckley highlighted vision of the Dees post-match, where multiple players had their shirts off, questioning whether or not the players were in the right shape for the rigours of AFL football.
“Watching this vision I just thought to myself… one, the energy is not great… but I had a thought come into my head [that] this doesn’t look like a hard, fit top-four side. A little bit of body shape. I just don’t think that is a hard, fit unit. I’m not expecting energy after a 92-point loss but they’re not as hard and fit as I’d expect.”
Garry Lyon was damning in his assessment of his former club, questioning whether the Demons genuinely cared for each other.
“I just don’t think they care. They didn’t care enough on the weekend and that’s a damning assessment. They didn’t care for each other,” he said.
Lyon used extensive footage of examples of poor skill execution and teamwork to highlight the lack of cohesion and care amongst the group.
“At the end of the day all the noise will be out there, but these are the examples of you letting down your mates. It’s bottom-two, under-16s level mistakes where you just don’t care.
“You’re not caring for your teammate. You’re not showing the level of care and respect for each other that should be demanded at every team in an AFL competition.
No player was safe in Lyon’s review, no matter their experience.
“This stuff, Jack [Viney] just keeps running until he runs into trouble… and then goes, ‘Now this is your problem’, and misses the handball. Their defensive half turnovers were 58 points on the weekend… and this kick, Caleb [Windsor] is a good kid… [but] drop it at the foot of Max [Gawn]. Care for your captain. He’s 6-foot-10 and busting his guts… then Max goes, ‘Well I’m not going to care for you Clayton [Oliver], I won’t put the handball at your chest’ and then Clayton gives it up and guess what? The ball goes down the other end and they kick a goal.”
The Dees have been the best contested ball side in the competition over the past two years, but have fallen off a cliff in 2024, currently ranked 12th competition-wide for contested possession differential.
AFL360 co-host and Herald Sun Chief Football reporter Mark Robinson highlighted Melbourne’s lack of ferocity around the contest as a major concern.
“The most damning part of that video montage was Jordan Lewis saying, ‘There was no want or need to be physical’. I can’t remember in the past four or five years that Melbourne has been accused of not wanting to be physical. I reckon they are one of the more professional mobs out there. They play a hard brand of football. They were walkovers on the weekend. We can say it was just one of those games. It wasn’t one of those games. You don’t lose by that much unless there’s something wrong within that club … it looked too hard on the weekend.”
“They laid down after the 10-minute mark and didn’t get up again. Melbourne supporters at home must be thinking: ‘This is it, we had our time in the sun and now it’s disappeared.’ Suddenly they look old … there’s something wrong within the spirit, the attitude … they look lazy and they were uncommitted.”
Melbourne will look to get back on the winner’s list when they take on an injury-depleted Collingwood on June 10 in the King’s Birthday clash.
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