A LEAN month through the middle of the 2024 NAB AFLW Season forced Narrm's hand at the selection table.
While it resulted in four consecutive losses and a need to reach for top-up players, the silver lining has been the fast-tracked development of tall duo Georgia Campbell and Georgia Gall.
"Their two talls that have been in the wings for a couple of years now in Georgia Campbell and Georgia Gall… the Dees had to be patient with them," Gemma Bastiani said on the Credit to the Girls podcast.
"Essentially they had to allow them to play consistent games because they literally had no-one else to play. In a Melbourne team that has more of its players available, those two players don't get consistent football where they just have to do the job, and they have to learn on the job.
"That has allowed them to become so much more dangerous. Now that they are getting other players back, they've all of a sudden got a little bit more of the depth that we didn't think they had earlier, because they've been forced to create the depth in that way."
Cricketer-turned-footballer Gall in particular has shown significant growth in her confidence on the field, having found her feet as an important part of a star-studded Demons side.
"When you come into a team, you don't want to come in and ruffle feathers," Lucy Watkin said.
"You don't want to come in and feel like you're disrupting the way things have been, or you don't want to overstep the boundary or anything like that. But as you get more confidence, you being to understand that if you demand the football, if you play with confidence, you're actually not going to do that.
"You're just creating a role for yourself in a team, and your teammates will appreciate the fact that you want to step up and you want to help them."
Gall kicked two goals in Narrm's crucial win over Richmond on Saturday afternoon, and won a career-high 10 disposals, working well in tandem with experienced key forward Eden Zanker.
Meanwhile, Campbell's ability to step into the No.1 ruck role for much of the season allowed the Demons to cover the loss of two-time All-Australian Lauren Pearce, and now creates a dynamic ruck division with the star's return.
"Georgia Campbell is starting to provide the presence that we all expected of her a couple of years ago, and it's taken a bit of time, and it also takes the pressure off Lauren Pearce coming back from a long-term injury," Bastiani said.
"She doesn't have to be the No.1 ruck all game anymore, whereas we were probably a little bit worried that she'd get shunted back into the side and then have to do all the work so that, I think, has really helped Melbourne."
It is with this new-found depth that the Demons are surging towards a remarkable finals qualification, now having won four games on the trot after being 1-4.
Narrm will travel to Cairns to face the hard-running, high-scoring Hawthorn to open Indigenous Round on Thursday evening, before hosting Collingwood in week 10. Win the pair, and finals are not out of the question, and they will be relying on the likes of Campbell and Gall to make that possible.
