Wooden spooners last season and one win, 11 losses this year is an emphatic statement of where they stand right now. This is a long way below the team that finished fifth only three years ago in 2006.
What interested me the most was to have a first-hand look at the next generation because the current experienced group is clearly not good enough.
Not one Demons player would be even mentioned in All-Australian team discussions, so some exciting youth must be the basis for any future optimism.
We should not make categorical judgements on teenage players. Mostly all we get are glimpses – small cameos as guides to what they might become later on.
My first look at last year’s No.1 draft pick Jack Watts was not impressive. As they say in racing parlance, he needs time to thicken up and mature. But so do most teenage key position players.
At the moment Watts plays like what he is. A schoolboy against the men.
He is a long way off.
First-gamer Liam Jurrah was the ray of hope, closely followed by sixth-gamer Jack Grimes.
This pair both looked like they had the speed to play the tempo, and Jurrah in particular gave Demons fans something to be excited about.
What the game said to me was that the starting point of Melbourne’s path back up the ladder was not yet visible. If they were building a house, the plans would still be with the architect.
The Demons will need to recruit and develop extremely well in the years ahead and will certainly need plenty of patience and perseverance for a long time.
For Melbourne to get off the bottom of the ladder it will take some resources that we are yet to see.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
