FAILURE can come in many forms.

For the past three-and-a-half seasons, Melbourne had been prepared to live with losses as it experimented and learned lessons.

It did so in the belief the process followed would lead to eventual success.

Then Saturday happened.

In football terms, Melbourne's loss on Saturday was catastrophic failure. Everything that had gone before was blown to smithereens as the team capitulated to Geelong.

The team lost its belief early and no-one and nothing fought against the tide. 

In reality every club represents an idea, holding up lofty ideals such as spirit and friendship and trust and teamwork. None of that appeared to be on display on Saturday.

No amount of spin could explain such a margin or such a performance. Something had to be seriously wrong.

Investigation and answers were required. Careers would end.

It was that reality that made the Melbourne rooms after the game such a horrible place to be. I have been in the loser's rooms after Grand Finals and finals. The atmosphere in Melbourne's rooms after Saturday's loss was worse.

Because everyone knew harsh decisions would need to be made quickly, even while the machine that is a professional football club rolled on. There would be no time for a breather or a quick beer or a hug from a family member before the real decisions were made. It was on.

Every Melbourne player and official was behind closed doors 15 minutes after the game. When they emerged, faces were long. Players went into a warm down without any appetite for the routine of recovery.

Dean Bailey would be the one who would face the questions, first from the media then from the club. He stood in the corner of the coach's room, where hours earlier he had briefed the players about their plans for the game. He was only visible as officials walked in and out of the room, stern-faced but calm. In such moments, the opening and closing of a door is the only thing to interrupt the silence. It is a lonely sound.

Neither club vice president Don McLardy nor CEO Cameron Schwab wanted to make any comment to the media. Emotions were too raw after one of the worst performances in the game's history. The look on their faces was pained.

In his darkest coaching hour, Bailey was impressive when he faced the media. He treated reasonable questions with respect and answered as best he could given the circumstances. He made sense, which is more than anyone could say about the result. But you could see in his eyes the tiredness and the hurt and the disappointment. He looked at captain Brad Green waiting in the wings when he said resolutely: "I won't be standing here criticising individual players. There is no way in the world."

The danger was the club would fracture under the pressure. Finger pointing would not help. In reality, this situation was everyone and no-one's responsibility. But Bailey accepted the responsibility anyway.

Everyone knew it was a matter of time before Bailey's tenure would end, but the questioners respected him as they asked questions that had to be asked.

Bailey had only ever shown respect to others during his four years as senior coach. Such respect was the least he deserved.

By Sunday night, the president Jim Stynes had informed the coach that he was being sacked, effective immediately. Bailey's understanding - he would later say - was that the magnitude of Saturday's loss was the reason for his dismissal.

The decision was difficult. As Stynes said during the press conference to publicly announce Bailey's sacking, the former Melbourne coach is a man of integrity. As is the president.

But sometimes results leave no-one with any other option.

As funny as it sounds after such a shellacking, Bailey leaves the club and the playing list in better shape than it was when he arrived. That's all a club can expect of a coach.

He is not one to hide from reality though. He described the team's performance as poor during his time as coach. But any reflection of Bailey's tenure must take into account that his first three seasons were about development and list regeneration rather than winning.

Bailey was an interesting choice of coach but, in the environment of the time, not without logic. His apprenticeship since he played the last of his 53 games with Essendon - amazingly a 160-point loss to Hawthorn - in 1992 (to digress, the Bombers won the flag the next year) was comprehensive. 

He moved interstate to play with Glenelg where he won a best and fairest in 1995. He then spent two seasons as senior coach in Mt. Gravatt, Queensland, in a tough environment where his efforts kept the club together. At one point during that period he had to front a club meeting asking players who did not want to be at the club to leave through the front door in front of their mates. No-one left. 

He returned to Essendon as a development coach in 1999, working there as the dominant Bombers took all before them in 2000. He then joined Mark Williams at Port Adelaide as an assistant coach in 2002, gaining experience as a backline and midfield coach. The system at Port Adelaide was regimented as they worked their way from preliminary finals to a premiership in 2004. Bailey was there as the pressure built and Port Adelaide prevailed.

When the Melbourne job became available at the end of 2007 he chased it, ready to do anything to get the job, ringing consultants, ringing the football manager to land an interview. Even when his computer wouldn't work properly during his first interview, Bailey found a way. He impressed enough to land the job, a left-field choice with ambition in his veins.

He had a brief at Melbourne to rebuild in a similar manner to the path Hawthorn followed between 2005 on the way to a premiership in 2008 and Geelong followed from 2000-2007.  The Demons would use early picks to select talented youngsters and develop a group that would emerge together in several seasons. The hierarchy had a future team in mind that would, in time, become powerful and dominant.

Even with the early years about development, Bailey would come under pressure early with two uncompetitive performances - a 104-point and 95-point loss - to begin his career as Melbourne coach. Others, however, reminded him that his gig was a marathon not a sprint.

Funnily enough it was the response to those two losses - a gallant 30-point defeat against Geelong at Skilled Stadium - that stabilised the situation. His ambition at that stage was to ensure the group was competitive each week while getting better all the time. The Demons' first win came in round seven against Fremantle as the team won three games for the season. This was Bailey's honeymoon period in terms of outside expectations, but it was not an easy gig. 

Bailey's coaching group was young. It was operating out of a temporary office at the Junction Oval, six members of the football department squeezed in so tight together their chairs would touch if one backed up.

Melbourne has not been an easy place to coach for a long time. It has not been financially strong, its administration and football areas were separated geographically, and before Bailey arrived, successive administrations had failed to win the trust of either the big end of town or those at the coalface.

The relationship with the Melbourne Cricket Club had been vexed. Remember, former coaches were spending time alongside their assistants over summer to give the rooms a lick of paint not that long ago, and mergers had been on the agenda.

Bailey kept battling away on football matters as the club averted crisis when Jim Stynes returned as president, Chris Connolly, a club maker with respect in many parts and over many eras, and Cameron Schwab, returned to steer Melbourne in the right direction.

And the team appeared to be improving. It went from three wins and 16th in 2008 to four wins and 16th in 2009. By the start of 2010 it had recruited real talents Jack Watts, Tom Scully and Jack Trengove, and had a captain James McDonald who represented everything a club would aspire to stand for. He was humble, hard working and a competitor. He was also a good teacher and well respected.

In round two, 2010 it was only a dropped mark from Ricky Petterd and a piece of magic from Leon Davis that denied them victory over Collingwood. However improvement came as the team recorded eight wins and a draw to finish 12th. It won 37 quarters for the season - a statistic Bailey often referred to when pointing to measures of improvement. This came after winning 23 quarters in 2008 and 33 in 2009. This season the club had won just 22 quarters, the second-lowest total behind the Gold Coast and equal with Port Adelaide. As a measure Bailey had highlighted, it was not a signal of progression.

Of the other Victorian clubs, the Demons had only beaten Richmond and Essendon under Bailey's reign and were the only team in the competition not to have beaten a Grand Finalist at least once during that period, although it drew with Collingwood in their Queen's Birthday clash in 2010.

However, Bailey had a logical retort whenever such records were raised. Of course, they have not been good in recent seasons he would say, because we have not been good. The presumption was that those records would turn around as the team improved.

In 2010, the club also moved into AAMI Park, an environment suitable for a professional sporting club.

Finally, as 2011 began the future looked bright. But with that came pressure to perform. Many expected Melbourne to play finals this season.

This season has been a battle for consistency and as the season drew on the absence of McDonald appeared crucial. Bailey mentioned in his post-sacking press conference that he had made a decision to expose as much of the list as possible to build a foundation for the following season, 2012. But that seems, in hindsight, an extended timetable. This year was a time to become a finalist.

An early draw against the Sydney Swans was a solid enough start, as was the first half against Hawthorn. But from the Hawks' third quarter, when Melbourne was completely dominated, the question marks over the team's direction have been loud. When the chips were down, the team seemed to crumble.

However, it was well in the fight at round six with two wins and a draw as it travelled to Perth to play the Eagles on a Thursday night. It was the first massive test of the Bailey era and the team capitulated, losing to the Eagles by nine goals. It was not so much the margin, but the fact the Demons were never in the game.

From then on, the road has been rocky. Their losses have been by big margins, as have their wins. The gap between their best and worst was huge and they were not pushing the top teams. Bailey's coaching decisions were being questioned and two Carlton players suggested the Demons played 'bruise-free' footy after their less-than-inspiring round 10 clash. This was not a brand any football club would want.

However, you have to feel some sympathy for Bailey. The football gods were not kind to his team this season.

The compounding issue that should never be overlooked was the length of the injury list for Melbourne in the first half of the season.

Scully, Jack Grimes, Jordie McKenzie, Petterd and Mark Jamar were huge losses in the first half of the season while James Frawley was underdone after a pre-season injury. Austin Wonaeamirri struggled in the wake of his father's death.

Players such as Stefan Martin, Luke Tapscott and Jeremy Howe emerged because of the opportunity. Watts improved and silenced many doubters. Jordan Gysberts is going to be a good player. Liam Jurrah has been given every opportunity.

And then the team travelled to Skilled Stadium after staying overnight in Geelong on Friday. The Demons were just half a game out of the eight. They thought if they could win one of their three games against the Cats, Carlton and the Eagles they could make the finals.

Geelong's first goal came after one minute and 4o seconds. By the time the game ended in virtual darkness, 36 more had followed, and Bailey's senior coaching career was doomed.
 
Bailey left with integrity and respect intact, his good relationship with the players undiminished. 

The playing list would be an enticing prospect for the next coach.

A line in Inverting the Pyramid, Jonathan Wilson's classic book on soccer tactics, sums up what should be Melbourne's motto from now on: Progress began with a defeat. As so often happens.

Bailey started the progress. One day stopped him from seeing it come to fruition.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of the club.