On only seven occasions this season has a Melbourne player managed 25 disposals or more.
In the past three weeks, it has been Matt Jones twice and Dean Terlich once achieving that number.
Both are first-year players who the club drafted in 2012.
Terlich's disposal efficiency sits at 75 per cent although he can kick the odd clanger out of defence while Jones sits at 66.4 per cent but uses the ball by hand more than by foot.
The other players to hit 25 disposals or more at least once in a game are noted competitors Jack Grimes (twice) and Nathan Jones (three times).
The figure of 25-plus disposals is not a complete recipe for success but it is a leading indicator of talent.
Those players who have regularly averaged more than 25 disposals per game in the past five seasons are the game's superstars - Gary Ablett, Dane Swan, Scott Pendlebury, Sam Mitchell, Simon Black, Marc Murphy, Chris Judd, Adelaide's Scott Thompson, Joel Selwood, Andrew Swallow, Brett Deledio, Nick Dal Santo and Jobe Watson.
Most of them do it year after year as they establish themselves in the elite bracket.
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It's not easy but it's essential. Richmond's Trent Cotchin did so for the first time last season. The Swans Josh Kennedy did the same in his fifth season. Pendlebury took until his fourth season while Watson finally cracked that average eight years after he made his debut.
The teams with players winning 25-plus possessions per game regularly are the teams in contention.
It's been a long time since Melbourne has been in contention. Its midfield went missing too often in the previous era.
Melbourne has had just one player average more than 25 disposals per game for a season in the past five years. It wasn't Nathan Jones in 2012. It wasn't Brent Moloney in 2011. It wasn't James McDonald.
It was Cameron Bruce in 2009, when he averaged 25.21 disposals per game.
Moloney did not average 25-plus disposals in a season once during his time at Melbourne. Neither did Brock McLean, but he cracked that average in his 15 games with Carlton in 2012.
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No wonder the Demons are keen on developing the likes of Jimmy Toumpas, Jack Grimes, Jack Trengove and Jack Viney to become that 25-plus-disposal type of player in the engine room.
It's why they have staked their hope in the future because the present is not pretty.
In four games this season Melbourne has managed 100 fewer disposals than its opposition.
To get the points from there is like trying to win Monopoly with a stake in just Old Kent and Whitechapel Roads.
Just once in the 119 times since 2007 that a team has managed 100 fewer disposals than its opposition has it won.
That was in 2008, when Collingwood – with Mark Neeld in the coaching box – defeated the Adelaide Crows in a final in Adelaide.
There have been 29 players manage 25 disposals or more in games against Melbourne in 2013.
Demons defender Colin Garland understood the failure of successive generations of midfielders when he spoke on Monday of Melbourne's performance in the past few weeks.
"Unfortunately for us it's probably the younger players who are doing most of the work for us at the moment. Matt Jones, Dean Terlich, Max Gawn, Jack Viney, those blokes," Garland said. "They're the blokes that are playing with a bit of freedom."
