Christian Petracca moved to tears after the loss of Melbourne Demons in Geelong Cats

He scored the first two goals from the game’s dees. From there, it was a simple member of the cast compared to the main act.

“He is a winner. He is determined. He’s proudly,” said Goodwin. “It’s like everyone else. He really wants to start to get positive results. He is a proud leader of our Club Footy. All our leaders are like this. Of course it will be disappointed.”

The disappointment is becoming on the agenda in Melbourne. That they were a contender recently at the end of 2023 Fuels hopes that the first month of this season will be a blip, but the reality is that they are no longer a good team.

Since they beat Geelong on the first weekend of May last year, the dees have won only five of the 19 games: the record of loss of victories of a lower side.

The problems that have burst their premiership offers of 2022-23 remain. Their line forward and delivery within 50 is still a disaster, only now they no longer have a dominant midfield or a defense miserably who lives their race mantra and defense.

They lost the contested ball again. When you remove it from Melbourne’s game, they have little else to threaten their opponents.

The praised trio of Petracca, Clayton Oliver and Jack Viney were rarely in the center bounce together, if not entirely.

Max Gawn won his duel with Rhys Stanley on the points but in previous years he was one of THE Define the game matches.

Bayley Fritsch is a shell of the player who scored over 50 goals in 2021-22.

Kysaiah Picstt was the most dangerous midfielder of the dees, but his spark was necessary within 50. They are robbing Peter to pay Paul, but both Peter and Paul remain poor.

“First game, I thought he had contributed very strongly,” said Goodwin. “He did a lot of work to be involved in that midfield group and will be a great player with the passage of the year.”

The total of Geelong of 165 brands and the differential of 83 is the largest number of goddesses granted under Goodwin. The lops count was not necessarily reflected on the scoreboard but defending saps energy and keeping the ball prevented the dees from entering their favorite race mode.

Goodwin was more worried about what Melbourne did with the ball than without it, but his counterpart Chris Scott spoke with the satisfaction of a man who had seen a bear plan, even if the final number surprised him.

“If you kick him for (Steven) he could all night, you will have a difficult night, this is probably the crucial point,” said Scott.

Loading

“While the game went on, we heard that it improved for us. We thought we were playing quite well at the beginning, we simply did not have the gap on the scoreboard that we thought we should have – this always makes you a little nervous.

“The will of the players to really engage in the style we were looking for, we were struck.”

Seventeenth with a percentage that improves only Richmond and West Coast, the dees are giving a great start to their rivals. Hawthorn and Brisbane recovered last year, but Melbourne’s match is not in good order.

“I thought we had seen a real spirit tonight, a real determination for a week,” said Goodwin. “The message is calm, we are four weeks later. Keep calm but it becomes urgent – this was the message.

“We have a job to do. Become urgently with that job but keep calm and know that things can become rather fast.”

They need it.

Keep updated with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter.