After the game, the coach explained:

''If the criteria was to have won 12 games by now, I don't reckon we would have taken Jesse Hogan at pick three and we sure as hell wouldn't have taken a kid that had two hip operations at pick four.''

He wasn't telling us that his arithmetic is poor or that his employers were idiots who can't count either given that he was commenting after just the 10th game of the season but that Rome wasn't built in a day. The problem is that when I visited the Italian capital city a few years ago, I saw a lot of ruined buildings and I'm worried that, at the pace with which the Melbourne is developing at the moment, the MCG might well look a little like the Colosseum when the Demons are next able to cope with the Hawks.

Well, enough with the poor attempts at sarcasm. The fact was there to see that despite Melbourne's best efforts, the team was monstered by a far more experienced and accomplished outfit which had more depth and was therefore able to overwhelm a young opponent early and without a great deal of trouble.

The best indicator of that was the difference between the playmakers of the respective teams. Brad Sewell (who could easily have been a Demon today but that's another story) picked up 31 disposals for the game and, in doing so, was in balance an attacking force for his team having a hand in setting up so many scoring opportunities in his team's easy win. Of course, he had plenty of classy midfielders around him as back up. On the other hand, Nathan Jones got his hands on the ball 28 times and while it was a tremendous effort on his part, his work was often the stuff of defending against the odds, under packs, under enormous pressure and just getting his team out of pickles caused by others making simple skill errors. Were he a Hawk, he would almost certainly have been best on ground but as a Demon, he simply didn't have the luxury of 21 others around him working their butts off as he does.

One bright light was the performance of Chris Dawes who provided a target up forward and a glimmer of what might have been had Mitch Clark stayed healthy for more than just the first four weeks. James Frawley and Colin Garland were grand defenders and will form part of a terrific defence one day when Rome starts developing a suburban sprawl and Jeremy Howe showed his potential at times. Dean Kent is a keep as well.

Other than that, there wasn't enough class and the work rate was still below what is expected to remain competitive with the lower ranked teams, let alone a premiership contender.

Melbourne 0.3.3 1.7.13 5.10.40 6.12.48

Hawthorn 3.9.27 12.10.82 14.14.98 21.17.143

Goals

Melbourne Davey Dawes Evans Howe Kent Watts

Hawthorn Breust 5 Roughead 3 Franklin Hill Puopolo Smith 2 Birchall, Burgoyne Grimley Lewis Simpkin

Best

Melbourne N Jones Dawes Frawley Garland Howe Terlich

Hawthorn Sewell Lewis Breust Puopolo Burgoyne Birchall

Injuries

Melbourne Nil

Hawthorn Nil

Changes

Melbourne Nil

Hawthorn Nil

Reports

Melbourne Nil

Hawthorn Nil

Umpires Hay Farmer Mitchell

Crowd 28,546 at the MCG

On the way home from the footy I was initially shattered as has been the norm for a while, but upon reflection I think there was some positive baby steps for a few yesterday Kent , Fitzpatrick, Terlich. The performance of Frawley was outstanding and I enjoyed his battle with Buddy ( and it was fierce stuff) Dawes was a real general for us and Jonesey ( who tried his guts out) puts in most weeks and even Joel Mac subdued a dangerous Mitchell. So some of it was indeed encouraging. As we say every week almost, it was lost badly again in the midfield as Sewell ,Lewis, Burgoyne and Puopolo simply tore us to shreds . IMO we know who and what we had in the middle yesterday and it just doesn't stack up. The question that kept going around in my mind was why do we still go with these same people knowing what we do about them? Good kids and good clubmen they maybe, but on the talent front surely its time to experiment now. What do we have to lose?

As much as I want Neeld to go, I also would suggest that things won't improve until we get the resources in the midfield.

So change of coach will not make any difference this year. The only improvement will be in the mind of the members that a change is made therefore we will improve.

We should recruit our coach now (behind the scenes) to take over at the end of the season. The clubs problem is to keep this from the media for another 12 weeks.

Did Neeld say at the start of the year that our onfield performance would surprize many people?

He was right, it even surprized himself.