NO ILLUSIONS by The Oracle

The euphoria of last week's dramatic final minute victory over Essendon was quickly well and truly consigned into past history not long after the Melbourne team ran onto the MCG for its game against North Melbourne.

The reason for this was that the Demons' pedestrian style of football, limited skills and an insatiable capacity to constantly turn the ball over into an opponent's lap was never going to be enough to win them a game against quality opposition. Indeed it was only their accuracy in the first half that fully prevented the game from turning into a 2013 style blowout of epic proportions and instead they were left with a reality check and a 41-point defeat.

The Kangaroos applied the early heat but thanks to the extraordinary efforts of Bernie Vince who maintained great composure throughout the game, the Demons were still in the contest at the first break and clawed their way back in the second term after they fell four goals in arrears through some sloppy football. Early in the third, they threatened again when Chris Dawes goaled to leave them only seven points down despite being far inferior in almost every aspect of play.

It was at this stage that North upped the ante, applied the blow torch and booted six goals in ten minutes, most of them on the back of fumbly turnovers caused by poor disposal and stupid decision making. To its credit, Melbourne managed to regroup thanks to some positional changes at the end but the mistakes continued and prevented it from making any semblance of a come back.

The truth is that there is still a lack of players with the quality and flair of Vince who produced a stunning 41-possession game and the attack simply does not have the potency or depth of the better sides in the competition. There were times when one wondered where the next goal would come from. The ball was constantly bombed into an attack where the team was outnumbered and if the ball hit the ground there were no crumbing forwards to finish off the goals as we saw from the Kangaroos who had twelve goal kickers on the day to Melbourne's six.

This imbalance of forward strength was a major difference and a problem that will continue to dog the club for the remainder of the season with games against some of the competition's big hitters including Port Adelaide, Hawthorn, Fremantle, Geelong and a return game against North Melbourne to come. Despite the club's big steps forward the result of this game should leave us with no illusions that there is a long way to go.

Melbourne 3.0.18 6.0.36 8.4.52 10.6.66

North Melbourne 4.5.29 7.8.50 14.12.96 15.17.107

Goals

Melbourne Dawes Vince 3 Bail Frawley Pedersen Reilly

North Melbourne Greenwood Mullett Thomas 2 Atley Black Brown Cunnington Harvey Nahas Petrie Swallow Ziebell

Best

Melbourne Vince N Jones Cross Dunn M Jones Pedersen

North Melbourne Greenwood Dal Santo Thompson Petrie Harvey Ziebell Cunnington

Changes

Melbourne Nil

North Melbourne Nil

Injuries

Melbourne Watts (back)

North Melbourne Nahas (shoulder) Swallow (knee)

Reports

Melbourne Nil

North Melbourne Nil

Umpires Rosebury Bannister Fleer

Crowd 26,615 at the MCG