The game was over in a little more than the blink of an eye. Twelve minutes and nineteen seconds into the game to be exact. That was how long it took for Melbourne to kick five straight goals through the courtesy of Kade Chandler, Bayley Fritsch (twice), Kysaiah Pickett, Tom Sparrow and the players downfield who split North Melbourne’s defences to set up a lightning start to the match. Soon after, play was suspended to enable the paramedics to collect the unfortunate Charlie Comben from the ground with a broken leg and by this time the Kangaroos were shattered and the game was already more or less over.

 

After a long delay, proceedings continued and the Demons added three more goals to take a 44-point lead into the first break. 

 

Alastair Clarkson’s nightmare did not end there. His team continued to receive blows on the injury front as well as on the scoreboard. By night’s end, he had lost Callum Coleman-Jones from concussion after coming off second-best in a marking contest with Steven May and Tom Powell went off after rolling his ankle late in the game.

 

Predictably, the Demon ruck and on ball division was dominant with Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca in ripping form, Chandler, Fritsch and Pickett causing havoc up forward and 150 gamer Angus Brayshaw mopping up everything that came his way in defence.

 

This was the quintessential Demon demolition of a young team in distress and under duress. Notwithstanding that they were coming off a five-day break and coach Simon Goodwin is still tinkering with his lineup, they smashed their way to an eleven goal half time lead and then pushed back on the throttle in the third term adding only four points to that lead. But the adversary was on its knees at three quarter time and Melbourne went for the Roo kill to pile on six goals to hold a 108-point lead minutes into time on. 

 

To their credit, the Roos refused to give up. They managed to score the game’s last three goals in quick succession but, despite that late flurry, the end result was a 22.7 (139) to 7.7 (49) win for Melbourne which marked North's biggest losing margin under Clarkson, the Demons' fourth 100-plus score for the year: a result that has seen the move to second spot on the AFL ladder.

 

Goodwin was satisfied. "It was exactly what we wanted," he said. "We really wanted to put the defensive side of our game to them and we did that for the majority of the night."

 

Of course, for teams with high expectations, games like these are never really good indicators of what they need to do in order to achieve the aims to which they aspire. These will come further down the track and not in the blink of an eye.

 

MELBOURNE 8.2.50 13.3.81 16.4.100 22.7.139

 

NORTH MELBOURNE 1.0.6 2.3.15 4.6.30 7.7.49

 

GOALS

 

MELBOURNE Fritsch 4 Chandler Petracca Pickett 3 Grundy 2 Bowey Neal-Bullen Rivers Schache Sparrow van Rooyen Viney  

 

NORTH MELBOURNE Zurhaar 3 Larkey 2 Cunnington Shiels

 

BEST

 

MELBOURNE Petracca Oliver Fritsch Chandler Brayshaw Viney Bowey

 

NORTH MELBOURNE Sheezel Simpkin Zurhaar Ziebell McDonald

 

INJURIES

 

MELBOURNE Nil

 

NORTH MELBOURNE Comben (leg) Coleman-Jones (concussion) Tom Powell (ankle)

 

REPORTS

 

MELBOURNE Nil

 

NORTH MELBOURNE Nil

 

SUBSTITUTIONS

 

MELBOURNE James Harmes (replaced Michael Hibberd in the fourth quarter)

 

NORTH MELBOURNE Daniel Howe (replaced Charlie Comben in the first quarter)

 

UMPIRES Chris Donlon Ray Chamberlain Martin Rodger Matthew Young

 

CROWD 29,455 at the MCG

The moment we knew it was over…