THE STREAK AND HOW IT ENDED by The Oracle

The wise heads have been saying that developing teams often lack consistency of performance and this proved true of Melbourne whose three-game "winning streak" came to an abrupt end when the team was well and truly derailed by its 26-point victory loss to North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium.

The Demons started well enough when Brad Green posted the game's first goals but the next 50 minutes of football belonged to the Kangaroos whose harder bodies prevailed through hard tackling and relentless pressure. Their dominance was so comprehensive that by the five minute mark of the third quarter they held a 46-point lead that could have been a lot greater had they been a little more accurate in front of goal.

Melbourne went into the game with Jared Rivers replacing an injured Jordie McKenzie who led the club's tackle count for the season to date. It was the second consecutive week that a midfield player was involved in a late replacement by a taller man and the immediate thought was that the balance of the team that swept aside Richmond and Brisbane was upset by a definite loss of run. The selectors clearly wanted Jared Rivers in the side after a brilliant display for the Casey Scorpions the week before but the resulting change in the team's structure wasn't to its advantage.

Moreover, a number of players were down on their form of previous weeks. James McDonald, Brent Moloney and Jack Trengove all received that special Brad Scott attention and, fresh from his appearance on The Footy Show. Colin Sylvia was in the wars with his disposal. For the first time this year Mark Jamar didn't have things all his own way despite being the best of the big men in statistical terms. The Demons also didn't seem quite at home at Etihad Stadium but they are going to have to come to terms with playing on grounds other than the MCG. They have yet to win away from home under Dean Bailey.

The good news is that this Demon team did not capitulate in the way that it would have done when confronted by this situation in 2008 or 2009. Rather, it stuck to its task and performed a meritorious comeback which saw it peg back the deficit to 14 points at the last break thanks to a six goal burst, three of them from Green who along with Aaron Davey (nine possessions in the third quarter) was instrumental in the team's fight back.

Melbourne had "won" the final quarter of each of its five games to date and with this thought in mind, the confidence of the Demon fans was uppermost in their thinking that their team was about to bring off a famous victory. However, it was North Melbourne that had all the answers against the inefficient Demons who wasted an advantage of around sixty possessions through poor disposal by hand and foot brought about by the pressure that was brought to bear upon them by a persistent opposition. The Roos scored two opportunistic goals to push their lead beyond four goals and that was enough to put the game beyond doubt. With Matthew Bate well down and Ricky Petterd well covered and then winged by what appears to be a serious shoulder problem, Melbourne was crying out for a tall, marking forward. Does anyone know where such a player can be found?

The Demons were well served by Clint Bartram who seems to have returned to the high standards of his debut season and who kept Brent Harvey relatively quiet. Jack Grimes was good again in defence and Tom Scully showed his usual high quality. Cameron Bruce got a lot of the ball.

The Demons missed a major opportunity to establish themselves among the competition's upper echelon. In doing so, they showed they were not quite ready or up to the task. Then again, that should have been obvious when three games was considered a "winning streak" rather than the routine.

Melbourne 2.1.13 3.3.21 9.4.58 12.6.78

North Melbourne 3.3.21 8.7.55 10.12.72 15.14.104

Goals

Melbourne Green 4 Petterd 2 Bartram Bate Dunn Jamar Sylvia Trengove

North Melbourne Hale Wright 3 Anthony Wells 2 Goldstein Harvey McIntosh Swallow Warren

Best

Melbourne Green Grimes Bartram Bruce Davey Scully

North Melbourne Swallow Thompson Firrito Wells Anthony Adams

Injuries

Melbourne Petterd (shoulder)

North Melbourne Hansen (nose)

Changes

Melbourne McKenzie (general soreness) replaced in selected side by Rivers

North Melbourne Nil

Reports Nil

Umpires Chris Donlon Todd Keating Dean Margetts

Crowd 26,763 at Etihad Stadium

This will be good. Talk about Sylvia.

Are we now a one-man team? No Jordie McKenzie - no Melbourne?

We lost our team balance yesterday when Jordie was replaced by a taller slower defender. They seemed to have more numbers at the ball and smothered our run up the corridor. We also missed his tackling pressure on guys like Wells who cut us to ribbons coming out of the centre.

I wasn't too disappointed in the loss. We should have been further behind at half time but at least we came back in the 3rd quarter. Better than leaving it till the end of the match.

Also, the side picked yesterday only had 3 guys under 20 and featured a number of players who may not be around in 2-3 years. There could be at least 7 changes to yesterday's line-up by the return match vs North in round 22. I'm glad we had a good run in the last 4 weeks, however we need to concentrate on developing Watts, Strauss, Gysberts, Blease, and other under 22s. Joelmac and Bruce picked up about 30 possessions each but they prevent Strauss and Gysberts from getting gametime.

The downside is we become less competitive (in the short term) by picking younger bodies with less experience. Currently I don't think we are trully committed to a full youth policy. Yesterday we had 3 guys who had played > 20 games. North had 9.

This friday night we play one of the hardest running teams in the league. I hope we can get back Jordie and Rohan Bail. To fit them in we we may drop one of the defenders - either Rivers, JoelMac, Garland or Warnock.

We lose Petterd, and Martin didn't do enough as a tall forward or second ruck, so they may replace both players with Johnson who could fill both roles and free-up Jamar to spend more time as a key forward.

IN: McKenzie, Bail

OUT: Petterd, Rivers

The Demons missed a major opportunity to establish themselves among the competition's upper echelon. In doing so, they showed they were not quite ready or up to the task.

It's very poor when you can have the ball 60 times more in a game than the opposition and have 11 less scoring shots.

Someone's doing something terribly wrong.

It's very poor when you can have the ball 60 times more in a game than the opposition and have 11 less scoring shots.

Someone's doing something terribly wrong.

yes because we often went in circles from north pressure..Also their ball smothering was exceptional almost all day, some many of our kicks and handballs were smothered causing a turnover.

It's very poor when you can have the ball 60 times more in a game than the opposition and have 11 less scoring shots.

Someone's doing something terribly wrong.

Same thing happened to Carlton today and they lost by more than 50 points!

I watched a lot of the Carlton/Coll game and I must say it is ugly when they mess around with the ball and that one extra handball got them in loads of trouble.

Watching our game v Brisbane we didnt have that and you have to hand it to Brad Scott, he did his homework well and had us pretty well worked out and our run through the centre was stifled. Once this happened it was almost a revert to old habits and hence the extra possessions which amounted to zilcho.

Hopefully McKenzie will be back, and Bail and we can get some of that run back and our tackle machine will get back into the groove as I think we will need that this Friday night. Dogs will be hard to stop. They now have a big forward but I would give that task to Chip and have Warnock helping out if necessary. The rest of the forward line are pretty well similar to us.

I look forward to playing them. I think we will do ok. Can we win? Well it depends on which team turns up.. the team v Brisbane or the one v Roos. I am talking attitude and application, not the actual team itself.

So much is confidence and belif. We got wrong footed at times and overdid things because we got the jitters. The "balance"thatwas there previously allowed the players to believe it would progres up the field. We returned to second guessing and some cases of the fumbles. Not a disastrous day in the context of the bigger picture ( of steady improvement) ..but not a happy day either.

Petterds influence will be missed, but he'll be back. weve still more wins to come.. and we are getting better. Bails still needs to work on the adeptness of appropriate plan B's ..for those days when you just have to accommodate the things that are going wrong. ( i.e the other team is besting you )

So much is confidence and belif. We got wrong footed at times and overdid things because we got the jitters. The "balance"thatwas there previously allowed the players to believe it would progres up the field. We returned to second guessing and some cases of the fumbles. Not a disastrous day in the context of the bigger picture ( of steady improvement) ..but not a happy day either.

Petterds influence will be missed, but he'll be back. weve still more wins to come.. and we are getting better. Bails still needs to work on the adeptness of appropriate plan B's ..for those days when you just have to accommodate the things that are going wrong. ( i.e the other team is besting you )

Totally agree - never enjoy a loss, but bigger picture is still bright. It was bound to happen after the media hype on us during the week and after huge effort exerted over the previous 4 games - these are mostly kids, and they will get tired, and we will win & loose more games this season. Throw in Eddie's Hat, and you could see it coming.

Your dead right!

People think were a young developing side but we didn't have as many young blokes in on the weekend as we should have. Players like jones pettard, bate, bartram, dunn and the like now have 50 - 70 games under their belt and are fairly developed. We shouldn't stop there. We need to do to this new crop of players like mckenzie, bail, strauss, gysberts and blease what we did to the other boys a couple of years. Again we will suck like we have been for another year or two but we need to get games into them simple. Don't play them if they are under done but if they are thereabout we can't loose! (well in the long run)

Are we now a one-man team? No Jordie McKenzie - no Melbourne?

We lost our team balance yesterday when Jordie was replaced by a taller slower defender. They seemed to have more numbers at the ball and smothered our run up the corridor. We also missed his tackling pressure on guys like Wells who cut us to ribbons coming out of the centre.

I wasn't too disappointed in the loss. We should have been further behind at half time but at least we came back in the 3rd quarter. Better than leaving it till the end of the match.

Also, the side picked yesterday only had 3 guys under 20 and featured a number of players who may not be around in 2-3 years. There could be at least 7 changes to yesterday's line-up by the return match vs North in round 22. I'm glad we had a good run in the last 4 weeks, however we need to concentrate on developing Watts, Strauss, Gysberts, Blease, and other under 22s. Joelmac and Bruce picked up about 30 possessions each but they prevent Strauss and Gysberts from getting gametime.

The downside is we become less competitive (in the short term) by picking younger bodies with less experience. Currently I don't think we are trully committed to a full youth policy. Yesterday we had 3 guys who had played > 20 games. North had 9.

This friday night we play one of the hardest running teams in the league. I hope we can get back Jordie and Rohan Bail. To fit them in we we may drop one of the defenders - either Rivers, JoelMac, Garland or Warnock.

We lose Petterd, and Martin didn't do enough as a tall forward or second ruck, so they may replace both players with Johnson who could fill both roles and free-up Jamar to spend more time as a key forward.