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A rapid Dee-cline: What’s gone wrong? Andrew Wu Numbers show worrying trends for struggling Melbourne. Amid the drama at Melbourne in the past nine months, Max Gawn and Christian Petracca have been the calming presences. In a troubled campaign, punctuated by off-field issues at the club, both have maintained their customary high standards while injuries or loss of form befell others. Neither could have done more for the red-and-blue cause. Now, Petracca, won’t be there. For how long, not even the Demons know yet. It is not uncommon for such internal injuries to take months rather than weeks to recover from. There are no guarantees the club’s champion match-winning midfielder will even be back this year. After 10 rounds in 2022, the talk was around whom, if anyone, could stop Melbourne from going backto-back in a Demons dynasty. Two years on, they are no better than a 50-50 chance just to reach the finals. How fans must yearn for the time when they could fret over another September straight-sets exit instead of the fear of missing out entirely or, even worse, the possibility of the end of an era. North Melbourne great David King suspects the Dees have overcorrected in a bid to find marginal gains after the finals failures of the past two years. But by giving up part of their contested game, a team built on grunt has lost its way to the point where coach Simon Goodwin made a glaring concession last weekend to this masthead. ‘‘When you try to make change you run the risk of losing your identity and right now, we haven’t got a clear identity,’’ Goodwin said. The numbers are a worry. There’s enough red – where they’ve dropped away dramatically – to make any Dees fan blue. A team that prides itself on winning contest, defence and reliant on territory has fallen in each area. The best contested possession team last year, the Dees have plummeted to 11th. They are in the bottom three for ground balls (16th) and loose balls (18th), down from third and fourth respectively. It has affected their territory game. Only West Coast, Richmond and North Melbourne have a worse inside-50 differential. A club with a generational centre-square quartet of Gawn, Petracca, Clayton Oliver and Jack Viney was taken to the cleaners by a Pies midfield missing Jordan De Goey, Scott Pendlebury and Tom Mitchell – smacked 14-6 for centre clearances despite Gawn’s ruck dominance. As former Melbourne ruck star Jeff White pointed out on social media platform X, the Pies’ midfield set-up expecting Gawn to win the hitouts, positioning themselves in his preferred tap zones. Collingwood coach Craig McRae and his brains turned an area of vulnerability into one of strength. ‘‘When you’re going up against someone much taller and a very good player, you put a strategy in place to try and shark the taps,’’ White, careful not to be seen to be critical of the club he loves, expanded to this masthead. ‘‘Gawny is effectively hitting to six mids. ‘‘A really clear indication you get of the homework clubs do is the first centre bounce. The first two centre bounces is what I showed in the video [on X]. They didn’t go to Cameron’s dominant right hand, they flooded one side.’’ In a competition where you fall behind if you stand still, not enough Demons have improved since the historic premiership of 2021. Arguably, more have regressed than progressed. Oliver has gone from great to merely good after a summer of tumult. Angus Brayshaw, sadly, has retired. Luke Jackson has gone home. Ben Brown can’t stay on the park. Tom McDonald, the other half of their grand final key forward pairing, is back in defence. James Jordon, the sub in their premiership, has become a key player in his club’s flag push, but in the red and the white of Sydney. James Harmes has been offloaded to the Dogs. Both would be playing regular senior footy this year at Melbourne. Their departures have created more opportunities for Caleb Windsor (19 years old), Judd McVee (20) and Blake Howes (21). They will improve the Demons in the long term, but the premiership window should be open at its widest now. Tom Sparrow, Alex Neal-Bullen, Kysaiah Pickett, Jacob van Rooyen and Trent Rivers are the notable risers. Pickett and van Rooyen are the two who can become more than role players, and drive the side. It is asking a lot, particularly of van Rooyen, who must bed down a key post in just his second year of senior football, but they won’t play finals if they do not deliver. Pickett, though raw, has the speed to spark the Demons midfield. Christian Salem, a damaging half-back in their flag year, has the class and the damaging left boot to change the angles. As difficult as it may seem, the Dees remain in the hunt. Victories over North Melbourne and West Coast (at the MCG) in the next three rounds would have them 9-7 when the whips start cracking – but if they cannot rediscover what made them great, Goodwin may well be flogging a dead horse. With or without Petracca.