“Clearly, that’s about as awful a performance as it gets. “One that we will not tolerate.”
A 92-point Melbourne loss is unusual in recent years, and the team has avoided it since Simon Goodwin took charge in 2017.
However, Fremantle handed the Demons their biggest defeat on Sunday in Alice Springs since Round 23 in 2016.
From start to finish, the Dockers executed like a surgeon, cutting through Melbourne at the nation’s Red Centre, a trip that supporters will hopefully forget.
In his post-match press conference, Goodwin criticized his players’ efforts, calling their performance “completely unacceptable”.
“Clearly, that’s about as awful a performance as it gets. One we will not tolerate. “There are inconsistencies in our game, and this has been going on for a while,” Goodwin said.
“We recognize that there are components of our method that are incorrect.
“But inconsistencies, not just from week to week, are concerning, and we’ll investigate why, because that performance is clearly, completely unacceptable in terms of where we want to be as a team.” “I know our supporters want more.”
Despite a somewhat strong start with two goals, Melbourne conceded 22 majors to five after the first four minutes of the game, as the 2022 premiers’ “inconsistencies” persisted.
With too few players, the Demons struggled to get their game going, and crucial statistical indications were off.
Melbourne were completely outmatched in disposal (366-444), inside 50s (37-68), clearances (23-48), contested possessions (96-138), marks (96-142), and tackles (52-53).
“There were probably more some issues in terms of our execution early in the game. We got off to a pretty good start, but we turned the ball over in the back half of the ground at an extraordinarily high rate, and that put us under enormous pressure and then that flowed onto more issues,” Goodwin said.
“We started to lose around contest and clearance, and we got obliterated in every phase, to be honest, but it just flowed as the game unfolded. Clearly, our contest was poor, our work-rate was poor and our ability to deliver pressure was poor.
“They’re all things we’ve got to work on and you put that together with our ball use, and it’s just nowhere near the level it needs to be. And you get the performance you get against – you got to give Freo credit, they played a really impressive, intense game with high pressure and executed with the ball incredibly well.”
Melbourne, who have lost three of their past four games, is now at tenth on the list following the 92-point defeat, with their percentage down 12%.
Goodwin will now try to push his team over their poor performance as they hope to turn things around in the annual King’s Birthday match against Collingwood.
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