Four months into a nightmare AFL season, Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin admits the battling Demons still haven’t figured out the basics.
Saturday night’s 15.14 (104) to 13.7 (85) defeat to St Kilda has left Melbourne 17th on the ladder with just five wins from 18 games.
Were it not for Gold Coast’s continued struggles, the Dees would almost certainly be heading for the wooden spoon – a stunning drop-off for a side that played in a preliminary final last year and had been widely-tipped to win the premiership.
Melbourne had an unusually high number of players forced to undergo surgery during the off-season and went without key players Jake Lever, Steven May, Tom McDonald, Neville Jetta and Jake Melksham for extended periods.
But while the Demons have slowly regained players, they have yet to find a way to stop shooting themselves in the foot.
Remarkably, St Kilda scored 84 points (13.6) from turnovers on Saturday night – almost double the AFL average per game.
“That was a huge concern,” Goodwin said.
“We’re stressing ourselves a lot with how we’re using the ball. Our decision-making, our fundamentals are really stressing our game.
“And it’s been a constant theme for us for a lot of the season – our inability to hit targets and just execute the basics is really stressing us, and it’s causing us concern.”
Asked what the Demons could do to fix their skill execution, Goodwin said it came down more to training than mental resolve.
“(Confidence) plays a part in game, belief in the way you play and belief in your ability to execute,” he said.
“But it comes from your training and it comes from your work that you do.
“Certainly, we need to get better in that space as a club. That’s us as coaches, that’s everyone in the department and not solely on the players.”
The Demons face in-form Richmond next Saturday and will be desperate to have May available to help them nullify star Tigers duo Tom Lynch and Jack Riewoldt.
Should May fail to recover from a minor hamstring strain, the job could fall to Oscar McDonald who was well-beaten by St Kilda opponent Josh Bruce.
“We’re really hopeful,” Goodwin said of May.
“We’ll have to assess him and get him through training first but we certainly won’t take a risk with him either.
“It was a really, really minor hamstring. He’s done a bit of work in the back-end of this week and over the weekend so we’ll just see how he goes.”