Beyond dispute: It was fun while it lasted, but the Dees are done

You can write teams off too quickly in AFL football. You can also hang on to them too long. That's what I did with Melbourne.

Last year, I doubled down on the Demons when many had given them up. I thought the impact of those much-documented off-field issues may have been overstated. I figured that having finished top four the previous two seasons and losing two finals by a kick in 2023, Melbourne just needed a touch more luck to go all the way again, just like 2021.

Wisdom in hindsight is a wonderful thing of course, but it's now crystal clear that the concept of Melbourne as a premiership team died about midway through 2024. And that what looks like unfolding this season is more a protracted and painful viewing of the body.

The 92-point thrashing at the hands of Fremantle in Round 12 last year was not only the Demons' heaviest defeat since 2015, but the first time their consistent competitiveness had given way for years, the first loss by anything more than 30-something points in about five years.

And in retrospect, that dramatic moment when Melbourne caved in in Alice Springs was of far more consequence than Melbourne's till-then consistent numbers in various defensive statistical categories.

Prior to that loss against the Dockers, the Demons were still third for fewest points conceded, first for not allowing opposition points per inside 50 and No.1 for stopping opposition scores from stoppages.

That's significant, too, though, because even then, like so often during these past four-and-a-bit years when Simon Goodwin's team has been thereabouts, Melbourne was struggling offensively, fourth on the ladder at 7-4 but only 12^th for points scored and eighth for scores per inside 50.

The Demons kept hanging in there largely off the back of a good back six and effective defensive mechanisms. And now that they have collapsed as well, the floodgates are opening. Of course, key defender Jake Lever's absence through injury has come at the worst possible time for Melbourne, but the dam walls were giving way anyway.

The Demons have won just four of 16 games since Alice Springs. And eight of those 12 defeats have been by 38 points or more. Since that opening round defeat at the hands of the Giants, when with a bit of luck Melbourne may have won, the losses have been by 59, 58, 39 and 39 points, two of those to the hardly fear-inspiring North Melbourne and Essendon.

While Melbourne showed a more resilient front against Geelong the previous week, against the Bombers, aside from a 20-minute period in the third quarter, the Dees were as flat as a tack, the forward set-up looking as dysfunctional as ever, and in midfield the likes of Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver winning enough of the ball but having a fraction of the influence they once did.

Both looked dejected and defeated throughout the game, but they were hardly alone. And to a degree, it's understandable. Because the belief that their team's best was still good enough has now surely been exposed definitively as fallacy. So where is this playing group headed?

It's not that there aren't good young players emerging. Caleb Windsor was a real find last year, Judd McVee and Jacob Van Rooyen are approaching the 50-game mark and still only 21, and Harvey Langford and Xavier Lindsay might be a rare bright light this year.

But it's hardly a major list renovation. Melbourne was the third oldest and third most experienced list last year. This year, they're still fourth and sixth respectively in those categories.