Melbourne entertain as much as contain to beat Geelong with their own game

Melbourne captain Max Gawn saved his best for Geelong as the Demons handed the Cats their first loss of the AFL season at the MCG. Photograph: Dylan Burns/AFL Photos/Getty Images

“If you want entertainment,” former Stoke City manager Alan Durban once said, “go and watch a bunch of clowns.” It would be insulting to compare Simon Goodwin’s Melbourne, which are still capable of scintillating football, to those transcendentally dull Stoke teams.

But the Demons are not here to entertain us. Lost in midfielder Ed Langdon’s “all duck, no dinner” jibe a couple of years ago were his follow up comments. “To be honest, we pride ourselves on making Friday night games pretty boring to watch for the spectators.”

If that is the goal – contest, dee-fence, deny, stifle, grind – then the weekend’s victory over Geelong was straight from the textbook. Demons coach Goodwin says much the same thing each time his side wins: “We got the game the way we wanted it to look.” And this looked like a Melbourne game.

The Demons set up well behind the ball. Their on-ballers contested like angry ants. The ball pinged between two excellent sets of interceptors. They had the undefeated Cats playing left-handed. Despite leading by two points, the Geelong players trudged to their three-quarter time huddle. The Melbourne players, fresh from a 10-day break, were on their toes.

At one point, both sides had combined for 14 straight behinds. But the winners found their radar, and their flair, in the final term. There were a number of memorable moments that helped secure the win – Caleb Windsor’s rundown tackle on Tom Atkins, Christian Petracca’s kick to set up Bayley Fritsch’s second major, and Max Gawn lashing a goal from outside 50. Indeed, Gawn’s entire last quarter was excellent. No footballer grows into games quite like the Demons’ skipper and he always seems to save his best for the Cats.

But Fritsch’s third goal topped them all, sealed the win, and cemented Melbourne as a genuine premiership contender. The geometric miracle of his hair was matched by his right boot. It was similar to Connor Rozee’s goal of the year contender at the Adelaide Oval last year – the way he did the maths, the way he read the green and the way he caressed the ball onto his boot. Fritsch only had a dozen touches on Saturday night but every one of them counted.

The Cats were far from disgraced but some of their more accomplished players had dirty nights. The club is being patient with Damian Bourke clone Toby Conway, but Rhys Stanley keeps struggling against the more bestial ruckmen. Marc Pittonet was far too physical for him last week and Gawn gradually overpowered him on Saturday night. Stanley cops a lot of flak. He’s a better and more competitive player than the football world gives him credit for. But he has a history of coming up short against big bruisers.

Meanwhile, Tom Hawkins, who this week equals Joel Selwood’s games record at the Cats, is labouring. “Maybe he’s a little bit off, but it’s not a physical thing,” coach Chris Scott said afterwards, convincing no-one. The most durable and consistent of footballers, he can barely get out of a slow trot at the moment. But in his defence, after copping Jacob Weitering last week, he ran into one of the better backs of his generation on Saturday. Steven May and Jake Lever patrol, point, press, pick off, deny, bicker and thwart.

May and Lever are central to everything Melbourne do. When they were both injured earlier in the year against Hawthorn, it initially looked like they would miss months of football. But the diagnoses were surprisingly good and both were at their imperious best on the weekend.

It was one those games, much like the Sydney derby earlier in the day, that showed how different this sport is once the weather turns, the grounds get softer, the ball gets heavier and the grind sets in. The better players always shine with a slippery Sherrin, as the ball handling of Petracca and Fritsch demonstrated on the weekend.

The football being played right now is a far cry from the ping-ponging, wildly fluctuating games in early March. It suits big bodies, wise heads, clean hands and deep lists. Melbourne has that in abundance. Some called it a yawn-fest. But it was a win for planning, for execution and for application, and arguably their best since the 2021 grand final triumph.