"Our worst performances for the last five years" - Melbourne Demons captain Max Gawn slams teammates following Sunday’s crushing defeat  

Captain of the Melbourne Demons Max Gawn has declared his side’s two-loss performance as their worst in the last half decade. In his role as captain, he believes a major part of his job is to point out some of the Demons’ issues in an act of working towards excellence.

Despite his lamentations about the loss, the six-time All-Australian believes that dwelling on it would allow Collingwood an advantage over them ahead of the King’s Birthday showdown next Monday.

A 92-point loss to Fremantle on Sunday, following the Melbourne Demons' loss to West Coast in Perth by 35 points two weeks prior left Gawn pretty deflated. While there might have been a 38-point win over the Saints in between, he believes his team has a lot to work on to be well prepared for Monday’s game at the MCG against the Magpies.

In a post-match interview following their latest loss, Gawn said:

“We were smashed in the contest, smashed in clearance ... we just got smashed all over the ground.The year has been about flows, but two of two of the past three weeks we have probably put in our worst performances for the last five years. Glass half-full approach is there is so long left in the year.

"Not sure where we sit but it’s pretty close to the top eight and we have a good chance to bounce back. Glass half-empty, which is where I am at right now, is pretty flattening.”

After the defeat, the Melbourne Demons are down to 10th, with points equal to the Magpies ahead of their clash this week.

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Melbourne Demons captain Gawn promises a comeback against the Magpies come Monday

AFL Rd 12 - Melbourne v Fremantle

Following a 141-point loss to Fremantle in Alice Springs, Melbourne Demons' captain Max Gawn found it necessary to come to his team’s defense. With the team’s reputation being on the edge, a league great has raised questions about their fitness.

Pointing to the threat the Melbourne Demons posed against Carlton and the Giants last season, Gawn, worked over by Dockers Luke Jackson and Sean Darcy, said his side was not doomed for the season just yet, promising a retribution this week. He told Triple M:

“There’s two ways to look at what’s happened. There’s glass half full, and that would be the Giants and Carlton made a prelim off the back of being worse than us on the ladder at this time last year . We have had some pretty impressive wins, when you’re beating sides that are in the top four, like Geelong and Port.

"If we get some stuff right, and nail these inconsistencies, then we should be OK for the back half of the year. Or there’s the other glass that a side even with us on the ladder, we’ve just lost by 92 points at our home ground in Alice Springs, off the back of losing to West Coast by 60 points two weeks before. So, we’ve got to get out, get our stuff right. We’ve got to go out there, and there will be a response this week.”

Collingwood great Nathan Buckley, while assessing the Demons’ performance, conceded that their major issue was a lack of fitness. He told SEN:

“There was vision after the game … all I’ll say is looking at the Melbourne rooms after the game, they don’t look as hard and fit as I would expect a top four AFL team to look. And they don’t have a lot of injuries.

"From the vision I saw of their warm-down … you have to call it as you see it, there were some players there I thought didn’t look in the condition that you would expect them to be in if you’re going to be coming up against the AFL’s best teams and expecting to win them. The performance was terrible, and they just don’t look hard and fit.”