YOUNG-gun midfielder Dom Tyson says Melbourne’s effort against the West Coast Eagles was much more competitive this week – as opposed to last round’s shocker against GWS – “but it was still not good enough”.
Speaking following his side’s 66-point loss at Patersons Stadium on Saturday night, Tyson said the Demons needed to move well away from being just competitive in matches.
“We’ve got to get past that stage where we’re not happy to have an honourable loss – ever,” he told melbournefc.com.au.
“[I’m] not saying today was, but we’ve got to be in games to win and at three quarter-time, we wanted to be in the game.
“If we compete and give it our all – you can nearly cop that, but if you’re not in games, it doesn’t give us a look, which is disappointing.”
Tyson said the players were determined to hit back hard on the back of last round’s poor performance against GWS – but another poor start proved costly against the slick West Coast.
“It was disappointing for us after last week,” he said.
“We wanted to come out and be really competitive and we didn’t bring that in the first quarter for whatever reason. We gave them the jump and you see how hard it is to claw them back when you give them that lead in the first quarter.
“In patches we were good, but once again we didn’t bring it over four quarters, which was disappointing.”
Still, Tyson said the Demons simply performed the basics better when they stymied the flow in the second term and won the final term – after another disappointing third term.
“When we do things well, we’re making our tackles and we’re not fumbling – we’re dishing the hands and we’re hitting up our forwards,” he said.
“We probably had a 10-minute patch in the second quarter where it wasn’t too bad, but overall it was disappointing and we’ll have a look at the tape and see exactly where we went wrong again.”
Tyson, who has been one of Melbourne’s best performers this season and is right in the mix to win this year’s Keith ‘Bluey’ Truscott Memorial Trophy, said his role against the Eagles was a different one.
“I spent a bit more time at half-forward and on the ball and a little bit of time on the wing, which is good, because it gave Viv [Michie] a bit of a look in [the middle],” he said.
“It felt like Crossy (Daniel Cross) was on top of [Matt] Priddis and Matty Jones was running with [Andrew] Gaff, who spent a bit of time inside, so we mixed it up a little bit.
“It was a different role, but it was just good to shuffle a few blokes through this week and give blokes another look.”
With the Demons set to play the Kangaroos in the final round next Saturday night at Etihad Stadium, Tyson said his team needed to put it all on the line for one more time this year.
“[North Melbourne is] going to be playing finals the week after, so hopefully we make it a really tough week for them – a tough weekend and a tough two hours of footy,” he said.
“It’s the last two hours of footy we’ll play for a long time and if they’ve got their mind on the week after next [hopefully, we can take advantage of that.]
“We want to enjoy the last two hours of the year. Hopefully we can do that.”
