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The Demons are 10th,although they are only outside the top eight on percentage. Gawn said the season was not lost,pointing to the surge Carlton and Greater Western Sydney enjoyed in the run home to the finals last season.

“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,” Gawn,who was worked over by the Dockers’ ruckmen Sean Darcy and Luke Jackson,told Triple M.

“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.”

Gawn said the Demons were always a “mouthguards in” team at training,but this week there “might be more mouthguards in because we are not playing that well”.

Second to the ball:Clayton Oliver,and his Melbourne teammates,were too often beaten for possession by the Dockers.Credit:Getty

He said the Demons took pride in their contest and defensive work,but there was improvement to be made after conceding 69 inside-50 entries to the Dockers,the most they have conceded since round 20,2019.

On a horrible day reminiscent of their rebuilding years,the Demons conceded 78 more disposals,and lost the inside-50 count by 31,clearances by 25,marks by 46 and contested footy by 42,and even had one fewer tackle.

Coach Simon Goodwin admitted “methods” within his game plan needed to be fixed,but labelled the overall team performance “completely unacceptable”,while AFL great Matthew Lloyd said it was “as bad and as damning a performance as you will see from an AFL team wanting to be a premiership contender”.

Gawn insisted the Demons would rebound against the Magpies,as they had done after defeats for most of this season,but he could not guarantee greater consistency in the back half of the season.

“You have got to actually do the response,but I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to turn it around this week. It’s more the next 10 weeks,” he said.

Collingwood great Nathan Buckley took aim at the Demons’ game plan,and what he perceived was poor fitness.

“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,” Buckley told SEN.

“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.”

Gawn said Lever’s absence was not an excuse for the team’s defensive woes. The Demons were also without key forward Jacob van Rooyen,while Harrison Petty will need to lift against the Magpies. Lachie Hunter (calf tightness) will be assessed.

This masthead approached Demons chief executive Gary Pert and football department boss Alan Richardson for comment.

The Demons’ latest contract with the Northern Territory government to play home games in Alice Springs expires this year. The Demons first took home games to Traeger Park in 2014. The Northern Territory government was also contacted for comment.

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