Full flight: The Melbourne bugler.

Full flight: The Melbourne bugler. Photo: Joe Armao



As his club reacquainted itself with victory in the MCG rooms, Colin Garland was taken aside by Neil Craig, who gripped the defender's guernsey tight and thanked him for providing something the Demons have been sorely lacking – leadership. On this long-awaited day, it made all the difference.


Garland was quick to highlight it in others – the young captains Jack Trengove and Jack Grimes, in Colin Sylvia and Nathan Jones. Coach Mark Neeld noted that this may be the only time all season the Demons' boast more experience than their opponent, and at length they didn't waste it.


''Neeldy was pretty calm with us,'' Garland said of the three-quarter-time break, when Melbourne trailed by three goals and the Tasmanian observed that ''maybe the columnists were writing a different story''. Yet for a welcome change, they were still in the contest.


''[It was the] same message as before game – just be bold and instinctive. That's what's been lacking – we just haven't been playing on our instincts and playing bold footy.''


While large chunks of this game did little for the claim Australian football is the most skilful sport on the planet, one column on the Melbourne stats sheet spoke volumes of effort, if not polish. More than half of the club's 2013 average of 48 tackles were laid in the first quarter, and ultimately 83 for the game, 29 more than the Giants.


''It meant we were able to keep more pressure on GWS, we know how skilful all their players are,'' Neeld said.

There was plenty of that on display from the young men in orange, from Adam Treloar and Dylan Shiel to the impressive Lachie Whitfield and, much to the distaste of the home fans, Tom Scully. While Neeld talked again of Melbourne's rebuild, the Giants' build continues.


When Neville Jetta put Whitfield down after a kick, gifting Rhys Palmer a goal just before the last change, the Demons looked set for a loss that would almost certainly have had grim consequences.


The efforts of Jones (nine last-quarter possessions), Garland (seven touches and five marks) and Grimes, Sylvia and Trengove at the stoppages created the weight of possession that Michael Evans and Jeremy Howe (three goals each in the last term) and bearded beanpole Max Gawn (two) weren't about to waste. Neeld hailed Gawn's story, back from two knee reconstructions and a hamstring torn off the bone, as a victory for a player who defies the 2013 prototype. ''He's a bit of a lad, Max.''


While Howe took just six minutes to tender his latest mark of the year offering, nothing topped the early action at the Giants' goalfront, where Setanta O'hAilpin returned from his own ruptured knee with five goals, three in the first quarter, and some celebrating that literally screamed how much it meant to be back. Mercifully for Melbourne, by game's end its fans were similarly brimming with the joys of football life.