Feel the burn, says Dees coach
MELBOURNE coach Simon Goodwin instructed his players to let their preliminary final pain “burn” all summer long.
Star defender Michael Hibberd revealed Goodwin’s message straight after Saturday’s 66-point loss to West Coast was to use the poor performance as motivation for 2019.
“He (said) it’s got to burn,” Hibberd said.
“This has got to make us better — that was pretty much the message.
“This is an adversity that’s thrown at us. We make it to a prelim and people are going to talk us up for getting this far. But we’re not satisfied with that. We wanted to play next week and we wanted to win next week.
“For the players it’s going to burn in their guts.”
The Demons kicked their smallest finals score in 24 years and suffered their second-biggest loss under Goodwin. They became the first team to endure a goalless first half in a final in 91 years.
Hibberd recorded 14 disposals, which was the fourthfewest from his 123-game career, although the Eagles’ win was set up by their midfield domination.
“I could’ve been better, just like 21 other players,” Hibberd, 28, said.
“It stings. It’s a pretty hard pill to swallow but it might be the fire we need in our belly for the summer to get better and come back stronger next year.
“They came out firing and we couldn’t match them early. Their attack on the ball was just better than ours.
“It hurts. You’re one game away from playing in the game you dream of playing in.
“I haven’t seen the stats but it seemed like they smashed us in the contest all day, which is probably our biggest strength. They flogged us in that area.”
Melbourne lost the clearance count 40-32 and the contested ball count 159-144.
“All year we’ve stood up for contested ball,” Goodwin said.
“It’s not everything in the game but it’s a big part of the game and it’s a big part of the way we’ve built our club.
“In finals you want to bring your one-wood to the game. You want to bring your big strength. We had 34 tackles for the day and lost contested ball. It’s not the game where you want to lose those stats.”