Jay senses Dees are in the groove

MELBOURNE scrapper Jay Lockhart says the Dees continued to hone a game style over the coronavirus shutdown that can take them “deep” into the finals.

It missed the mark in the opening round on arguably the toughest road trip in the AFL — West Coast Eagles in Perth — and the rollout will get its second test against Carlton at Docklands today in the longawaited Round 2.

Despite the tyranny of distance, Melbourne managed to refine its reimagined game style after a huge fail last year.

“We didn’t execute very well last year — five wins for the season is not a great result,” Lockhart said. “We didn’t have a lot of connection with each other and we got scored on way too easy.

“So our focus is on stability in defence and making it hard for the opposition to score, and building that connection with each other, especially going forward. They are the two areas we have really worked on over the break.”

If it works against Carlton, Melbourne fans may have something to cheer about.

“We feel that our footy can play finals, and go deep into finals,” Lockhart said.

“This little break we’ve just had gave us more time again to — I know we haven’t been with each other a lot —train the game style and do the training and the past three weeks leading into Round 2 have been massive for us and we will keep building on that.”

Along with six other Melbourne players from Round 1, the feisty Tasmanian lost his spot for the Blues clash as the Dees regained former captain Nathan Jones and brought in former Sun and Docker Harley Bennell for his red and blue debut along with young guns Trent Rivers and Luke Jackson.

Lockhart, 24, the man head-butted by Docker Michael Walters at the “G” last year, wants his spot back.

“With the shortened season and potentially shortened turnarounds later in the year, I’m just hoping to play as many games as possible,” he said.

“I’m going to be a bit of a role player and contribute however I can, whether I’m playing or not. I’d love to play every game but if it’s not the right thing for the team, so be it.”

A former premiership player for Tasmanian State League club North Launceston, Lockhart was sent home for the coronavirus break. “I was in Tassie for six weeks on advice from the footy club to get back with family because no one knew how it was going to go,” he said. “I did the two-week quarantine and stayed with my parents.

“Training by yourself for six weeks is not ideal. I like the group training. It keeps me more motivated. Because we were able to train in pairs under the rules, I worked with [North Launceston’s playing coach] Taylor Whitford and a couple of others. It was good to catch up with them and do some solid training.”

Lockhart was a mature-age recruit plucked from Melbourne’s VFL affiliate Casey and he makes a strong case for keeping the country’s best second-tier competition healthy.

“It’s a really high standard of footy with AFL players coming in and out of it each week,” he said. “Hopefully it can get going again this year because it’s a really important pathway for mature-age players, who aren’t quite ready at 18.”