Dees have belief for a shot at flag

A “WHY not us” mentality will carry Melbourne to Perth this weekend with the Demons hunting their first grand final berth since the turn of the millennium.

Star Demon Christian Petracca said the team had maintained belief since last summer and had taken inspiration from the fairytale premierships of the past two years.

“I guess (it’s why not us?) … we know our best footy is good enough,” Petracca said. “The Western Bulldogs (won it) two years ago, Richmond last year … it’s given clubs like us who weren’t in the finals last year faith. And we’re just riding the emotion.”

Petracca said that such emotion had become fuel for the Demons, who he said had been spurred by the rallying of success-starved fans.

“We feed off it,” he said. Melbourne’s contested ball work proved their greatest asset in Friday night’s 33-point win over Hawthorn – an element of their game that Petracca said the team was keen to maintain as a trademark.

“We like to keep it a chaos game,” he said.

“Obviously we knew they were going to try and slow the game down and take easy marks, which they did really well … we knew once we got the ball into a contested area, we were on top.

“It’s what we’ve planned for the last five years. We’re a strong team, we’re a strong midfield. We like it in that chaos game.”

Melbourne had a poor Perth record, losing 17 straight games at Subiaco between 2004 and 2016, but won their past two games in the west, most recently a 17-point win over the Eagles in Round 22.

Petracca said it was “hard” to know whether the team could take much from that win given Jack Darling and Josh Kennedy did not play. Coskipper Nathan Jones said it was considered a completely different game.