Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson is confident Melbourne will recover from their present predicament as the two mis-matched teams prepare to clash at the MCG on Sunday.
Melbourne coach Mark Neeld is facing constant calls to quit with the Demons stuck near the bottom of the ladder.
A club committee meeting on Monday could decide Neeld’s fate but Clarkson believe the outfit will bounce back.
“Just at the present time Melbourne are going through some pain but they’re a good club and they’ll end up pulling their way out of this,” Clarkson said on Saturday.
He said the positive for Melbourne was that the game gave each club “a week-to-week opportunity or season-to-season at the very worst.”
“No matter how poorly you’ve gone one week you’ve got the chance to butter up the next week or if you’ve had a really poor season you’ve got the chance to try to rectify it the following season.”
He also pointed to Port Adelaide’s dramatic turnaround from last season.
“You only need to look at Port Adelaide – down and out like their whole club was falling apart last year but you get a couple of changes in terms of presidency and direction and coaching and all of a sudden they are really competitive again.
“It doesn’t take much to turn it around,” he said.
However, Clarkson said AFL coaches were under no illusions about the consequences of failure.
“It’s a brutal industry but the harsh reality of our game is there’s going to be a team on the top of the ladder and there’s going to be a team on the bottom of the ladder.
“Unfortunately whichever sport you look at around the world the teams that are down the bottom are under enormous scrutiny,” he said.
Ladder-leaders Hawthorn suffered uncharacteristic lapses against Gold Coast last week but hit back to win.
Clarkson insisted Melbourne presented “a different set of challenges” and said his charges needed to be on guard.
The Demons made six changes in response to last week’s 90-point loss to Fremantle, but Clarkson said he expected the side’s approach would not change.
“It’s usually like for like, it’s not like they change their side and all of a sudden take out six smalls and put in six talls,” he said.
“Their structure and the way that they play is pretty similar.
“We’ve just got to make sure we approach it in the right manner and come with the way we want to play our footy and we didn’t do that in the early part of last week’s game,” he said.
AAP rg/ash
