Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin has conceded that no player on the club's list would win the hitout count against Fremantle pair Luke Jackson and Sean Darcy, with captain Max Gawn being absent from the side.
On a "disappointing" Sunday at Optus Stadium that saw the Demons defeated by 50 points, Goodwin's midfield was put to the sword, losing the clearance battle (47-16) and the contested possession (141-105) tally.
Buoyed by last week's performance against Essendon, the 2021 premiership coach entrusted key forwards Harrison Petty and Jacob van Rooyen with the ruck duties again in the absence of Gawn, while opting not to take a chance on untried talls Tom Fullarton and Will Verrall.
And the decision paid poorly.
"We got beaten heavily around the ball," Goodwin said post-game.
"Around stoppage clearance, their ability to win contest and get the ball to the outside made them get some really easy goals.
"So that's an area of the game we were able to neutralise last week, obviously without Gawny', but today we weren't.
"We haven't got a ruckman that wins hit-outs when Max doesn't play and clearly today, they were unbelievable around the ball."
Despite hindsight being a wonderful thing, Goodwin still felt that Fullarton wasn't ready to come in for his first game as a Melbourne player to combat the Jackson-Darcy combination.
"Tom's really working hard on his craft and he's got things to work on in his game, but he's not going to win hitouts," Goodwin continued.
"He hasn't been able to do that at VFL level, so we went with a player and a group that we thought could compete as strong as anything at ground level, but also give us something around the ground.
"Bits and pieces throughout the day they were able to do that, but the hit-out game wasn't something we were going to win no matter who we picked."
Melbourne is expecting Gawn to return next week after narrowly missing out on selection.
The champion ruckman will be a welcome return for the club's must-win clash against GWS.
"Yeah, he'll play," Goodwin revealed.
"We are expecting him to be right (for the GWS game). He was very close this week.
"He got through our maini training session but he wasn't quite where we wanted him to be.
"We didn't want to take a risk... he's an important player to us, it's an important time of the year and we want to make sure he's really healthy.
"Just to give him that extra bit of time, hopefully, it'll pay us back."
