High four: How the generous Dees will still kill in an instant

Cast your mind back to your schoolyard days and memories of soggy salad sandwiches and raucous games of British bulldog are sure to nostalgically flood back.

Send your mind's eye further across the playground, and you're also sure to recall your local gang of bullies playing keepings off with a far more feeble set of opponents.

For those that were spared the recess runaround - as well as those that weren't troubled or tyrannical enough to have set it in motion - the aim of the game is to part a victim with their property and send them fruitlessly chasing after it.

While these primary school persecutors were able to find joy in the dismay of their classmates, their cackles and sneers reached a crescendo once they feigned a lack of interest, and lured their patsies into believing their torment was over only for it to ramp right up again.

Although there are dissimilarities between them and these gangs of youth, the way in which Melbourne has taunted, teased and tempted their opponents of late before ending contests on their terms will be eerily familiar to those bearing schoolyard scars.

Since commencing their still-unbeaten 15-game winning streak against the Suns on August 1, 2021, an offensive blueprint born off blue-collared defensive work has borne two different types of fruit.

The first, and most favoured by Redlegs fanatics, is that Simon Goodwin's side has proven resoundingly capable of closing out games within the space of fewer than 20 minutes.

However, like the bully holding their victim's hat limply in hand, the Demons have also routinely kept their combatants in the contest by allowing consecutive goals to be slotted against them.

Across the course of their five-month tour of perfection, Melbourne has won each of their games by kicking an average of 4.2 goals in a row to kill contests well before the bell - a feat completed at an average pace of nine minutes and 52 seconds each week.

But as the numbers show, even though the scoreboard has regularly provided smiles for those whose hearts beat true, there have been stretches in which fingernails have been shredded as the proverbial door remained ajar.

With a cup in the cabinet and the taste of victory having sat unimpeded on their tongues for the past 289 days, it would take the most jaded of Dees to still be concerned with the current status quo.

Especially when you consider across the past three weekends, the paradoxically benevolent bullies of the league that still seem keen to grant their opponents an opening have truly clicked into gear.

Following his side's 38-point win over prospective finals contender St Kilda last Sunday, Goodwin claimed that “there’s some really good signs today that our game is heading in the right direction.”

“There’s some really good signs today that our game is heading in the right direction.” 🙌

📝 | https://t.co/aTMIem1IMF#DemonSpirit pic.twitter.com/7XFEzif1bZ

— Melbourne Demons (@melbournefc) May 8, 2022

While each of the 17 teams continuing to drift further out of the Demons' rear-view mirror are sure to be sifting through the nuts and bolts of this dominance, the professional steel on show against the Tigers, Hawks and Saints in succession proves that Melbourne's ability to offer a sniff before closing the door completely has become as regimented as their back six.

Despite conceding strings of four goals apiece across the past three weekends at the MCG, the Redlegs' capacity to slam four of their own back goes to show that any challenge is one that can be tackled.

Add in the fact that each of Melbourne's trifecta of dominant offensive stretches have come within the space of eight minutes also proves that their trident has only become sharper with time.

Though this propensity for baiting opposition teams into believing they can topple the AFL's chief tormentor is a symptom of arriving to work late and clocking off early, until Melbourne's style of accelerating and decelerating sees them come in second, it will continue to be deemed efficient enough.

And although this approach has seen potential thrashings whittled back on a near-weekly basis, this dropped percentage becomes irrelevant when the wins are continually stacked.

Just like many - aside from Pies and Crows supporters - were willing to ride the Tigers' tsunami across September of 2017 when they tasted premiership success after 37 years spent licking wounds, Melbourne's blow-out win out west last year was cathartic for many still locked down in Victoria.

And given the Demons' era of dominance is still in its relative infancy, much of the footy world is still willing to derive cheer as the formerly lamentable club makes its transition into a genuine powerhouse.

But with all challengers sent packing in the same direction since Round 20 of the 2021 season, should the incumbent narrative stay the same - or scarily, continue to improve - this goodwill for Goodwin's men may soon evaporate quicker than their manner of arresting ascendency round in, round out.

Still, with one of the major spoils of residing as reigning premiers being an ability to flex an earned arrogance at any given opportunity, this loss of fellowship is unlikely to incense any of Melbourne's near 60,000 members.

If anything, this same legion of Demons will hold hopes that consecutive fixtures against West Coast and North Melbourne will only serve to stoke the flames of animosity to ripple higher.

With the Eagles and Roos only able to muster a collective seven goals and 12 behinds between them throughout their pair of Round 8 fixtures, it is doubtful that the Demons will be coughing up four-goal runs in either of their clashes at Optus Stadium or the Docklands.

But should these schoolyard small frys find it in them to fight back at any stage when facing the likes of Oliver, Petracca, May and Lever, still drying history suggests they will be left in tears before the bell rings as Fritsch, McDonald, Brown and Pickett play bully ball at their own will.