In recent years, when AFL sides ruthlessly dominated Melbourne it often resembled a training drill and a chance to regain form.
Now it's Demons coach Paul Roos who will be treating the final seven rounds of the season as an ideal chance to iron out the side's issues and assess who's part of his future plans.
"We've still got seven dress-rehearsal games for pre-season, that's the way I look at it," Roos said on the eve of Saturday's clash with Geelong at the MCG.
"I know more what I have to do in pre-season now. I know the weaknesses ... if we improve in certain areas, we won't have to work on them so much in pre-season.
"It's probably less about results and more about the way we go about it."
Melbourne have enjoyed a resurgence in Roos' first year in charge, already posting four wins to double their 2013 tally.
Roos admitted some of the club's young talent would start to physically struggle at this stage of the season, in part the reason Dom Barry and Christian Salem were left out of the side to play the Cats.
But he made it clear there would be no excuses for a lack of effort from the club's stalwarts.
"You learn a lot about players when perhaps there's not too much at stake - publicly," Roos said.
"For some of them you can shape your career in a pretty short space of time."
And when it comes to games against powerhouses likes Geelong, Roos agreed it was his older players that would come under the microscope.
"You want them to dig in a bit. You're looking at them a bit more closely," he said.
"We need to see who's going to stand up. Who does and doesn't make mistakes under pressure.
"Younger players you're probably expecting them to struggle a bit more against the better teams."
And Geelong remain exactly that, according to Roos.
"I still rate them in the top four or five teams in the comp," he said.
"(Jimmy) Bartel, (James) Kelly, (Joel) Selwood and Harry Taylor ... they just do things quicker."
Roos noted the status quo remained with James Frawley - the free agent is yet to decide where he wants to play in 2015 and the club aren't interested in rushing that decision.
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