There are pre-season matches, and then there is whatever unfolded at Mars Stadium in Ballarat on Friday evening. Lightning struck near the ground twice, the first quarter stretched to an extraordinary 74 minutes, and the game was eventually called off midway through what was scheduled to be the third term. When it was all over, Melbourne had beaten Richmond 78 points to 43 in a match that felt more like a weather event than a football game.
Strip away the atmospheric chaos and what remains is a Melbourne Football Club that looked noticeably different. Under first-year senior coach Steven King, the Demons moved the ball through the corridor with a directness their supporters have rarely seen in recent years. The risk-taking was deliberate, the transitions were sharp, and the forward line had genuine menace. Whether any of that translates when the real points are on the line from March onwards is an open question, but the early signs gave Demons fans something to take home beyond stories about the weather.
The Demons kicked seven goals in that elongated opening quarter alone. Key forward Jacob van Rooyen was the most damaging, finishing with three majors in a display that reinforced his standing as one of the club's most important players heading into 2026. But the performance drawing the most attention belonged to Caleb Windsor, who spent the bulk of last season on the wing and was shifted inside the contest by King's coaching staff. With 15 disposals and a goal, Windsor demonstrated the kind of pace through the middle that Melbourne will need as they rebuild their engine room following the departures of Clayton Oliver to GWS and Christian Petracca to Gold Coast.
Assistant coach Nathan Jones, speaking after the match as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, was candid about what the coaching staff is trying to build. "The profile of the midfield group has absolutely changed in terms of its ability to transition from a running power perspective," Jones said. "We still value winning the ball, but the game's tweaked a bit in terms of your ability to be able to pressure and strip and win it back, as much as it is win the ball and explode and explore on offence. We've put some time into that and we've exposed players to that and I think that's evolving."
In the backline, the return of Harrison Petty was a welcome sight for a club that endured significant injury disruption in 2025. Petty slotted in alongside veteran Jake Lever and Daniel Turner and looked composed throughout his time on the ground. The injury list did grow on the day, though, with Luke Kentfield walking off groggy after a heavy collision while leading out of full-forward, and Sam Cumming leaving the field clutching his shoulder late in the first quarter. Both will require monitoring ahead of the AFL season proper.
One of the afternoon's more striking individual moments came from young West Australian Koltyn Tholstrup, who took a mark outside 50 metres and, defying any reasonable expectation from the stands, kicked a composed and powerful goal. It was the kind of moment that hints at upside rather than confirming it, but in a pre-season context that is precisely what coaches and fans are looking for.
For Richmond, the afternoon was harder to read. The Tigers were without Dion Prestia, Noah Balta and Nick Vlastuin, which meant Richmond's coaching group could take limited confidence from the scoreline. Veteran forward Tom Lynch was uncharacteristically wasteful in front of goal, finishing with 2.3. Jayden Short led all disposal-getters with 20, providing one of the more reliable individual benchmarks from a Richmond perspective. Coach Chris Newman acknowledged the disrupted day but pointed to his group's adaptability. "Safety is paramount," Newman said. "They've tried to keep the energy up and after the first break we actually came out and played some pretty good footy, so it's a testament to a young group that they can bounce back."
The honest verdict is that one abandoned practice match at Mars Stadium tells us relatively little with certainty. Melbourne looked more purposeful than they have in some time, but the competition they will actually face across the regular season is a different proposition entirely. What the Demons do have is a clear and committed game style, a forward line with genuine punch, and enough young talent to suggest the rebuild, while painful, may be shorter than feared. That is worth something, even if the game itself never quite reached its conclusion.