Saturday’s extraordinary 93-point turnaround wasn’t the only recent example of the Demons over-running their opponents. They also came from 44 points down against Geelong in round 23, when a Max Gawn goal after the siren confirmed their status as minor premiers.

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Unlike in so many recent seasons, Melbourne had one of the shortest injury lists in the competition for the majority of their campaign.

The ACL-stricken Adam Tomlinson was the only first-team player who was unavailable for the grand final. Jayden Hunt had successfully returned from an ankle injury and wasn’t selected, while Steven May played with a significant hamstring injury.

Burgess admitted there is always an element of luck with injury runs, but he said the Demons did alter their fitness program in the past 18 months.

“We trained slightly shorter, but all of the GPS and contact loads and all the data we look at, we actually overloaded the boys so that, in theory, the game is a bit easier,” he said.

“That’s the theory, [but] it doesn’t always work out like that.

“We tried to overload them during pre-season so that the in-season period is a little bit easier. There is some risk with that but these guys embraced it, the coaches absolutely loved it, and we were able to get to where we wanted.”

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