HOW’D your tips go on the weekend?

Not great?

I reckon if anyone tipped nine, they’ll win the lotto at some stage in their life.

It turned out to be a remarkable round of football and it reinforced – perhaps more so than recent times – that no AFL match is a certainty.

Not ONE!

Otherwise how do you explain this?

In round one, Melbourne overcame Greater Western Sydney, which then defeated Geelong on Sunday, after the Cats held off the reigning premiers, Hawthorn, on Easter Monday.

To add further intrigue, premiership contender Fremantle lost for the second successive week, after finishing on ‘top’ of the pre-season ladder. The Dockers went through the NAB Challenge undefeated, yet has lost its opening two matches and went down to Gold Coast at Domain Stadium – Freo’s first loss to the Suns. It was also Gold Coast’s first win in Western Australia.

Talk entering this season was that it was going to be tight competition, given Gold Coast is now in its sixth season and the Giants are in their fifth. And it appears to be heading that way.

It’s exactly what the AFL wants – and rightly so – a competition that throws up all sorts of results each week.

Which brings us back to Melbourne.

Clearly, it was an incredibly frustrating and disappointing day for the red and blue faithful, after a very promising start to 2016.

The loss to Essendon was undoubtedly a wasted opportunity – no question. Melbourne could’ve won its first two matches in a row since 2011 and its first two rounds of the premiership since 2005. In the end, it wasn’t to be.

Big heads. Fat heads. Pig-headed. You name it. These have been some of the labels bandied at Melbourne’s for its loss.

Coach Paul Roos even eluded post-match that some of his players may have got ahead of themselves. They probably did. They definitely got a reality check.

Still, perspective must be brought into the equation, even if Melbourne entered as red-hot favourites.

The notion that Essendon was going to go through the season winless was just nonsense. The Bombers are hardly the youthful Giants or Suns in their first season. They are much more experienced than that.

In fact, Essendon was the superior team to Melbourne on the weekend, in terms of age and games experience. It had 1905 games to Melbourne’s 1615. The average age of Essendon was 25 years, 188 days to Melbourne’s 24 years, 141 days. The Dons’ 22 also had 1068 goals to 830.

It’s also worth pointing out that Melbourne is among the bottom three AFL teams in terms of age and games experience this year. But considering the likes of Jesse Hogan, Angus Brayshaw, Clayton Oliver, James Harmes and Christian Petracca, who has yet to play a game, are 20 years or younger, the trade-off is a most exciting future.

That’s already been seen in the NAB Challenge and in round one.

It didn’t come together in round two, but it was hardly a disaster.

Melbourne’s 1-1 win/loss record after the first two rounds is equal to last year’s start. But it could be argued this year is slightly better, as Melbourne lost by 45 points in round two last season, compared to 13 points on the weekend.

Make no mistake Essendon was super on the weekend.

For the Dons to gel so quickly with its top-ups, recruits and existing players was a real credit to coach John Worsfold and his group. Of course it remains to be seen how the Bombers will fare in 2016, but there has been some hysterics about Essendon’s fortunes this year.

It’s interesting looking back at the Essendon team that defeated Melbourne by nine points last year and the one that pipped the red and blue on the weekend.

Nine of the Essendon players remained from that round 15 win last year. It’s a considerable turnover, but if you took out the six suspended Bombers to play in that match and replace them with another six names – it’s hardly disastrous.

Dyson Heppell, Michael Hibberd, Cale Hooker, Michael Hurley, Ben Howlett and Brent Stanton were the six suspended players to feature in that win last year.

If you replaced them with a combination of recruits and players back in the Essendon side, you’d could have James Kelly, Adam Cooney, Mathew Stokes, Ryan Crowley, Matthew Leuenberger and Darcy Parish.

There are five premierships, a Brownlow Medal, two All-Australians, a best and fairest and three top five draft picks among those players. Hardly shabby.

This week Melbourne must respond strongly. It won’t be easy against the undefeated North Melbourne – a team in serious premiership contention this year, even if it too has its critics.

That’s not to say the Kangaroos are over the line, of course. That would be folly.

It represents a new day. Another game. Another opportunity for Melbourne.

Two rounds of 23 have gone. Melbourne has one win and one loss.

Plenty has gone right for Melbourne – on and off the field – since round 23 last year to round one, when Melbourne defeated the Giants on both occasions.

This journey was never going to go in a straight line. There will be more ups and downs along the way. Saturday was the latter.

It can’t define Melbourne’s season. And it won’t.