MELBOURNE took a three-day run-up at this game, beginning with a fully subscribed 150th anniversary dinner on Saturday night that coach Dean Bailey said was as moving a football event as he has known, establishing a previously missing connection between storied past and straitened present, and providing a rare highlight for a once proud club that is at a low ebb, and would this day affirm its latest administrative upheaval. Bailey invoked the spirit of Saturday night's function again when speaking to the players at training on Sunday.

Yesterday was the Queen's Birthday holiday and Collingwood at the MCG, an event the Demons have made their own. It was preceded by a cavalcade of past champions, Robbie Flower at the front, Ron Barassi at the rear, David Neitz between, all of them on foot, which somehow added dignity; cars are for Calder Park and Sandown. Bagpipes provided the accompaniment. So were the decimated and beset Demons welcomed onto the field by their much decorated forbears, forming a guard of honour in which all the honour was with the guard. It was a lump-in-the-throat moment.

Bailey said later that footballers should not have to draw on exterior motivation; club and guernsey were the same this week as last and pride in it and self should be enough. But he knows the way passion works as if by alchemy in this game, and sometimes makes the impossible possible. Melbourne came not merely to give a good account of itself, but to win.

Collingwood had its own 150th to celebrate, Leon Davis'. It also expected Melbourne to play above its lowly station. Coach Mick Malthouse said later he was puzzled by clubs that rose to occasions once or twice a season. He knows of what he speaks; so many clubs plan their year around playing and beating the Magpies in a big one at the 'G. Collingwood was suffering blockbuster fatigue, he said later, and he himself suffered a little wearing of his sangfroid.

So what ensued was as ferocious a game as has been played this year. It reached its tinderbox moment near the end of the second quarter when Melbourne's Matthew Warnock had to leave the field because of a gash above his eye and teammate Paul Johnson's guernsey was torn. At the half-time siren, umpires watched the milling packs as police now watch nightclubbers at 2am.

Collingwood captain Scott Burns thrived; he loves football played this utterly committed way. Also inspired was Melbourne veteran Adem Yze, no longer a regular, but in everything this day. He is one of few on the Demons' list with a memory of better times, and perhaps they stirred in him this day. His 250th game three years ago was Nathan Jones' first, and they left the field that day arm-in-arm. Yesterday, Jones was Melbourne's best. So does a club sustain its lineage, even in times of travail.

It should have become a rout; it never did. Indeed, the Demons might have been closer still but for two inexplicable misses by Brad Green and Colin Sylvia. The mighty effort drained both teams, which made for a last quarter of plodding. Dale Thomas kicked the final goal after a characteristic three-bounce run from the wing, but had neither the energy, nor perhaps the heart, for his usual triumphal celebration. Instead, he put his hands on his knees and stood where he was, spent.

At the final siren, all adopted this pose.

This was a day of many passions. Paul Gardner stood down as chairman of the Demons, souring the moment with an attack on media. Jim Stynes, in jeans and scarf, became the figure to whom all gravitated. He promised only what the team delivered this day: undying effort.

Malthouse was relieved to win, but turned one reporter's question about Adam Goodes into a polemic on media failings.

After all these years, he still lives every moment of every match day.

He has survived one more.

There was in the Melbourne rooms a hush, but not the funereal silence that might be expected. The many ice packs told their own tale of an effort that yielded no points, yet was not entirely in vain. There is no such thing as half a win in football, but this at least was only half a defeat.

Last week, AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou had urged Melbourne fans to come out in force, saying anything less than 60,000 would raise questions about the Demons' ownership of this fixture. The crowd was 59,548. Like everything else of Melbourne's on the day, it was full of passion and urgency and longing, but not quite enough.