Only two months and two days since their round-one AFL humiliation, Melbourne coach Dean Bailey is demanding a much better effort against unbeaten Hawthorn.

The vagaries of the AFL draw mean the Hawks and Demons will meet again this Sunday at the MCG in round nine.

While Bailey described it as unusual, he is far from concerned about playing the rampant Hawks again so soon after going down to them by 104 points.

The Demons are last with just one win, while Hawthorn are unbeaten.

"It doesn't faze us, it certainly doesn't faze me - you should try and play the best teams as often as you can," he said.

"It will give us an indication of whether we've learnt anything from the first time we played them.

"We've got a lot to prove this weekend.

"Some of our blokes will step up this week, we hope there's enough to be competitive for long enough."

The Hawks will start unbackable favourites against Melbourne, but Bailey will not tolerate a repeat of the woeful round-one effort.

"We need to ensure we've improved from that game and the scoreboard will tell that," he said.

"We were comprehensively beaten, we were uncompetitive ... those two things just stand out, we cannot afford to allow that to happen."

While the Hawks are a massive challenge, Bailey saw the humorous side on Monday night as he reviewed Hawthorn's win last Saturday over Port Adelaide.

"(Commentator) Gerard Healy's vision of their zone was pretty good vision to show - I'm sure clubs will be examining ways of trying to get through the cluster and Buddy's Box and Roughead's Rhombus and whatever else they've got there," he said.

"Buddy's Box" is the term for Hawthorn's forward setup, named after their star Lance "Buddy Franklin" - but any tactic surrounding Jarryd Roughead is so far only a product of Bailey's dry wit.

A day after the retirement of club legend David Neitz, Bailey said it was unfortunate the team would not have one last chance to play alongside their captain.

"They're disappointed they can't play one more game with him, that would have been a really special day for the players," he said.

"When you think about it, Cale Morton is an 18-year-old and David Neitz has been at the club 19 years."

Bailey also weighed into the debate over the league's new interchange rules.

He is pleased with the new boxes painted in front of the benches, which make it clear where the players should stand as they wait to enter the game.

But Bailey said the processing of the interchanges is too unwieldy.

"The passing of tickets to allow a player to come on or off, that puts great pressure on not only the AFL (interchange) steward, but also on our interchange person as well.

"There's now great pressure on those people to get it right.

"When you start throwing fines and all those sorts of things in, teams will be more cautious, which means you'll see more people standing in front of the interchange box waiting to come on and off.

"I don't think that's really what they're trying to achieve."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP