Coach Simon Goodwin often spoke about turning to "love" ahead of this season.
After winning five of their last six games, Melbourne are finally starting to see the rewards of their thorough off-season examination.
Demons forward Jake Melksham admitted the whole club worked as hard off the field over summer as they did on the training track.
"That was probably the first thing we worked on before anything really, before game plan, before training," Melksham told AAP.
"It was all about each other and connection and our culture. And we had that right at the start of the year that was going really well.
"It was just the stuff on field (that wasn't going well)."
If Melbourne can beat St Kilda in Alice Springs on Sunday, they will square the ledger at 6-6 and be knocking on the door of the top-eight.
That scenario seemed farfetched after the Demons slumped to 0-5 amid external noise Goodwin's job could be in trouble.
"We're starting to look like the Melbourne of old," Melksham said.
"You'll see it (forward line) functioning because we're winning and we're kicking a score.
"But there's other times where it's still going really good, that's just the first thing that the media talk about in our game."
The most damaging member of Melbourne's forward line is Kysaiah Pickett, who torched Sydney last Sunday with a scintillating five-goal performance.
On a previous trip to Alice Springs in 2022, Pickett had a career-best six-goal match.
"He's pretty special to play with," Melksham said.
"He's someone that I'll look back on in my career and say I saw him play up really close."
St Kilda travel to Northern Territory having lost six of their last seven games following a 3-1 start to the season.
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