Five months ago, a day after the Dees kicked one goal after quarter time and were slaughtered by Hawthorn, I had an existential crisis.

Maybe it was the hot weather in Jakarta.

Perhaps it was the idea that another wasted year was looming for my team, particularly hard to take given the talent on our list.

Most likely, it was the prospect of becoming a dad again, this time to twin boys.

At the time, I'd been in Jakarta for a month and a half while my wife, daughter and our unborn sons were still in Canberra, waiting to be born before they joined me in the Big Durian.

As I pondered our thrashing, I kept asking myself the same question: "how can I, in good conscience, raise a third generation of Demons supporters?" when year after year they kept delivering performances like that.

That was my first mistake.

My second mistake was to "write angry" - 800 words of anguish and exasperation.

I sent the piece off to the sports eds without a second thought.

When I woke the next morning it had already been published and was running prominently on The Age website.

The calls started coming in. The first was from my Dad, and it was brief.

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING JAMES?"

"WE NEVER GIVE UP ON THE DEMONS".

The guilt and shame set in soon afterwards.

I called the club and renewed my membership the next day.

Friends have ribbed me mercilessly about the piece for the last five months.

And let's be honest. I've deserved it.

Though we lost badly the next week to Richmond - no shame in that - the Dees have had their best season in 18 years.

More importantly, this is a team that is young and brimming with talent. It could actually win a premiership.

The victory over Hawthorn last weekend was sweet as the team got the job done despite the Hawks pouring the pressure on for long stretches.

But my favourite game this season has to be the round 22 win over West Coast in Perth, because it underscored just how much mentally tougher the Demons have become under Simon Goodwin. It was the game when the Dees put the footy world on notice.

In the preceding few weeks against Sydney and Geelong we lost when we could have won because two tougher and more experienced teams had out-thought and out-fought us.

Against the Eagles we led all day until the 18-minute mark of the final term when they managed to creep a point ahead. Not again, Dees supporters thought.

But rather than folding again, the team went down the other end and kicked the last three goals to silence the Perth crowd.

As everyone knows, those goals finally put us back in the finals. The win was a testament to just how far this club has come in the last few years under Goodwin, and Paul Roos before him.

Now the Demons head back to Perth to face the Eagles again on Saturday.

One more win will put us in the grand final.

Like the Western Bulldogs in 2016 and Richmond last year, we have a chance to end our long winter of misery and win a premiership after 54 years.

The success we've had so far is hard to fathom. The prospect of a premiership is almost too much to bear.

The fear that our dream run could end is ever-present.

A couple of years ago, I started a Demons Whatsapp chat group which has now grown to 20 mates - some of whom I've never met.

I called it "Demons group therapy" for a reason; we dissect the game, swear at the umpires, bemoan chances missed and fret over injuries.

Our mascot is Cameron "Brownlow" Pedersen, the epitome of a player who has given his heart and soul for the club during the tough times (with apologies to Neville Jetta and Nathan Jones, who are also group favourites).

The last month has been particularly tough on all of us. We have been winning, and winning well in finals no less.

No one know how to handle it, as I suspect is the case for most Demons fans this September.

As one of the guys put it last week after we knocked off the Hawks: "Is this how football is meant to feel?"

Fans of big clubs like Hawthorn or Collingwood, or clubs that have had sustained success such as Geelong or Sydney, just don't understand what it feels like to be in the wilderness for so long.

I reckon most Demons supporters were genuinely happy that the Doggies and the Tigers won their flags. Likewise, if St Kilda were to climb the ladder and win a premiership in the next few years, I'd be thrilled for them.

But can the Demons do it first? And can it be this year, please?

This weekend I'm flying from Jakarta to Perth to go to the Demons game and I'll have my Dad, Carlo, by my side.

The last time we went to a Melbourne preliminary final together was at VFL Park in 1988, when Garry Lyon kicked a 75-metre torpedo, Jamie Duursma shut out Stephen Kernaghan and the Dees beat reigning Premiers Carlton to make the grand final for the first time in 24 years.

I had just turned 10 years old.

It was the greatest Demons game I've ever been to, but if we beat West Coast I might just have a new favourite.

And if we can go one better than '88 - not hard, given we set a record-losing margin in the grand final against (who else but) the Hawks - this Demons team will write their names in the history books for generations to come.

This is our year.

My kids Sabina, Giacomo and Carlo will be in Jakarta watching the game with their mum.

Yes, of course, they are Demons supporters.

I'm sorry I ever doubted you Melbourne.

Win or lose against West Coast, like every true Demon, my heart will always beat true for the red and the blue.

James Massola is South-east Asia Correspondent and a long-suffering Demons supporter.