Hope has become the most important commodity in footy marketing. Closely allied to another mysterious sporting concept, “momentum”, hope is what every fan needs to keep enjoying going to the footy each week. If you believe your club is taking bitter pills now in order to experience prolonged finals engagement later, you will accept losses as inevitable growing pains.

Curiosity drives even neutral fans to round-one matches. When there has been as much list turnover as these two clubs have experienced in the off-season, questions abound. What will these teams look like this year? What game plans will they attempt to employ? Which players have been rejuvenated by new roles at new clubs? Could they do a Port Adelaide and rise from the doldrums to scintillating competitiveness? Finals even?

This contest has other dimensions.

Both clubs have new coaches.

Both clubs have been tipped for the wooden spoon.

Both are missing several key players through injury - Melbourne its three first-choice key forwards; St Kilda its best three midfielders.

And both clubs, despite statements about the significance of round one being overrated, are as desperate to win, and give their fans some succour, as a grand finalist.

For months, this fixture has held a macarbe fascination. A long season surely awaits the loser. Seldom have two clubs, in such a similar dilemma, been pitted against each other in their first game of the season.

How will the loser sell memberships, and hope?

There would be those at both clubs who would rather have played Fremantle or Hawthorn than a club sharing their challenges.

St Kilda and Melbourne both have a raft of promising but unproven kids, and the need to convince their fans that these unknowns will become the backbone of a successful team. As a saying, “play the kids” is as hoary as “kick the bloody thing!”, but it remains just as relevant for supporters.

Fans are very forgiving if they believe the club’s less-than-glorious present is being endured for a reason, and the losses stacking up are providing crucial experience that will help deliver a powerhouse in years to come.

Geelong famously built its dynasty, still delivering wins, on elite recruiting in the early 2000s. It was on the verge of coach-sacking mediocrity before the unit made up of those recruits started delivering.

Hawthorn fully embraced a rebuild in the early-to-mid noughties, jettisoning or trading Rayden Tallis, Mark Graham, Kris Barlow, Luke McCabe, Lance Picioane, Nathan Thompson, Angelo Lekkas, Nick Holland, Jonathan Hay and Nathan Lonie in search of the draftees who could learn the game together and form the backbone of the dynasty that has now delivered two flags in six years.

The core of that side played their first games in 2004 or 2005 - Luke Hodge, Jordan Lewis, Jarryd Roughead, Brad Sewell, Lance Franklin. It takes more than bottoming out for draft picks to create a premiership team – Hawthorn had already snared midfield master Sam Mitchell via the rookie list, and cannily cherry-picked necessary skills from other clubs throughout its climb – but once the Clarkson rebuild was embraced, crowds and memberships grew. Once there is a sense of mission, losses can be accepted, all eyes are on the future, and a fan wants the feeling of having been there at the start of the great endeavour.

Who doesn’t like seeing foundations rise through the rubble?

St Kilda fans know that drafting and nurturing the right talent leads to a period of sustained finals contention. Riewoldt, Hayes, Goddard, Dal Santo et al were the backbone of an un-St Kilda-like era of consistent achievement. They know that a new core of 200-game players must be unearthed. Saints fans will be espying the likes of Jimmy Webster, Tom Hickey, Billy Longer, Nathan Wright, Jack Newnes, Josh Saunders, Jack Billings, Luke Dunstan and Tom Curren, most already blooded, in search of that touch of evasive magic, dynamic ball-winning or heads-up ball use that denotes a future stalwart.

They will be praying that cast-offs such as Dylan Roberton, Beau Maister, Tom Lee or Shane Savage can realise their potential to deliver a solid mid-ranks to support the kids.

Melbourne has gone through several failed rebuilding attempts. No club in the draft era has turned so many glittering high draft picks into fool’s gold. Its player development, on the evidence of results, has been diabolical. Many of those high picks have moved on, and talented youngsters such as James Strauss, Rohan Bail, Jack Watts, Jack Trengove, Sam Blease, and Luke Tapscott have been in the system for years but known nothing but miserable defeats and unfulfilled potential.

Can the astute Paul Roos harness their collective latent ability?

The former Sydney premiership mentor also has some elite junior talent at his disposal. Jesse Hogan, Jack Viney, Jimmy Toumpas, Christian Salem, Dom Tyson, Max Gawn, Jay Kennedy-Harris, and Jack Fitzpatrick could be anything. Which of these touted draftees and comparative no-names will kick on and become a 200-game player? Is there an early developer here? Is there the possibility that this group of kids will play together for a decade and form the core of a successful team?

Despite Melbourne’s development woes, there are still plenty of quality footballers on the list. James Frawley, Colin Garland and Tom McDonald could form the core for an athletic defence for years to come; dynamic leaper Jeremy Howe has thrived, thrillingly playing all of his brief career in a desolate forward line; Jack Grimes has survived Melbourne’s footballing nuclear winter with spirit and skills intact.

Dees fans will hope that 2014’s mature-age additions can be cohesively bound to new kids, unrealised talents and hardy stalwarts to create a unit that plays for each other and adds up to more than the sum of its parts.

Melbourne has suffered so many false dawns, the foundations sinking before the new construction reached above the remains of the crumbled concrete.

St Kilda is fearful of a slide back to its 1970's and 1980's depths. Saints fans don’t want to go back to their resigned black humour schtick just yet. It has been fun being at the pointy end, being a serious player in the competition. Old neuroses are exposed by coach sackings, money woes, administrative issues. They need to see promise of another rise up the ladder.

The doomsayers, the naysayers have it that the fans of the team that loses this game will drop off immediately. But despite the build-up to this game, the fear of loss, fans will keep coming, and buying memberships, if they can seea commitment to a game plan, a way forward, a sense of mission and purpose in how the players team together. It doesn’t matter if this does not immediately deliver a win.

For once, the fans and coaches concur: It is how the team plays that matters.

The results come later. The hope comes first.