Melbourne has made the right move with coach Simon Goodwin
MELBOURNE are riding the wave of finals football, and former Crows captain Simon Goodwin is the catalyst to the Demons’ rise back into premiership contention.
SIMON Goodwin could be on the verge of joining an exclusive club in Australian sport as the 52nd coach to lead a VFL-AFL club to a premiership.
And if Goodwin succeeds in ending the VFL-AFL’s longest-running premiership drought - 54 years after Norm Smith’s legendary status at Melbourne was enhanced with the 1964 flag - there will be another timely reminder of how this AFL race rewards those who take care of their own business.
There is a message in this for Carlton, St Kilda, Gold Coast ...
Melbourne won just 10 of 66 games across 2012-2014. After winning their first AFL final since 2006, the Demons now have within their grasp something very special. And behind Goodwin’s early success is the work of his predecessor Paul Roos, a seasoned chief executive in Peter Jackson and a reshaped football department that under Josh Mahoney and Todd Viney’s watch has stopped tripping over itself.
Goodwin’s carefully planned transition from AFL player to AFL senior coach - with a meaningful apprenticeship under Roos - is not surprising considering his achievements and ambition from his playing stint at Adelaide.
Goodwin was diligent as a player. He earned respect with his rise to All-Australian honours, the Crows captaincy and his status as a premiership player, at the very young football age of 20 and 21 in 1997-98.
And Goodwin, his team and his long-suffering club has survived an off-field crisis many have been waiting to blow up in the Demons’ face. Melbourne is the other AFL team that could have been tormented by a pre-season camp.
Rather that create a wedge between the coach and the team, the Melbourne players who objected and ended Goodwin’s plans for a “torture camp” - going as far as to bring in the players’ union - have proven honesty is the best policy in Australian football. So is transparency.
The images on the MCG after Friday night’s elimination final win against the finals-hardened Geelong highlight a football team that was bonded rather than broken over that pre-season disagreement. Goodwin’s repetitive hugging of his players - and the success of a finals win - will not only change the external agenda around the Demons, but also silence those who have been waiting to link the fall-out from the cancelled camp to what could have been another season of failure at Australia’s oldest football club.
Melbourne already has success in 2018 by winning that final.
The Demons could beat Hawthorn in this weekend’s semi-finals. They would go to Perth Stadium still filled with the enthusiasm and confidence created by beating West Coast at the Eagles’ new home in Round 22.
And if Melbourne was to reach its first grand final since 2000, the prospect of a third fairytale in three years - after the Western Bulldogs in 2016 and Richmond last year ended long-running premiership droughts - would become a popular theme well beyond those revived Demons fans.
And Melbourne will become an invaluable study case for those clubs - such as Carlton - wanting to understand how to shake off the moss of being caught in the AFL’s cellar.
The first weekend of the finals has left six men to guide their teams to AFL premiership glory, two (Damien Hardwick at Richmond and Alastair Clarkson at Hawthorn) who are already part of the exclusive 51-man club.
Another two are gone - Chris Scott at Geelong and John Longmire at Sydney. Each has plenty to think about.
Scott has won just three of his past 12 finals - and even with the AFL’s meanest defence could not have Geelong deliver a winning score as the Cats appear too reliant on Tom Hawkins in attack.
And that theme - with Lance Franklin - also applies with Sydney where Longmire has a 10-10 record in finals. No longer do the Swans appear to have the game or team that are built to win finals.
Nothing lasts forevers ... either at the top or the bottom of the AFL ladder.
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