Dees set to pay heavy price for sticking with Petracca and Oliver in 2025
The Dees are likely making the right call by letting some premiership stars walk, but the fact that it’s happened 12 months too late is about to cost them dearly, writes Josh Barnes.
Melbourne is probably doing the right thing with its tough calls on premiership stars, but have missed the boat on value.
Melbourne had the chance for a proper reset 12 months ago, when Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver sniffed the breeze and looked around for new homes.
The Dees dug in deep and gave Simon Goodwin another shot to rebuild a ship that clearly in hindsight was taking on far too much water and about to sink.
Going again with Oliver and Petracca was an understandable move this time last year, but clearly it didn’t work.
Now Oliver’s output has sunk so far that the Dees are willing to pay him to go away – potentially over $3m over the next five years to play in different colours.
Don’t mistake the Dees public stance about telling him to develop his game outside of the midfield, this was a plan to make him consider his options.
Even Snoop Dogg could tell you Oliver is a midfielder and midfielder only.
And Petracca is halfway out the door, headed to either Adelaide or Gold Coast.
Steven May has also been sent to the market to find a buyer for his services next year.
In isolation right now, letting all three go to reset the club under new coach Steven King and new CEO Paul Guerra are strong moves to push the Demons into a new era and deliver a nice, clean slate.
But they also highlight the missed opportunity of the last trade period.
Oliver is so distressed as an asset, despite a sneakily strong final month of the season, even if Melbourne are willing to pay $700,000 to ship him out, the trade return is surely not going to be much greater than the future first round pick Geelong had on the table last year.
And the Dees will be stuck paying five years of money to watch him at another club.
Dead money like that isn’t a death sentence – Collingwood won a flag in 2023 while still playing Brodie Grundy and Adam Treloar to rack up numbers elsewhere – and it may be the only way to get more shoppers to Melbourne’s door.
At essentially half-price, Oliver certainly becomes a more intriguing proposition.
Collingwood is a club that sits under salary cap pressure but needs a winning player in the midfield to take strain off Nick Daicos, Geelong was his only destination last year and couldn’t add the $1.3m Oliver, but half of that might at least cause the Cats to have a meeting.
If Essendon really does hold on to Zach Merrett, does Oliver become a back-up for Hawthorn, now Petracca is only scouting out the Crows and Suns?
Any trade return for May would surely be negligible.
While the Demons are making noises about wanting a great deal for Petracca, even after a second placing in the club’s best-and-fairest this year, the return on a trade can only have gotten worse than last year.
Even if letting those three players leave can be argued around as a win as a cultural reset in the post-Goodwin era, the Demons have will also lose Judd McVee in a pending trade to Fremantle and Charlie Spargo has walked to North Melbourne as a free agent.
That is four premiership players gone, plus the promising McVee, from a side that captain Max Gawn this year declared had forgotten how to win.
King is going to have to do a heck of a lot of teaching on winning over summer.
Melbourne has been clear throughout the last few months before and after appointing King that it expects to be a finals side, but it’s hard to see how that is possible when losing five starting calibre players.
Even if a player or two come back in trades, the playing list is being strategically reset.
Gawn must be wondering what that means for the final years of his incredible career.
Melbourne did need a fresh start desperately and is careening towards one at rapid speed.
But you wonder how much they will be left thinking about the deals they could have done this time last year.
Originally published as Dees set to pay heavy price for sticking with Petracca and Oliver in 2025
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