AFL 2021: All the Melbourne news and analysis ahead of the Round 15 clash with Essendon
Of all the events in Melbourne’s rise to flag contention, the 2019 draft might prove the most important. Sam Landsberger pinpoints where the Demons have got it right.
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Collingwood and its farewell party for coach Nathan Buckley was the story on Queen’s Birthday.
It was a Cinderella send-off for one of football’s most-respected statesmen, as Buckley sang the Magpies’ theme song with sons Jett and Ayce at the SCG.
But the emotion-charged upset did not have a material impact on this year’s ladder, and Melbourne and its coach Simon Goodwin have been the story of the season.
In this year’s Herald Sun crystal ball more experts placed the Magpies in the top eight than the Demons.
Boy, how silly does that look?
Goodwin’s team is premiership favourite at 11 wins and two losses. It is an ambush nobody saw coming.
What’s behind the resurgence of a team that won just 14 of 39 games in 2019-20?
It’s a convoluted answer. Put simply, there was no silver bullet that catapulted the Demons back up the ladder.
Instead, a long list of factors which have transformed this football club into a stretch of dominance it had never previously enjoyed.
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1. Studying premiership powerhouses
Review have become all the buzz in football once again, with Carlton already launching an investigation into what has gone wrong this season.
Damien Hardwick and Mark “Bomber” Thompson were saved by reviews before they went on to create premiership dynasties. St Kilda is now being urged to look deep into its plight this season.
Last year, Melbourne chief executive Gary Pert completed a much-publicised review of the Demons’ football department, which confirmed Goodwin was the right man for the job.
But there was also an external element in which Pert studied the cultural pillars of Richmond, Geelong, Port Adelaide and Melbourne Storm.
Pert made numerous calls to former players, coaches and administrators. Some of those were internal, and others were to figures who helped those rivals become consistent premiership contenders.
The flood of departures in the wake of Covid-19 helped Pert, because it freed up a plethora of key figures who could take his calls.
It became obvious early that rival AFL clubs were envious of the talent on Melbourne’s list, which was further evidence that missing the finals in back-to-back seasons was unacceptable.
Last year, the Demons boasted three players in the top 13 of the Brownlow Medal count — Christian Petracca (20 votes), Clayton Oliver (14) and captain Max Gawn (13).
Melbourne’s best wasn’t discernibly different from the clubs that Pert studied. The problem was consistency.
While the Tigers wear down teams with four relentless quarters, too often the Demons had allowed opponents to kick five or six goals in a run or they would put in one sloppy quarter.
“There was nothing from any of those clubs that we’d never ever heard before, so if anyone’s ever looking for a magic formula there’s no such thing,” Pert said.
“It was really down to what were the fundamental things that those teams were doing that either we were doing, but could do better, or maybe we weren’t even prioritising enough.
“Doing a review of where Melbourne was at when we came ninth doesn’t necessarily help you go, ‘So what does it need to look like?’
“That’s why I studied the other clubs.”
2. Revamped job description for football boss
Josh Mahoney departed for Essendon last December after nine seasons at the Demons.
In that time, Mahoney’s job as football boss became broader and broader and broader.
By last year, Mahoney was looking after Melbourne’s AFL team, its AFLW team, the VFL teams, the club’s stadium management and overseeing the strategy at Casey.
It meant that the AFL program was inadequately serviced, and so this year new football boss Alan Richardson is dealing exclusively with coach Simon Goodwin’s team.
Richardson spends all day, every day focused on the performance of the AFL team on the weekend.
“We actually have a football operations person now in Daniel McPherson, and that allows Alan just to be working with all the leaders in the key areas of our footy program,” Pert said.
“Everything is in alignment and the leaders in medical, high performance and coaching have all the resources they need to surround the players with the best program possible.”
3. Refresh of assistant coaches
The Demons moved on Max Rooke and Daniel Cross last year, while Justin Plapp joined Williamstown and Ben Mathews returned to Sydney.
Pert said it was an “appropriate time” to freshen up the program with new ideas and voices, as Adem Yze joined from Hawthorn and Port Adelaide premiership coach Mark Williams was appointed as head of development.
4. Taking a punt on ‘Choco’ Williams
Melbourne’s ordinary ball use was never going to stand up in finals.
The Demons were aware that their ability to hit targets around the ground while under pressure, as well as their goalkicking, was below the level required to compete consistently at the top.
Enter “Choco” the development coach, who was charged with stiffening the skills for the entire team — not just the kids.
“As we went through it we were just super impressed with ‘Choco’,” Pert said.
“We knew it would stir some things up, and sometimes the way he goes about it is a little bit different, but he has very high expectations and he expects players to operate at a high standard.”
Ed Langdon said the appointment was working wonders.
“I just can’t praise Choco enough for what he has done for my game,” Langdon said.
“He has come in with a program and it was initially a shock to the system, but no doubt it has helped the whole team.
“I haven’t seen anyone come into a club and have as big an impact on a team as he has had in my whole career.
“He hasn’t once said anything negative about my kicking, it’s ultra-positive and it’s nice to hear.”
Is Williams the smoky to replace Buckley?
5. The return of club great Adem Yze
Forget the fact that Yze played 271 games for Melbourne, he was signed as an assistant (midfield) because he is simply a damn good coach, and one plenty think is tracking towards a senior job.
Yze, who spent the previous eight years working under Alastair Clarkson at Hawthorn, sees the game like few others.
He understands what’s going on and how to fix problems as they unfold.
The fact that Yze was a former Dees superstar was merely the icing on the cake of that appointment.
6. Deeper leadership group
Captain Max Gawn and vice-captain Jack Viney are the only official members of the leadership group, but it probably bats as deep as 12-14 players now.
Maturity has materialised, and the likes of Alex Neal-Bullen, Angus Brayshaw, and even Sam Weideman, are full of voice and helping drive this team.
Then, you look at the backline, where Steven May, Jake Lever and Christian Salem virtually coach the defence themselves.
They don’t wait for Goodwin to run messages out — they are capable of turning the momentum of games themselves.
7. Fitness program
In 2019, the Demons identified that other teams were fitter than they were. As quarters wore on, the Demons looked weary, especially in the last term, and fatigue was also affecting their skills.
In came high performance guru Darren Burgess on a salary not far from some AFL senior coaches, and the two pre-seasons since have been gruelling.
The Demons have outscored opponents by a whopping 230 points in second halves this season, ranked No. 1 in the AFL.
“Darren Burgess was a really critical inclusion and he quickly got the player group up to a standard that we can look at their spreadsheets and say they’ve never been before,” Pert said.
But Burgess’s family has already moved back to Adelaide and it is likely that he will resign at the end of 2021.
Still, the Demons expect that the third year of Burgess’ plan would roll out “with the same level of excellence” with or without him at the helm.
8. Draft domination
The 2018 draft is known as the “Super Draft”, but in 2019 Melbourne had its own “Super Draft”.
The Demons secured Luke Jackson, Kozzie Pickett and Trent Rivers in a one-two-three punch which helped maximise the club’s tumble to 17th on the ladder.
With the Demons floundering mid-season, recruiter Jason Taylor flew into Western Australia for four consecutive weekends to scout Jackson, which helped his East Fremantle teammate Rivers surge into calculations.
The Dees considered taking Pickett at No. 3, but ultimately couldn’t go past Jackson’s competitiveness and were confident they could jag the quinella they craved.
It worked, and Pickett already looks like the game’s next Cyril Rioli.
It continued a golden run of first-round draft picks – Christian Salem (2013), Christian Petracca and Angus Brayshaw (2014) and Clayton Oliver (2015) have all been big ticks.
That record is a long way from draft disasters including Jimmy Toumpas, Jordan Gysberts, Lucas Cook and Cale Morton.
The Demons prioritise character and competitiveness deeper in the draft, evidenced by shrewd picks Tom Sparrow and James Jordan.
Chief recruiter Taylor, list boss Tim Lamb and scouts Noel ‘Kelly’ O‘Donnell, Darren Fruger (who is now part-time at Essendon) and Todd Patterson all earned their keep.
9. List strategy
The Demons wanted to bring in clusters of players together, hence they doubled-up with top-15 picks in the 2015 and 2019 drafts.
It was a blueprint set by premiership teams including Geelong (Joel Corey, Paul Chapman, Cameron Ling and Corey Enright in 1999), Collingwood (Scott Pendlebury and Dale Thomas in 2005) and Hawthorn (Jarryd Roughead, Lance Franklin and Jordan Lewis in 2004).
Each of those builds then added layer upon layer at the trade table to their draft nucleus.
Think Jack Gunston, Josh Gibson and Shaun Burgoyne at the Hawks and Darren Jolly, Leigh Brown and Luke Ball at the Magpies.
At the Demons the extra layers are Ed Langdon, Steven May, Adam Tomlinson, Jake Lever and Ben Brown.
Could Collingwood’s Brayden Maynard be the next?
10. Flying to the finish line 2020
Quietly, the penny dropped for Melbourne in the Gold Coast hub.
Since July last year, the Demons are 17-5, and if you wipe five catastrophic days in Cairns, where they dropped back-to-back games in almost cyclonic conditions, they are 17-3.
While the Demons just missed last year’s finals, they got a hell of a lot out of the run home, and the Blues have already spoken about how they should look to emulate that this season.
“Internally we knew we were building in the back half of last year,” Goodwin said.
“We won six of nine on the way home and we had a horrible five days in Cairns.
“The last two games we had to win to keep ourselves alive, and we were able to do that under pressure. We took a lot of growth out of that.”
Melbourne’s 2020 percentage was a healthy 107.7 — higher than Western Bulldogs, who made the final eight.
11. ‘Sustainable’ game plan
Nick Riewoldt declared that: “sustainability-wise, Melbourne’s game-style is built for finals”. Forward Tom McDonald explained how, revealing that this year’s brand was “extremely different” to the one which carried the Demons to the preliminary final in 2018.
“You see the defensive buy-in and we don’t absolutely smash teams — I hope we do soon — but the way we play we know will keep us in games,” McDonald said.
“Whereas in 2018 we had some massive wins because it was just all-out attack and we were really rolling going forward.
“But we probably didn’t have the defensive stability. That’s probably not lending itself to massive scores, but it allows us to always be in games.”
The Dees have recorded only one win by six goals or more this season, whereas in 2018 they celebrated thrashings of 109, 96 and 91 points … and four heavy defeats greater than 40 points.
Rival clubs say the ‘New Melbourne’ is hard to play against, which is the ultimate compliment, and behind-the-goals vision highlights just how mechanical their system is.
Defensive coach Troy Chaplin deserves plenty of kudos for helping design the methods that players have, perhaps belatedly, bought into.
12. Selfless mindset
That game plan is being powered by a vastly improved mindset.
“Me and Goody had a chat over the off season and he wanted me to be a better teammate,” Clayton Oliver said.
“As a midfielder you block for teammates, you run harder into defence (and you don’t) spray teammates.”
For McDonald, that selflessness comes in the shape of gut running when he knows he won’t be rewarded.
“I’ve got to screw my guts up and sprint 50m back up the field when I really don’t want to,” McDonald said.
“But if I do it, and everybody else does it, we’ve got a good chance of getting the ball back.
“I’ve got to do this if I want to win and I want to get a kick going the other way.”
McDonald largely embodies the change — he is now the first-picked key forward, only months after being placed on the trade table without receiving a nibble.
13. New-found depth
FORMER captain Nathan Jones, Neville Jetta, Ben Brown and Jake Melksham can no longer get a regular game.
As Australian cricket coach Justin Langer would say: “We’ve got to stay ready so we don’t have to get ready”, and those veterans are all training strongly in the knowledge they are only one injury away from returning to Goodwin’s team.
Sam Weideman, a confidence player, is also likely to be in the gun next week after only three goals in five games.
14. The Richmond profile
Goodwin has become the first AFL coach to successfully remaster a Richmond-style blueprint.
Like the Tigers, the Demons have prioritised what happens away from stoppages.
It might surprise for a team with inside bulls including Clayton Oliver and Jack Viney, but the Demons are only ranked ninth for clearances … although they are still mighty efficient.
They understand that once the ball leaves the area it becomes a turnover game, and that’s where Melbourne is punishing teams.
There is also a touch of the Tigers about Melbourne’s hard working small forwards. In Charlie Spargo, Alex Neal-Bullen and Kozzie Pickett, the Demons have assembled three threatening goalsneaks who create chaos and panic.
The question is what will the preferred structure be in the second half of the season? Will Tom McDonald be supported by Sam Weideman and Ben Brown, Sam Weideman or Ben Brown, or neither?
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