Wreck It Ralph: 20 moments behind the rise of Melbourne

Deciding to cut ties with No.1 draft pick Jack Watts was just one of a string of brilliant trade moves that created Melbourne’s grand final team. Here’s how the Dees did it.

A decade and two months ago Melbourne lost to Geelong by 186 points.

It was a ghoulish car crash of a defeat that came on the same weekend the Demons’ shambolic administration was laid bare.

Entering the weekend the club was set to extend coach Dean Bailey and sack Cameron Schwab, they finished it intent on sacking Bailey and extending Schwab’s contract.

Ten years on, Melbourne is perfectly placed to join Sydney, Richmond and the Western Bulldogs as teams since 2005 to snap long-running premiership droughts.

Here are the 20 decisions ranked in order that have turned footy’s most embarrassing club into a market leader who can establish a dynasty if it plays its cards right.

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1. Peter Jackson

Hiring Peter Jackson. Appointed as interim CEO in April 2013, he was parachuted into the joint by an AFL sick of bailing the Demons out.

Immediately he was struck by how few people in the joint were elite at their craft or considered in the top 25 per cent of people in their AFL field.

His appointment paved the way for stability, he secured Paul Roos (who secured Simon Goodwin as his successor) and set the club up for the journey it has now undertaken.

Jackson helped kickstart the resurgence at a club that was literally at rock bottom.

Peter Jackson’s appointment paved the way for genuine stability at the club.

2.Paul Roos

It was August 31, 2013 when Paul Roos knocked our socks off on a Friday night on Fox Footy when he admitted he was suddenly “50-50” to coach the Demons. He didn’t bring flags, but he brought a priority on defence, on culture, on not accepting second-best. He gave Melbourne something in desperately short supply — respect. It was a critical building block for a downtrodden club.

3. Simon Goodwin

Melbourne saw the rough edges in Simon Goodwin but also what could one day make him great. The board asked all the hard questions of him as Paul Roos’ potential successor as it probed his past at Essendon during the Stephen Dank saga and his past gambling issues.

He didn’t sugar-coat those issues but they saw his capacity to build a winning culture.

Then they backed him in during the rocky times, including last year during Gary Pert’s football club review when he could so easily have been sacked.

Simon Goodwin learnt a lot from Paul Roos and the culture needed to turn things around at Melbourne.

4. Max Gawn

Tom Scully and Jack Trengove were supposed to be Melbourne’s saviours as the No. 1 and 2 players taken in the 2009 national draft. It turns out a bloke selected at pick 34 after them, who played 28 games in his first five seasons, would become that player. Dean Cox is seen as the best ruckman of the modern era with six All Australian trophies but suddenly Max Gawn has five and is coming like a bullet. In Melbourne’s biggest game in 57 seasons he kicked five goals. Enough said.

5. Christian Petracca

Christian Petracca got serious about his AFL career. The Demons were already blessed that St Kilda went for Patrick McCartin over Petracca in his draft year. Ironically the same Alan Richardson who was instrumental in that selection is now the Demons football boss.

But Petracca was the kind of impetuous kid who put his 2016 pre-season back by six weeks attempting to dunk a basketball not long after tearing an ACL. Finally the penny dropped leading into the 2020 season. He stripped the weight, honed his fitness at an American camp focusing on repeat speed and endurance, and emerged as an elite AFL midfielder.

6. Clayton Oliver …

Drafting Clayton Oliver. History will record that the Demons actually bid on Sydney’s Callum Mills with pick 3 in the 2015 national draft. To get that pick three they had turned picks 6, 29 and a future first-rounder into three, 10 and 43 at the 2015 national draft.

On debut, Oliver had 15 contested possessions, seven clearances in one of footy’s most accomplished debuts. The No. 10 pick (after a further trade with GWS to get in Tom Bugg that swapped 10 for 7) eventually became Sam Weideman.

7. … and the finishing touches

Honing Clayton Oliver’s blunt edges. In 2019 Clayton Oliver was labelled selfish for spraying teammate Bayley Fritsch for not hitting him up despite finding a teammate with a pass inside 50. It wasn’t isolated behaviour. Simon Goodwin called him out over summer and demanded he be the best teammate possible. The changes he made might turn him into a Brownlow medallist on Sunday and have made him into a player who causes maximum damage instead of racking up the most possessions possible.

A few tweaks here and there have turned Clayton Oliver into a potential Brownlow medallist.

8. Jason Taylor

Melbourne’s early picks from 2007-2012 included Cale Morton, Tom Scully and Jack Trengove, Jack Watts, Jack Grimes, Lucas Cook and Jimmy Toumpas. The club’s development and cultural issues never gave them a chance. Grand Final lists aren’t built by accident. Collingwood’s Jason Taylor was poached in 2013 with a focus on finding players with a competitive edge and resilience to perform after a long list of draft failures. He immediately wanted to restock the midfield. Jack Viney was already at Melbourne but the likes of Clayton Oliver, Christian Petracca, Jack Viney and James Harmes are midfield bulls.

9. Becoming a debt-free club

The AFL parachuted former West Coast supporter Glen Bartlett into the club as president. He was eventually nudged out as president this year and his withering criticism of Simon Goodwin’s team last year caused issues internally. But by the time he was nudged out as a president he had turned a club $8 million in debt with a reliance on pokie dollars into a self-sufficient, debt-free modern AFL club. Stability breeds success, as Melbourne is finally following the lead set by Geelong (Brian Cook and Frank Costa-Colin Carter) and Richmond (Brendon Gale-Peggy O’Neal).

10. Steven May

Steven May’s acquisition just keeps getting better. Melbourne traded Jesse Hogan because of his off-field issues and turned him and pick 65 into pick 6 and 23. Pick six became Steven May and fellow Sun Kade Kolodjashnij, who retired with concussion issues.

But pick 23 became Tom Sparrow. So not only do the Demons have May and Jake Lever as All Australian defenders this year, but Sparrow (20 games in a breakout 2021) just keeps improving.

11. Pulling the Lever

The Demons gave up plenty for Jake Lever. But they believed he was exactly what they needed as they attempted to rebuild from the backline out with an Alex Rance-style interceptor. And he’s finally repaid them after they handed over pick 10 and their future first-rounder in the 2017 national draft, getting back pick 35. Pick 35? He turned into Harrison Petty, who hasn’t missed a beat while stepping in since Adam Tomlinson went down.

Jake Lever didn’t come cheaply but his inclusion down back has been priceless.

12. Luke jackson

When you have the best ruckman in the competition, why in god’s name would you draft another ruckman? But the Demons saw the rare gifts in former WA basketballer Luke Jackson, who is already a force to be reckoned with and doesn’t turn 20 until four days after the Grand Final. The No. 3 pick in the 2019 national draft will be worth the price of admission alone for the next decade.

13. Trade masterstrokes

The Demons played the futures game as well as anyone in the AFL. In the 2019 national draft they traded 26, 50 and their future first-rounder for North Melbourne’s pick 8. Then they traded 8 for 10, 28 and a future-fourth rounder. Pick 10 filled their need for an electric small forward (Kysaiah Pickett) and pick 32 brought them Trent Rivers, who hasn’t missed this year and will play 200 consistent games for the Demons. If you were to re-rank the 2019 national draft this week given Matt Rowell’s slow return from a knee injury it might be Jackson, Pickett, Rowell, Will Day, Mitch Georgiades, Cody Weightman, Lachie Ash and Noah Anderson.

14. Watts-Fritsch switch

The Demons finally cut ties with Jack Watts after 153 games and nine seasons, trading him for a mid-second round pick. That No.31 selection? The kid from Coldstream in Bayley Fritsch, who has already kicked 53.22 this season.

Jack Watts and former teammate Jake Melksham clash at the MCG in 2019.

15. Lucky strike

Sometimes you just get lucky. The AFL took pity on the Demons when it handed them the No. 3 overall pick as compensation for departing free agent James Frawley. There can be a positive to mediocrity. They turned him into Angus Brayshaw, who has defined the new-found unselfishness with a team-first role on the wing.

16. Captain obvious

Melbourne embraced the quirky and authentic. The Melbourne of previous decades would never have appointed Max Gawn as captain because …. well he was Max Gawn. He has owned the club’s failures, disarmed through his no BS-nature, mixed natural talent with a determination to train his butt off to set the standard for his teammates. When it was apparent he was the obvious captain Jack Viney was demoted back to vice-captain but he too sucked it up and got on with business.

17. Ben Brown

Melbourne focused on what Ben Brown could do rather than emphasising his failures.

Beating off interest from Fremantle and Essendon as Simon Goodwin sold his vision of success, the Demons got Brown for picks 26 and 33, getting back pick 28 in return.

So they got him for a late second-rounder, then proved they could change him by turning a one-trick pony into a quasi centre-half forward who tackles, crashes the odd pack, and works seamlessly in a forward line rather than requiring it to be set up to help him kick goals.

Max Gawn’s leadership has paid handsomely for the Demons and Ben Brown has been a superb inclusion.

18. Football department’s dynamo duo

Only Melbourne players truly know which of Adem Yze or Mark Williams has had a more meaningful impact on this list. Williams rants and raves and has transformed the kicking of multiple players, while Yze behind the scenes has made a profound difference as the midfield coach of the AFL’s best onball unit.

19. Fitness guru

By mid-2019 the Demons were the kind of club that had enough appeal to secure renowned fitness boss Darren Burgess after he returned to Australia from premier league club Arsenal. Every club boasts about the fitness of their players, their capacity to run out final quarters. Insiders say his impact in two seasons has been profound, even if he is set to return to South Australia next year.

20. The all-important brand

They built a brand that would stand up in September. It was always built on midfield dominance, but the extra layer of defence honed over the past 12 months is exactly the kind of football that took Richmond to those trio of flags. It has been shown in all its glory in the past two finals, Melbourne only showcasing the flashier elements of its game style once it had utterly stifled Brisbane and Geelong with frenetic pressure at the contest. You don’t win a pair of finals by 33 and 83 points without a spectacular brand as well as sumptuous talent.