Jon Ralph analyses the list management calls Melbourne must make to improve
It’s been another year of disappointment for the Demons. But what exactly is the club’s biggest issue? From coaching to recruiting and list management, take a look at the tough questions the Demons must answer.
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Melbourne is likely to back coach Simon Goodwin for 2021 with a revamped coaching set-up as the club’s past payouts for coaches come back to haunt it.
The Demons are at least mathematically in finals contention despite the defeat against Fremantle, the second horror loss in a week to a team below them on the ladder.
Goodwin’s two remaining seasons on a $750,000-a-year contract are the clear impediment to moving him on but he is also beloved by his players and internally is seen to have strong tactical acumen.
That tactical bent is clearly not being shown on the field given the 12-25 record since the start of 2019.
There are multiple factors that will likely keep him at the club next year, some of them separate from his coaching performance this year.
The Demons’ ability to exempt his contract from the soft cap as per all football department termination payments would require approval from AFL House.
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But the AFL has in recent seasons already allowed the Demons to pay out contracts for Mark Neeld and the club’s caretaker coach Neil Craig, who had a season on his contract.
The league would be reluctant to again allow the Demons to waste money on a payout given the perilous financial impact of COVID.
The AFL put together a financial support package for the Demons as Paul Roos took over, but it did not include his significant salary.
Part of the league’s conditions when it approved that package was that change needed to be made at board level.
Demons president Glen Bartlett and chief executive Gary Pert were behind the three-year extension for Goodwin in March 2019, only 18 months ago.
It would be a tough sell for the club leaders to move on Goodwin without coming under pressure from members, especially given Pert’s comments upon the extension.
“This is the board signing off that these are the people, this is the leadership, this is the program and this is the culture that we believe will take the Melbourne Football Club to where we want to go over the next four years,” he said.
The Demons will already have to make significant change among the assistant coaches given the shrinking salary cap.
It will likely see Alan Richardson, also signed long-term, moved from the Director of Coaching role and into a more hands-on role that could include line coaching.
Richardson has been one of footy’s best development coaches and Goodwin is respected for his tactics but the Demons have too often been badly outcoached this year.
Captain Max Gawn bemoaned the fact Melbourne had made the same mistakes too often in the past 18 months, saying last week bombing the ball inside 50 was “part of our DNA for almost two years”.
If the Demons win their remaining two games Goodwin will at least boast three winning seasons in four years in charge.
NINE RUTHLESS CALLS MELBOURNE MUST MAKE
Ask any Melbourne fan and they will tell you Melbourne’s issue isn’t talent.
Not with the best ruckman in the game (Max Gawn), the dashing midfield star (Christian Petracca), footy’s best extractor (Clayton Oliver) and a pair of highly-paid key position defenders (Jake Lever and Steven May).
Melbourne was taken down once more by inconsistent effort and a highly-organised Fremantle team that seemed to know at every turn what they were trying to achieve.
To be frank, Simon Goodwin was out-coached by Justin Longmuir.
But given Melbourne doesn’t seem likely to move on a coach with two years on a highly-paid deal, what will they do with their list in the off-season?
The Demons have as many as 24 players out of contract and clearly the will to make significant changes in a bid to return to football respectability.
So what are the questions that need answering in the off-season?
HARLEY BENNELL
Ex-Docker Bennell has played five games, none of them since Round 10, and showed patches of class but diminishing returns every game – 14 possessions, 13, 11, 11 and five.
He kicked the ball well but not exceptionally – just 61 per cent – applied very little pressure and kicked three goals in those five contests.
He hasn’t been seen since. The Demons should keep him on a one-year incentivised deal but he needs to find a desperation in his game that wasn’t there this year.
Fair enough too given his body has failed him so many times before but its time to leave it all out there in the off-season to turn into a rabid tackle-first player who Goodwin just can’t drop
TOM MCDONALD
McDonald’s remarkable form in 2018 has been shown to be an aberration, just like the club’s finals appearance that year.
He was thrown forward to kick 53 goals and looked a star of the game.
Last year saw the extraordinary fall from grace with 18 goals in 15 games at an average of 1.2 goals a game.
This year he has fallen even further with seven goals in nine games.
His coach has clearly lost faith in him and isn’t prepared to play him back where Jake Lever and Steven May hold the key-position spots, sometimes alongside brother Oscar.
In a year where the Demons have no first-round pick he has significant currency given his best is still commanding.
As Leigh Montagna said over the weekend, why not find out if Essendon is interested given they might need key position players and the Demons still need speed.
“Essendon might need another key defender or key forward (next year). Melbourne need speed and class on the outside, they might look at an Essendon player,” Montagna said.
“I don’t know, but I do think you’ve got to be able to shake up your list. You just can’t keep expecting different results with a very similar list.”
NATHAN JONES
Few players have given more to this football club than Jones, a proud warrior and player who has set elite standards across his 294 games.
But Jones, currently out with a recurrence of his quad complaint, will surely retire at season’s end.
In seven games he has averaged 54 ranking points and 13 disposals kicking at 52 per cent effectiveness.
The club should give him as significant a send-off as it can given his career as a three-time Bluey Truscott Medallist and captain from 2014-2019.
MORE: WHO WILL RETIRE AT SEASON’S END?
JAYDEN HUNT
Hunt’s best season was the 22-game 2017 season where he showed electric pace off half back as a line-breaking defender. But his kicking skills began to erode the coaching staff’s trust and he has turned into a small forward and bit-parts man. Out of contract and having played only four games this year, surely it’s time for another club to give him a chance.
Last night he kicked a goal and had six possessions at 33 per cent efficiency on a dirty night but if they won’t play him someone will give him a chance in a league where clubs are crying out for line-breakers.
ANGUS BRAYSHAW
The Demons would be crazy to contemplate any trades for Brayshaw, whose best (574 possessions, 14 goals in 2018) is exceptional. He has been forced out to the wing at times and played only solid football – average of 81 ranking points, 16.6 possessions, five goals – rather than hitting the elite heights of recent years. But it’s not a question of talent, it’s about system and execution and how Goodwin gets the best out of his inside midfield crew. Brayshaw remains one of the few Demons that can spin out of a pack, break a line and hit a teammate with a feather-soft drop punt. Rivals would break down the door to secure that kind of player. Surely if the Demons are to return to finals at some stage he’s in their first few players picked.
MICHAEL HIBBERD
The ex-Bomber is out of contract and has had to deal with a traumatic year involving the passing of his beloved brother in a boating accident.
He turns 31 in January and still has more football in him.
But after his spectacular 2017 season – 99 ranking points, 27 disposals, 3.9 score involvements, kicking at 77 per cent efficiency – he has had three modest seasons.
Those seasons are reflective of the Demons – just a middle-of-the-road team.
No one is crying out to take his spot, even though Trent Rivers very much looks a player of the future after another fine display against the Dockers.
MITCH BROWN
The Demons have played him only three times after taking him when he was delisted by Essendon.
In all three games he has won eight possessions and taken three or four marks for a sum total of two goals. Dropped in Round 16, it’s hard to see how he wins another contract.
OSCAR MCDONALD
The Demons still see McDonald as a developing player at 24, having preferred him to Sam Frost when they traded the dashing defender to Hawthorn.
Dropped for the Fremantle game, he has played 81 games in his time at Melbourne. Ideally the Demons would have found a rookie or left-field recruit to go past him as an intercepting third tall.
It just hasn’t happened yet. For all of his brain fades Frost got things started with his frenetic ball movement.
He is in a group of players including Joel Smith, Marty Hore, Corey Wagner and Josh Wagner who is out of contract at year’s end.
JESSE HOGAN
Hogan’s exclusion from the Fremantle team in recent weeks saw some Demons wonder if they should bite the bullet and try to get him back into their side.
After all, he did kick 47 goals from 20 games in that 2018 season.
There is no way the Demons will tip into that theory, but they do need a selfless, hard-running forward who opens up space for others like Collingwood’s Brodie Mihocek.
They got 150 goals from McDonald, Hogan, Jake Melksham and Jeff Garlett in 2018.
This year Sam Weideman has finally emerged as a reliable marking prospect.
Why wouldn’t they have a crack at Joe Daniher.
Gold Coast’s Peter Wright is gettable but would effectively play the same ruck-forward role as No. 3 pick Luke Jackson.
They were keen on Adelaide’s Tom Lynch once and he would likely be available as that mid-forward connector but they need the 25-year-old version and they are impossible to find.
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