Melbourne to restructure defence in bid to keep flag hopes alive

MELBOURNE believes it can emulate West Coast’s stunning 2015 surge by restructuring its defence and that can keep it in the premiership race after losing star recruit Jake Lever to a season-ending injury.

The Demons are looking at options to replace Jake Lever. Picture: Getty Images

MELBOURNE believes it can emulate West Coast’s stunning 2015 surge by restructuring its defence and staying in the premiership race.

The Demons will spend a month searching for a new backline mix after losing star recruit Jake Lever with an anterior cruciate ligament ­injury.

Joel Smith and Harrison Petty are chances to have first crack at replacing Lever in Monday’s Queen’s Birthday game against Collingwood.

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Re-signed former defender Tom McDonald will stay forward, while Sam Frost was not named in the extended squad.

Retired Eagles midfielder Xavier Ellis said losing defensive pillars Eric Mackenzie (pre-season) and Mitch Brown (Round 1) to season-ending ACL injuries in 2015 helped instil a no-fear approach as they reached the Grand Final.

“We were initially a bit rocked by who was going to fill those positions,” Ellis told the Herald Sun.

“But it actually gave us an extra layer of protection in that no one expected it to work.

“Lever is a great footballer, but who’s to say the next option isn’t a player or a gamestyle that’s better than the one that had Lever involved anyway?

“Maybe playing small is the new way of playing football. They might accidentally discover it early.”

Jake Lever will miss the rest of the season with an ACL injury. Picture: Getty Images

Last year Richmond’s dearth of key forwards led to it trialling Jack Riewoldt as the only one in its structure. The Tigers won the premiership.

In 2015 Eagles coach Adam Simpson turned to Brad Sheppard (186cm) and Will Schofield (196cm) to help captain Shannon Hurn take on the gorilla forwards and stumbled across a brilliant defensive set up.

Ellis said road wins against Richmond (Round 12) and Collingwood (Round 16) fuelled belief that their makeshift defence could beat anyone.

“Confidence is the biggest thing when you are trying to create something,” Ellis said.

“If you’ve got enough confidence and you believe in it, it doesn’t really matter what everyone else is saying.

“Traditionally in football you’ve got to have a big centre half-back, you’ve got to have a big full-back who can wrestle gorillas and you’ve got to have that third tall who can cover off.

Joel Smith in a pre-season game last year. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

“We simply didn’t have those options. But who knew that Jeremy McGovern was the best drop-off mark in the game?

“Brad Sheppard — who knew he could play on talls so consistently, and it was actually an advantage to play on talls and rebound.

“By removing the key pillars, it really just gave us an extra layer of protection that if it does go wrong people are expecting it to go wrong.

“At Melbourne, what’s to say the next guy isn’t equally as good as Lever (but) just hasn’t had the opportunity at reading the play and having a licence to try and mark everything and create rebound.”

Demons coach Simon Goodwin said Lever’s injury had cost them “real leadership and communication”.

“I look back at West Coast in 2015 where they lost two or three of their key defenders and they found a different formula that was successful,” Goodwin said on SEN.

“We’ll continue to test and learn over the next month and find the right person to come in.”

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