The List Manager: Jon Ralph examines Melbourne’s current list, its future and everything in between
It’s been one crisis after another at Melbourne the past 12 months. Board disputes, unhappy players, trade rumours. Jon Ralph writes, there’s a path for them to rise and contend again.
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Never waste a crisis.
In every way Melbourne dropped its bundle in 2024.
Its best player, Christian Petracca, was injured on King’s Birthday and the fallout both on and off the field was diabolic.
Its next-best midfielder, Clayton Oliver, got himself right off the field but by his own admission stunk it up when he crossed the white line after eight seasons of rare quality.
Melbourne lost six of its final 14 games by 35 points or more, including the 92-point abomination against Fremantle in Alice Springs and a 35-point defeat against West Coast in Perth.
That included losing five of the last six games to slump to fifth-last on the ladder.
It was an out-and-out-crisis.
So does the club use rock bottom as a starting point or only rise to mediocrity again?
Will rock bottom be enough to motivate Oliver to turn in a barnstorming 2025 season?
Will Christian Petracca throw the toys out of the cot after wanting out, or be the man who drives the cultural change he so demanded?
That pair — more than anyone else at Melbourne — can get to work and lead that change, or they can complain that things haven’t gone their way in recent years.
Petracca was right to raise objections about the club, but with Gary Pert and Kate Roffey gone he now has to get on with taking control of this club.
Will three years without a finals victory mean the game plan is overhauled and turned into a finals-proof brand as the club’s football review demanded?
Last year Goodwin tried to move away from the contest-and-defence style he so loves for a more expansive style — and found it didn’t work.
Therefore, he knows more than anyone else that tweaking a game plan which resulted in a flag can be near on impossible.
TRADE PERIOD RATING: 6/10
Melbourne’s trade successes came from what didn’t happen, rather than what did.
They didn’t lose Oliver, Petracca or Kysaiah Pickett, despite Oliver being shopped, Petracca wanting out and Pickett being lured west by his mates at WA-based teams.
The Demons also didn’t get Dan Houston, after he got cold feet because of instability at the club.
But the blessing in disguise is that Melbourne keeps pick five — which should secure a generational player — and traded into Essendon’s pick nine by offering up its future first-rounder.
Instead of the quick-fix move that Houston would have provided as a player who turns 28 in May, the Demons get the opportunity to add two more potential stars to a list that is stacked with young talent despite the 2024 malaise.
Lachie Hunter, Josh Schache, Adam Tomlinson and Joel Smith are gone, alongside the retired Angus Brayshaw and Ben Brown, while Alex Neal-Bullen left for Adelaide.
LIST HOLES
Feel free to disagree, but by year’s end Melbourne believed the Jacob Van Rooyen-Harry Petty-Dan Turner trio of tall forwards was the way of the future.
It is a leap of faith given Harry Petty kicked 9.15 in 20 games and Turner returned hauls of four, three and three but kicked seven goals in his other 12 games.
Still, they will believe they can surround that trio with Bayley Fritsch (41 goals in 2024), Kosi Pickett, Koltyn Tholstrup and at times Jake Melksham and Matthew Jefferson to kick a winning score.
The worry is that the club’s mid-forward connection was already ordinary and Neal-Bullen was the one player who ran himself into the ground to open up leading lanes and bring pressure.
Who fills that void?
Pickett will miss the first three matches through suspension, so Kade Chandler, Charlie Spargo, Tholstrup and perhaps Shane McAdam will get early looks.
Petracca has for so long been relied upon to be a forward line spark plug, but will he be needed mostly in the centre square?
The Demons found with Angus Brayshaw retired, Oliver down on form, James Jordon gone to Sydney and Petracca injured they were thin for midfield stocks.
The draft will help and Windsor looks a jet playing more outside than inside, while Trent Rivers took a huge step in 2024 even if Tom Sparrow didn’t have the year he might have liked as he missed the top 10 in the best-and-fairest and averaging only 14.9 touches.
Judd McVee got some centre-square time, Pickett might be needed there, and the hope is that Oliver is back to his dynamic best.
But the point remains — an area that was Melbourne’s one wood let them down last year.
Over to you, Simon Goodwin.
The backline constants in Steven May and Jake Lever remain, along with Tom McDonald.
McVee can play lockdown and midfield, but averages only 0.9 intercept marks.
Jake Bowey provides dash.
With Dan Houston getting cold feet and Adam Tomlinson leaving, there is a need for someone to either lock down on the guns or play as another interceptor.
Christian Salem had another injury-interrupted year with little impact — officially rating below average with his kicking.
Time to make a stand, Christian.
So, Goodwin will have to tweak his defensive mix, but surely he can find a way to make the back-six work with May and Lever still at their awesome best.
The open question is whether Petty gets another run in defence, but Goodwin was emphatic this year that he sees him as a forward.
Max Gawn remains a colossus but with little back-up, as Melbourne brought in journeyman Tom Campbell to help as Will Verrall toils away in the VFL.
DRAFT STRATEGY
Melbourne did what it does best — moving a future first-rounder into this year’s draft by swapping its 2025 selection with the Bombers for pick nine.
Whether it was by suggesting they might bid on Isaac Kako or just clever drafting, it gives them an elite draft hand.
Picks five and nine are a launching pad for a club that has drafted so well in recent years — Windsor and Tholstrup at seven and 13, Van Rooyen at pick 19, Bowey at 21, Luke Jackson, Pickett and Rivers at three, 12 and 32.
For all the talent on this list midfield has to be a priority with pick five given the welter of onball talent in that position.
But the Demons can’t really lose at pick nine.
If they take a key back it helps the defensive succession plan with May 32 and Lever 29 in March.
The explosive 193cm defender Alix Tauru might be gone by then but he would fit nicely.
If there is a key forward available like Harry Armstrong, it helps Van Rooyen and Petty in coming years.
The word from the Demons camp is that this is very much a ‘best available’ draft.
Taking two selections gives the Demons freedom to pick the best midfielder available and then be more flexible with that second selection.
They won’t be reaching for a positional type, but the makeup of their list means that they will be happy if the player they take at pick nine is a midfielder, forward or key back.
At this stage Melbourne has only pick 79 left as a third selection and plans to take that selection, which will come in to somewhere in the early 60s.
AFL PLAYER RANKINGS
In 2024, Gawn was 4th, Petracca 9th, Jack Viney 73rd, Bullen was 94th.
If Oliver gets back into the top 10 next year, Melbourne can still finish top-six.
PREMIERSHIP WINDOW
Much has been made of Collingwood’s experience, but consider the Demons next year — Gawn, May and Melksham at 33, McDonald 32, Viney and McAdam 30, Petracca turns 29 in January and Lever is 29 in March.
So as much as the Demons haven’t sold their future — they keep drafting quality kids — this is a list which should be in the flag window.
It would be some kind of story — win a flag in 2021, endure the heartbreak of two straight sets exit, fall in a heap in 2024 then rise like a phoenix in 2025.
SALARY CAP
Melbourne had the cap space to secure Houston and while the club has just signed Viney and Gawn over the off-season, the vast lift in the salary cap to 2027 still gives the club some options.
Oliver departing would have given it a chunk of change, but with very few priority signings past 2025 it is in a reasonable position.
May is out of contract, with McVee the only other priority signing.
TRADE TARGETS
So much depends upon how 2025 plays out from a playing point of view.
If Oliver and Petracca decide they are moving on, then all bets are off.
The Demons will need midfield talent and will have huge trade collateral to get deals done.
If Pickett cannot settle despite a contract to 2027, then his loss would leave a gaping hole in the forward line.
It is why early wins are so important for Goodwin and this entire club.
It calms trade speculation and gives this club clean air to get on with the job at hand.
Gawn signed to 2027, so despite his age the Demons are clearly not going to spend big on a free agency ruckman like Sam Draper to replace him.
Clubs will look for rebounders like Port Adelaide free agent Kane Farrell, but if we are honest this looks a very thin free agency year.
TRADE BAIT
The obvious.
Petracca, Oliver, Pickett.
Oliver owned his form issues in an interview with the Herald Sun recently, but you would imagine by the time he returns to training on Monday week he will have been given a crystal-clear explanation for him being shopped around by Pert.
That should allow him to get some closure on a second troublesome off-season in a row.
In the seasons that led up to last year’s disaster, he was a two-time AFLCA champion player, four-time best-and-fairest winner and three-time All Australian.
It would have been insane to trade him to Geelong for cents on the dollar.
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