AFL 2025: It’s time for Melbourne to get nasty again, writes Jay Clark

Melbourne used to have a nasty edge. After all the love language and hand-holding over summer, the Dees have become the nicest guys in football on the field. Jay Clark writes, that must change.

Melbourne has to regain a nasty edge.

After all the love language and hand-holding over summer, the Demons have become the nicest guys in football on the field.

But the time for talking about their feelings in the club counselling sessions has ended.

When Melbourne walked into Perth Stadium for its preliminary final against Geelong in 2021 the coach and his senior core had a strut and an outward confidence.

That year, the Demons were the third-best pressure team in the league inside the forward half as they destroyed Geelong (by 83 points) and pounded the Western Bulldogs in the grand final (72 points) on the way to the premiership.

But where has that intensity gone? The hunger is missing. And the execution is flawed.

Max Gawn and his Demons are staring down an 0-6 start. Picture: Getty Images

Melbourne does not possess artful or slick ball-users. Its decision-making and kick-dumping inside forward 50m is questionable at best and awful at its worst.

The way this list is built, the Demons are a sledgehammer football side.

And while they have been getting the ball into attack reasonably quickly this season, one of the biggest problems is the Sherrin bounces back out quicker than if it hit your kids’ trampoline.

To score with the way their engine room is set up in 2025, Melbourne needs heat in the game.

But over the first five matches the Demons have the third-worst forward-half pressure rating in the competition, according to Champion Data.

That is powder-puff stuff for a club whose one-wood is power and pressure at the contest.

So the Demons have drawn a line this week on the niceties.

Coach Simon Goodwin has backed in his players, maybe to a fault at times, and they remain fully supportive of the coach.

But the shake-up at selection backs up the talk inside the club over the past few days.

The club has reshaped the forward line by dropping Jacob van Rooyen, Bayley Fritsch and Jack Henderson for talls Tom Fullarton and Daniel Turner and livewire Koltyn Tholstrup.

Tholstrup might be the big one even though he has played only 10 games.

Tholstrup is an aggressive and powerful mid-sized forward who won’t shirk any contest or contact.

In footy terms, he’s the wild child.

He is the dynamite conduit between the midfield and forward lines and has the sort of spark and appetite for the tough stuff the team has been missing.

But there are other sizeable elephants in the room across the whole club. It’s stuff they don’t want you to talk about.

The contract extensions handed last August to captain Max Gawn, 33, and Jack Viney, 31 this week, were public relations exercises rather than shrewd list management decisions.

The club was in a tailspin at the time, with stars Christian Petracca, Clayton Oliver and Kysaiah Pickett all wanting out.

Gawn already had another year to run on his deal when the club handed him a lucrative extension until the end of 2027, in part because the Demons probably felt bad about the enormous load he was carrying on and off the field.

But the captain of the club was not going anywhere when the new deal talks popped up out of nowhere, maybe even surprising the skipper to a degree.

Even harder to believe was the four-year extension for former co-captain Viney, in the face of strong interest from North Melbourne, where Jack’s father, Todd, is footy boss.

Two years would have been right for Viney, who won the club’s 2024 best and fairest, three years would have been generous, and four years was an error, it must be said.

The extensions were a PR move from a club which had lost its chief executive, Gary Pert, and president, Kate Roffey, and the board panicked re-signing the big names at the end of a disastrous three years.

It was a period Goodwin called a fog, or a dark cloud, which had descended on the club amid a legal fight with its former president Glen Bartlett, drug issues, two straight-sets finals exits, Angus Brayshaw’s concussion-enforced retirement, cultural questions, and Petracca’s internal injuries and trade interest.

The Christian Petracca saga has dominated headlines. Picture: Michael Klein

There’s people close to Melbourne who think all of this is still having a profound impact on the group, but they won’t say it openly.

Are there still scars? Is the club and the players’ spirit broken like Richmond great Jack Riewoldt suggested on Fox Footy?

By the looks of things, yes.

In reality, the only thing which is going to catch a club in freefall are wins.

Viney is a heart-and-soul type, a beloved figure at Melbourne. A premiership warrior and a club hall of famer.

But his role needs to be recast, most likely as a pressure forward and the coaching staff knows it.

The future is Harvey Langford, Xavier Lindsay, Judd McVee, Caleb Windsor, Trent Rivers and Tholstrup. Turner and Matthew Jefferson are years away from becoming reliable talls.

As an onballer, Viney leads the competition for clangers.

This is where the modern game has escaped the Demons.

The best teams are winning on quality entries and pinpoint ball use.

But after five rounds, Viney tops the AFL for clangers, Oliver is ninth and Gawn is 18th.

Jack Viney has recorded the most clangers in the AFL after five rounds. Picture: Getty Images

This list was setup for the 2021 game style and it worked wonderfully with a drought-breaking flag.

But week-by-week, they are receiving more data and learning more about the new direction the game has gone.

So does Goodwin want to help lead the club in this new phase? He has said the answer is most certainly yes.

On Saturday, the Demons confront one of the best onball groups in the game against Fremantle on Saturday at the MCG including superstars Caleb Serong, Hayden Young and Andrew Brayshaw.

A loss will intensify speculation on Goodwin ahead of crucial games against fellow cellar dwellers Richmond (MCG) on Anzac Day eve and West Coast (Perth).

By the look of the club statement last Sunday, as revealed in the Herald Sun, the club is hedging its bets on the future of the coach.

In ordinary circumstances, it was the time to back in Goodwin hard, with more than one-and-a-half years left on his contract.

The statement from president Brad Green interestingly stopped short of pledging its full support behind the coach.

Instead, the carefully-worded statement said only that Melbourne “have a determined group of players and coaches who will drive the team’s response”.

For Goodwin, that would have been as reassuring as a politician’s promise.

Interestingly, one of the of the final few candidates in Melbourne’s new CEO search is AFL Coaches’ Association boss Alistair Nicholson.

He has fought harder than any man in the game for better coach security and conditions, and has said many times he isn’t a fan of mid-season coach sackings.

So, imagine if he gets the gig, and the Demons fail to fire this month. Nicholson could either help save Goodwin to a degree, or be at odds with the board as soon as he lands.

Simon Goodwin is under serious pressure. Picture: Getty Images

Incoming president Steven Smith met Gawn for the first time after the 39-point loss to Essendon in Adelaide, the club said, knowing the pair are going to have to open the lines of communication ahead of what could be a rough ride through the rest of 2025.

For the president and captain, this was a check-in during a tough time before Smith heads away on an overseas holiday for the winter

They aren’t talking about the coach, the club said.

Not yet they aren’t, anyway.

At least the pair have each other’s numbers and Smith is sure to stay in touch before he leaves for the northern hemisphere in a month’s time.

At the end of the season, Smith, who is one of the most respected sports administrators in the country, will lead the review into the club as part of some sort of on and off-field reset.

Just like the team this week, change is inevitable at Melbourne.

It just depends how deep the club is prepared to cut and how significantly on the field Melbourne can turn it around in the meantime.

But there can be no more Mr Nice Guys.

Originally published as AFL 2025: It’s time for Melbourne to get nasty again, writes Jay Clark