Vultures circling embattled Melbourne after Demons’ failed attempt to recruit Dan Houston
Some of Melbourne’s biggest stars are in the sights of rival clubs as they look to take advantage of the instability which has beset the Demons — including Clayton Oliver.
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Every club in the competition is peering over the Melbourne fence.
Geelong on Clayton Oliver. Collingwood on Christian Petracca. Port Adelaide on Kysaiah Pickett.
The Power’s Dan Houston was bound for the Demons as recently as two weeks ago but, in a major concern some of Melbourne’s biggest supporters are trying to ignore, he doesn’t want to go there anymore.
Houston has gone cold turkey on the Demons for its on and off-field issues.
He smelled the smoke, took a look, and spotted a fire.
Remember when Tim Taranto arrived at Richmond thinking he would join a premiership contender only for the bottom to fall out of the team which has since become a wooden spooner?
Houston doesn’t want to be that guy if Melbourne completely collapse in 2025. Why would he?
So he is looking at other options. Somewhere where the bath water isn’t scolding hot. A club where things are more in order.
It leaves Melbourne, only three years after winning the flag with a brilliant second half against Western Bulldogs, at a significant crossroad.
Rival clubs believe some of Melbourne’s most important players are getting twitchy fingers, sensing it could in fact all blow up in 12 months if the club can’t collectively maximise the riches on its list.
If Collingwood had the picks to trade, you wonder whether Petracca would request if not demand a bombshell move to the Magpies after he was left to play on in the King’s Birthday game with a ruptured spleen, punctured lung and four broken ribs.
Even the Magpies players knew he shouldn’t be out on the field and told him so, before he was shipped to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
No wonder the Petracca family are filthy, albeit in hindsight.
Petracca, who has a Norm Smith Medal and a premiership, has the power to fill his trophy cabinet over his career, and he has always been ambitious from the day he was drafted. He craves success, like all the greats.
Likewise, Geelong have kept an eye on Oliver all season.
Privately, the Cats think they could accommodate Oliver and Western Bulldogs’ Bailey Smith in its salary cap for next season, but a deal for both would be enormously difficult.
But the appeal is obvious.
Geelong has a phenomenal record of getting the best out of its players, even if there is risk attached.
Football boss Andrew Mackie lifted the lid on the club’s recruiting philosophies in 2022, saying the club was unafraid to be aggressive.
“What’s the point of being conservative and safe?” Mackie said.
“We could do that. But we are really open and OK to explore outside the norm.
“We have had to. If we see something we like, we aren’t afraid to pull the trigger.”
They support each individual’s needs. Tyson Stengle passed out in a nightclub, was taken to hospital, and the club still played him six days later, when he was one of the best on ground only a few weeks ago.
That is backing your player, rough edges or not.
In any case, Melbourne are not interested in trading any of its midfield superstars, the club says. Even North Melbourne has tried to get in on the act with hard nut Jack Viney.
Viney’s dad, Todd, is the footy boss at the Roos, so he knows the lay of the land as well as anyone at Melbourne.
Alex Neal-Bullen and Angus Brayshaw are also gone. They are heart and soul men.
But do you hold players at all costs?
Not according to respected former Demon Jordan Lewis, who cut to the point on AFL 360 on Fox Footy on Wednesday night, saying “if a player has signalled they want to leave I am always of the opinion if you can make that happen it is best for both club and player”.
Hawthorn lost Lance Franklin and won two more flags and Geelong saluted in 2011 after Gary Ablett bailed.
Nothing is impossible.
The nuclear option for the Demons is to blow the list up, trade Petracca and Oliver, and look to excel at the draft where recruiter Jason Taylor has the best hit record in the game.
Instead, Melbourne wants to keep its guns and reload for one more shot at it.
So the challenge for the club’s leaders is whether it can turn the crisis of the past few weeks, if not the past 12 months, into an opportunity to turn a new leaf. To learn and grow.
But it cannot rely solely on captain Max Gawn to carry the can for the whole team, on and off the field. He has been significant for Oliver’s personal turnaround this season.
But after the club lost to Sydney Swans in Opening Round, and interview requests went in for Oliver to speak after his turbulent pre-season, the club wheeled out Gawn instead.
Out loud, the skipper questioned why the media load wasn’t being more shared?
It was all on Max. Again. Even after being beaten in the ruck by Brodie Grundy at the SCG that night.
Melbourne was once a humble football club pre-premiership. The doors were always open.
It craved respect after enduring some of the darkest days in the game over the previous decade.
But the chest-beating since the flag has been lost on no one.
Chief executive Gary Pert maintains he was taken out of context, but he said in a pre-season interview on SEN radio Melbourne had the best culture he had seen in 40 years.
No Melbourne fan could believe that now, and the phones at the club have been ringing hot this week.
At the Melbourne games in recent weeks, the seats are empty.
Tonight's attendance is 17,867.#AFLDeesPower
— Melbourne Cricket Ground (@MCG) August 10, 2024
The atmosphere, in comparison to Hawthorn games for example, is dead quiet.
In the background at Melbourne, former president Glen Bartlett has waged a legal war against the club’s directors over his exit.
He questioned alleged behaviours at the club, and was unhappily tiptoed.
Melbourne has said for years – to this reporter and many others – the Bartlett fiasco was simply not a story.
That was three years ago, yet it remains in the courts.
So can this galvanise the footy club in a way?
Can coach Simon Goodwin use this mooted breaking point, and the player frustration, and the inability to connect forward to manifest a new vision and fresh attitude for the Demons ahead of a make-or-break 2025 season?
Respected Essendon champion Matthew Lloyd, a man who doesn’t make big statements lightly, said Goodwin had 12 months to turn the Melbourne ship around.
“Simon Goodwin is on borrowed time, I’m talking this time next year if things don’t improve. I think he has got another 12 months and if things don’t improve I think his job will be in question,” Lloyd said on Channel 9.
Changes will come in the coaching department but officially the club has not lost any faith in Goodwin.
But he needs to implement a system that suits the players at his disposal and can connect forward in a manner that enables Melbourne to be able to consistently score.
Contest and defence, at least on its own, hasn’t worked post flag.
So the refresh is coming in the off-season, and Geelong showed in 2022 it is possible to employ a more attacking strategy, albeit with Tom Hawkins, Jeremy Cameron and Stengle in attack.
St Kilda confronted similar issues this season and found its scoring power from the back half to lift the team’s performance in the second half of the season.
The Saints have nowhere near the talent level Melbourne has.
Maybe that was the plan with Houston at Melbourne.
Re-energise the ball movement in defence to quicken the delivery in attack?
The skilful playmaker who was coming to play at half back until he took a step backwards and considered alternatives.
Melbourne can’t put its head in the sand about the predicament it faces.
It might have been an attractive club to join in recent years, but the gloss has worn off, and the chest-beating can stop.
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