AFL Gather Round Melbourne v Essendon: Simon Goodwin under serious pressure as Demons slump to 0-5

By half time against Essendon, Melbourne’s season wasn’t just on life support, time of death had been called, writes JON RALPH. And the Demons have a big call to make on their coach.

• Goodwin ‘incredibly confident’ he can turn winless Dees around

Melbourne’s president-elect Steven Smith’s greatest priority this month should be pondering how many pairs of swimming trunks to pack for his three-month Italian sabbatical.

Instead, the man who soon takes control of Melbourne will spend the coming weeks deciding if his best option is managing the exit of the club’s fourth premiership coach.

In a night that confounded and frustrated Demons fans, Simon Goodwin’s team plumbed new depths for a half, played 20 minutes of scintillating football and still found a way to slump to a 39-point loss.

Last year, a pair of stirring South Australian victories over Port Adelaide and Adelaide seemingly set up Melbourne’s season after four victories to round 5.

Since then, the Demons have won only six of 21 games, are 0-5 this season, and, on any measure, are going backwards at a rate of knots.

Simon Goodwin walks off Adelaide Oval after Saturday night’s loss. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos

It was a tough night for Max Gawn and the Demons. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos

By half time against Essendon on Saturday night, Melbourne’s season wasn’t just on life support.

The doctor had actually called time of death.

At 8.30pm Central Standard Time it was impossible to see a way forward with Goodwin coaching.

They had shown they were a deeply mediocre team.

Their forward line was a dog’s breakfast.

Their coach seemed out of ideas and out of luck.

Then came a second half comeback that fell well short, yet for a time allowed Melbourne to resemble the elite squad that won the 2021 premiership.

What Smith and the club’s current president Brad Green make of it is anyone’s guess.

The harshest – and perhaps fairest – interpretation of a topsy-turvy night at Adelaide Oval is that this Melbourne team still has talent but not the game-plan or confidence to deliver it across four quarters.

Gawn and Clayton Oliver take on Essendon’s Sam Draper. Picture: Sarah Reed/AFL Photos

Archie Perkins goes flying over the top. Picture: Michael Klein

All of Goodwin’s issues were on show early in the Gather Round ‘Crisis Cup’.

In that first half Essendon took total control with polished midfielders, a clear game plan and a forward line full of promise in Isaac Kako, Nate Caddy and surprise packet Jy Menzie.

Goodwin had to watch on as Sam Draper took a pair of hangers over Max Gawn while taking the ruck points with his midfield also soundly beaten.

Clayton Oliver was eclipsed not by an elite AFL tagger but by journeyman Will Setterfield, who hadn’t played a single AFL game since round 13 last year.

Even as the Bombers controlled the flow of play with better disposal, the Demons still had seven of the eight first-half clearances and 27 to 26 inside 50s to the main break.

Yet former pick 19 Jacob Van Rooyen remained miserably out of form and Pickett and Petracca combined for a single goal in their midfield-forward rotation.

Down by 35 points, Goodwin went back to what had worked so often before – Gawn, Viney, Oliver and Petracca – with Pickett stationed at full forward.

That quartet went to work in the third quarter as Petracca exploded out of the clinches, Bayley Fritsch found signs of life and the Demons looked a different side.

Melbourne looked desperate, frantic, engaged.

And yet when Steven May juggled a ball he would so often have marked clean, Nic Martin knocked it clean out of his hands and ran into an open goal to re-establish a 16-point three quarter time lead.

Nate Caddy takes to the skies. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos

Melbourne’s best challenge was over and the margin blew out past six goals as Jye Menzie kicked his fourth goal on the siren.

For Smith, the task ahead would usually follow a set formula for clubs with besieged coaches.

Commission a full-blown review, swing the magnets of his support team, then decide to sack his coach or retain him with a rejuvenated support staff.

But the Demons already went through that entire review last year, backing in Goodwin despite the tactical issues apparent last year.

At some stage, clubs simply decide that it needs new ideas, new energy, new inspiration.

Pickett-suitor Fremantle lies in wait next week, then Richmond and West Coast.

Smith is not a man of hasty actions. yet there is an inevitability about his decisions ahead.

Scoreboard

DEMONS 1.4 2.5 7.7 8.9 (57)

BOMBERS 3.4 7.4 10.5 15.6 (96)

JASON PHELAN’S BEST DEMONS: Gawn, Langdon, Petracca, Pickett, Salem, Bowey, Oliver. BOMBERS: Merrett, Shiel, Menzie, Martin, McGrath, Durham, Draper.

GOALS DEMONS: Pickett 2, Fritsch 2, Sharp, Petty, Langdon Sparrow. BOMBERS: Menzie 4, Caddy 2, Hobbs 2, Shiel, Perkins, Martin, Jones, Duursma, Gresham, Redman.

INJURIES DEMONS: Nil. BOMBERS: Bryan (knee).

UMPIRES Williamson, Heffernan, Tee, Young

45,039 at ADELAIDE OVAL

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

JASON PHELAN’S VOTES

3 Merrett (Ess)

2 Shiel (Ess)

1 Gawn (Mel)

Originally published as AFL Gather Round Melbourne v Essendon: Simon Goodwin under serious pressure as Demons slump to 0-5