Melbourne must get ruthless as board meets after Dees’ stunning capitulation against St Kilda
Melbourne has to swap the roses for ruthlessness. Jay Clark writes, change must be on the agenda as Simon Goodwin fronts the board on Monday night.
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Melbourne has to swap the roses for ruthlessness.
The club spent all summer holding hands and bonding in a bid to repair some of the damage from three years of off-field dilemmas and distractions.
The hurt was real from repeated controversies and dramas, but the club sacrificed training sessions for counselling sessions as part of the pre-season love-in.
And in the end, Melbourne has become a fragile team which has lacked a ruthless, hard edge, and in the words of captain Max Gawn, has forgotten how to win.
Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin will presumably tell the club board in the scheduled meeting on Monday night that the most confounding and crushing loss of his time in charge outside of the 2023 finals series could still be the making of Melbourne.
But to get anywhere, the club has to genuinely and perhaps painfully confront the reasons for the last-quarter capitulation on Sunday.
And it can’t be talent. There’s enough of that in the middle of the ground, surely.
The issue here is mental toughness and resilience to dig in when the heat is on.
In the press conference on Sunday night Goodwin was adamant it was about “developing that ruthless mindset you need to be a really good side” and that “your darkest moments can be your biggest growth”.
The senior coach is contracted for next year and will have told the board he has lost none of his desire to lead Melbourne back up the ladder.
But the patience is being tested at board level, before incoming president Steve Smith returns to the country next week, and new CEO Paul Guerra steps in on September 8.
It’s a holding pattern until then, it seems, unless they fold again against West Coast when all options will genuinely be on the table.
But none of what we saw in the last term on Sunday would have been a total surprise to anyone on the inside at Melbourne, really.
When the tide turned against the Demons, and inspirational skipper Gawn couldn’t save them in the ruck like he often does, they went to water.
Few teams have relied on one man on and off the field as much as Melbourne on Gawn in recent times, but for this club to rise up again, others have to stand up under pressure.
The next generation of leaders have to make their mark at Melbourne, now.
And that’s not 33-year old Jake Melksham who has also saved them forward of centre in 2025 in the absence of a prime key forward.
But when it gets hard and close, Melbourne wilt.
For all the talk about the big names, in the last quarter the only Melbourne player to win a centre clearance on Sunday was Gawn.
So the heat gets to them, no matter how big their salaries.
Since the flag in 2021, the Demons have a terrible record in games decided by 12 points or less, with 10 wins and 18 losses.
When it comes to the killer blow, the Demons hit the opposition with a pillow.
So it won’t be a shock at Melbourne that they played maybe their three best quarters of the season followed by their worst term in years in the record-breaking loss to St Kilda at Marvel Stadium.
Whether it was their awful slow starts which have punctuated the year, the maddening dump kicks forward on a doom loop, or the centre square brain fade late on Sunday which confirmed the 46-point surrender, it is almost guaranteed every week at Melbourne that strange things will happen at some point.
They have become that sort of football club.
And while we have focused hard on the last-minute miracle, and the confusing centre square set up chaos, bet your bottom dollar it is the mid part of the quarter when the Demons coughed up goal after goal that Melbourne will review most deeply.
Clearly, the last minute was a disaster and a complete failure in communication, organisation, clear-thinking and leadership from everyone in red and blue.
But it was earlier when they had to stem the flow of momentum and execute the opportunities at hand like Clayton Oliver’s skewed 20m shot on goal and Harry Petty’s non rushed behind that the team fluffed it.
The centre clearances were an annihilation from a St Kilda team which named Hunter Clark, Jackson Macrae and Jack Steele as its starting set up.
So it can’t be a capability problem at Melbourne, it’s killer instinct. Something above the shoulders.
The set up in the last few minutes looked OK, with an extra at the stoppage on the wing boundary line throw-in, and Bailey Fritsch behind the ball like he normally does in these moments.
But with Fritsch at the front and Judd McVee right on his hammer, Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera produced an unbelievable mark like Michael Gardiner in 2013.
One man’s footy genius won the game for the Saints in the most miraculous final minute, but it was the previous 29 minutes which truly cost Melbourne.
And right across the season, Melbourne has often produced an awful quarter or barren patch, like the first-term five-goal-to-nil no-show against Gold Coast in Round 17.
They need to secure a prime key forward to help straighten up and sharpen the forward connection and have an open mind to the trade deals they have baulked at in the past.
Melbourne will be aggressive in the trade market, but it is unclear who wants to come.
And for performances like Sunday’s, it’s not hard to see why.
GOODWIN FRONTS DEES BOARD AFTER SUNDAY HORROR SHOW
Melbourne’s football program will be on the agenda when the club’s directors meet for a board meeting on Monday night, where Simon Goodwin will present to the club’s top brass.
The Demons’ heavyweights including president Brad Green will meet for its scheduled monthly meeting one day after the record-breaking 46-point capitulation to St Kilda on Sunday.
It is expected the directors will address the team’s on-field progress including a disappointing past fortnight which has included a loss to Carlton and the last-quarter nightmare against the Saints.
The final-term meltdown on Sunday has heaped pressure on Goodwin, football boss Alan Richardson and the assistant coaches in the wake of another underwhelming 6-13 season with four games remaining.
Goodwin has no plans to step aside and has a near $1 million payout clause in his contract for next season as the team prepares to take on West Coast at Marvel Stadium on Saturday.
President Brad Green addressed the terrible loss to the Saints in a letter to members on Monday night, saying the team’s “rollercoaster” season had “certainly not lived up to our expectations”.
“The inconsistency in the team’s performance from week-to-week, and sometimes quarter to quarter, is incredibly frustrating,” Green said.
Richardson will miss the board meeting in order to attend Steven May’s appeal for a three-game ban.
It is a tough run home for the Demons who will face West Coast, Western Bulldogs, Hawthorn and Collingwood with the hope of finding a late-season spark after the confounding loss to St Kilda at Marvel Stadium.
Privately, Green has remained Goodwin’s biggest supporter, adamant the senior coach will be backed in to lead the club in the final year of his contract next season in 2026.
But there are certain to be changes to the list and to key positions around Goodwin, including the assistant coaching staff, unless the coach runs out of support ahead of a crunch clash against cellar dweller West Coast.
Incoming CEO Paul Guerra will take over on September 8 and has remained in close contact with Goodwin, while new president Steve Smith is set to return from overseas next month, when he will prepare to take the reins from Green.
It means the club is in a potential holding pattern until two of the club’s most senior officials slot into their roles.
The Demons have refused to consider trading superstar on-baller Christian Petracca at season’s end amid a weak draft pool this year.
It is expected the club will hunt some key forward support after making an unsuccessful bid to prise Logan Morris out of Brisbane after missing out on Adelaide’s Taylor Walker, Eagle Jake Waterman and Tom Hawkins before he retired from Geelong.
Captain Max Gawn moved to accept some of the blame for the final-minute confusion which allowed Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera to goal in extraordinary circumstances from a 6-6-6 infringement.
Gawn has admitted the players have failed in close finishes in recent times and said Goodwin didn’t deserve all the heat for the on-field breakdown on Sunday.
“He’s my favourite coach and he’s a premiership coach,” Gawn said of Goodwin on Triple M.
“I find him extremely smart tactically and, in the end, he’s had us 50-points up against St Kilda, a team that we were down by 50 [points] in Alice Springs.
“He’s in it with us but the last quarter is not solely on him.
“There’s been five times this year where we haven’t known how to win; Giants in the first game we lost by a kick-out, Collingwood we lost by a ruckman trying to kick a torp across goal, and then last week against Carlton we stuffed up.
“Right now, we don’t know how to win in those close games which comes down to resilience and ruthlessness.”
Gawn said the players had to be better in clutch situations following the centre square brain fade.
“In the end, there’s 18 guys that have managed to stuff that up on the field, in terms of positioning with the 6-6-6. We’ll wear that,” Gawn said.
“Beforehand, I think the boys just allowed the Saints to get a few early goals and then momentum is that hard to stop.
“Coaches are in with the players; that’s a world record loss. It’s a disappointing one.
“It looks like we shut up shop (in the final quarter), but you almost work harder in those games.
“We are trying our backsides off, and we all really want to win.
“We have to learn how to win. We will talk the talk again in training; all our talk is there and then we get to the point, and we don’t do it.”
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