Max Gawn: Inside Melbourne skipper's remarkable captaincy reign

Herald Sun

6 days ago

Max Gawn doesn't need a statue erected in his likeness when Melbourne eventually finds a new home base.
He needs someone to get on to the powers that be in Rome and wrangle up a sainthood.
As the Demons were picking up the pieces of another gut-wrenching, soul-destroying loss that could help decide Simon Goodwin's fate there was Gawn again.
Explaining why they sky hadn't fallen in (it had), spruiking a new dawn, backing the club to front up against West Coast in a contest it just cannot lose under any circumstances.
Gawn is officially Melbourne's captain.
In reality he is everything to this club.
He has been a part-time nanny when Clayton Oliver was struggling off the field, opening up his home to the Demons star.
He has been a part-time mediator, when teammates Jake Melksham and Steven May brawled outside the Entrecote restaurant.
He has been a full-time psychoanalyst, desperately attempting to decipher Christian Petracca's motivations when he suddenly turned against the club after initially appearing happy with its support over his King's Birthday injury.
This year he turned crisis-manager when coach Goodwin unwittingly exposed a family health issue when he spoke of the 'backstory' behind his on-field thrashing from Tristan Xerri.
And he resisted the temptation to throw May under the bus when his teammate's reaction to his shanked kick against Collingwood was to repeatedly get in his face.
What must he truly have wanted to say to May after all the messes he has cleaned up?
All this from a captain who has had to spend the past two years backing his coach over a series of headlines over his alleged behavioural issues.
And yet despite it all he is still firmly on track for an eighth All-Australian jumper in 10 seasons.
He isn't flawless – of his 21 shots at goal this year he has kicked 4.14 and three total misses, even worse than Petracca's 15.21 and 13 total misses (15 goals from 49 shots).
But he is pretty close to perfect.
Former Carlton captain Marc Murphy can remember the late-night calls and crisis discussions that often came with leading a team through those ups and downs, with his final year at the helm a two-win 2018 season.
'I have been there plenty of times. You get the call from the coach or head of football or president or CEO late at night and it can never be a good thing,' he said on Friday.
'I remember those times. It's almost like, 'Not again, what has happened here'.
'The one thing is that it can take the energy out of your own performances, having those spotfires always constantly bobbing up and take away from your own game.
'Sometimes it can wear you down for the long-term and reduce the amount of seasons you play. But if you look at Max, some guys feed off it. They enjoy playing that role. They enjoy being across everything. He might be a guy who enjoys all the different aspects of it.
'He might really enjoy it. To me he seems the perfect captain. He doesn't get bogged down by the minutiae, he is laid back. And I assume he is one of those guys who just says, 'I am up for the job and want to keep doing it'.
Thankfully within Melbourne there is no suggestion Gawn is keen to give up the captaincy, even if at 33 he should be transitioning into his football dotage like Scott Pendlebury.
But the issue for Melbourne is that there is no real Darcy Moore type coming along behind him.
Gawn's innate skill is finding that beautiful balance between getting on with everyone and realising their own motivations while also being able to deliver blunt feedback.
Vice-captain Jack Viney is a strong leader but only knows one way to improve – train harder, work longer, give 110 per cent.
Viney would want to concentrate on his own form anyway given his struggles this year, while Jake Lever is 29 and has already been dropped this year amid trade speculation.
Petracca has responded in exactly the right way within the club to his annus horribilis and has had a sneaky strong year marred by very ordinary kicking.
But given his determination to leave last year he would not be a contender even if Gawn was desperate to hand over the leadership.
Tom Sparrow is another emerging leader but apart from him the list isn't exactly oozing leadership potential.
It is why it is so easy to make the case that Gawn is the best captain in football.
He has held this group together through sheer will and bloody-mindedness while also finding time to thrive as an AFL great.
And he will do it again next year as the captain.
He might not get his sainthood but like his great mentor Jimmy Stynes he will be as revered as the Demons champions of last century who seemingly won premierships for fun in the late 1950s and early 1960s.