Melbourne caretaker coach Troy Chaplin expects speculation over Christian Petracca, Clayton Oliver
At around about this time last year, it was widely reported that Petracca wanted out of the Demons in favour of a big club such as Collingwood, while Oliver came within a whisker of being traded to Geelong. At the time, they had five and six years respectively remaining on their monster contracts.
Both players remained at Melbourne ultimately, but the disquiet about where they will play beyond this year won't completely go away, as the Demons embark on a new chapter that will see them install a new CEO, president and coach all in the one off-season.
'There's always going to be noise. We're not the only club that's going to be dealing with it,' Chaplin said.
'But what I do know is those players are really important to this club and the way we move forward.
'Those decisions, though, like, from a list management point of view and my position, that'll be the new coach coming in and working closely with the list management team.
'But there'll no doubt be noise again. That's just the position we're in. That's just the industry.
'So all we can focus on is how we move forward as a group, and what that looks like, I can't be sure of either.'
After producing competitive performances in the previous month, the Demons got spanked by Hawthorn on Saturday, but Chaplin was confident the six-goal loss was only a 'blip on the radar' for them and it wasn't a sign they had 'put the cue in the rack' with their season ending next week.
'You want to finish the year off really strong, and to have a game like that where it just doesn't go your way, and we contributed to that with a lot of our errors, that's the disappointing thing around it, but I don't see it as a setback,' he said.
However, forward inefficiency, which has been an issue that has dogged the Demons since their 2021 premiership, reared its ugly head again as they could only manage eight goals from 56 inside 50s against the Hawks.
'I think that's where a bit of the frustration and disappointment lies, because since the bye, we've been really good in that area,' Chaplin said.
'It's always going to come back because that's where we've sort of been in the past. We haven't been great at it.
'It's an opportunity to understand when you play against the best team, you can't be poor in that area, because it really makes it hard.'
Chaplin said it was important that Melbourne ended the season on a high note in their final game against Collingwood on Friday night.
'This is bigger than the individuals and that (playing) group, this is about the club, putting pride in performance for our supporters, wearing the jumper with pride,' Chaplin said.
'We can't waste another week, so we can't turn up to training and go through the motions, we can't turn up Friday night not switched on ready to go.'
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