Sacked after winning by 83 points. So much about this decision is confusing for all

The Advertiser

4 days ago

"Things are never as good or as bad as they seem" has become a bit of a go-to piece of homespun philosophy in the world of AFL football over recent years. Increasingly, you can understand why.
Take Melbourne, for example, which on Tuesday chose to end the tenure of its premiership coach Simon Goodwin with just three games remaining for the season.
So last weekend must have been a shocker, right? Well, no, actually, the Demons had just thumped West Coast by a whopping 83 points. Umm ... OK.
So it's about strong, decisive leadership from Melbourne's leaders, yes? Umm ... well, to be frank, what leaders? Fact is, incoming Melbourne chief executive Paul Guerra is still to actually sit in the chair, and chairman-in-waiting Stephen Smith has been on a European sojourn.
Indeed, I suspect Tuesday's decision (at least its timing) may have had a bit to do with wanting to be seen to be exercising some control just as Melbourne is beginning to finally cop some public heat for the way even off the field it appears to have coasted through this season.
Sure, the optics haven't been great given a still-talented list is about to miss out on finals for a second year in a row. But nor is Melbourne falling apart at the seams. Indeed, ironically, there was much more disquiet going on at board level in 2021 just as the club was winning its first premiership for 57 years than there is now.
Football doesn't do nuance particularly well. Which will be a challenge for Melbourne now, also. Because there are alternate ways of looking at just where the Demons are placed in terms of their on-field future.
And how Melbourne does peer through the looking glass will have a big say in who ends up being Goodwin's coaching replacement, whether it's an established premiership/grand final coach like any of John Longmire, Adam Simpson or Nathan Buckley, or one of the long catalogue of experienced and well-qualified assistant coaches who'd no doubt love a call-up.
The "things are OK" argument is that the Demons still have plenty of star quality via the likes of Christian Petracca, Max Gawn, Kysaiah Pickett, Steven May and Clayton Oliver, some promising younger types with heaps of room for improvement coming through.
Their best can still stack up, too, the Dees this season having beaten reigning premier Brisbane on the Gabba no less, likely finalist Fremantle in Perth, and almost upsetting Collingwood in the King's Birthday clash.
And the "things are crook" theory? Well, the performance graph has been fairly consistently downward for a while since that famous 2021 flag.
There were two subsequent top four finishes which both ended with Melbourne going out in straight sets both times, albeit extremely narrowly in 2023, after having lost to Collingwood by just seven points despite having 32 more inside 50 entries. They'd then lost to Carlton the following week by just two points after kicking 9.17.
And the past two seasons have been a lot more dire, just 11 wins last year and a finish of 14th, then this season only seven wins, and the defeats including beltings at the hands of lowly North Melbourne (by 59 points) and Essendon (by 39 points).
The demographics on the Melbourne list might be a little askew, also. The Dees have the fourth-oldest playing group in the AFL, with nine players on the cusp of 30 or older, a mid-tier group of which several have stagnated, and some promising but still largely unproven younger hands.
There's still clear uncertainty, also, about the futures of the likes of Petracca and Oliver (both of whom we're continually being told aren't averse to heading elsewhere), along with May and Gawn, both of whom will be 34 when next season begins.
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Does that mean Melbourne should embrace a complete rebuild, though? Not necessarily. Is the age thing as relevant these days as it used to be?
More broadly speaking when it comes to lists, do deficiencies in key areas mean the whole thing needs to be thrown away? Adelaide this year would seem to be a good example of why not. The Crows have added a handful of experienced midfielders to the mix and suddenly seem to have more options, flexibility and consistent performance right across the ground.
So can Goodwin's nine-year coaching tenure with the Demons also be assessed as not as good or bad as it seemed? Absolutely.
His coaching record of 203 games at a winning percentage of nearly 55 stacks up pretty well with most of his competitors. He is (for now at least) one of just four Melbourne premiership coaches in history.
Then again, was Melbourne's incredibly dominant finals series of 2021 one of the greatest premiership wins ever? Not necessarily. It certainly was a great example of hitting a sweet spot at the perfect time, however.
Goodwin should be rightly proud of his heightened status in the coaching pantheon. And you can bet he'll get another chance because of it. Yes, even when you've just been sacked, things actually mightn't be as bad as they seem.
"Things are never as good or as bad as they seem" has become a bit of a go-to piece of homespun philosophy in the world of AFL football over recent years. Increasingly, you can understand why.
Take Melbourne, for example, which on Tuesday chose to end the tenure of its premiership coach Simon Goodwin with just three games remaining for the season.
So last weekend must have been a shocker, right? Well, no, actually, the Demons had just thumped West Coast by a whopping 83 points. Umm ... OK.
So it's about strong, decisive leadership from Melbourne's leaders, yes? Umm ... well, to be frank, what leaders? Fact is, incoming Melbourne chief executive Paul Guerra is still to actually sit in the chair, and chairman-in-waiting Stephen Smith has been on a European sojourn.
Indeed, I suspect Tuesday's decision (at least its timing) may have had a bit to do with wanting to be seen to be exercising some control just as Melbourne is beginning to finally cop some public heat for the way even off the field it appears to have coasted through this season.
Sure, the optics haven't been great given a still-talented list is about to miss out on finals for a second year in a row. But nor is Melbourne falling apart at the seams. Indeed, ironically, there was much more disquiet going on at board level in 2021 just as the club was winning its first premiership for 57 years than there is now.
Football doesn't do nuance particularly well. Which will be a challenge for Melbourne now, also. Because there are alternate ways of looking at just where the Demons are placed in terms of their on-field future.
And how Melbourne does peer through the looking glass will have a big say in who ends up being Goodwin's coaching replacement, whether it's an established premiership/grand final coach like any of John Longmire, Adam Simpson or Nathan Buckley, or one of the long catalogue of experienced and well-qualified assistant coaches who'd no doubt love a call-up.
The "things are OK" argument is that the Demons still have plenty of star quality via the likes of Christian Petracca, Max Gawn, Kysaiah Pickett, Steven May and Clayton Oliver, some promising younger types with heaps of room for improvement coming through.
Their best can still stack up, too, the Dees this season having beaten reigning premier Brisbane on the Gabba no less, likely finalist Fremantle in Perth, and almost upsetting Collingwood in the King's Birthday clash.
And the "things are crook" theory? Well, the performance graph has been fairly consistently downward for a while since that famous 2021 flag.
There were two subsequent top four finishes which both ended with Melbourne going out in straight sets both times, albeit extremely narrowly in 2023, after having lost to Collingwood by just seven points despite having 32 more inside 50 entries. They'd then lost to Carlton the following week by just two points after kicking 9.17.
And the past two seasons have been a lot more dire, just 11 wins last year and a finish of 14th, then this season only seven wins, and the defeats including beltings at the hands of lowly North Melbourne (by 59 points) and Essendon (by 39 points).
The demographics on the Melbourne list might be a little askew, also. The Dees have the fourth-oldest playing group in the AFL, with nine players on the cusp of 30 or older, a mid-tier group of which several have stagnated, and some promising but still largely unproven younger hands.
There's still clear uncertainty, also, about the futures of the likes of Petracca and Oliver (both of whom we're continually being told aren't averse to heading elsewhere), along with May and Gawn, both of whom will be 34 when next season begins.
MORE AFL NEWS
Does that mean Melbourne should embrace a complete rebuild, though? Not necessarily. Is the age thing as relevant these days as it used to be?
More broadly speaking when it comes to lists, do deficiencies in key areas mean the whole thing needs to be thrown away? Adelaide this year would seem to be a good example of why not. The Crows have added a handful of experienced midfielders to the mix and suddenly seem to have more options, flexibility and consistent performance right across the ground.
So can Goodwin's nine-year coaching tenure with the Demons also be assessed as not as good or bad as it seemed? Absolutely.
His coaching record of 203 games at a winning percentage of nearly 55 stacks up pretty well with most of his competitors. He is (for now at least) one of just four Melbourne premiership coaches in history.
Then again, was Melbourne's incredibly dominant finals series of 2021 one of the greatest premiership wins ever? Not necessarily. It certainly was a great example of hitting a sweet spot at the perfect time, however.
Goodwin should be rightly proud of his heightened status in the coaching pantheon. And you can bet he'll get another chance because of it. Yes, even when you've just been sacked, things actually mightn't be as bad as they seem.
"Things are never as good or as bad as they seem" has become a bit of a go-to piece of homespun philosophy in the world of AFL football over recent years. Increasingly, you can understand why.
Take Melbourne, for example, which on Tuesday chose to end the tenure of its premiership coach Simon Goodwin with just three games remaining for the season.
So last weekend must have been a shocker, right? Well, no, actually, the Demons had just thumped West Coast by a whopping 83 points. Umm ... OK.
So it's about strong, decisive leadership from Melbourne's leaders, yes? Umm ... well, to be frank, what leaders? Fact is, incoming Melbourne chief executive Paul Guerra is still to actually sit in the chair, and chairman-in-waiting Stephen Smith has been on a European sojourn.
Indeed, I suspect Tuesday's decision (at least its timing) may have had a bit to do with wanting to be seen to be exercising some control just as Melbourne is beginning to finally cop some public heat for the way even off the field it appears to have coasted through this season.
Sure, the optics haven't been great given a still-talented list is about to miss out on finals for a second year in a row. But nor is Melbourne falling apart at the seams. Indeed, ironically, there was much more disquiet going on at board level in 2021 just as the club was winning its first premiership for 57 years than there is now.
Football doesn't do nuance particularly well. Which will be a challenge for Melbourne now, also. Because there are alternate ways of looking at just where the Demons are placed in terms of their on-field future.
And how Melbourne does peer through the looking glass will have a big say in who ends up being Goodwin's coaching replacement, whether it's an established premiership/grand final coach like any of John Longmire, Adam Simpson or Nathan Buckley, or one of the long catalogue of experienced and well-qualified assistant coaches who'd no doubt love a call-up.
The "things are OK" argument is that the Demons still have plenty of star quality via the likes of Christian Petracca, Max Gawn, Kysaiah Pickett, Steven May and Clayton Oliver, some promising younger types with heaps of room for improvement coming through.
Their best can still stack up, too, the Dees this season having beaten reigning premier Brisbane on the Gabba no less, likely finalist Fremantle in Perth, and almost upsetting Collingwood in the King's Birthday clash.
And the "things are crook" theory? Well, the performance graph has been fairly consistently downward for a while since that famous 2021 flag.
There were two subsequent top four finishes which both ended with Melbourne going out in straight sets both times, albeit extremely narrowly in 2023, after having lost to Collingwood by just seven points despite having 32 more inside 50 entries. They'd then lost to Carlton the following week by just two points after kicking 9.17.
And the past two seasons have been a lot more dire, just 11 wins last year and a finish of 14th, then this season only seven wins, and the defeats including beltings at the hands of lowly North Melbourne (by 59 points) and Essendon (by 39 points).
The demographics on the Melbourne list might be a little askew, also. The Dees have the fourth-oldest playing group in the AFL, with nine players on the cusp of 30 or older, a mid-tier group of which several have stagnated, and some promising but still largely unproven younger hands.
There's still clear uncertainty, also, about the futures of the likes of Petracca and Oliver (both of whom we're continually being told aren't averse to heading elsewhere), along with May and Gawn, both of whom will be 34 when next season begins.
MORE AFL NEWS
Does that mean Melbourne should embrace a complete rebuild, though? Not necessarily. Is the age thing as relevant these days as it used to be?
More broadly speaking when it comes to lists, do deficiencies in key areas mean the whole thing needs to be thrown away? Adelaide this year would seem to be a good example of why not. The Crows have added a handful of experienced midfielders to the mix and suddenly seem to have more options, flexibility and consistent performance right across the ground.
So can Goodwin's nine-year coaching tenure with the Demons also be assessed as not as good or bad as it seemed? Absolutely.
His coaching record of 203 games at a winning percentage of nearly 55 stacks up pretty well with most of his competitors. He is (for now at least) one of just four Melbourne premiership coaches in history.
Then again, was Melbourne's incredibly dominant finals series of 2021 one of the greatest premiership wins ever? Not necessarily. It certainly was a great example of hitting a sweet spot at the perfect time, however.
Goodwin should be rightly proud of his heightened status in the coaching pantheon. And you can bet he'll get another chance because of it. Yes, even when you've just been sacked, things actually mightn't be as bad as they seem.