Simon Goodwin's sacking will have Demons fans hoping that the club is back on the path to redemption

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21 hours ago

This should have been a generational team.
A Melbourne outfit with the 2020s firmly at its feet, charging into the new decade with an aura and a swagger not seen at the Demons since the divine Ron Barassi thundered around the MCG six decades ago.
Instead, the resounding hymn of "every heart beats true" has been consigned to a whimpering prayer of resignation.
And it has cost Simon Goodwin his job.
To place the blame of a football club's poor performance on one person or one situation is to ignore the complexities of an organisation that employs hundreds of people, and forget that the scores on the field are the multiplication of the sum of all sins.
Sins that in isolation would have been a blip on most clubs' radars, but became exponentially problematic when packaged into a full-blown Melbourne Football Club confessional session.
Sins that occurred under the eyes of the former Adelaide Crows champion.
To understand the degradation of the church of Melbourne is to understand that master coach Paul Roos led the club from the desert of irrelevance in 2014 and passed the flock to Goodwin in 2017.
Within the congregation was a score of rising disciples that included Max Gawn, a big man on the brink of becoming the modern era's greatest ruck, and two second-year midfielders, Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca, raring to stand upon the pulpit and lead a new generation of slick, skilled, and motivated rookies forward to rapture.
And to rapture they were led, ending a 57-year drought with premiership victory in 2021, through a season that rocked and rolled from one COVID drama to another, as the Demons rode the punches better than any other club on the backs of their rising superstars.
Had that victory come a year or two after the Roos handover, it would have been fair to suggest it was a success forged solely by the ex-Swans champion.
But this exaltation, this glorious football miracle played out under lights in the west, was one that belonged to Goodwin.
He had shown Petracca and Oliver the path to midfield dominance. He had shaped the lanky and awkward Gawn into an attacking weapon. He had built an unbreakable defence via the recruitments of Steven May and Jake Lever, and forged an unlikely and unfashionable forward line that just got the job done, through Ben Brown, Tom McDonald, and Bayley Fritsch.
This success was Goodwin's to bask in.
This success was built on Goodwin having the swagger and the knowledge of a premiership coach, and two flags under his belt as a player.
This success wasn't luck, or good timing, or sheer coincidence — it was because Goodwin knew what he was doing as a head coach in the hyper-competitive and cutthroat AFL world.
He was the Messiah that the thirsty and hungry Demons faithful had been waiting for, and the trajectory to a monotheism of generational dominance was laid out before them.
It was a path, though, that was scattered with the traps and tribulations of the deadly football sins.
Injury, in some part, was unavoidable, but claims of mismanagement at the club would pervade. Gun midfielder Angus Brayshaw would be forced to retire at just 27 years old from concussion issues, after allegations by club doctor Zeeshan Arain that he felt he had been pressured by Goodwin to clear the young gun to play after an incident in 2020. They were claims that Goodwin has denied.
Petracca would end up in hospital in 2024 with a lacerated spleen, four broken ribs, and a punctured lung after a collision in a game against Collingwood, with concerns raised that he was sent back out to play after the incident — with Petracca's blessing — before rumours swirled that the star midfielder's family was furious with the club and the way it had handled the situation.
In list management, Brodie Grundy would be brought in on big money to double-team the ruck with Gawn in an experiment that would last just one season, as Melbourne's gaping hole in the forward line failed to be addressed after the injury retirement of Brown.
In the boardroom, power battles and disagreements would permeate the club, with president Glen Bartlett standing down in 2020 after confronting Goodwin over alleged behavioural issues, before his replacement, Kate Roffey, quit in 2024 just days after defending the club's battered image.
Finally, that most important sin of all — off-field culture — would unsettle and unbalance a team that felt like it had been destined for greatness.
May and teammate Jake Melksham would be caught up in an alcohol-fuelled fight with each other in 2022, with Melksham requiring surgery.
Forward Joel Smith would be banned from playing in 2024 after testing positive for cocaine, before allegations were raised that he was involved in trafficking.
Oliver would be threatened with a trade in October 2023 amid concerns about the star midfielder's professionalism and off-field lifestyle, before being admitted to hospital later in the year after collapsing at Smith's house, citing a combination of "prescription drugs, a lack of sleep from stress and a big day at the gym".
And Goodwin would be forced to defend his character late in 2023, telling SEN that he "did not use illicit drugs" and that "the rumours have to stop".
"It's gone way out of control from a boardroom battle into court documents into republication and rehashing of a story over and over again to the extent where it's become a fact, which is just not fair and it's gone from a rumour, to an allegation, to a fact and it has got to stop," he said.
"I've had enough, and I think as an industry we need to be better than what we are today."
In isolation, these were issues that can sometimes crop up at a football club, but as a package deal, they created instability at best, and a shattered faith in the institution at worst.
From league champions in 2021, the Demons had gone out in straight sets in 2022 and 2023, and missed the finals altogether in 2024 and 2025.
Hope and belief had been decimated, and to the powerbrokers at the Melbourne Football Club, Goodwin had become a problem that needed to be exorcised.
The church of Melbourne has suffered from a manner of footy sins since that one glorious moment in Perth.
Goodwin's sacking may not be the answer to all their prayers, and placing blame on one person rarely instigates organisational change.
But by removing the Demons chief, the faithful will be hoping that their path to footy redemption is nigh.