Latest news with #Paul Roos
ABC News
6 days ago
- Sport
- ABC News
Paul Roos says Simon Goodwin can't be 'blindsided' by Melbourne sacking and issues warning to current players
Former Melbourne coach Paul Roos believes Simon Goodwin can't be "blindsided" by his sacking after a build-up of off-field drama and poor results over the past two years. Goodwin was relieved of his duties on Tuesday morning, with Melbourne still having three more games to play before the end of the home-and-away season. "If we do look at the things that have become public — Kate Roffey leaving, Gary Pert leaving, the Glen Bartlett scenario, Petracca and Oliver — I don't think he (Goodwin) can be blindsided by it," Roos told the ABC AFL Daily podcast. "The expectations of Melbourne fans were really high this year. When that happens and you've got a really good list, I don't think he can be really that surprised." Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Melbourne president Brad Green was adamant the club had not yet contacted a potential replacement for Goodwin, but Roos believes the timing of Goodwin's exit suggests an approach may have already been made to a potential candidate such as ex-Sydney coach John Longmire. "Clearly, the 'pro' of getting rid of him now is your ability to go to the market really quickly without any other club impeding your quest for a new coach. If I had to guess why they've gone early, I'd think that's the reason," he said. "I suspect someone has made the phone call already from the Melbourne Football Club (to Longmire), because if they haven't, they are derelict in their duties. I think they've already made the call or will in the next 24 hours and get an answer either way." Roos shared a relationship with Goodwin after handing over the reins to Melbourne's eventual premiership coach at the end of 2016. He described the feeling of seeing Goodwin win the 2021 premiership as "one of my best memories in football". "When I went there, I knew it wasn't going to happen for me, but my job was to help Peter Jackson, Glen Bartlett, Josh Mahoney, Jason Taylor and Todd Viney to get (the club) out of a certain situation and put it into a more favourable situation, and more importantly in a position to win a premiership," he said. "Simon fulfilled one of my goals to be able to do that." Goodwin's sacking means Melbourne never won another finals match under his tenure after the 2021 grand final, but Roos refused to say he had underachieved, saying those within the club would be better positioned to determine that. "All I can say is Melbourne people's expectations were higher in the last two to four years," he said. "Now, does that mean he's underachieved? No, because he has won a premiership. We've seen Luke Beveridge hang on and re-sign, and he's probably been similar (to Goodwin) at times with Bulldogs fans. I think it's about timing. Do you get through those periods of difficulty? Do you survive? Do you have three or four wins in a row? "At the end of the day, with all the noise that's been going on with the Melbourne Football Club and how public the expectations have been, I'm not surprised. Am I surprised it's happened today? Yes. But overall, given everything, I don't think anyone can be completely surprised. "They've got a great team that they've had for five or six years … they would be bitterly disappointed at missing the eight this year and last year as well. That's been the backbreaker, really, missing the finals two years in a row with a really good team." The other interesting aspect of the timing of Goodwin's exit is that it comes before Melbourne's new CEO, Paul Guerra, commences in his role. Guerra was appointed in April this year, but was expected to start as the club boss in September. "I'm not sure the new CEO has got his feet under the desk," Roos said. "I would think he's been consulted on it, but my mail was he hasn't even started yet. "It would be interesting to find out how much he has had a say in Simon leaving the club." While Melbourne will simply be playing for pride in its final three matches this season, Roos said some players will be playing for their spots under whoever the next coach is. "I watched the last game the year before I took over, and Neville Jetta stayed on the list because of the game he played. I think he was going to be delisted and I said, 'No, I want him', because he was fantastic," he said. "Let's say it's John Longmire, Adam Simpson, Nathan Buckley (or) Ken Hinkley, whoever it is is going to be watching the games. If you're the new coach coming in, you want the best players playing for you next year. "It's personal pride, really. That's what impressed me with Nev; these guys were playing for nothing, and this guy is absolutely going 100 per cent at every contest. That's the challenge now for a lot of those players. "If you take that view (of the games being irrelevant), you could be costing yourself a spot on the Melbourne list or on another list. Do that at your own peril."
ABC News
6 days ago
- Sport
- ABC News
Simon Goodwin's sacking will have Demons fans hoping that the club is back on the path to redemption
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.
