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Simon Goodwin: A man who respects history

Melbourne was denies a fifth consecutive win by Sydney on Friday night. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Roar Pro
8th May, 2017
15

The Melbourne Football Club went into the 2017 AFL season with pundits expecting them to play in the finals for the first time since 2006. This was terrifying news for Dees fans, whose expectations had been set to ‘stunned’ since that day in Geelong where they lost by 186 points.

Since then, Melbourne has undergone hilariously bad performances on and off the field, with draft picks, board members and coaches coming and going faster than their opponents got on top of them.

Things began to change in 2014 when Paul Roos was appointed as coach by the AFL, which the Melbourne Board thought was a great idea. Why hadn’t they thought of that?

Roos’ record at Melbourne over three years wasn’t too flash (21-45), but he did teach the players how to ‘do AFL’, which led to overall improvement throughout the club.

After stepping down at the end of 2016 to spend more time in the media and his pool of money, Roos was replaced by Simon Goodwin, who had been anointed the next coach a year previously.

Goodwin came with the reputation of being a good bloke, which seems to be as much of a pre-requisite as the ability to breathe in AFL circles. He also won two Premierships as a player at Adelaide. Experience winning Premierships is something that boards often rate as an indication of future ability to win Premierships, much like the way you choose superannuation funds.

Goodwin was also at the Essendon Football Club as an Assistant Coach, and one-time Senior Coach, during the period in which they were injecting their players with banned substances. I’m not sure how this relates to superannuation, but its probably not a quality I would advocate in an advisor.

Regardless, Goodwin has taken over the senior reigns this season and clearly has an avid passion for History.

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Firstly, he is ensuring that the good ship ‘Anointed coach’ (read: Collingwoood) is a disaster wherever she sails.

Secondly, he has managed to ensure that Melbourne are still not very good, sparing its fans the risk of having to miss the ski season for the finals.

Melbourne has shown an ability to play some exciting, tough and high-scoring football, but seems to only step-up for a quarter or a half per game. The rest of the time they look like Melbourne.

Getting a group of fit, highly skilled footballers to underperform is quite the effort and the Melbourne way.

Sure, Melbourne has been unlucky with injuries, but it hasn’t helped itself with suspensions either, something that you generally find in teams with poor discipline or management.

So here’s to Simon, a true Melbourne man.

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