The countdown to Round 1, 2023 has officially begun – so throughout January, I’ll be looking at all 18 AFL clubs and doing my best to put together an optimum team for the new year.
I’ll take injuries and suspensions into account, but this won’t be a predicted team for Round 1 – think of it more as a guide to what your team’s best 23 (the 22 starting players plus the new unrestricted substitute) could look like as the year unfolds.
Today, it’s Melbourne’s turn. Check out the links below if your team has already been done.
>> Goalsneaks galore, but who holds the fort down back for the Crows this year?
>> More new guns than they know what to do with, how do the Lions fit everyone in?
>> Is this the team that can take Carlton from heartbreak to happiness?
>> Why Tom Mitchell looms as recruit of the year for never-say-die Pies
>> The Bombers have promise… but can Brad Scott unlock it straight away?
>> Can the most important teenager in the AFL deliver for the Dockers?
>> Is this the Cat who can fill the shoes of the greatest captain ever?
>> Can return of the King propel the Suns into September at last?
>> Just how Tiger-like will Adam Kingsley make his Giants?
>> Forgotten B&F winner the key to getting Hawthorn back on track
After winning their first 10 games and extending their victory streak to 17 – including the 2021 premiership – the Demons fell away quite alarmingly for the remainder of 2022.
Their forward line woes were particularly problematic – they fell from averaging the second-most marks inside 50 in 2021 down to eighth in 2022 – but just as concerning was the slow erosion of their once impenetrable defence. Despite another Herculean season from Steven May, good teams were able to breach the Dees far more regularly, and more dangerously, than at their peak.
To solve that, the Dees’ boom trade target in the off-season was, naturally, a ruckman. Brodie Grundy is set to be the most fascinating recruit of 2023. His arrival will surely only make Melbourne stronger in their man area of strength – contested ball. But with one of the greatest ruckmen the game has ever seen (and five-time reigning All-Australian) in captain Max Gawn already present, finding a balance between the pair while also finding areas for them to impact away from the ball promises to be Simon Goodwin’s defining challenge this season.
The Demons’ glory run ended as swiftly as it had begun to end last year; only time will tell whether that was a temporary setback for a developing powerhouse, or whether 2021 will remain the one shining beacon for an exceptional football side with a rare chance at a genuine dynasty.
Defenders
By any standards, except perhaps their own, Melbourne’s defence was exceptional in 2022. No team conceded fewer points, and aside from his three-week stint out of the team through concussion and getting lamped by Jake Melksham, Steven May was better than ever. Harrison Petty, too, continues to improve as a key defender, and his presence enables May to sag off all but the most menacing opposition key forwards and entrust Petty to keep an eye on them.
The system itself held up, for the most part, very well – but on an individual level, several key members were unable to replicate incredible 2021s, particularly offensively. Jake Lever‘s intercept mark numbers dropped alarmingly from 102 in 2021 to 53 last year, only partly explained by playing six fewer games, and as a result also rebounded from defensive 50 nearly half the time.
Christian Salem, too, never recovered from a knee injury six minutes into Round 1: taking out that game, he averaged under 19 disposals across his other 12 matches for 2022, down from over 25 in 2021 when he was unlucky to miss out on an All-Australian berth.
His rebound 50 numbers dropped staggeringly from 137 to 37 – from nearly six a game to under three. For a prime ball mover and arguably the Dees’ most efficient kick, that’s a sizeable drop.
It meant despite conceding slightly fewer inside 50s on average than 2021, the Dees didn’t rebound from 50 with their usual polish and menace last year. That left them more vulnerable to being exposed by good teams going the other way, just as what happened in both their finals defeats.
Lever and Salem both played under duress for much of the year, and a full pre-season will do them the world of good. That leaves the role of Angus Brayshaw, who spent much of last season at half-back to try and cover for that pair, as an interesting one.
Having committed long-term to the Dees, Brayshaw sacrificed his game as a defensive wingman in 2021, but surely his intercept marking, reading of the play and even his work at the coalface when injected onto the ball late in the season are just too good for Goodwin to ignore. He’s capable of performing so many roles exceptionally well, it might come down to where he’s needed most – and to begin with, that’s probably once again roaming a kick behind the ball with stints in the engine room.
James Jordon was another Demon who, despite playing mostly on a wing and in the midfield rotation in the premiership year and in 2022, spent some time at half-back and didn’t look out of place.
The arrival of Lachie Hunter will probably put paid to Jordon’s chances of securing that wing spot again, and the last remaining half-back spot might come down between him, Jake Bowey, Trent Rivers and Michael Hibberd.
Hibberd in particular will be handy as a stopper – if, that is, his 33-year old body can still handle running with the zippiest players in the game – but it’s notable that while Bowey and Rivers lost their places in the team mid-season, Jordon kept his. A cool head with an outside game and who wins more of the ball than either of his fellow premiership teammates, I’m happy for that spot to start as Jordon’s to lose.
The truth is that any criticism of the Demons’ defence in 2022 is harsh – it wasn’t quite what it was in 2021, but it’s still quite clearly the benchmark for the rest of the competition to aspire to.
Steven May of the Demons and Lance Franklin of the Swans compete for the ball. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Midfielders
The Dees’ midfield remained a force to be reckoned with in 2022. No team won more contested possessions, they finished fourth for total clearances, and translated it efficiently to be second for average inside 50s.
The names are salivating. Clayton Oliver might be the best pure midfielder in the game: he won more clearances and contested possessions than anyone else last year, and has slowly become more of an attacking weapon as well, finishing in the top 10 in both of the last two seasons for inside 50s and score involvements.
Christian Petracca‘s levels dropped from his awe-inspiring 2021, but he’s still the league’s most damaging mid. He led the AFL in inside 50s and finished behind only Tom Hawkins for score involvements, and only a bout of inaccuracy early in the season that left him with 19.31 for the year prevented his influence from being even more profound on the scoreboard.
His broken leg in the qualifying final, that left him curtailed across both finals, could not have been more costly.
The big improver in 2022 was Jack Viney, who frequently stepped up when one or both of his more highly acclaimed teammates went quiet. Enormous in the trenches, he, like Petracca and Oliver, finished top 10 in the AFL for contested possessions, while he rated elite for his ferocious tackling and won more than three disposals a game more than in 2021.
Ed Langdon is a lock on the wing, whose impact as an outlet option, space-preserver and all-day runner was finally recognised when a series of tags came his way in 2022. It meant a slight reduction in his numbers compared to 2021, as well as the occasional game where he was constricted into more of an inside role, like the semi final loss to Brisbane: but when he struggled, the Dees invariably found it tough to move the ball.
It will be interesting to see how Langdon’s role is impacted by the arrival of Lachie Hunter, a different sort of winger. Hunter doesn’t possess Langdon’s incredible endurance or running capacity, but he is a more natural ball-winner and probably better by foot as well.
Langdon has, in the past, frequently taken the opposite wing to the one which the Dees like to use most frequently, thereby giving them options to switch the play away from congestion. Having Hunter where the ball begins would suit him to a tee: having come from the Bulldogs, he’s used to being the man on the outside of a fearsome engine room.
Brayshaw is an obvious part of the rotation, while James Harmes‘ influence might now be restricted to the occasional tag if the ‘big three’ are around – his highest centre bounce percentage last year came in the only match Oliver missed. I’d also be shocked if Kysaiah Pickett wasn’t injected into centre bounces on occasion for a burst of speed and creativity at stoppages: he’s a weapon the Dees have used only sparingly on the ball.
That, of course, leaves the ruck problem. No doubt it’s a good problem to have – across the last decade, Max Gawn and Brodie Grundy have probably been the two leading rucks in the game.
Their strengths are different enough that it seems possible to fit them both in. Gawn’s monstrous height and reach makes him an exceptional tap ruckman at his best, while also plucking marks aplenty around the ground, especially behind the ball. Grundy at his best was practically another midfielder at Collingwood, using his elite aerobic capacity to spread from stoppages, tackle fiercely, win clearances and join in on possession chains in a most un-ruckman-like way.
The issue, though, is it has been a long while since either has had to share ruck minutes to the extent they will this year. Grundy improved seismically at the Magpies when given the full-time role rather than combining with Jarrod Witts, and has attended over 80 per cent of centre bounces in games he’s played over the last seven years. Gawn, though spending some time resting forward since the emergence of Luke Jackson, still attended two out of every three centre bounces and was the unquestioned big dog.
The Dees have tried to find a ruck partner for Gawn before, but Braydon Preuss mustered just 10 games in two years, with three as the solo ruck. It just never worked, because Preuss lacked the forward craft necessary to be a second ruckman. Grundy, with 60 goals in 177 years, has never had to develop himself as a forward, and you’d suspect he’d run up against the same difficulties.
Gawn has more options: as he did against Sydney in Round 12 last year, he can go forward and have an impact – but as he proved with a far quieter game against the Swans in the qualifying final, just because you’ve got a big bloke who can reach over packs in attack doesn’t just mean he’s guaranteed to mark it if you sit it on his head.
He’d be all but impassable if he drifted a kick behind the ball, though: he’s proved it many times in the past.
It would be a bold move to recast one of the greatest rucks ever as a floating half-back, but if anyone can do it, it’d be Max. Even if he started at centre bounces, then immediately set up a kick behind the ball and let Grundy drift up from the forward line to take control, it could work – though that would leave the Dees having to combat one extra opponent ahead of the ball, of course.
The Dees tried a conventional two-ruck set-up with Gawn and Preuss, and it never clicked. They’re going to have to think outside the box when it comes to ‘Gawndy’, lest the most amazing ruck duo the game has ever seen prove to be a waste of resources.
Who’s gonna win the flag? (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images)
Forwards
Up forward is where things really start to break down for the Dees. They went from ranking third for total inside 50s to ninth for marks inside 50; and at key stages, their accuracy in front of the big sticks let them down badly, as it did in the semi final loss to Brisbane and home-and-away loss to the Western Bulldogs in particular.
The Dees weren’t an overly high-scoring side even in 2021, when they ranked fifth for total points, but when it clicked in the premiership year, most devastatingly in the grand final, they looked genuinely unbeatable. Whether it’s an issue in connection between the midfielders and the forwards they’re delivering it to, or the quality of said forwards, is up for debate. But this is without question the missing piece of the puzzle to turn the Dees from premiership contenders to utter domination.
Interestingly, in Bayley Fritsch and Kysaiah Pickett, the Dees had two forwards with 40 or more goals for the season – only Geelong and Richmond had more past that mark. There’s enough quality up there to suggest that this malfunction can be rectified: and if they do, watch out.
I wrote last year that a sizeable part of the Dees’ problems forward of centre came about because their forwards rarely lead up towards the ball carrier, instead sitting back deep in attacking 50 waiting for high balls to come in. Ben Brown was particularly guilty of this, as well as leaping for the ball with just one hand, and with a relatively lean 30 goals last year – he bagged 25 in six fewer games in 2021 – it’s from him where the most improvement will need to come.
Another issue the Demons have is that their forwards rarely have an influence on games aside from kicking goals. Fritsch and Brown, as well as Jake Melksham and the now-departed Sam Weideman, averaged below 10 disposals a game last year, while Pickett averaged just above.
At the same time, Pickett aside, none are particularly strong defensive players, with Charlie Spargo and Alex Neal-Bullen nominally the ones there to provide tackling pressure and keep the ball locked inside 50. The Dees have been second and third in that stat for the last two years, but it did lapse on occasion, most notably against the Bulldogs when they had zero inside 50 tackles for a whole game.
There’s nothing that stands out alarmingly in the numbers aside from that marks inside 50 stat: the Dees get the ball into attack plenty enough, work hard to keep it in there, and have forwards capable of kicking goals. It’s just that, at crucial times, something isn’t clicking.
That has seen plenty of fans cry out for the Dees to blood the exciting Jacob van Rooyen and see if he can cure what ails them, but for me, it’s Tom McDonald that will have the biggest impact. No doubt van Rooyen will get his chance, but teenage key forwards take time, and the Dees are too entrenched in the premiership mix to be overly patient with a newbie finding his feet.
McDonald, though, is a double threat. He kicks goals (33 of them, to be exact, in 2021), which gives opposition defenders another opponent to think about and eases the pressure on Brown as the main spearhead. And he works up the ground as a link man, both providing another avenue towards the goals and opening up space inside 50 for forwards, especially Fritsch, to lead into.
McDonald unquestionably makes the Dees a better, more intimidating side in front of the ball, and a return to full fitness in 2023 will go a long way to getting them back to the promised land.
Van Rooyen could, to be sure, slide in as a third tall, with new recruit Josh Schache another option. The issue with that is one imagines Grundy and/or Gawn will spent at least a portion of their time in attack, and the Dees have been careful in recent seasons to not become too top-heavy in attack.
If the Dees do seek an injection of youth, it’s not to van Rooyen they should turn, but Blake Howes. There’s a lot of excitement coming out of Melbourne people in the know about the 19-year old, and for good reason: a tall, athletic type, he has the potential to develop into a handy, Jack Gunston-esque third tall or the prototype big-bodied midfielder.
The Dees have too many midfield options for Howes to spend much time in the engine room at this stage of his career, but his exceptional overhead marking skills couldn’t be more perfectly suited for a side that still has a tendency to bang it on the boot and pray when going forward.
Quick on the lead and sharp in front of goal, he looms as a point of difference in a forward line that tends to play back shoulder and walk it in a little too often. He’s had to wait 12 months for a debut, but after a barnstorming pre-season to date, Howes surely won’t be stuck in the VFL for much longer.
Kysaiah Pickett of the Demons kicks a goal to defeat Carlton. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)
Melbourne Best 23 2023
Backs: Jake Lever, Steven May, Christian Salem
Half-backs: Angus Brayshaw, Harrison Petty, James Jordon
Centres: Ed Langdon, Clayton Oliver, Lachie Hunter
Followers: Max Gawn (c), Jack Viney, Christian Petracca
Half-forwards: Charlie Spargo, Tom McDonald, Alex Neal-Bullen
Forwards: Kysaiah Pickett, Ben Brown, Bayley Fritsch
Interchange: Brodie Grundy, James Harmes, Blake Howes, Tom Sparrow
Substitute: Trent Rivers
Emergencies: Jake Bowey, Kade Chandler, Michael Hibberd
Scott
Guest
I’ve been waiting for this article for a while. God knows how this will work out. Make no mistake, the reason both these 2 have made all Australian teams is because they’ve been the main ruckman playing around 90% game time. If they aren’t the main ruckman, they are only as good as any other rucks in the league. Both of them are gonna need to play well either forward or back. It’s only my opinion but I would still play them both on the field over 80% game time. The reason they’ve given their teams such an advantage over the years, is because they’ve been able to play an extra midfielder rather then a backup ruck. They can both cover ground so figure out a way to use both of them on the ground as much as possible.
Boo
Guest
Hard to reconcile the demons of 2022 with the flag winning 2021 side .Jackson aside no great changes so will watch Melbourne with interest .Forward line looks a bit light on but pretty much the same on that dominated in the gf .
Steele
Roar Rookie
The forward line connection has been a problem for a long time, premiership season aside. A fit McDonald will go a long way and Brown is no certainty for selection. The two ruckman have both had injuries recently, I don’t see it as a ‘how do we fit them both in’ dilemma. It’s just a case of making the most of a brilliant midfield and insurance if one goes down. If they both are fit, I’ve watched Gawn dominate in the back half taking game saving marks for a long time, not too concerned about it. Also, Jackson didn’t work as a forward either but the combination did. Peter Bell thinks Meb got it wrong with him and that he’s more of a forward. That’s just incorrect, why isn’t Freo getting asked the same questions with their new Rick duo?
Cat
Roar Guru
Two ruckman didn’t help you last year either. Gawns best years have been when he plays the vast majority of ruck minutes. He isn’t a forward. He’s wasted ‘resting’ there. Grundy is the same sort of ruckman. Best when he plays 90% of the ruck contests. He’s also not great as a forward. They can’t both play 90% of the ruck. If they split it both players games will be poorer, not better. And the forward line remains a problem because neither ruck will bring enough to improve anything.
Doc Disnick
Roar Guru
Yep, Grundy is no forward. I see it playing out the reverse of what Tim has suggested.
melbun
Guest
Word is that Oliver Sestan will be in the 23 or very close to it.
BlastedNewPhoneNoPassword
Guest
I think that's very much how it plays out. Stanley/Blicavs works well for the Cats - that's what this is, with Gawn a better kick and Grundy having shown to be a very good mobile ruck (if not as mobile as Blicavs). I also submit that Tim made no typo saying Grundy has kicked 60 goals in 177 years - I'd rest him behind the ball before I'd send him forward.
Doc Disnick
Roar Guru
I actually think Gawn will be given a similar role as Dustin Martin, i.e. no accountability and do whatever you like. He’ll drift forward intermittently causing headaches. He’s also extremely dangerous off the half forward line with a surprisingly penetrating kick for a big man. He isn’t that mobile, which the Cats exploited, especially at the kick in, by just going around him. This is why, I believe, Grundy has been recruited. Grundy is much more mobile and I see him playing a similar role to Blicavs. It worked well for the Cats. I see no reason why it won’t work for the Dees.
Chanon
Roar Rookie
Grundy to play ruck rover Gawn in ruck confusion is bliss :stoked:
Chris Lewis
Roar Guru
Will be very interesting to see how Grundy goes.
Tony Taylor
That's not correct. We lost Jackson, which was a problem. So we picked Grundy, which is hopefully a solution.
Opps74
Roar Rookie
Not sure what the Dee’s plan is with two key ruckman, throw in Brown or Schache in the forward line and they look top heavy…Grundy seemed to have drop off the last few years…I don’t think he ever recovered from being smashed by two ruckmen in 2018 GF, his confidence dwindled from there and then got paid $7 million nnd then Covid impacted him motivation/psychological. This could be a mastermind move or a 5 year headache…Grundy always preferred to play as the primary ruckman but being physically battered every week with little support from back ups will have taken its toll on his body
Cat
Roar Guru
Gawndy- the solution to a nonexistent problem