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Opinion
It’s time for us all to move on from this idea that Melbourne is a great team, or even could be a great team.
September victories usually linger in the memory much longer than those in the home and away, and the Demons finals series of 2021 was both brutal and electric. In their three matches, they kicked more than 50 goals and had an average winning margin of 63 points.
That finals series made Simon Goodwin’s men look like an offensive juggernaut, when it wasn’t actually the case. They averaged 85 points per game in the home and away rounds, which only ranked them fifth in the competition.
If you just look at their second halves of both the preliminary final against Geelong and the grand final against the Western Bulldogs, they kicked a combined 26.10.166 to 4.6.30. That’s what we remember, and that’s what’s hard to let go. They were able to bottle lightning for those few weeks.
Off the back of that, the Dees won their first 10 matches of 2022, and looked like they had plenty of improvement to come.
But Melbourne are not that team any more. They’re not even close.
They’re still respectable, of course. From Round 11 on last year, they have still won 13 games. But they’ve also lost 12, including being bundled out of MCG finals in straight sets against interstate visitors.
If we compiled a ladder of the last 23 home and away matches, the Demons would sit eighth. They’ve only had two more wins in that period than minnows like Gold Coast and St Kilda, as well as the likes of Essendon, Adelaide, and Richmond. They are bog average.
Steven May of the Demons and Lance Franklin of the Swans compete for the ball. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
In that time, they’ve beaten very little of substance. They’ve lost twice to Collingwood, Brisbane, Sydney and Fremantle, as well as Geelong, the Bulldogs and Port Adelaide.
Even this year, they sit fourth with a respectable 7-4 record, but the wins have been over teams that were in terrible form, like the Bulldogs in Round 1, average teams like Sydney, Gold Coast and Richmond, or the terrible trio of West Coast, North Melbourne and Hawthorn.
Melbourne’s stats look impressive enough, but this year they are skewed by teams that have already played all of the Eagles, Roos and Hawks, against those that haven’t. Something is just off with the Dees.
Defensive pillars Steven May and Jake Lever are not playing to the level we expect. May has been fine in the air, but looks perilously close to falling off a cliff when the ball is on the ground, and Lever has been down on confidence and dropping marks he would normally swallow.
Harrison Petty moving forward upset the applecart. Trent Rivers has spent more time in the midfield, and Christian Salem has failed to make an impact in his two games back from injury.
Teams that have had success against Melbourne have done so by moving the ball quickly and lowering their eyes, not giving May and Lever the high balls they are so adept at defending, either one-on-one or by leaving their opponents and being third man up.
Max Gawn and Brodie Grundy were a big story coming into the season, and you wouldn’t say it’s been a spectacular success or failure either way, but the Dees have dropped to 14th in clearance differential this year, after ranking 7th and 8th in 2021-22.
The beauty of this combination was supposed to be that they were going to “monster” the second ruckman in any team they came up against, let alone likely win the first ruck dual as well. This clearly hasn’t happened. Yes, they’ve kicked a few goals between them, but only a combined two in their four losses. This is not a combination that is changing games.
We know what we’re going to get from Clayton Oliver, Christian Petracca and Jack Viney. Oliver has been kicking the ball more in recent seasons, and has found a better balance between inside and outside, but too often kicks indiscriminately, high and long.
Angus Brayshaw seems a bit lost. Ed Langdon isn’t impacting games the way he did when Melbourne were in their pomp. Lachie Hunter has been a decent addition without being amazing.
As a collective, the entire midfield are too often less than the sum of their parts.
The Demons are actually the highest scoring team in the competition, even though their forward-line seems more dysfunctional than anything else.
Bayley Fritsch is averaging less goals per game than he did in 2021-22, but is actually having a fine season. With no reliable centre half-forward in the team, he’s having to roam further from goal to get his touches, but is still pushing back to hit the scoreboard.
The resting Gawn or Grundy aren’t convincing. Tom McDonald can barely get a kick and has been dropped multiple times. Premiership defender Harrison Petty has been tried there. At this point of his career, Jacob van Rooyen’s bark is worse than his bite. Ben Brown isn’t getting picked, even though he would surely make them better.
(Photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty Images)
Kade Chandler has looked a great addition to the forward-line mix, hitting the scoreboard regularly, but it doesn’t appear anyone at the Demons knows what their best mix of talls and smalls is.
Fritsch is the given, as is Kosi Pickett. Alex Neale-Bullen and Charlie Spargo are in the mix, plus the resting ruckmen and the plethora of tall options mentioned earlier. That’s a lot of names that have rotated through there, with little continuity.
With 12 games to go in the season, Melbourne still has much to prove. With the way the draw has panned out this year, eight of their remaining matches are against teams outside the eight, with only one of those, Geelong, likely to play finals. Two of the contenders, Adelaide and Brisbane, they get to play in Melbourne.
Given their record against inferior teams, they are still well set for a top four finish. But really, they are flattering to deceive, and will get found out again in finals.
Will they use their soft run home to build confidence, find their game, and become what so many of us thought they would? Or were they a flash-in-the-pan for that glorious end to the 2021 season, when everything just clicked?
With the rise of Collingwood, and Brisbane and Port surging past them, the door is quickly closing on Melbourne achieving greatness. Maybe it already has.