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"Groundhog Day": Where to now for the winless Dees?
Jaiden Sciberras • April 13th, 2025 2:28 pm
It goes without saying that the Demons are in a world of trouble.
Winless through five games in 2025, scoring at a rate only bettering the Eagles, Melbourne under Simon Goodwin seem devoid of ideas.
While the Demons managed to dominate the clearance battle in last night's Gather Round clash with Essendon, the club could only amass 57 points, finishing +8 in the inside 50 count however converting only 15 per cent of their entries into goals.
As the pressure continues to mount on Goodwin, former Demon David Schwarz believes that the problems at the club go far beyond their on-field woes.
“Where do I start with the Dees,” Ox told SEN’s Point of View.
“I would have thought that Melbourne would have banked the win.
“I thought that they would have bene able to bank it and bank it quite easily.
“It’s not a Simon Goodwin thing, and I don’t care what you say, it’s not about the coach. By all accounts, the players are playing for him.
“I think it’s a holistic part with the club, where the club have just got a lot of things wrong over the last 12 months and its playing catch up with them now.
“It starts with culture, and it starts form the top down. We know that Melbourne have had massive problems with their board.
“They were in a legal dispute for many years… they’ve got no CEO, they’ve had all new line coaches, so all the players are dealing with new coaches.
“That is some sort of adjustment. They are professional players, but they have got a lot wrong over the last couple of years and its now coming to smack them.”
Aligning with Ox's thoughts was former premiership captain Mark Bickley, reinstating that the issues at Melbourne are far more complex than what may meet the eye.
“It’s like Groundhog Day,” Bickley told SEN’s Crunch Time.
“For three quarters they kicked one goal, in the first the second and the last.
“It was a hard watch. They just couldn’t defend that short kick and Essendon just kicked and handballed through them. They just don’t seem to be able to stop teams taking from their own forward 50 all the way to the other end.
“They won clearance again, they had plenty of access to the ball inside their forward 50 but their delivery and their connection between mid and forward is where the real issue is.
“Go back to when they lost those two finals, where they went out in straight sets. Both of those finals were under a goal or under 10 points, where they dominated inside 50 dominated stoppage but just couldn’t kick a score.
“If things were really easy to fix, smart people like Simon Goodwin would fix them but they are clearly not easy.
“What I saw last night was Christian Petracca down on confidence. There were times he went to put the foot down, but he just got caught, he doesn’t have that explosiveness that perhaps he once had.
“(Jack) Viney wasn’t impactful at all, Max Gawn didn’t look like the player he’s been to be an eight-time All Australian, so whether they’ve shouldered a fair bit of the load for a long time.
“Max in particular… he plays the most physically challenging role and has played 90 per cent of game time for probably a decade, at some stage that does catch up.
“Is that now? Is that the psychological burden that they’ve carried for the last three or four years where they’ve tried to get themselves out of this hole?
“What I do see is a team that looks like they are burdened with something.
“How do you release that burden? That’s the challenge I’m sure Simon Goodwin is talking to his assistant coaches about."
While the Demons' current state of affairs would pose a severe threat to the club's fans and players' confidence, Bickley is adamant that there remains plenty to take from the remainder of the season.
"Don't waste this year," Bickley continued.
"My advice would be to find out who wants to be there.
"When you are down and out, it's very easy to see who is committed to the cause. Some people give everything they have and there are others that punch the ticket.
"When you are at the lowest ebb, you can find who you can trust, who wants to be there and who is invested in your club."
