MELBOURNE wants to have its new coach publicly announced before the 2025 Grand Final.
It is a timeline to which the Demons must adhere if they are to finally settle the sustained uncertainty of a playing list which is known to already be considering offers from rivals, with Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver again among those names.
Melbourne will begin its search for a replacement for the sacked Simon Goodwin with approaches as soon as today to premiership coaches John Longmire and Adam Simpson, Grand Final coach Nathan Buckley, and four-time preliminary final coach Ken Hinkley. James Hird is also likely to receive a phone call before the official formation of a sub-committee empowered to identify the next Demons coach.
Untried senior coaches will not be ruled out at any stage of that eight-week process, but AFL.com.au has learnt that the unproven candidates were not as prominent as the proven ones in the myriad conversations conducted by key officials in the hours and day after Goodwin was sacked on Monday night.
Danny Daly, Hayden Skipworth and Daniel Giansiracusa also all had their names raised yesterday as options.
The sub-committee is expected to include the current and future presidents, Brad Green and Steven Smith. Incoming chief executive officer Paul Guerra will also hold a seat, as will another board member – possibly Angela Williams, as well as at least one outside consultant. Football department head Alan Richardson may also play a role.
The final decision to sack Goodwin was made by Green, his board, and others on Monday night. It came a week after a full board meeting, at which an overseas-holidaying Smith attended via video, effectively arrived at that call.
That full board meeting, which had been scheduled as far back as February, unfortunately for Goodwin fell a day after his club’s humiliating meltdown from 46 points up at three-quarter time to harrowing defeat after St Kilda’s Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera produced one of the all-time epic individual efforts.
No one attached to Melbourne on Tuesday wanted to link the Wanganeen-Milera heroics to the Goodwin sacking, but at the same time they knew it sounded futile to deny it, given Goodwin’s only match since that debacle was an 83-point win in round 21.
“We just believe that the club was looking for a new voice and a new leader,” was one of Green’s many evasive statements at a media conference on Tuesday to address Goodwin’s sacking.
Brad Green speaks at a media conference with Simon Goodwin on August 5, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos
They’ve been bad at football administration for four years now, the Demons, since their brilliant 2021 premiership. And they’ve been ordinary at the actual game of football, failing to make finals this year and last, and losing the four finals they played in the two seasons following the flag success.
But they’ve excelled with words. Former CEO Gary Pert’s favourite was “culture”. Even after Demons players had been caught punching each other in a Prahran street, another player had been detected by authorities with drugs in his system during a game, and several others had been behaving highly questionably socially, Pert even dared to say into a microphone that the Demons boasted the “best culture” he’d seen in 40 years in the V/AFL.
Pert resigned from his post in October last year, a month after president Kate Roffey stood down, after sustained public attacks directed at the club’s off-field operations from former president Glen Bartlett.
There were more cringey words used in the 2025 pre-season, this time mainly by Goodwin, who volunteered to the media and wider football industry that there was a powerful “love” and “connection” amongst his players, some of whom had only months earlier desperately sought to exit long-term contracts.
Christian Petracca and Simon Goodwin celebrate after Melbourne’s win over West Coast at Marvel Stadium in round 21, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos
Despite wins this year against Brisbane, Fremantle and Sydney, and a one-point loss to Collingwood, the Melbourne board, long before Monday night, had decided that for Goodwin to have his contract extended beyond 2026 he would need to secure another premiership.
In its final deliberations on Monday night, the club’s board determined he would be incapable of doing that.
It was a harsh football call, particularly with Goodwin forced to coach in 2025 without a permanent president and CEO.
But as confronting and as abrupt as it was, I believe it was the right call, and the $1 million Goodwin will get to never coach the Demons again will surely soon placate some of his anger.
The Demons, for so long in desperate need of a fully fresh start, will now get that opportunity. Within weeks, there will be a new president, new CEO and new coach. And for the old captain Max Gawn’s sake, hopefully a new and better meaning to those old buzz words – culture, love and connection.
