HEALING has been the focus at Melbourne across the summer. After a tumultuous off-season led to two reviews, Simon Goodwin has run a very different program during the pre-season. One of those changes was the appointment of Demons great Nathan Jones as midfield coach.
No one suffered through more turmoil between Melbourne’s two Grand Final appearances this century than Jones. Only five of his 302 games – second behind David Neitz at Melbourne – were finals. And in 2021, when the Demons arrived out the other end, the then 33-year-old watched on in his final season as the club ended a 57-year premiership drought without him.
It was a cruel way for a great career to end – and it has taken time for Jones to deal with the despair of missing out on a premiership – but since returning to a club that, once again, had a heavy cloud hovering above it, albeit for different reasons, the timing of Jones’ return has helped Melbourne heal the wounds that fractured the club in 2024.
“He has been brilliant. Sitting down with Nath at the end of last year, I had a feeling that he wanted to go down the coaching path,” Goodwin told AFL.com.au inside the MCG this week.
“Obviously coaching him and knowing him and knowing his knowledge of the game, I thought coaching him would be a great thing for him. You could see when I had a chat with him the spark and joy that coaching brought him.
“We had some pretty tough times at the end of his career in ’21. We had some really good, honest conversations.
“What he has been able to bring is he is a good coach, he is a natural coach, and he has that real infectious personality and he has the relationships with the players, which was important to us because he could help bring people together. He connects, he has that smile and laugh that makes people happy. He has been enormous for us.”
Ahead of his ninth season as senior coach and his 11th campaign at Melbourne, Goodwin believes the club has owned its mistakes and learned from them. Former All Blacks manager Darren Shand left his mark on the club with his review, while performance coach and leadership mentor Ben Crowe has had a significant impact after joining the club as mindset coach.
“This pre-season has felt different, especially from the last few. There is a freshness to it, there’s a newness to it,” Goodwin said.
“I think when you come out of a review and the review is all about getting better – it wasn’t a review of removing people – it was a review of maximising our program and our potential. That was really refreshing.
“We’ve been able to implement as much of that as we can. We’ve been able to get some clear air as a club, build fresh energy about the building and the players have really bought into it.”
Melbourne started its pre-season in Bright, near the Alpine National Park in northeastern Victoria. Rather than starting with a time trial, the Demons addressed their issues, from Joel Smith’s suspension and their cultural issues, to the board battle, to Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca’s desire to leave. Everyone cleared the air. And over the summer months, the club has started mending bridges.
“How do you build a schedule that provides more autonomy for the players to really develop their best self and really maximise the people and the programs we have in place? It is really about choosing your own adventure, knowing that this is where you want to get to, but how you get there can be done in a different way,” Goodwin said.
“I think the players have really enjoyed the freedom of choice and autonomy. Also having the flexibility if there are things away from the game that they need to attend to, whether it be Max Gawn having to pick up his kids from daycare then it’s doing things that are good for the family as well. That’s built better balance to a lot of players’ lives.
“There has obviously been a big focus on love; loving the game and loving each other, that came with some healing at the start; we needed to heal first; that was a big part of going to Bright on the first day of pre-season.
“It was really about not putting the boots on until we start to heal and come together as one. There was a lot of vulnerability in that process, a lot of good honest conversations. We’ve been able to put that behind us and start moving forward together. We focused on the things we could have done better and how to do them differently. With that level of vulnerability comes a real openness and a real sense that we are actually in this together to move forward. We feel like we’ve been able to put together a good body of work, and more importantly, come together as a team.”
Amid all the drama of 2024, Goodwin struggled. He couldn’t escape the coverage of Melbourne’s cultural issues and criticism regarding his leadership. But after a direction shift in November, and after getting married earlier this year, the 48-year-old has a new lease on life.
“I do (feel rejuvenated). I’m no different to a player when there is a heaviness around and it’s issue after issue, it becomes hard, as much off the field as it does trying to do your job. Your greatest growth comes in your darkest times,” he said.
“I think because you’re able to reflect and it builds curiosity, and what comes with curiosity is excitement. That’s really what I’m feeling as a coach. There is a level of curiosity about how to get better, how to make the team play in a certain way, how to change the game style to get to where we want to get to. How to reconnect with people. That’s what coaching is; it’s about bringing all the pieces of the puzzle together.”
Goodwin knows the homesickness battles Pickett has dealt with, but is confident the 23-year-old, who is suspended for the first three games of 2025, will play out not just his contract, but still be at Melbourne beyond 2027.
“Homesickness is real,” he said. “We’ve had lost of players in the last decade who have felt homesickness and we’ll work with those players.
“‘Kozzy’ is contracted until the end of 2027, but our responsibility as a club is to make sure he is in a position where he is really enjoying his time at Melbourne the club, Melbourne the city, and he wants to stay.
“I don’t only see ‘Kozzy’ playing until 2027, I see him playing to well and truly beyond that. We’ve got three years to try and do that.”
