Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin says the Demons’ interstate win over Gold Coast was the work of a unified club that will rise from the ashes quickly.
The Demons have had the blowtorch put on them this week as rumours swirled around midfielder Christian Petracca’s frustrations, Alex Neal-Bullen has requested a trade to a South Australian club and rivals have voiced their interest in Jack Viney.
But Melbourne responded by snapping a four-game losing streak to become the first interstate club to beat Gold Coast at home, recording an 18.9 (117) to 9.9 (63) in front of 13,026 spectators at People First Stadium on Saturday.
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“(The win) tells us a lot about the unity and the connection that is pretty strong within our footy club,” Goodwin said.
“It is a big win. 27 degrees, no interstate (team has) come up here and won.
“It shows a bit about our footy club. There has been a lot spoken about it this week for all the reasons we have expressed throughout the week.
“Internally there is a real belief with the group we have got, we keep progressing forward, we keep trying to get better and we will find a way forward.
“We are not playing finals and that is pretty clear, but we feel we have a group that can go forward pretty quickly.”
Melbourne sits at 11-11 with one game left and while they won’t feature in finals, Goodwin is adamant the club will bounce back quickly in 2025.
“The competition is tight, and you have to get a lot right in your game both from a method perspective but also personnel to be really successful,” Goodwin said of the lessons he has learnt this season.
“We have learnt that we need to get a lot right. Not only with our team, our personnel, our method that we still have work to do on but everything that drives performance.
“That is what we want to be, a high-performance footy club that continually drives success and winning is something we want to make sure is paramount at our footy club.”
A goal separated the two teams at halftime of the round 23 AFL clash in warm and windy winter conditions.
Cracks began to show early in the second half, and they turned into gaping trenches for Gold Coast who became bystanders while Melbourne moved the ball unopposed throughout the ground.
For the Suns the loss officially fractured the fortress. The Suns were undefeated for the entire season before its Round 21 QClash loss to Brisbane and the aura surrounding the home ground has gone.
Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick said it was the worst performance of the season while the lack of fight in the final quarter was catastrophic.
“Disappointed is probably too nice a word to be perfectly honest,” Hardwick said.
“We set ourselves to come here and play our last game in front of family, friends and fans, and we walk away incredibly disappointed. That was a really poor performance.
“We’re not where we need to be. It’s been a disappointing year. There’s no question from my point of view. We’ve made some progress in some facets, but the fact of the matter is we wanted to be a winning organisation and that’s not going to happen this year now.
“We still got to make sure we finish off and win that last game on the MCG (against Richmond). We don’t get to travel there often so we want to get there, play our best footy and make sure we bring a Suns type of footy game because we certainly didn’t see that (on Saturday).”
Source Agencies
