Take it from a long-suffering fan, the Demons’ dynasty looks over before it began

But I am cursed.

Once again, it was a Demon disaster – an 89-51 thumping by Collingwood. My near perfect run of losses – I’ve only seen the Demons win a game at the MCG twice in the past decade, despite numerous trips – continues.

Of course, I should acknowledge my privilege. Essendon supporters haven’t won a final since 2004 (against us, of course, and I was there) or a flag since 2000. One in five Australians weren’t even born when the Bombers last saluted in September. Carlton have been waiting for a flag since 1995. Or I could be a St Kilda supporter, patiently waiting through false dawn after false dawn since 1966.

Back in 2021, when 57 years of pain finally came to an end and we raised the Grand Old Flag again, predictions of a Demons dynasty abounded.

Now it looks like the dynasty is over before it has begun.

A team stacked full of generational players now looks like a team full of players who aren’t willing to make sacrifices for each other. The whole is less than the sum of its parts.

Clayton Oliver is in the worst slump of his career and Jack Viney is out of sorts, too. Christian Petracca has joined Jake Lever on the sidelines, while Harry Petty and Bayley Fritsch look like they’d struggle to kick a goal in the little league.

Yes, we still have Max Gawn (who looks devastated, week after week) and Steven May in top form and players such as Alex Neal-Bullen and Jacob Van Rooyen are trying hard. But too few players are being relied on to do too much.

And all the while, Simon Goodwin, premiership coach, talks earnestly about “learnings about connection” and argues (incredibly) the Demons are “just going through a little patch” at the moment.

Pull the other one, Goody.

That’s about as convincing as Bronwyn Bishop claiming she needed to take that helicopter flight.

Week after week, play after play, the Demons bomb the ball into the forward line to a big pack of players, fail to mark it, and then watch it zoom back up the other end. Whatever those learnings might be, no one seems to have made this connection.

Sure, the drugs allegations against Joel Smith, the distractions of a disgruntled former president, the loss of assistant coach Adem Yze, and Oliver’s awful off-season haven’t helped.

Perhaps, it was the forced retirement of Angus Brayshaw that has done the most damage to the core of this team.

Goodwin spoke in depth, dispassionately, to my colleague, Caroline Wilson, recently about the turmoil at the club.

But speaking as someone whose heart beats passionately for the red and blue, I see a club that has lost its way.

Whatever the combination of factors, Sunday’s loss to a Collingwood team missing six premiership players – following hot on the heels of narrowly losing to Carlton, being badly beaten by West Coast and then dismembered by Fremantle – means the club’s season is on the line.

It was the manner of that Fremantle loss that was most disturbing. The players looked like they had stopped trying. Or, perhaps, like they’ve stopped listening to the coach.

Goodwin won a premiership by building a team based on two things: contest and defence. But the change of game style this year appears to be faltering badly, and let’s not forget, the Demons underperformed badly in the finals in 2022 and 2023.

Fans like me will always remember Goodwin as a club legend; the man who finally led us to the promised land. We’ll keep driving down the Hume, or Punt Road, or taking the Sandy line into the MCG come what may. But our premiership window is rapidly closing, and our best players aren’t getting any younger.

After eight years at the helm, if Melbourne misses the finals or loses in straight sets again this year, it’s time for Goodwin to go.

James Massola is national affairs editor.

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