Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin says he and his club feel “empty”, sensing they let their fans down after a shock straight-sets finals exit where the team’s “vulnerabilities” were exposed again.
The reigning premiers on Friday night were eliminated from the finals race by a fast-finishing Brisbane, which kicked 11 goals to five after half-time to record a 13-point win.
After claiming their drought-breaking flag in Perth last year amid a Covid wave in Melbourne, the Demons were determined to achieve success in front of their home fans this season.
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Asked how he would harness the disappointment he felt post-game, Goodwin paused for several seconds then told reporters: “A lot of work goes in to a footy season. That‘s from the players, to our coaches, to our support staff and, not only that, our supporters. We did something pretty special last year and we wanted to make sure we came back to the MCG and let them feel what we felt – and we weren’t able to do that.
“You feel pretty empty at the moment. But as I said, we‘ll lick our wounds and come back better as a footy club.
“You‘re in a group of people you want to achieve. You want to have success, you want to drive yourself and make sure everyone feels a part of it. We’ve got a footy club where we want to make people belong and be proud of their footy club. That’s players, supporters, it’s family, it’s friends – and when you don’t win, you feel that sense of emptiness and I’m sure our supporters feel that.
“We want to keep building a footy club where we make people proud to belong and that‘s the mission for us now.”
Goodwin said the result was “disappointing and devastating” for his players, staff and supporters.
“To give up nearly 70 points in the second half, you’ve got to give credit to Brisbane, the game swung a bit back their way, we weren‘t able to execute the basics of the game for long enough in the phases that we really value in,” he said.
“We speak about this a lot: In finals, generally your vulnerabilities come out in games and we‘ve had some throughout the second half of the year, especially when we’ve lost games of footy. Teams have been able to impact in the second half games and mow down leads – and it happened again tonight.
“That‘s been a pretty consistent theme for us when we’ve been beaten, so we’ve got some work to do. But you got to give Brisbane credit.”
Several Melbourne players, including Christian Petracca, Bayley Fritsch, Charlie Spargo and Max Gawn, entered Friday night’s game under an injury cloud.
But Goodwin said he wouldn’t be using injuries as an excuse for the performance.
“Our fade-outs have been a trend. It wasn‘t because the injured players were out there,” he said.
Only three clubs – Brisbane, Hawthorn and Richmond – have achieved back-to-back flags this century.
Acknowledging how tough it now is to achieve consecutive premierships, Goodwin said his club had to rise with expectations.
“It‘s a different year for us. We knew heading into this year that expectation would be high. We knew the pressure around our footy club would be high – and that’s why it’s really challenging to be successful when you come off what we’ve come off. That’s why not many teams do it,” he said.
“We‘ll dig into all of our program about what that looks like, but we’ve got some vulnerabilities that we need to fix up.
“There was no comfortability within our group. We had enough lessons throughout the year and exposure to some of the things that we need to get better at.”
