Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin has lifted the lid on emotional pre-season conversations at the club.
Plus John Longmire reflected on his “really strange” experience watching the Swans play for the first time without him as coach.
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Recap the biggest talking points from Wednesday’s edition of Fox Footy’s AFL 360 heading into Round 1!
‘RAW AND EMOTIONAL’: GOODWIN ON DEES’ OFF-SEASON CHATS WITH STARS
Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin has opened up on the “raw and emotional” off-season conversations with players including Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver, as the club looks to put a stormy 12 months behind it.
Petracca and Oliver were both linked to trades last year before ultimately staying at the Demons as part of a tumultuous period for the club.
Goodwin on AFL 360 admitted “there was some healing that needed to be done” within the four walls as the Dees hope to bounce back and play finals in 2025 after missing the top eight last year for the first time since 2020.
“It was about getting in a room together with a group of players in Bright on the pre-season camp and really setting the charter,” the 2021 premiership coach said.
“It was really raw and emotional — that’s the best way to describe it. You don’t want to go into the details about what was said, but it was about people including myself putting my hand up saying: ‘We haven’t gotten everything right. We’re human beings.’
“But we get to hold the pen and write the next chapters, we get to write the story moving forward.
“It’s amazing when people share their story about what’s happening in their life away from the game, how people connect again and how vulnerable they can be to start that journey and forgiveness is done.
“A lot of work has gone in the last three or four months with (mindset guru) Ben Crowe and a whole range of people at our footy club to reconnect.”
LONGMIRE DETAILS ‘REALLY STRANGE’ SWANS WATCH FROM STANDS
Former Swans coach John Longmire concedes it was “really strange” watching Sydney play for the first time from the stands.
The Swans began the Dean Cox era on a sour note, falling to Hawthorn by 20 points in rainy conditions at the SCG in a game the new Sydney coach admitted he got some things wrong.
It included Tom McCartin’s move forward drawing scrutiny, with Nick Blakey forced to play deeper in defence, limiting the 2024 All-Australian from playing his usual running game up the ground.
However Longmire didn’t think Blakey getting dragged to fullback necessarily nullified his impact.
“(Blakey) Still had a pretty good impact. You’ve got to weigh things up, you look at the weather and the opposition and the amount of talls,” the former Swans coach said.
“Nick still played a pretty reasonable game from my perspective, I thought he was pretty good.
“Going into the game, you can understand what they did … I didn’t think that was one of the key indicators of the game.”
Longmire, who attended Friday night’s game with his children and Swans CEO Tom Harley, said it was a “new experience” given it was his first occasion not coaching Sydney since 2010.
“It was actually really strange. It was Jake Lloyd’s 250th game and I coached him for 249 of those,” he said.
“The hardest part was when the boys were running through the banner. From then on I think the comments from my kids were: ‘Sitting with you is really, really strange’.
“I was pretty restrained, I was just with Tom Harley and my kids. I couldn’t help but watch it pretty closely. It was a new experience for me. I’ll get used to it, I guess, but the first one was a bit different.”
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