Simon Goodwin is adamant Clayton Oliver will remain at the club next season after the Demons brought his difficult campaign to an early end after surgery on his hand as the Melbourne coach confirmed he’d had “open conversations” about the club’s direction with disgruntled star Christian Petracca.
Oliver underwent further surgery on the hand he injured earlier in the season and also suffered cracked ribs in Saturday night’s loss to Port Adelaide, with the Demons ruling him out of the final two rounds.
It was another blow to the Demons who will miss the finals for the first time since 2019, coming after revelations premiership winner Alex Neal-Bullen wants a trade back to South Australia.
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With the club in freefall, Goodwin for the first time addressed reports injured star Petracca was disillusioned with the direction of the team declaring the pair had not fallen out.
He repeated that Petracca had a “traumatic experience” with his horror season-ending injuries in the King’s Birthday game but said the discussions with his superstar on-baller were a positive for the club going forward
“I’ve had open conversations with Christian regularly … people seem to parcel frustrations and tension up as a negative,” Goodwin said.
“It’s actually a positive – you’d be surprised if you walk into an environment of a footy club, these conversations happen weekly.
“It’s about getting better, and those conversations have been going on many a day at this footy club.
“I’m sure there are frustrations because players want to play finals footy, I want to play finals footy, our supporters want to play finals footy … we’re going to leave no stone unturned in trying to find the best path forward in doing that.”
Goodwin said Oliver was content with the decision to focus on a big pre-season ahead of 2025 as he framed reports of senior players’ frustration as a “positive” following an unsuccessful year.
Goodwin said the Demons would go “full bore” at their final two games but would do so without Oliver after he again struggled badly to have an impact against the Power.
“Clayton’s had some surgery on his hand to remove a plate from his hand. He’s also got a PCL he’s dealing with, and post-game he woke up with some sore ribs – and he’s got a crack in a few of those ribs,” Goodwin said.
“We’ve got to get him physically well again, and he’s walking around this morning with a smile on his face and more determined than ever to get his football back to the highest level.
“He’s had some challenges physically this year. He’s obviously had a plate in his hand for a big part of the year … that’s now been removed, we’ll get that right, we’ll get him physically ready to go, and he’s going to have an enormous pre-season.”
Goodwin said Oliver was in a “wonderful position as a person” and would have no issues dealing with being sidelined over the final fortnight of the campaign.
“I’ve never seen someone more eager to attack his off-season and get himself physically ready for the demands of the game again than what he’s talking about right now,” Goodwin said.
“He’s in a wonderful position as a person, now the challenge is to get him physically healthy and get him ready to perform as a footballer.”
Goodwin said senior players’ frustration was to be expected and a natural part of missing finals as he firmly denied Christian Petracca wanted to leave the club.
“When you’ve won a lot of games over a period of three years, and then you miss out on finals, I think everyone sits here uncomfortable with where you sit as a footy team,” he said.
“What we have shown over a period of time is we’ve got some wonderful people at this footy club who are all aligned in something very similar … it’s about building a really strong, competitive footy team.
“We’ll engage all those people like we do every year, but even more importantly this year we’ll engage whether it’s Christian, whether it’s Max (Gawn), whether it’s Jack Viney.”
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