Melbourne premiership coach Simon Goodwin has backed a pre-grand final bye, revealing Dees star Steven May wouldn’t have played in the 2021 flag without one.
May had injured his hamstring in the preliminary final, with scans later revealing the star defender suffered an eight-centimetre tear in his tendon.
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In what was a Covid interrupted season, the AFL had sent the 2021 grand final to Perth – but with it came unique quarantine requirements that saw the pre-finals bye shifted to a pre-grand final bye to meet the WA Government’s strict restrictions.
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That break before the grand final was enough time for May to prove his fitness in “extraordinary” scenes.
“I experienced it (the pre-grand final bye), I loved it, I loved the build up. I loved the extra time to plan and get all the awards and everything out of the way through that period,” Goodwin said on AFL 360.
“In that year we went straight into finals – there was no pre-finals bye. And we had the bye at the end.
“I thought it was brilliant. It gave everyone the chance to have the best players available.
“Steven May would not have played in that grand final (without the pre-grand final bye).
“To get him out there and play was fantastic. It gives the best chance to build the spectacle that it deserves to be.”
The pre-finals bye debate flared once again last weekend when Cats star Tom Stewart was concussed in his side’s preliminary final over Hawthorn.
As a result, he’s unable to play for the AFL’s mandatory 12-day period – and he’s become the first men’s player to miss a grand final as a result.
The call to run the grand final risk on May was an “easy decision” for him in the end, Goodwin said.
“Trust is probably the biggest thing you can get – we had great success with our medical team and high performance team not only getting players up to play but also getting them to perform.
“We told Mayzey he had a slight hamstring strain – these are the protocols you’re going to have to step through. He ticked off every single one of them.
“The last one we wanted to make sure – and we were really fortunate we’d played the Western Bulldogs two times already that season and the player that he was playing on, he’d only ever done 68 metres of high speed in both those games. So one of the final check off points for us was you’ve got to at least do 100m at high speed. These are the depths to build the trust – he was able to do that easily in the last training session.
“Because he was such a big man, it was really evident early on he had full strength … that was the thing that gave Darren (Burgess) and the medical team a lot of confidence to say let’s give this a go.
“If it fails, we know we gave it a crack.”
It’s a situation the Lions now find themselves in with their star Lachie Neale, who has been named only 19 days after he was ruled out for the season with a calf tear.
Lachie Neale looking ‘unbelievable’ | 00:55
While Jarrod Berry ruled himself out of the running with his own shoulder injury, Neale passed every test put in front of him.
Goodwin could understand why the decision was made to name the two-time Brownlow Medallist for Saturday’s decider.
“At that time my biggest thing was to empower my staff – I was going to live by that decision,” he said.
“They made a great decision … The athlete generally knows best.”
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