Melbourne captain Max Gawn recalls two significant things that were said and written before the 2021 season kicked off.
Fast forward to today and the Demons are the reigning AFL premiers after breaking a 57-year drought, but prior to Round 1 this year they hadn’t yet achieved that success.
The first show of confidence came when the ruckman and skipper addressed his teammates in the lead up to the season opening clash with Fremantle.
The second was coach Simon Goodwin’s message on the whiteboard on the first day of pre-season training.
“There were two things that were said at the start of the year,” Gawn recalled on SEN Mornings.
“One was myself in front of the group just after our last training session going into the Fremantle game. I said, ‘We’re going to win this week, our win-loss won’t change and we’ll be in the eight for the rest of the year’.
“And ‘Goody’ at the start of pre-season when we walked in the front door had up on the board - ‘We’re going to win the whole thing this year’.
“So they’re two things. It’s amazing how it worked out.
“I promise you Goody has never said that before and I’ve never had a coach telling me we’re going to win it.
“And I’ve never said that before as well, so it’s worked out quite well this year.
“We’re probably going to try and say it again next year and we’re going to try and match it.
“There were some cool things that I was able to jot down and remember from that early time. It’s funny when you look back and go, ‘Geez, that actually worked’, and we did this and that to actually make it work.”
The Demons finished ninth on the ladder in 2020 after a struggle of a 2019 season when 17th.
Gawn says there was a shift in culture within the club which helped tighten things up on field.
He referenced instances within the group, offering an example of defender Jake Lever receiving some gentle ribbing from teammates despite doing his job.
“We were sitting going there has to be something else that’s going to get us to the next level. What’s going to get us playing really good finals footy?” Gawn added.
“It was probably a culture piece. We all called ourselves best friends, we were very good at having beers together on a Friday night and we’d be very jovial around each other outside of the football club.
“But the stuff inside the four walls, being able to be accountable for each other.
“For example, Jake Lever is a very cool, calm customer. The example I use, it might not have been effective, but for him to go out and have a really good game of 10 intercept marks then come into the change rooms with 10 to 15 people saying, ‘Yeah but I did all the work for you’, or, ‘Those marks were on nobody’.
“You could see what that would do to him and potentially what that does to him throughout the week. So it was just small changes we tried to do and talk nice about each other. Or when needed to be accountable to each other and pull people up.
“It certainly did work for us, the little flick of the switch in that area.”
Whatever changed, it worked a treat as the Gawn and Goodwin-led Dees conquered all before them in season 2021 to claim a first flag since 1964.