MELBOURNE’S 2024 AFL Season came to an official end on Friday night.

Despite heading into the game off the back of an impressive performance against Gold Coast, the Dees were on the backfoot from the opening quarter, unable to get the momentum they needed.

The night ended in a 46-point loss to the Pies at the MCG, with senior coach Simon Goodwin disappointed to finish the year in that manner.

“We thought we took a lot of positives out of last week, and tonight didn’t reflect the way we wanted to play,” Goodwin said.

“We were coming off a pretty intense game last week and it just felt like early in the game we didn’t quite have the intensity and speed, and that’s certainly not making excuses, that’s reality.

“Our execution with the ball and our ability to defend the ground to the level that was required just wasn’t there tonight.

“We’ve had some really good, strong performances, we’ve had some really close matches that we’ve lost, and we’ve had some really poor performances, and tonight was one of those poor performances.

Melbourne had bowed out of the finals race prior to the match, but this wasn’t something that had changed the mindset of the team, according to Goodwin.  

“Clearly when you’re not playing finals and you’ve played finals consistently for the last few years, it’s a different space to live in,” Goodwin said.“We want to be a club that competes no matter what, all the time.

“That’s what we’ve tried to achieve over a long period of time, that it doesn’t matter the scenario, that we want to rock up every day and perform.

“We’ve been able to do that in previous years, this year has been a little bit more inconsistent, so that’s what we need to get back to, that’s the path for us, to compete unconditionally.”

Despite an impact from injuries across the season, Goodwin praised the team’s adaptability and the young Demons who had stepped up to the plate.

“For all the challenges we’ve had this season, we’ve still unearthed a lot of young players that we think will take us forward as a footy club, and that’s only going to hold us in great stead once we get our senior players back really healthy, fit, and connected,” Goodwin said.

“We want to be a team that’s playing finals every year. In saying that now after some long years, we get a chance to take a really long break and reset our club and team, and we’ll head into next year with a lot of optimism because that’s the space we’ll live in.

“It’s been a tough twelve months; I don’t think we shy away from that as a club. There’s been a lot that’s been going on from pretty much this time last year right through the twelve months.

“We’re not going to live in the past, we’re going to keep moving forward, and we get a chance to reset our club, with all the people, fully connected, and on the same road that we want to get to.”

Melbourne captain Max Gawn reflected on the loss and the season, focusing on the coming weeks of review as a leader of the football club.  

“It was a pretty flat way to end,” Gawn said.

“We fielded the team without May, Lever, Petracca, Oliver, and Brayshaw. If you had’ve told me that at the start of the year, that’s a pretty crazy pivot that our club has taken.

“We’ve been able to plug some young stars during it which I’m pretty excited about. Jacob van Rooyen, Harrison Petty, and Daniel Turner held up positions that 30-year-olds usually hold up.

“The midfield late was Ed Langdon, Judd McVee, and Trent Rivers, and a backline of Adam Tomlinson, Tom McDonald and Marty Hore, so it’s changed a lot.

“Over the next couple weeks, I’ll meet with everybody, we’ll have long chats and work out what the best way forward is and how we make this club great again.”

This is the first time since 2020 that Melbourne has been absent from finals, with Gawn insisting that the group was choosing to use this as motivation, looking to maximise their longer break to be better for 2025.

“If you look at the motivation over the last few years, Collingwood had a break in 2021, had a really big off-season and pre-season, and they came back as a strong team in 2022 in 2023," Gawn said.

“Sydney had a break in 2020 and came back as a good team, Geelong had a break last year and came back as a good team, so there’s a bit of motivation to really utilise the break and freshen up.

“September will look very different for us this year, and we can be grumpy about that, which we are, but the motivation is purely on 2025 now.”