SIMON Goodwin will take 28 handballs from Clayton Oliver every day of the week, if he continues with the type of form he displayed in Melbourne’s 39-point win over St Kilda at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
Speaking post-match, the Melbourne coach said he “really liked” Oliver’s game when assessing the midfielder’s equal career-best 36-disposal performance.
“That’s the way he’s played his whole career so far,” Goodwin said of Oliver.
“Clearly, we want him to run-and-carry with the ball at times, because he’s got a lot of speed and power, when he wants to use it.
“He’s such a great distributor of the ball around clearance and contest areas, and he was really strong today with his game.
“That’s the way he plays – he’s a first possession player who wins the ball inside and distributes it to his teammates.”
When asked if he’d like Oliver to have more kicks than handballs, Goodwin said: “I’m not fussed – as long as he keeps doing the work inside that makes him the good player he is. He’s such a hard match-up for teams and he does a lot of great work that people don’t see.”
Goodwin was delighted with several of his charges and spoke glowingly of tall defenders Jake Lever and Oscar McDonald.
“I think the back six is starting to play some good footy together. Lever and Oscar McDonald are improving all of the time, and that fight to the death mentality down back is really important for us,” he said.
“I thought we had a number of good goal saves on the day.
“As a ruthless coach, you want to try and defend a bit more, but that’s probably being a little bit greedy at times too.”
Goodwin said O.McDonald was getting better each week.
“Oscar McDonald is now into his fourth season and he’s maturing and physically able to handle the demands of the game,” he said.
“What we’re starting to see is an increase in performance.”
Goodwin said Angus Brayshaw was another big tick from Melbourne’s fourth win of the season.
“With Angus, it’s been 12 months of trying to build him and his confidence back up to play the game that we want him to play, and some of the contest stuff,” he said.
“He’s had repeat head knocks, so in the last two weeks, we’ve just said to him ‘we’ve got him on the inside of the midfield again’ and we just want to see his best work and that’s where we drafted him – to play inside mid and we’ve got him back there.
“To his credit, he’s really started to grab that situation and really play his role extremely well, so that’s exciting for us as a club to have Angus back to his best and playing some really consistent footy in the last few weeks.”
Meanwhile, Goodwin made special mention of injured utility Aaron vandenBerg, whose father sadly passed away. Melbourne wore black armbands in vandenBerg’s father’s honour.
“Our thoughts are with Aaron and his mother Christine, but we’re a group that’s very together at the moment and there is a lot of togetherness building within our footy club,” he said.
“Our care and support is with the vandenBerg family at this point.”
