Melbourne captain Max Gawn has conceded that he’s concerned about his club’s culture, after their 92-point loss to Fremantle in round 12.
The six-time All-Australian ruckman says their next challenge, Collingwood, is a chance to rediscover their winning ways.
But it won’t be a warm reception from Pies or Demons fans, with the memory of Angus Brayshaw’s premature medical retirement fresh in both clubs’ minds.
It’s the first time the two sides will have met since Magpies defender Brayden Maynard’s bump concussed Brayshaw in last year’s qualifying final.
It was the last ever game of professional football Brayshaw, at just 28 years old, would ever play, as he was forced to retire from the game of the eve of the 2024 campaign.
The Demons also went down in that qualifying final by seven points.
Despite the pain suffered by Brayshaw and the Demons, Gawn has denied that they’ll take any bad blood into their King’s Birthday clash.
“We want to make sure we get one back on them, but to take any personal battles out there certainly wouldn’t be the case,” Gawn said on Wednesday.
But the rivalry doesn’t stop there.
Dees defender Steven May’s fighting words in the off-season at Melbourne’s best and fairest, when he declared that his side could have “smoked” Collingwood in the grand final, haven’t been forgotten by Pies skipper Darcy Moore.
“I don’t want to talk about them in hindsight. But you know, we lose to Collingwood, and they go on to win the flag, and it f—ing hurts,” May said at the time.
“Because we’re a better team than them, we should have smoked them.
“And to sit there on grand final day and watch them hoist the cup, and get the medals, I’m sitting there going ‘geez, our team’s so much better than these guys’. We should’ve been out there, but we weren’t.”
Moore wasted no time having his own dig at the Melbourne defender.
“To be honest, we were pretty busy celebrating after September, so we didn’t spend too much time on it,” Moore said on Monday.
As for the Demons, who are battling their own form slump, headlined by that embarrassing loss to the Dockers – the biggest defeat under coach Simon Goodwin – Gawn says the club is looking within to uncover any serious culture hindrance.
“If we dig down and look at our culture in our last five years, we don’t think it’s us,” Gawn saidsaid.
“But when you have three (losses) in six weeks, maybe it is (us).”
The Demons sit in 10th on the ladder with a 7-5 record.
Meantime, Collingwood sit just above them in ninth, with a 6-4-2 record.
They’ll clash at the MCG on Monday as part of the King’s Birthday fixture.
