Ruckman Brodie Grundy’s first year at Melbourne has not gone to plan. Photo: GETTY IMAGES
As the final siren sounded at the MCG on Friday night, and Melbourne had completed its stunning smash-and-grab job against Brisbane, the Demons faithful were sent into delirium.
Players, coaches, staff and fans alike experienced a unique surge of jubilation that is rarely felt at a footy ground.
Those how-the-hell-did-we-do-that moments aren’t common, but when they occur, they are priceless.
Well, most players anyway would’ve been in raptures, anyway.
Brodie Grundy is a strong team-first man and no doubt would’ve given off the signals externally that he was excited by his team’s sensational one-point win after they trailed by five goals late in the third quarter.
And there was probably a fair portion of his internal make-up that mirrored those happy feelings he was projecting immediately after the match.
But there’s no doubt that there would have been a part of him that felt nothing but sheer dread.
He wouldn’t be human if in the ensuing days since Melbourne’s belief-defying triumph that he didn’t think to himself: “Not this again.”
After being dropped last week to work on his “forward craft” in the VFL, Grundy’s bid to return to the senior line-up could not have got off to a worse start. Bluntly, the Demons, like the Magpies last year, looked far better without him.
In the previous seven weeks leading up to last round, the two biggest talking points concerning the Demons were their attacking impotence and their misfiring ruck tandem of Max Gawn and Grundy.
Between Rounds 10-17, they averaged an alarming 66 points and at one stage booted an insipid 23.61 across a four-game span. During that same period the Gawn-Grundy combination wasn’t having the impact the Demons hierarchy had hoped for.
After all, Grundy crossed to Melbourne last off-season amid much fanfare after the Demons elected to inherit the remaining five years of his monster Collingwood contract, with the Magpies reportedly still paying about 25 per cent of the million-dollar-a-year deal.
But even taking that into account, that still represents a significant financial investment from Melbourne in one of the AFL’s best ruckmen of the last decade.
Hopes were high that he would combine with the best ruckman of the last decade in Gawn and create a similar dynamic duo to the one Gawn formed with Luke Jackson in their recent premiership year.
However, just 18 rounds into his (supposed) five-year stint at the Demons, Grundy already finds himself on the outer, and the immediate results would’ve sent a shiver down his spine.
Not only were the Demons as dangerous in attack as they’ve looked in months, but Gawn played comfortably his best game of the season as the sole ruckman.
Melbourne had 10 individual goalkickers and kicked 16.9 (105) which was not only their first triple-figure score since Round 9, but their highest score since Round 7 when they played lowly North Melbourne.
In fact, you have to go all the way back to Round 1 for their next-best score against a top-eight team when they registered 17.13 (115) in their 50-point win over the Bulldogs.
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With a smaller attacking unit featuring the likes of Christian Petracca, Kysaiah Pickett and the man of the moment Jake Melksham, the Demons looked more agile and threatening.
Meanwhile, Gawn reigned supreme in the middle of the ground, amassing 29 disposals (21 contested), five marks, 10 clearances, seven tackles, 38 hitouts and a goal. He did so against one of the in-form ruckmen in the league, Oscar McInerney, to be the best player on the ground.
In other words, with Grundy out of the team, Melbourne improved dramatically in their two areas of concern: offence and ruck.
So the simple question is: how does Grundy get back into this side if it continues to perform like this?
The former Magpie has never been a forward, and at 29 years of age, it’s hard to see him ever becoming a forward.
Even if Melbourne wanted to turn him into a forward, they would need an entire pre-season to have any hope of yielding results. Beginning that quest in Round 18 with finals around the corner is borderline delusional.
His first stop in his crash course in “forward craft” was a 14-on-14 VFL practice match against St Kilda on the weekend, where he kicked one goal and had minimal impact.
He will almost certainly play for the Casey Demons against Coburg on Saturday where he will continue his ambitious plan to turn into an effective forward/back-up ruckman before the season ends.
The other broader question that needs to be asked is: does this spell the end for Grundy at Melbourne after just one season?
While it would make for a spectacular turn of events, given Collingwood also had buyer’s remorse so soon after signing/re-signing Grundy less than a year ago, it surely can’t be discounted now.
If Grundy can’t break back into this team, he will essentially become an overpaid Braydon Preuss. He is far too expensive to be a back-up ruckman whose sole function is to provide list depth in case Gawn gets injured.
A second trade in as many years would also be a dramatic outcome given how glowingly Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin spoke of Grundy just seven weeks ago.
“He’s now at a club that really values what he brings to his team, we’re certainly going to embrace that,” Goodwin said of Grundy before the King’s Birthday clash against Collingwood.
But if Melbourne opted to jettison him, there would be no shortage of suitors lining up for the final four years of Grundy’s contract, which would come at an even more discounted price because the Demons would almost certainly have to stump up part of the bill like the Magpies are.
Grundy certainly isn’t out of the door at AAMI Park just yet, and given how much Melbourne’s forward line make-up has chopped and changed over the course of the season, you can’t completely discount him returning to the team before the finals.
However, it would not be an overstatement to suggest that he could very well be playing to stay on Melbourne’s list over the next few weeks in the reserves.
