Sweet 16 for Dees after win over Eagles

Justin Chadwick | May 15, 2022

Melbourne have hit Sweet 16 but coach Simon Goodwin insists his side is not preoccupied by the potential of setting a new AFL record winning run.

The Demons notched their 16th straight victory on Sunday when they crushed West Coast by 74 points at Optus Stadium.

Geelong hold the all-time winning streak record of 23 games, set between 1952-53.

The Demons face North Melbourne, Fremantle, Sydney, Collingwood, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Geelong over the next seven weeks, and wins in all those games will lift them equal with the record.

Not that Goodwin is looking that far ahead.

“It’s not something we talk about internally,” Goodwin said.

“We are very process-driven about how we go about our footy. 

“We enjoy winning, we want to build a performance winning culture. One of those things is to look the same every week. 

“At the moment, that is 16 (wins). We don’t talk about that. We talk about how we go from a week-to-week perspective.”

The Demons kicked six goals to one in the opening term of Sunday’s match against West Coast to set up the 16.16 (112) to 5.8 (38) victory in front of 27,488 fans.

But the result was soured by a hamstring injury to midfielder James Harmes, who limped off in the final quarter.

Harmes’ replacement Kade Chandler is facing suspension for his pin-the-arms tackle that resulted in Luke Foley’s head being slammed to the turf.

“He’s shattered that he has had that impact,” Goodwin said of Chandler.

“It’s a difficult footy incident. It’s a chase-down tackle, at speed with lot of momentum. 

“I feel for the lad. But to Kade’s credit, he is upset about it.”

West Coast forward Liam Ryan is almost certain to be suspended for a bump to the head of Melbourne young gun Jake Bowey.

Ryan was subbed out in the final term with a hamstring injury.

Clayton Oliver (28 disposals, seven clearances) and Christian Petracca (28 disposals, two goals) cleaned up in the middle for Melbourne. Andrew Brayshaw (24 possessions) provided plenty of rebound from defence, while Tom McDonald (four goals), Kysaiah Pickett (three) and Bayley Fritsch (three) cashed in up forward.

Eagles midfielder Tim Kelly battled hard to win 32 disposals and five clearances, but West Coast’s on-ball brigade was overwhelmed.

The Eagles started the match without 11 of their best 22 players after Josh Kennedy (sore knee) was a late withdrawal, joining the likes of Nic Naitanui, Luke Shuey, Elliot Yeo, Andrew Gaff, Oscar Allen, Dom Sheed, Willie Rioli and Shannon Hurn on the sidelines.

The first-quarter stats were ugly and perfectly summed up Melbourne’s dominance.

The Demons won the inside-50 count (20-4), clearances (14-4), and contested possessions (40-28) on the way to winning the quarter 6.5 (41) to 1.0 (6).

West Coast stemmed the bleeding in the second and third terms, but Melbourne powered home its advantage with a seven-goal blitz in the last.

“We knew it was going to be a fair ask to come away with the victory, and in the first quarter we succumbed to their style, their pressure,” Simpson said.

“I thought for the most part after that, even though we got blown away late, we had some little wins throughout the day.”