From the boardroom to the gameplan to the post-match grab, the default position at the Melbourne Football Club is defence. The coach mentions it every time he speaks. “Con-test and dee-fence”, he says. Whenever a story flares up, and the Demons have been fighting fires on multiple fronts for several years now, their instinct is always to deny, to thwart, to block.
Even in recent weeks, as stories swirled about Christian Petracca’s desire to play elsewhere, the club stonewalled. No way Christian – you’re contracted for five more years, you’re our most important player and you’ll be playing at Carlton or Collingwood over our dead body.
