At their very best, Simon Goodwin’s Demons would fight hand to hand, square metre by square metre. Their midfielders were like snorting bulls. Their ruckman was peerless. Their key defenders would patrol and gobble, deny and thwart. In just under an hour, it all came together in a flawless, torrential, still scarcely believable flood of goals.
At their very worst, Goodwin’s Demons were rigid, predictable, boring. They would blast and hope. They’d win the inside 50s and contested possession count and lose the match. While the rest of us stifled yawns, Goodwin would shrug his shoulders, shuffle his papers and talk about “learnings” and “contest and defence” and “honest conversations”. A week later, they’d be losing the same way and he’d be saying the same things.
