{"id":341197,"date":"2025-12-11T07:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T07:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/341197\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T07:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T07:29:09","slug":"max-gawn-clears-the-air-on-captaincy-and-scary-change-at-melbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/341197\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Gawn clears the air on captaincy and \u2018scary\u2019 change at Melbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Gawn will be happy if the wholesale change at Melbourne does not extend to their AFL<\/a> captaincy.<\/p>\n

While Gawn is prepared to stand down from the role if asked, it has helped make him one of the greatest players in the Demons\u2019 history.<\/p>\n

He was joint captain from 2017-19 and has held the role on his own since 2020, leading Melbourne to their drought-breaking 2021 premiership.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

Gawn has also been All Australian captain and is a much-respected figure in the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever the club needs … I have no real ego in having that \u2018C\u2019 next to my name,\u201d he told reporters on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the club feels like it\u2019s best to push on in a different way, I\u2019m more than happy to get behind it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they want a bit of continuity, because there\u2019s been a lot of change at the football club, I\u2019m happy to get behind that as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love being captain \u2014 it truly is a special role … being the oldest club in the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with sacking coach Simon Goodwin this year and replacing him with Steven King, the Demons have traded out Christian Petracca, Clayton Oliver, Charlie Spargo and Judd McVee.<\/p>\n

\u201cChange can be scary \u2014 I was scared as an eight-time All-Australian captain about a new coach coming in and if he\u2019s going to like me,\u201d Gawn told AAP.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine what the rest of the group was feeling like.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was obviously some anxiety around the change. But it\u2019s funny … as soon as change happens and you come back the next day, you go \u2018oh, this is lovely, this is great\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018And that\u2019s what has happened. I\u2019d love to still have Goody and Trac and Clarrie and Judd McVee and Spargo here, but they\u2019re not and it\u2019s still an exciting place to walk into.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s given me at 34, after doing a 10-year campaign of one coach, another little burst of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gawn said he had made \u201ca good start\u201d with King, although he is waiting for the first \u201cspray\u201d from their new coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe hasn\u2019t yelled yet. I\u2019m waiting for the yell,\u201d Gawn said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

AFL legend\u2019s son Tom Silvagni identified in high-profile rape case<\/p>\n

3 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Max Gawn gives answer to Victoria\u2019s captaincy conundrum<\/p>\n

3 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Gawn will be happy if the wholesale change at Melbourne does not extend to their AFL captaincy.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,7804,588,85],"class_list":["post-341197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-melbourne-demons","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}