{"id":597809,"date":"2026-04-10T11:50:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T11:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/597809\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T11:50:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T11:50:19","slug":"afl-news-2026-simon-goodwin-interview-new-role-at-sydney-swans-melbourne-demons-axing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/597809\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026 | Simon Goodwin interview, new role at Sydney Swans; Melbourne Demons axing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Mebourne Demons coach Simon Goodwin<\/a> believes the “urge” to return as a senior coach will likely come back as he continues to settle into his new role at Sydney<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Goodwin started at the Swans this season as the director of coaching and performance after he was sacked by Melbourne<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The premiership-winning head coach’s departure was part of a fresh reset at the club with the likes of Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca also moving on.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Swimming Australia breaks Olympic tradition in plot to slay USA<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Joey reveals hurdle that will stop Cleary’s touted UK move<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Icon joins chorus against AFL’s ‘ridiculous’ wildcard round<\/a><\/p>\n

Goodwin had to deal with messy board and administration departures along with reports around a poor club culture.<\/p>\n

\"Simon<\/p>\n

Simon Goodwin during his time at Melbourne. \u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald<\/a>, Goodwin spoke openly about his new role and why he took it up.<\/p>\n

“For me, it was about staying in coaching,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Coaching’s what I love. I love high performance. I love the competitive nature of it. I love the challenge of being in an environment that’s difficult and trying to create success. I didn’t want to miss that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I also wanted to make sure I was in an environment that was unique and different. And Sydney no doubt brings that: the lifestyle, but also the culture that the club has was just so appealing to come and be a part of.”<\/p>\n

Goodwin went on to admit that “at some stage” he thinks the urge to be the boss will return.<\/p>\n

“I’m enjoying just taking a step back and looking at coaching holistically, and working with a young senior coach in Coxy (Dean Cox). I really love that – but I’m sure that urge will come at some stage,” he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Simon Goodwin in Sydney kit. \u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

“In the meantime, it’s certainly not at the forefront of my mind. I want to get better myself and keep enjoying what I’m doing here. I love to Swans and I want to do something pretty unique and special here first.”<\/p>\n

The 49-year-old spoke about the difficulties around his time at Melbourne where the expectations heightened after premiership success.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Goodwin fell victim to the intense scrutiny around the job and admitted “the hardest thing” was how it impacted his family.<\/p>\n

“You sort of bring it home a little bit, but I wouldn’t take it back for anything,” he said.<\/p>\n

“There’s an intensity in our industry that’s really, really high. That’s not changing. That’s a big part of what you love about our game as well. When you’re going well, there’s a lot of praise. When you’re not going well, there’s a lot of criticism.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Mebourne Demons coach Simon Goodwin believes the “urge” to return as a senior coach will likely come…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-597809","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597809","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=597809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}