Melbourne are the real deal. This under the radar move proves it

Melbourne great Garry Lyon has praised the selfless transformation of Angus Brayshaw who, along with some of his teammates, have finally got the side realising its enormous potential.

The Dees were brilliant in dismantling the Western Bulldogs by 28 points at Marvel Stadium on Friday night, with the gun trio of Max Gawn, Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca starring once again.

For Lyon, however, it was the team-first attitude of 25-year-old Brayshaw, who is now playing a role on the wing after repeated attempts to break into the midfield, that had him most impressed.

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“There’s lots of storylines we can follow, we know the big name superstars in this side and they are superstars … I think this is a win for the role-players,” he told Fox Footy post-game.

“You can go through it, Clayton Oliver has had a nice night, Max Gawn has been great, (Bailey) Fritsch and (Tom) McDonald kicked goals, (Sam) Weideman got his hands on it towards the end, but I think there’s a role playing story to be told tonight, and I think they’ll take great joy out of it.”

Lyon’s co-host, St Kilda legend Nick Riewoldt, agreed that it was those around the star players that had lifted their output in their desire for team success.

“You can‘t undersell that because they’ve had the stars there and the stars are doing their thing, but they’ve been doing their thing for five years … what they haven’t had is the players being willing to embrace a role and execute a role and I don’t think they’ve had the value of role player until this year,” he said.

“Angus Brayshaw is a player we spoke a lot about during the broadcast tonight. His willingness to accept that he’s not the man on the inside anymore that he probably wanted to be a couple of years ago and I think it’s indicative of the rest of the side and the growth.”

It led to a ringing endorsement from Lyon of Brayshaw, who finished the night with just 13 touches but played a vital role in the side’s win over the ladder leaders.

“I think he‘s the poster boy. If you want to you want to tell the story, he was disappointed that he wasn’t getting midfield minutes disappointed that he wasn’t an inside midfielder, on occasions he’d go in and play really well,” he said.

Jake Lever and Steven May celebrate the win (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

“He’s accepted that’s not going to be his lot and he’s gone and played tonight and didn’t get 38, didn’t get 15 marks but played his role to perfection while the rest of them went about their business.

“You’ve got Langdon one side and him on the other, accepting of the team, accepting what’s best for the team. I think there’s the poster boy for it right there.”

Former Brisbane Lions spearhead Jonathan Brown said the cultural shift was not only noticeable, but similar to the maturation his side underwent before it became one of the greatest teams of the modern era, winning three straight premierships to start the 21st century.

“It spreads through the team. I‘m a big believer in this, I’ve seen it first-hand,” he said.

“Our success at the Lions, the lesson we learnt from our coach Leigh Matthews was we only became great when guys were willing to accept their role and maybe it’s a lesser role from the outside but willing to accept their role within that team, and that’s when finally we became a good team.

“We had plenty of stars in that team, but I think everyone wanted to be the star, and you’re seeing that transformation of Melbourne. We’ve never doubted they’ve got the right talent, and they’ve started to embrace that.

“Ultimately those individuals get rewarded. Brayshaw might be standing on a premiership dais at the end of the year, he gets rewarded as an individual.”

Speaking after the game, Melbourne’s backline enforcer Steven May was able to pinpoint that very change as one that had spurred the side to a determined off-season and a remarkable 10-1 start to the season.

“The last 10 weeks in the hub (last year), I think we sort of reset and wanted to stand for something, even though we were a slight chance to play finals,” he told Fox Footy.

“But the main two things were: You need to be able to execute your role, no matter what that is, and buy-in to team defence. Two simple values that we hold pretty highly and we made it pretty clear if you want to execute those roles, you‘re going to have a spot in the team.

“I think it‘s great to see guys like Charlie Spargo and Bayley Fritsch and James Jordon – all these guys, you probably don’t talk about as much, but they’re so big in our team defence and our contested ball. It really does help the rest of us.”

May’s words were music to the ears of Riewoldt, smacking of a culture that was giving itself every chance to achieve the ultimate success.

“When you hear that, I get jealous that I’m not playing anymore. When you stumble upon that as a group, that’s when footy is at its absolute best in a team environment. That’s a proper team environment,” he said.

“Right now Melbourne have got that feeling (of a great team). The talk coming out of them is one of a true team.”