Simon Goodwin

Simon Goodwin (born 26 December 1976) is a retired Australian rules football player and coach, who played 275 games for the Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He went on to become the interim senior coach of the Essendon Football Club in 2013 and the senior coach of the Melbourne Football Club between 2017 and 2025, helping lead the club to its first premiership in 57 years in 2021.

Throughout his playing career, Goodwin was a high-achieving midfielder who earnt multiple All-Australian selections and best and fairests. He captained the club for three seasons before retiring at the end of the 2010 season. He won two premierships with the Crows in 1997 and 1998. As coach of Melbourne, Goodwin led the Demons back into the finals in 2018, before coaching the side to premiership success three years later. His tenure as coach ended in August 2025, three weeks out from the end of the season, following successive years in which the club failed to initially win and later qualify for finals.

Goodwin was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame as a player in 2017.

Playing career Adelaide Crows Early career (1996–1999) Prior to embarking on his AFL career, Goodwin was an accomplished junior cricketer, co-captaining the South Australian Under-19 cricket team. Recruited from South Adelaide in the SANFL with pick No. 18 in the 1996 Pre-season Draft, Goodwin made his debut for Adelaide Crows in Round 1, 1997, but his game was marred by a severe quadriceps injury which kept him out for months.

Goodwin returned to the side in Round 14 to face West Coast, holding his position until he was omitted following the Round 18 victory over Carlton at Football Park. Goodwin earned a recall prior to the beginning of the 1997 finals series, returning solid performances in all four of Adelaide's wins, including 19 possessions and a goal in the victorious 1997 Grand Final.

Captaincy (2008–2010) In early December 2007, Goodwin was named the captain for Adelaide for the 2008 football season. This coincided with a move into the forward line to allow the club's young midfielders to gain experience and bolster a struggling attack. The move paid dividends with Goodwin enjoying a career-best seven-goal haul in Adelaide's crushing Round 2 victory over the West Coast Eagles. In later matches, Goodwin was rotated between the forward and back half, increasingly the latter in order to allow young forwards to stake their claims for a permanent spot. He briefly took over as Essendon's caretaker senior coach for the final round of the 2013 season, following the 12-month suspension handed to James Hird as a result of the Essendon supplements saga. In his only game at the helm, Essendon lost to Richmond by 39 points.

On 10 October 2013, Goodwin was promoted to the role of senior assistant coach for the 2014 season, following Mark Thompson's appointment as interim senior coach for the period of Hird's suspension.

Melbourne Football Club On 18 September 2014, Goodwin signed a five-year contract with the Melbourne Football Club. He served for two years as an assistant coach under senior coach Paul Roos before taking over as senior coach for three years from 2017 in a succession plan. After a ninth-place finish in 2017, Goodwin led the club to its first finals series in twelve years in 2018. Melbourne reached the preliminary final, where they lost to eventual premiers West Coast by sixty-six points at Optus Stadium.

After falling to second-last in 2019 and narrowly missing out on the finals in the shortened 2020 season, Melbourne under Goodwin surged forward in 2021, winning their first nine games, their best unbeaten start to a season since 1956, and never finished a round lower than fourth on the ladder. Melbourne won their first minor premiership since 1964 — then their most recent premiership season — and advanced to their first Grand Final since 2000, prior to which Goodwin was named AFLCA Coach of the Year. In the 2021 AFL Grand Final against the Western Bulldogs, Goodwin's Demons started well, but faltered in the second and early in the third quarter and trailed by as much as nineteen points. Melbourne then put together a massive turnaround, scoring the next twelve goals en route to a 74-point victory, claiming their thirteenth flag and ending their 57-year premiership drought.

Melbourne's premiership success prompted several in the football media industry to canvass the possibility of a "dynasty side" capable of winning multiple premierships. Under Goodwin the side registered top-four finishes in both 2022 and 2023 and qualified for finals, though on both occasions were defeated in straight sets, becoming the first club to suffer the fate since the top-eight finals system was adopted in 2000. Goodwin was then replaced by assistant coach Troy Chaplin as caretaker senior coach of Melbourne Football Club for the remainder of the 2025 AFL season.

Sydney Swans On September 19, 2025, Goodwin was announced as the Sydney Swans' Director of Coaching and Performance for the 2026 AFL season under senior coach Dean Cox.

Statistics

Playing statistics

275 !! 162 !! 135 !! 3326 !! 2417 !! 5743 !! 1098 !! 698 !! 0.6 !! 0.5 !! 12.1 !! 8.8 !! 20.9 !! 4.0 !! 2.5 !! 74

Coaching statistics Updated to the end of 2024. Caretaker coach

Honours and achievements Playing honours Team 2× AFL premiership player : 1997, 1998 McClelland Trophy : 2005 AFL Pre-Season Cup : 2003

Individual AFLCA Champion Player of the Year Award: 2006 5× All-Australian team: 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2009 Adelaide Captain: 2008–2010 3× Malcolm Blight Medal: 2000, 2005, 2006 Dream Team representative honours in AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match 2× Australian international rules football team: 2000, 2001 State of Origin (South Australia): 1998 Michael Tuck Medal: 2006 Showdown Medal: 2005 (Round 20), 2007 (Round 18) Australian Football Hall of Fame inductee: 2017 Adelaide Team of the Decade 1991–2000

Coaching honours Team AFL Premiership coach : 2021 McClelland Trophy : 2021

Individual Jock McHale Medal: 2021 All-Australian team: 2021 AFLCA Allan Jeans Senior Coach of the Year Award: 2021