Max Gawn in the spotlight while Melbourne’s demons fight with Winless Start

“And you say, be my love, open your heart, let the light shine.”

Later that night, unbeknownst to none of us then, Andrew Krakouer, the former Tiger footballer, Magpie and Swan Districts, has undergone a heart attack and died. He was 42 years old.

In the days that followed, a different type of wonder would enter, the worst type … it went too early. “You feel the waves crash …”

For all that was as a footballer and Andrew was a serious footballer, his delicate grace was a symbol of redemption and resilience. Being in his presence was to feel his sincerity. His kindness.

As is the path of life, the days approach each other, the chaos of life in the city stealing time from the external and internal worlds that we live in. For many of us, Footy is the distraction of choice. And that’s how it was for me this week. On Wednesday, I had officially consumed the family with my obsession with Hay Colin who made the speakers explode. Now I was resorting to the headphones. Once again, my thoughts have been drift to demons.

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When a team, like Melbourne, is in collapse, human instinct is to divide the problem towards the individual parts to be resolved individually. It is easy to be overwhelmed where to start.

Have our skills abandon us? Are our stars completely busy? Is our forward training up to par? How do you A captain, like Max Gawnsweep all this information, problems of both the head and the heart and put them back together and align the team?

“Managing with the facts, driving with the heart”, it was as I was put once. I have always liked the sound of this. Sometimes leadership is a performance before performance.

The truth is that many park players could complete an AFL pre-stage; They could even put around some games together of League Footy, given the possibility. What separates them from the really good ones, the adequate league players, is this: can you perform this week? Can you perform when the chips are down?

It is a week for the leaders of Melbourne, this cannot be circumvented, which does not mean saying that no one else is out of the head. Those of influence on demons must inspire an effort that drags a critical mass on the altruistic side of the swing.

There is a nice menu of footy clichés offered by Simon Goodwin and CO from which to choose, but you could make worse than “playing your role”, but it must be with fanaticism and must all be.

Max has already shown himself. So many times. But I wonder how he approached his role this week within that football club. I wonder if he left the script at any phase, he stopped in front of them, keeping his space with balance and painted a verbal image to calm the noise from the outside and say: “Be here now, forget the past, your mask is worn thin; let us throw another nut, I know we can win”.