HARVEY Langford and Caleb Windsor, come on down.
Melbourne will start its 2026 season with an unrecognisable midfield from the engine room that steered it towards the 2021 premiership and the many years before and since that drought-breaking flag.
Christian Petracca wanted to go and was traded to Gold Coast. Clayton Oliver was told to look around and headed to Greater Western Sydney. They were big calls given the pair's long history as club champions but change was right for all parties.
But now, Jack Viney will also be missing for at least half a season after undergoing Achilles surgery on Tuesday, to go with a recent back injury that has ruined his pre-season.
New coach Steven King has known this time was coming and the Demons will start this season throwing the responsibility to a new group.
They added former St Kilda captain Jack Steele in a deadline day trade for a third-round pick – essentially swapping Oliver for Steele – and he will add experience with Viney out.
But the shift away from Petracca and Oliver had already started to happen last year, when matchwinner Kysaiah Pickett attended the third most centre bounces for the Dees (388) and had an average of 19.4 per game (equal second with Viney behind Oliver).
Pickett will again be a midfield and forward half mainstay under King, having produced a career-best campaign last year. Champion Data showed between rounds four and 23, he was the No.1 centre bounce player at the club and remained the No.1 player at Melbourne and No.6 player in the AFL for total scoreboard impact over that period too.
Then there was his touch as well, with 86.7 per cent of those leading to a clearance for Melbourne. Only Marcus Bontempelli had a higher rate of the top 75 first-possession players.
Trent Rivers and top-10 draft picks Windsor and Langford are set to get more opportunity around the ball. They're ready for it.
The Demons won a clearance 53.5 per cent of the time Rivers attended a centre bounce last year – which ranked as the best percentage of the top 125 attendees in the AFL. The majority of his midfield work was done in the middle of last season before returning largely to half-back (his season breakdown was 67 per cent game time as a defender), but expect to see him again at the feet of Max Gawn through this season.
Windsor had disruptions last year but the wiry, pacy talent didn't attend a centre bounce until round 20. Three games of midfield presence has lit the fuse for the pre-season and the 20-year-old has made bounds over summer.
Langford, the Dees' prized No.6 pick at the 2024 draft, finished fourth in the Telstra AFL Rising Star last year in his debut season but the Demons will have budgeted for him to hone in on an inside midfield position during their Trade Period moves last year.
Certainly Langford will feel ready, with the Melbourne No.4 having the size and strength to take things up a notch after being sixth in line on the Demons' centre bounce attendances last season, and then there is Tom Sparrow, who had even less centre bounce exposure than Langford last season but will be one of the most experienced players in the Melbourne midfield this year.
Xavier Lindsay started his career last season playing outside of the square but dominated his draft year around the ball and that also looks his long-term projection, with King's first year at the helm giving him a chance to mix and match the best group to fit the Dees.
The change would have been on King's agenda before Viney's interrupted summer. Champion Data's statistics show Viney's first possession to clearance rate at 66.3 per cent was the second lowest of the top 75 players, with Oliver the fourth lowest in that list last year.
In 2021, 2022 and 2024, the Demons' most used midfield combination next to Gawn was Petracca, Oliver and Viney. In 2023, Angus Brayshaw leapt ahead of Oliver but Petracca and Viney remained in the top three, while last year Pickett was in third place alongside Petracca and Oliver. A new dawn awaits Gawn.