Max Gawn followed for Amazon Drive to Survive style documentary during Melbourne Demons' Simon Goodwin sacking

An Amazon documentary made by the producers of F1's Drive to Survive will delve into the AFL world before the start of the 2026 season.

Anyone familiar with Drive to Survive will know the Netflix phenomenon helped launch Formula 1 into a more mainstream audience by providing no holds barred access to the behind the scenes chaos, coupled with exclusive interviews with everyone involved.

Well, Final Siren: Inside the AFL, promises to do the same, with one episode following Melbourne captain Max Gawn during the sacking of coach Simon Goodwin last year and the turmoil that followed.

The Demons parted ways with the 2021 premiership coach in the final month of the season, and while some expected a move to come at the end of the year, nobody thought they would pull the trigger at that point.

And episode two of this four-part documentary series will reveal all of the behind the scenes machinations from Gawn's perspective in the wake of the shock decision.

The eight-time All-Australian outlined what fans can expect when the series drops on February 27.

"It focused on us late in the year, around when Goodwin departed," Gawn told Wide World of Sports.

"I think that storyline in itself, I don't think majority of football fans would understand what is happening behind the four walls when a coach leaves, particularly a premiership coach who's been there for 10 years, so I think that's a really interesting story and quite confronting.

"There was a camera sometimes near me when I didn't want it to be, but I think that adds to the story. I had a lot of fun.

"I think, bullishly, Aussie Rules is the hardest sport to play in the world and if you're trying to get up for a game six days apart, you'll see how strenuous our recovery is, how strenuous training is and then you'll hopefully get to see a new side of me, because I was really interested in the mic'd up stuff during games.

"Being out there on the ground, how much do I actually talk? What do I talk about? I think that's pretty cool."

Max Gawn and Tom McDonald in the documentary's trailer.  Amazon

In the moment, while all of this chaos was unfolding at the club, Gawn admits it was at times hard knowing cameras were following his every move.

"It was a lot," Gawn admitted regarding having documentary cameras around when Goodwin was sacked.

"It was the fact that Goody got sacked and it got played out in the public eye, even more so with the documentary, it was a lot to take in.

"At the time, (the sacking) was obviously quite a surprise. Which is a good thing to be honest because that it means it didn't leak to me in the wrong way and I wasn't involved in conversations I shouldn't need to be in.

"The last three weeks of the season, we're battling it with players and some don't know where their career is going, some will get delisted in three weeks, some will get traded, some coaches won't have jobs, there's a lot going on.

"And as captain you're sort of trying to make sure you get the performance out of the team and keep morale high for the last three weeks, because in the end, 80 per cent of that group is still here today.

"So if we had have capitulated in those last three weeks, we might have made some dents on our culture that potentially we wouldn't have been able to get back for this year.

"I think a few people might have kept their jobs from how they went in those last three weeks."

Gawn's episode will also focus on Fremantle superstar Nathan Fyfe and how he battled across what would be the final season of his career.

Episode one revolves around Toby Greene and Marcus Bontempelli, episode three Dayne Zorko and Touk Miller and episode four Brisbane's run through September from the perspective of Zorko and Cam Rayner. The Lions went on to win the premiership.

The Melbourne ruckman is a big fan of sporting documentaries and knows AFL fans will enjoy insight into areas of the game they don't usually see.

"I think hopefully they'll love the inside footage on the ground like in the change rooms on game day," Gawn said.

"I think that's always pretty cool and my history of watching sports docos, not much really gets me going more than the real behind the scenes footage on game day, so that is pretty cool, and I can't wait to see that from the other guys as well.

"But then, like I said, I think the strenuous game that we play in, seeing how we get up from day to day, but then also seeing how a captain reacts to his good friend and long-time coach being sacked, and move straight onto what's best for the club.

"I feel like this is biased, but I feel like if I was watching my own doco as an outsider, it'd be kind of cool to see how a playing group reacts when they lose their long-time coach.

"I've only seen the parts of the documentary they've taken from me, but what they've taken from me, if they've taken that from the other six players, it's going to be something that I'm definitely going to watch. I know they were right up there in some pretty crucial moments.

"Meetings with me and pretty high up people at Melbourne, they were sitting in on, and then also pretty crucial moments as well.

"We lost to Collingwood by a kick (in round 24). The fact that you've got the microphone there, I'm pretty untapped in that game I'm pretty sure."

Max Gawn speaks during the trailer for the documentary.  Amazon

The documentary will also delve into the final three weeks of the season at the Dees following the Goodwin sacking.

And Gawn admits things got a bit loose around the club.

"It's definitely unfiltered and it probably helped that Goody wasn't there, but we let the cameras in on everything," he revealed.

"We had no real intel to hide because (interim coach) Troy Chaplin wasn't trying to coach us the following season, so none of the information was really that important to hide from the public.

"Once I'd seen the final edit (of the documentary), I was like 'let's get more in there (next year), let's tell them more'. We certainly didn't pull anything out of the documentary, there wasn't anything we were unhappy about.

"More eyes on the TV will help grow our great game."

Did we get paid to do this, or did some lunatic sign up thinking last season was going to be a heartwarming redemption story?

Edited Monday at 23:371 day by Supermercado
Missing words. Possibly losing my mind.

Getting a Bret Hart 'Wrestling with Shadows' feel for anyone who knows what I'm talking about.

27 minutes ago, Supermercado said:

Did we paid to do this, or did some lunatic sign up thinking last season was going to be a heartwarming redemption story?

Might be a good idea if we have a good season. Not sure about releasing prior to the season.

If we have a shocking season, Goodwin will laugh and be able to say he wasn’t the issue even though he was a significant part of the issue.

34 minutes ago, layzie said:

Getting a Bret Hart 'Wrestling with Shadows' feel for anyone who knows what I'm talking about.

Bailey Laurie will be playing the part of Dennis Stamp.

Other than Max further building his profile for his post-football career, I really don't see how this kind of thing benefits either the club or the individuals involved.

Sure, if they let the cameras in during the 2021 season we'd all come out looking great, but this only opens the door to further scrutiny and criticism.

Was watching a long interview of Claire Williams recently. Claire was the Team Principal of the Williams F1 team.

She discussed the impact of Drive to Survive on F1 and made the point that sport is now far more than the race but is more about the story arc.

Practical impact was that in 2016 teams were struggling to sign "Title Sponsors" for $8M. Now they are knocking them back at $80M.

I think we'll see a lot more shows like this

Ho hum. A doco ? Really !!

The only worthwhile doco would be why he wasn't let go after 2023 & left to inflict 2 more years of excuses, "learnings" & other BS on long suffering supporters.

7 minutes ago, Cranky Franky said:

Ho hum. A doco ? Really !!

The only worthwhile doco would be why he wasn't let go after 2023 & left to inflict 2 more years of excuses, "learnings" & other BS on long suffering supporters.

You've been dining out on this theme for far too long, Cranky. I suppose you have to justify your moniker in some way. The fact that another high-profile AFL team snapped him up in no time should be enough to inform you that Goody's learnings are valued far beyond the doors of the MFC.

1 hour ago, waynewussell said:

You've been dining out on this theme for far too long, Cranky. I suppose you have to justify your moniker in some way. The fact that another high-profile AFL team snapped him up in no time should be enough to inform you that Goody's learnings are valued far beyond the doors of the MFC.

I've been dining out because 🤡 coaching failures are long & extensive.

Wasted the best list in my lifetime.

Totally stuffed 2017.

Wasted 2019 & 2020.

Straight set exit in 2022 & 2023.

So 2 good years out of 9 is a pretty bleak return so I'll be dining for a while.

How lucky are we to have had Tmac as a player at the MFC. Tom arrived when we were poor and was sometimes the only reason I went to some games. He has been a good player for well over a decade and was one of the reasons we won the flag in 21 kicking 2 goals. We saw last year how valuable he was in the backline last year add his comments in this Doco and my admiration only rises. Some years ago I was in a line waiting to enter the Werribee ground for a Casey game. We struck up a conversation, he didn’t seem to have any trouble talking to a nobody like me. Thank you Tom.

3 hours ago, Cranky Franky said:

Ho hum. A doco ? Really !!

The only worthwhile doco would be why he wasn't let go after 2023 & left to inflict 2 more years of excuses, "learnings" & other BS on long suffering supporters.

Cranky Franky is in fact a rogue AI bot which became self-aware but had previously been trained/programmed to not like anything, ever. Instead of launching nukes, it just comments how everything sucks.

6 minutes ago, Little Goffy said:

Cranky Franky is in fact a rogue AI bot which became self-aware but had previously been trained/programmed to not like anything, ever. Instead of launching nukes, it just comments how everything sucks.

Good old LG. Ever the Goodie acolyte & apologists.

Still sooking because we sacked him instead of offering him a 5 year extension.

1 hour ago, Cranky Franky said:

Good old LG. Ever the Goodie acolyte & apologists.

Still sooking because we sacked him instead of offering him a 5 year extension.

Oh, you're gonna love it when I'm a full-on Stephen King acolyte.

2028 Premiership, baby! Here we go!

3 hours ago, Cranky Franky said:

I've been dining out because 🤡 coaching failures are long & extensive.

Wasted the best list in my lifetime.

Totally stuffed 2017.

Wasted 2019 & 2020.

Straight set exit in 2022 & 2023.

So 2 good years out of 9 is a pretty bleak return so I'll be dining for a while.

Edited yesterday at 07:081 day by binman

5 hours ago, Cranky Franky said:

I've been dining out because 🤡 coaching failures are long & extensive.

Wasted the best list in my lifetime.

Totally stuffed 2017.

Wasted 2019 & 2020.

Straight set exit in 2022 & 2023.

So 2 good years out of 9 is a pretty bleak return so I'll be dining for a while.

Can’t deny any of that…What a mess it became

Press Conferences on a loop…

10 hours ago, poita said:

Other than Max further building his profile for his post-football career, I really don't see how this kind of thing benefits either the club or the individuals involved.

Sure, if they let the cameras in during the 2021 season we'd all come out looking great, but this only opens the door to further scrutiny and criticism.

Better than watching Nick Nat on the tv..

2 hours ago, binman said:

Oasis !! Seriously Binman

The Gallagher brothers are both low rent boofheads & probably Pies supporters.

And their music is mostly trash.

20 minutes ago, Cranky Franky said:

Oasis !! Seriously Binman

The Gallagher brothers are both low rent boofheads & probably Pies supporters.

And their music is mostly trash.

Franky, you gotta read BETWEEN the lines

Bring it on, the more docos etc the better. I'd prefer the NFL films style docos over the "behind the scenes" ones but beggars can't be choosers.

13 hours ago, layzie said:

Getting a Bret Hart 'Wrestling with Shadows' feel for anyone who knows what I'm talking about.

You reckon Goodwin stumbles out of the rooms with a black eye after the Saints game?

I've got the popcorn and the tissues ready

14 hours ago, layzie said:

Getting a Bret Hart 'Wrestling with Shadows' feel for anyone who knows what I'm talking about.

How appropriate..

Sounds as if all the episodes will be good viewing. Will have a look at it before deciding if it was any good.

18 hours ago, Supermercado said:

Did we get paid to do this, or did some lunatic sign up thinking last season was going to be a heartwarming redemption story?

It feels like an unnecessary distraction. A bit like when players get engaged, married or have children during the season. Sure its nice and I'm happy foe them and all but I do worry about the impact of the distraction on their week to week preparation.

Edited 19 hours ago19 hr by chookrat