Why Houston's honest comments on the Demons should be the “catalyst for significant change”

Dan Houston’s confirmation that he opted not to join Melbourne due to the “unrest” at the club has Kane Cornes believing the Dees should be raising alarm bells internally.

The star defender joined Collingwood in the trade period as part of a three-club trade, but was originally set to join the Demons, something he confirmed on SEN on Thursday.

However, issues such as Christian Petracca’s desire to get out of the club, Clayton Oliver’s interest in joining Geelong, Joel Smith’s suspension and more led to Houston reconsidering his decision.

“I guess throughout the year there was a bit of unrest at Melbourne it seemed,” Houston told SEN’s The Run Home.

“I let my manager know that it probably wasn’t the best thing for me – I’d probably rather not go there and that sort of opened everything right up and that’s when it opened things up for everyone else and I had to go through the whole process again.”

Cornes believes the comments should reaffirm to the Dees how significant their cultural problems are and how much needs to change.

“That’s the alarm bell, and the Melbourne Football Club is aware of this. They would be dealing with players and managers all the time that would have similar concerns about the place,” Cornes told SEN Breakfast.

“That is the catalyst for significant change, you would think at Melbourne which they’re going through and we’ll wait to see what happens.

“But when your list and the strength of your team is affected by the off-field drama at your footy club, then there’s a significant issue.

“We know how even the competition is. Look at the way Geelong recruit every year. Even now Gold Coast is becoming a place where players want to go and play because of Damien Hardwick. Players are even wanting to join West Coast, Fremantle has loaded up, Adelaide got three good players – and Melbourne has gone ‘we have a group that should be ready to go, we should be ready to win now, but we’re missing pieces of the puzzle because of off-field issues and an issue with out culture that we have denied and refused to address’.

“They’re going to the draft and those players might be good in time, but there’s an amazing group of free agents coming out and they’re probably not in the mix for them.

“Dan Houston is an outstanding player and an upstanding citizen and an honest person, and for him to say he’s not going there for those reasons even though they had the best deal for Port Adelaide, alarm bells should be going off everywhere for the Demons.”

Melbourne will hit the draft with picks five and nine in a bid to add some top-end talent to their list.