LAST YEAR was a period of growth for Melbourne forward Bayley Fritsch.

He had a change of mindset, an adjustment of priorities, and of course, a new senior coach.

In a season where both his own form and the form of the Melbourne forward line was under scrutiny, it was time to shake things up.

“It was a year of a lot of learning,” Fritsch said.

“We also weren't playing well as a group either, so that obviously made it tough. I learned a lot and we learned a lot as a forward line.

“I think those lessons will probably hold us in great stead going into this year.

“We've been able to build a bit of cohesion together this pre-season, we’ve got a couple of young bulls in van Rooyen and Jefferson that have had huge pre-seasons.

“I'm really excited to see where not only I can take my footy, but where we can take our footy as a forward line.”

A turning point for the Demon was following Round 6, where he hit a form slump and spent a week in the VFL.  

As someone who hadn’t missed a game of senior footy (excluding injury setbacks) since 2020, this one-week stint was enough of a wake-up call for the 29-year-old to implement some changes.

“I tapped into mindset training,” Fritsch said.

“I focused on using experiences and watching things that I'd done in the past to instill more confidence in myself.

“I think I’d lost a little bit of confidence, obviously playing a bout of bad footy.

“I watched some vision, wrote notes and did a bit of diary work, which is something that I probably didn't really believe in for a period of time throughout my career.

As a forward, having the right mindset is an important aspect to the craft.

Having played at the top level for nearly nine years now, Fritsch has learned that the right mindset can just be about not letting the highs and lows of a match directly impact your own game.

“As a forward, sometimes you can go out there and you can get plenty of the ball and kick heaps of goals,” Fritsch said.

“Then there’s times you can be running the exact same patterns and do all the same things and it’s not the same result.

“You have to learn to take the good with the bad and stay in that right mindset, making sure that when your chance comes, that you're ready to take it and do what you can for the team.”

Readjusting his outlook on football was key for the Demon in the back half of the season and in preparation for 2026.

However, it wasn’t the only thing that made Fritsch grow as both a footballer and a person.  

In April, Fritsch became a first-time dad and the journey of fatherhood provided a fresh prospective on life.

“It's something that I spoke about last season, about how [becoming a father] might impact my footy and realigning myself to that new lifestyle,” Fritsch said.

“I'd heard from all my teammates who have kids that when you go home, it doesn't matter what happened at footy that day and I definitely get that perspective now.

“[My son] is 10 months old now and when I walk through the door after work, he crawls straight up to me and it’s just an unbelievable feeling.”

The back half of 2025 was an important time for change for not only Fritsch, but Melbourne’s AFL team, who saw Simon Goodwin depart as senior coach.

Having spent all of his AFL career playing under Goodwin, Fritsch admitted it was an unusual feeling heading into this year’s pre-season.

“There was a little bit of the unknown coming into this season and to be honest, it put a fire in my belly,” Fritsch said.

“We pretty much have a whole new coaching group, four or five new coaches, and then there’s ten new players on the list, so it feels like a new club, which is kind of cool after the couple of years we’ve had.

“Kingy has come in and implemented what he wants from us. He’s given us a little bit of freedom with the ball in hand. I think from a game point of view, we’re really attacking and that’s really exciting for me as a forward.

“I’ve had an injury free pre-season and even though I'm 29, I’m still striving to get better every day and I'm really excited to go into my ninth season now.

“Kingy has said that it’s a clean slate for Round 1 and I think that's what it should be every year. People have bad weeks, bad years, but we all just want to be the best team we can be. When Round 1 comes, Kingy’s best team will roll out and I’m backing him in.”