4 minutes ago, KozzyCan said:

I would question what made our best player so disenchanted that he felt the desire to look elsewhere.

factor in near death experience, isolation, fear of career ending medical issues, family concerns, manager opportunism... need I continue?

3 minutes ago, waynewussell said:

factor in near death experience, isolation, fear of career ending medical issues, family concerns, manager opportunism... need I continue?

Do you think the club could have handled things any better there so that it didn't lead to him wanting out?

1 minute ago, KozzyCan said:

Do you think the club could have handled things any better there so that it didn't lead to him wanting out?

The club may have handled things better, with hindsight. I'm not sure Christian knew what he wanted. We are told he wanted improvements made. I believe he had opportunities to communicate what these improvements could be. The issues regarding Clayton and Tracca are difficult to interpret. They are long term teammates. I'm sure Christian is aware of the health issues that affect Clayton's behaviours. It is said that he has issues with the way the club processed these behaviours. I suggest there are circumstances here that are beyond Christian's ability to comprehend. 

Laughing at the Stringer trade never being in danger behind the scenes.

This bloke Robbie D'Orazior giving off major Biff Tannen energy. You can tell just by looking and listening to him speak, that him and Connors Sports MGMT are the bully's of the AFL trade landscape with Cornes now asking questions of Port Adelaide and being bullied into accepting a lowball offer by threat of their Agency who manage other players at Port.

Edited October 17, 2024Oct 17 by John Demonic

11 hours ago, waynewussell said:

Some of us are prepared to make a prediction without worrying about the facts. Just look at how many experts said we would be without Tracca, Ollie & Kossie in 2025. I've decided to be as dependent on data as they are!

“WITHOUT  WORRYING  ABOUT  THE      FACTS”  

That being the case, surely it is unreasonable for you to criticise anybody on this site who makes an unsupported statement or even just for expressing their opinion.

 

40 minutes ago, Abyssal said:

“WITHOUT  WORRYING  ABOUT  THE      FACTS”  

That being the case, surely it is unreasonable for you to criticise anybody on this site who makes an unsupported statement or even just for expressing their opinion.

 

I think you'll find that bird has flown! "One suspects that he is writing with tongue in cheek."

15 hours ago, Demonland said:

 

 

No wonder the club has been and still is, a complete laughingstock of the AFL. Things will never change. 

15 hours ago, Demonland said:

 

 

That absolutely stings as a Melbourne supporter to hear that.

The media were spot on in July. Houston was all but coming to the Dees.

Now we get to watch him rip it up for Collingwood and probably earn his third straight AA.

Hopefully this closes the chapter on a diabolical year or 2 and we can now start to regain some respect on and off the field.

14 hours ago, KozzyCan said:

I would question what made our best player so disenchanted that he felt the desire to look elsewhere.

A trauma event. 

1 hour ago, Demons123 said:

No wonder the club has been and still is, a complete laughingstock of the AFL. Things will never change. 

except for the flag in 21 ..oh and the 3 top finishes. 

I'm by no means all over this thread... But listening to that, and reading between the lines it sounds like he wanted to go home to Victoria and the Dees provided an avenue for him to pursue this idea further. He was then floated around to other clubs and we know what happened... Why wouldn't you want to go to Collingwood? In my opinion, he is using the unrest at the Dees to hide a lack of honesty throughout the process.

7 minutes ago, Strawberry Fields said:

I'm by no means all over this thread... But listening to that, and reading between the lines it sounds like he wanted to go home to Victoria and the Dees provided an avenue for him to pursue this idea further. He was then floated around to other clubs and we know what happened... Why wouldn't you want to go to Collingwood? In my opinion, he is using the unrest at the Dees to hide a lack of honesty throughout the process.

Mate he was all but a Dee until Trac decided to have a sook

1 hour ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

That absolutely stings as a Melbourne supporter to hear that.

The media were spot on in July. Houston was all but coming to the Dees.

Now we get to watch him rip it up for Collingwood and probably earn his third straight AA.

Hopefully this closes the chapter on a diabolical year or 2 and we can now start to regain some respect on and off the field.

Well said, mate. Being in the same management group as Petracca should also put to bed any discussion that all our issues we primarily media fabrications and hyperbole. 
 

Not only would the media open themselves up to legal action for lying and making up stories, so why would they?  Also, there is no doubt some of the leaks would have come from the management group themselves. 

Where there is smoke, there’s fire.

What’s done is done and in order to move forward, both the club and their fans just need to accept that a lot of [censored] ups happened and cannot be swept under the carpet hoping it would sort itself out. 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2024Oct 18 by VNightCityLegend

This wasn't really the media though - Houston and Tracc are managed by the same management so he would have more inside info than we got. 

8 minutes ago, Norm Smith's Curse said:

This wasn't really the media though - Houston and Tracc are managed by the same management so he would have more inside info than we got. 

I have no doubt 99% of the Media Stories come from The Player Management organizations. 
They would be aware of everything….

2 hours ago, Demons123 said:

No wonder the club has been and still is, a complete laughingstock of the AFL. Things will never change. 

This really angers me this.

Who is going to take responsibility for the "unrest" at Melbourne during the season?!

Will it be Gary Pert as CEO? Simon Goodwin the coach?

Who will be held accountable?

Hopefully this is also part of the external review of the Melbourne Football Club. What went wrong?

Anyway, it doesn't matter now.

Dan Houston is a Collingwood player. It is what it is. Gotta move on.

Let's just hope we draft some young superstars for the Demons with picks #5 and #9 in this year's AFL Draft.

We should give the “Brand” a big fat thak you for this.

I've said it many times that I didn't want to give up early picks for Houston, but let's not bury our collective heads in the sand and blame Trac. 

The club needs to address Trac's management concerns, because if we don't, this may be an ongoing occurrence.

I've always thought that Connors Management were always very reasonable, and never try to screw clubs.

If he's that easily spooked Collingwood are welcome to him. Bring on the draft. 

I'm happy we didn't get him.  Now we can recruit replacements for Oliver and Petracca

Edited October 18, 2024Oct 18 by greenwaves

Doesn’t like the things he heard about Melbourne, but walks to Collingwood with De Goey, their President stepping down, the CEO accused of continuing racism (especially damning given their recent history), Bolton running out the door as quick as he could, and Leppitsch acting like a complete maniac.

Also told Port fans 6 weeks ago he was staying put.

I get that we’ve handled ourselves extremely poorly over the last 12 months, but Dan can’t take any higher ground here. I’m glad we didn’t trade pick 5 and a future first for him. He’s a great player, but we could help solve much bigger issues with 2 highly competitive mids in this draft.

53 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

Doesn’t like the things he heard about Melbourne, but walks to Collingwood with De Goey, their President stepping down, the CEO accused of continuing racism (especially damning given their recent history), Bolton running out the door as quick as he could, and Leppitsch acting like a complete maniac.

Collingwood definitely have problems, but I guess our issues got the media attention while Collingwood flew under the radar

2 hours ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

If he's that easily spooked Collingwood are welcome to him. Bring on the draft. 

Exactly.  I heard his interview on SEN with maher and gaze. He's admitted to lying to his team mates and fans and seemed smug about it  -"..how clever am I fooling everyone..."

Admittedly lying is the AFL official language, Very ordinary character and didn't answer the difficult questions on Port or his own decisions.

Will fit in with the Pies nicely.

I hope Trac is happy. He could have squashed a lot of the rumours by speaking out early. 

Now he has played a big part in us missing a good player

For those with some knowledge - how much of the 'mess' is actual mess, and how much is media and player manager chatter?

Not certain on the timelines, but I'm sure Houston changing his mind was the same time that John Noble wanted out of the Pies, and given Connors knew Houston wanted out, not a stretch to think the Petracca 'drama' had other clubs looking to usurp us.