Mcvee

Brayshaw

Petracca

Oliver

Neale Bullen

Hogan

Just to name a few departures. Some pretty good players no longer with the club.

2 minutes ago, BKKBooga said:

Mcvee

Brayshaw

Petracca

Oliver

Neale Bullen

Hogan

Just to name a few departures. Some pretty good players no longer with the club.

Was thinking about the GF midfield composition just before.
Midfield of Petracca (Gold Coast), Oliver (GWS), Harmes (Dogs), Brayshaw (Medically Retired), Viney (Still here), Sparrow (Contract Expiring 2026) , Jordon (Swans)

Big turnover in the guts

Video from today's interview here:

From the horse's mouth: What your club said after the trade period - https://www.afl.com.au/news/1442227

16 minutes ago, BKKBooga said:

Mcvee

Brayshaw

Petracca

Oliver

Neale Bullen

Hogan

Just to name a few departures. Some pretty good players no longer with the club.

And more importantly Luke Jackson

I stand by what I’ve said. No humphrey no trac. He can come back.

33 minutes ago, BKKBooga said:

Mcvee

Brayshaw

Petracca

Oliver

Neale Bullen

Hogan

Just to name a few departures. Some pretty good players no longer with the club.

Stop naming Brayshaw. He’s retired. Let’s not pretend it’s anything else.

15 minutes ago, GawnOfTheDead said:

Stop naming Brayshaw. He’s retired. Let’s not pretend it’s anything else.

I'm also sick of hearing "in hindsight we should have" and really these lists of 'lost' players are irrelevant. Plenty of them of will be fondly remembered as 2025 gets smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror and our fortunes finally improve again. But really, apart from watching 2021 replays, it's time to move on and look forward to next year.

1 hour ago, GawnOfTheDead said:

Stop naming Brayshaw. He’s retired. Let’s not pretend it’s anything else.

Pedantic for the sake of being pedantic

As someone who has for some time been critical of the role played by Tim Lamb in the post 2021 period, I have to backtrack and say that in the past two weeks Lamb has achieved one of the greatest back-from-the-dead performances by a list manager in recent history and all credit to him.

This is the same guy who has made one mistake after another since 2021 - almost single-handedly bringing down the club whether it be a litany of terrible recruits from other clubs, the missed trade chances for draft deals (read Petty or the last two year's amazing deals to Gold Coast and Essendon for access to picks that saw us secure Tholstrop and Lindsay) or the incompetent decision to sign Oliver to a seven-year contract extension on massive money in 2022, a deal where he appeared to have no awareness or ignored significant off-field issues that already had surfaced with Clayton.

Even this year I was gobsmacked at his decision to sign Kossie for nine years, when a five-year deal on more money would have made more sense in my view.

However in the past three weeks he has been dealt with some tricky cards and while time, the new coach and luck with injuries will tell the full future story, I cannot but feel he has just made amends in the best and biggest possible way.

Sure we all loved Trac, but he clearly has not been happy with his lot at Melbourne since his life-threatening injury and the deal with Gold Coast is a cracker with us clear winners, although the Suns achieved two second-round picks that help their academy kid points cause. Don't forget, John Ralph was originally saying pick seven was all that we would get for Trac.

Sure Olly has been a superstar and a Goody favourite at the club since he arrived in 2015. His effort to win four best and fairests including the premiership year just shows what an inspired draft choice he became before his sad demise in the past two and a half years. On the surface we have all heard the positive spin-doctoring on him from Gawny and others on how Clayton had become a better person this year, but clearly that view was something of a smokescreen. King came in and effectively said he didn't want the unnecessary distraction and Lamb has had to make the best of the situation, fully knowing that once the "we're happy for him to look elsewhere," mandate went up, he was a lost cause as a trade bait scenario.

What was most pleasing was that for the first time in Lamb's reign, he stayed abreast of what was going on at other clubs. I suspect he made several calls to Kingy in the past week, checking to see if our new coach valued and rated Jiath and Steele. While nabbing Steele from the Saints for virtually nothing was no biggie given like Oliver, his club had expressed a desire to lose him, the acquisition of Jiath for pick 41 was mega impressive.

The Hawks would doubtless have asked Lamb for our pick 24 or 28 to help their Merrett chances and some would say that Jiath was worthy of that sort of pick. But Lamb stood his ground on those two picks and as a result we have a first-rounder for next year from the Suns. Even more pleasing was that Lamb only gave Jiath a three-year deal rather than getting caught up in a five-year push from his manager.

Earlier in the draft he had also addressed pressing list issues by recruiting a gutsy key forward in Mihocek, albeit one who is getting slower these days, and again he got the deal done without losing any significant draft collateral. Those with long memories will recall the Craig Turley at 30 first-round deal and based on Lamb's past indiscretions I had a real fear that he'd offer something overs. And he didn't fall for the uncontracted player loophole, which would have meant our pick 41 for Spargo was diluted.

He also addressed our future ruck stocks by securing Max Heath, again for virtually nothing. Heath has some great highlights from Sandringham and whilst he may well still fail to shape up to the AFL level, he is well-worth a stab - after all that's what we've been doing for over a decade now, I think we have now had 10 ruck stabs and all have been failures. Jackson and Grundy are not in that league - there was no punt involved in assessing their ability. I suspect Heath impressed Tom Campbell enough at Sandy in his time there and he would have provided a bit of intel on him. Regardless though, it solves the ruck back-up problem for a couple of years.

It's now over to Jason Taylor to see if he can snare a couple of classy kids with picks 7 and 8 and another handy one at 37 before adding White and Sinnema as rookies.

But I reckon Tim Lamb would have enjoyed a well-earned sleep last night. It was a phenomenal effort from him and one that I'm happy to admit, in Mark Neeld style, that I didn't see coming.

51 minutes ago, Deespicable said:

whether it be a litany of terrible recruits from other clubs,

Lamb isn’t our recruiting manager.

And that’s not the only thing you got wrong.

afl.com.au

Dees 'thrilled' as veteran joins late, club secures huge...

Melbourne list boss Tim Lamb discusses the departures of two club greats and what the future holds after a seismic trade period for the Demons

Wherein Lamb blows out of the water the notion that we weren't interested in this draft:

"We thought it was important to jump into these drafts as heavily as we could."

"In the early part of this draft we're super excited, there's some elite talent."