Not sure why but CP often takes a while to impact games.

He seems slow at first to get involved.

To his credit his second half efforts often change games

But some more consistency would be better.

Does he want to be there? Body language suggests otherwise

I love Trac. I’ve met him several times and he’s always been a great personality and with my kids when they’ve met him. He brought real star power to the team, an elite player over many years and was amazing in our GF win in 2021.

I think his recovery this year has been great. It was a traumatic experience and he had to take time to mentally and physically recover.

But there are glaring weaknesses to his game that were at higher output and performance to where he has slipped from being one of the very best, an A grader to being a very good player

1. he simply fumbles and fumbles and stumbles too much now. The fumbling is definitely a problem. Not sure why? Pressure?? He even goes to ground in key moments when he was always so strong over the footy

2. Goalkicking? He looks nervous. Uncertain. Would like to do anything but kick the goal ? The constant looking up at the scoreboard or spinning the ball countless times simply cannot be good and it shows. He is on track again for more behinds than goals.

3. Tackling pressure. Despite the max Viney jujitsu training, Trac’s tackling is poor. Players break his tackles too easily. It’s something to work on and bring back.

I’m in the minority perhaps that really wants TRAC to stay in red and blue. I know many want him gone for picks (in a weakened draft pool year) but I say he needs to focus now on the above keys and get back to an A grade weapon in our team. @george_on_the_outer @picket fence @adonski

Edited 20 hours ago20 hr by spirit of norm smith
O

1 minute ago, spirit of norm smith said:

I love Trac. I’ve met him several times and he’s always been a great personality and with my kids when they’ve met him. He brought real star power to the team, an elite player over many years and was amazing in our GF win in 2021.

I think his recovery this year has been great. It was a traumatic experience and he had to take time to mentally and physically recover.

But there are glaring weaknesses to his game that were at higher output and performance to where he has slipped from being one of the very best, an A grader to being a very good player

1. he simply fumbles and fumbles and stumbles too much now. The fumbling is definitely a problem. Not sure why? Pressure?? He even goes to ground in key moments when he was always so strong over the footy

2. Goalkicking? He looks nervous. Uncertain. Would like to do anything but kick the goal ? The constant looking up at the scoreboard or spinning the ball countless times simply cannot be good and it shows. He is on track again for more behinds than goals.

3. Tackling pressure. Despite the max Viney jujitsu training, Trac’s tackling is poor. Players break his tackles too easily. It’s something to work on and bring back.

I’m in the minority perhaps that really wants TRAC to stay in red and blue. I know many want him gone for picks (in a weakened draft pool year) but I say he needs to focus now on the above keys and get back to an A grade weapon in our team.

Hes getting there. Yes, please stay.

2 minutes ago, spirit of norm smith said:

I love Trac. I’ve met him several times and he’s always been a great personality and with my kids when they’ve met him. He brought real star power to the team, an elite player over many years and was amazing in our GF win in 2021.

I think his recovery this year has been great. It was a traumatic experience and he had to take time to mentally and physically recover.

But there are glaring weaknesses to his game that were at higher output and performance to where he has slipped from being one of the very best, an A grader to being a very good player

1. he simply fumbles and fumbles and stumbles too much now. The fumbling is definitely a problem. Not sure why? Pressure?? He even goes to ground in key moments when he was always so strong over the footy

2. Goalkicking? He looks nervous. Uncertain. Would like to do anything but kick the goal ? The constant looking up at the scoreboard or spinning the ball countless times simply cannot be good and it shows. He is on track again for more behinds than goals.

3. Tackling pressure. Despite the max Viney jujitsu training, Trac’s tackling is poor. Players break his tackles too easily. It’s something to work on and bring back.

I’m in the minority perhaps that really wants TRAC to stay in red and blue. I know many want him gone for picks (in a weakened draft pool year) but I say he needs to focus now on the above keys and get back to an A grade weapon in our team. @george_on_the_outer @picket fence @adonski

I wouldn't be 'selling' him, but I would trade him if a compelling offer came through (x 2 first round picks)

Hard to see Buckley (?) wanting him gone

5 minutes ago, spirit of norm smith said:

I love Trac. I’ve met him several times and he’s always been a great personality and with my kids when they’ve met him. He brought real star power to the team, an elite player over many years and was amazing in our GF win in 2021.

I think his recovery this year has been great. It was a traumatic experience and he had to take time to mentally and physically recover.

But there are glaring weaknesses to his game that were at higher output and performance to where he has slipped from being one of the very best, an A grader to being a very good player

1. he simply fumbles and fumbles and stumbles too much now. The fumbling is definitely a problem. Not sure why? Pressure?? He even goes to ground in key moments when he was always so strong over the footy

2. Goalkicking? He looks nervous. Uncertain. Would like to do anything but kick the goal ? The constant looking up at the scoreboard or spinning the ball countless times simply cannot be good and it shows. He is on track again for more behinds than goals.

3. Tackling pressure. Despite the max Viney jujitsu training, Trac’s tackling is poor. Players break his tackles too easily. It’s something to work on and bring back.

I’m in the minority perhaps that really wants TRAC to stay in red and blue. I know many want him gone for picks (in a weakened draft pool year) but I say he needs to focus now on the above keys and get back to an A grade weapon in our team. @george_on_the_outer @picket fence @adonski

I want to keep him as long as he wants to be here

8 minutes ago, adonski said:

I wouldn't be 'selling' him, but I would trade him if a compelling offer came through (x 2 first round picks)

Hard to see Buckley (?) wanting him gone

Buckley will make him and all our midfield better players. Heard him saying a top tier midfielder might have five moves to get out of a pack. A battler just one and a very good player somewhere in the middle. I found that fascinating as in my youth we were only taught the old fashioned sidestep or change straight ahead into the pack.

Its about teaching skills from people with the skillset.

Edited 20 hours ago20 hr by 48 Year Now

Pre-spleening he was explicitly kept to lower minutes and less midfield time in the first half and early in quarters, and then thrown into the clearances muchmore as other mids tired. The idea, which worked so well so often, was that any given opponent trying to match up on Petracca's strength would be completely overwhelmed if Trac also had significantly fresher legs.

The result was of course our trademark strings of high quality clearances and even repeat centre clearance goals which seized momentum in games kept tight by our brutal defence.

Bang bang bang was not an accident.

Obviously with the big hit to fitness caused by good guy Moore's 'reckless severe impact' effort Petracca hasn't been able to replicate that this season. It is still reasonable to hope he'll be back to being a genuine weapon after a proper pre-season.

It’s easy to forget just how far back Trac started the preseason. He lost heaps of weight and strength after hospital and took a while to even get back to a jog when he wasn’t able to train for a couple of months. His time overseas and bulk of preseason was largely spent just getting strength and some level of endurance back. Probably find this meant much less time on skills, speed and agility compared to previous preseasons.

A full preseason hopefully will see him return to the player he was. Yes, he has been below his best but perhaps this was always going to be the case this year. To just get back for round 1 was an incredible effort.

He strike me as a proud man and I reckon he will leave no stone unturned to find that extra 10% that was missing this year.

Lots have touched on his injury and recovery from that. I questioned before the season even started what the impact on his game would be. In a previous role (in the US), I worked with combat veterans who were diagnosed with PTSD. It’s no easy path that he’ll take. I am not a person to make armchair diagnosis’ nor will I do that now. But, he lived through a seriously traumatic event that will more than likely impact him for the rest of his life. That doesn’t mean that his game won’t improve or that he won’t become increasingly willing to put his body on the line, but he’ll more than likely always be aware of it and have some fear.

I feel like he’s better than I anticipated he’d be at this point and I have no doubt he’ll continue to recover. I’m sure the club has a psychologist working with him on this—but it’s not an easy battle. Mental health can be a significant factor in performance and unfortunately, lots of the treatment options will come with medication if warranted. These meds can also put weight on people and also slow them down a bit which is not something ideal for an AFL footy player. I do think he’ll be better next year. No idea if he’ll stay or request a trade. My biggest hope is that he builds support systems (outside his family and the club) that can help his recovery even after footy.

Edited 15 hours ago15 hr by 710 Asbury St
Clarity

Someone sitting behind me in the Members' yesterday said something that put the finger on the elusive mystery for me: "Trac's too heavy". That's it - IMHO, Trac put in a big preseason that involved that trip to the US, with a focus on (re)building strength. Maybe he's gone too far now - he's clearly the bulkiest player we have, and maybe too much muscle at the expense of agility and speed. Easily fixable...but where he is in 2026, who knows.

Dustin Martin was never the same after his big injury, we might have to get used to the idea that Trac will follow that pattern. It’s a huge effort to get back but that explosive power has been significantly reduced

5 hours ago, adonski said:

I wouldn't be 'selling' him, but I would trade him if a compelling offer came through (x 2 first round picks)

Hard to see Buckley (?) wanting him gone

Bloke is mentally scared for life and can't blame him at all. Friggen bloody Moore should be totally embarrased by his crude knees first option that he does OFTEN! TRACC will never get over it, and as result plays like it as well. Very unfortunate but totally understandable

Agree on Moore PF. He's a repeat offender, seemingly has no remorse and comes under very little to zero scrutiny.

I did like that Garry Lyon called out his knee drop to the back of the Freo player in the dying moments a couple of weeks back though,

Yesterday he was a bit demonstrative towards some players because he wanted the ball without moving or leading & at the same time other players were leading.

I get he's probably still dealing with the injury & if he's still with us next season I'll judge him more then.

But he's a shadow of himself from a couple of years ago

I noted he cracked into a few contests early in the game yesterday. Don’t think he’s suffering any injury after effects in that respect.

It looked to me he was trying too hard to lead the way, and sometimes the harder you try, the results don't go your way because you are rushing. He will be fine.

Yesterday I went with the main objective of watching him. Took the binoculars to get a good look. In the first half he was poor. At half time from memory he 3 disposals, spent most of the first half on the forward line. There were a couple of times when team mates ignored him when he seemed to be the best option, have they lost confidence in him? They were times when I struggled to find him. His second half was better and snagged a goal in the third quarter. To me he looks slow perhaps that is the result of his injury and a poor re season. IMO his past performances are getting him games. Yesterday he was in the bottom third of player performances. That's a long way off his form back in 22/3.

Edited 13 hours ago13 hr by old dee