his recent behaviour justifies the decision to let him go.

27 minutes ago, roy11 said:

I don't really follow athletes on social media, has Clayton always been a little 'unhinged' on there?

Fair to say Clarry is using the time between being let go by Melbourne, and being pulled into line by GWS, to take a number of pot shots at sports reporters he doesn't like. Chief among them Tom Morris and Mitch Cleary. He's also posting pictures showing him hanging out with Jamarra Ugle-Hagan and Harmes.

He's not our problem anymore, but I'd be surprised if the Giants didn't give him a call to tell him to tone it down.

On 19/10/2025 at 07:56, Lucifers Hero said:

Yeah, I also don't care to read what he is up to. And agree it is now up to GWS to care for him.

But I care about him as a demon champion and care about his well being whoever he plays for.

I can't imagine the upheaval in his life: emotionally outed from his employer, a new employer, new state, change homes, delay in getting to know new teammates, new work environment, spiralling career etc.

Any of those changes are stressful let alone all happening simultaneously under challenging circumstances. Especially for someone who seems emotionally fragile and reliant on the rigid structures of an AFL club but being the off season and in transition those aren't there. Nor are the welfare support systems he had at mfc.

Hopefully, his manager, the AFL and GWS quickly find a mentor like Gawn (Mumford for Jesse) and put in place the welfare support and stability Clarry needs.

I care to the point that it will show the world that it wasn't simply an MFC problem.

Most of the media lauded the trade for GWS claiming it a 'bargain' and reeling off his past accolades. I don't mind people waking up and starting to see why the price to get him was so cheap. Is this the ready made midfielder that can take you to the next level or is there much more of a project required to get that desired result?

While we're at it, let's not forget that this Giants team hasn't achieved the ultimate success yet. With an acquisition like Oliver, you would be hoping for someone bringing intellectual capital and know-how.

The benefits could be amazing but it isn't going to be plug and play.

Clayton is a child who happens to be very good at football when he puts his mind to it.

You can't escape the fact we haven fallen apart since the 21 flag.

It's not all Clayton's fault but it appears he was at the centre of the problem. The selfless footy of 21 was replaced with team mates wondering why he was afforded special treatment.

Tracc's relationship with other players and the club is a little more complex but those that surround him have encouraged his me/my/brand attitude.

The heirarchy of the club was flighting itself and the coach was unable/ill-equipped to deal with it.

It's a sad story that puts a full stop to an era that promised so much.

The flag was great but man, we have cocked it up bigtime since

This will be my only post on a thread which is mercifully reaching its end .I want to just say that I am still completely gutted that Clarry has gone .He was the best footballer I have seen at MFC .Robbie ,the second best ,was a gazelle and eminently watchable but not the match-winner Clarry was.This difference between the two is fairly reflected in their Bluey history..Would we have won that elusive flag or become a temporary power without Clayton ? No we wouldn't have ,simple as that.i know there are many accounts given as to why Clarry was jettisoned , some probably true ,most apocryphal. But we Have now lost a player who is irreplaceable .

It sucks it had to end like this.

5 minutes ago, rpfc said:

It sucks it had to end like this.

Yes, but it had to end. And now it has ended, time to move on and embrace the next pantheon of champions to wear the red and blue. There is so much to look forward to in 2026.

6 minutes ago, rpfc said:

It sucks it had to end like this.

True. It also sucks that two of the most talented MFC players we have had in a long time had to come with off field issues. When you couple this with Gus's medical retirement, the odds on this outcome in the immediate wake of '21 would have been astronomically low.

Edited yesterday at 03:591 day by GS_1905

20 minutes ago, GS_1905 said:

True. It also sucks that two of the most talented MFC players we have had in a long time had to come with off field issues. When you couple this with Gus's medical retirement, the odds on this outcome in the immediate wake of '21 would have been astronomically low.

I am looking forlornly at my poster of the 21 flag with Gus, Clarrie and Tracc front and centre. sigh

20 minutes ago, kallangurdemon said:

This will be my only post on a thread which is mercifully reaching its end .I want to just say that I am still completely gutted that Clarry has gone .He was the best footballer I have seen at MFC .Robbie ,the second best ,was a gazelle and eminently watchable but not the match-winner Clarry was.This difference between the two is fairly reflected in their Bluey history..Would we have won that elusive flag or become a temporary power without Clayton ? No we wouldn't have ,simple as that.i know there are many accounts given as to why Clarry was jettisoned , some probably true ,most apocryphal. But we Have now lost a player who is irreplaceable .

I get that we all have our own opinions but for me we've reached the stage where it's extremely difficult to see how Oliver will go down as a better MFC player than Gawn. Gawn has the equal record number of AAs and is still among the best players in the game at the age of 34, while Oliver hasn't been a top player since he was 25.

He also puts Oliver to shame in terms of off field professionalism.

Edited yesterday at 06:541 day by Temporarily Hopeful Demon

8 hours ago, Mickey said:

Fair to say Clarry is using the time between being let go by Melbourne, and being pulled into line by GWS, to take a number of pot shots at sports reporters he doesn't like. Chief among them Tom Morris and Mitch Cleary. He's also posting pictures showing him hanging out with Jamarra Ugle-Hagan and Harmes.

He's not our problem anymore, but I'd be surprised if the Giants didn't give him a call to tell him to tone it down.

Sports Rporters are maggot infested scabs. I'm not usually that negative during the off season but....

Max did an interview with Triple M and uh, he sounds fond of Clarrie still but he sounded less fond of Trac....

6 minutes ago, thirty-one said:

Max did an interview with Triple M and uh, he sounds fond of Clarrie still but he sounded less fond of Trac....

Quotes or get out

Max speaks on Triple M

I guess make of it what you will.

On 17/10/2025 at 18:51, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

When do we farewell the Farewell threads?

We need a farewell thread for these threads that need to be farewelled.

Sorry but good on Clayton for having a crack at those muppets, they've all been noses into all his business the whole time and have made his life a lot harder than it needed to be, regardless of "who started it" they just make anything worse by shining their scoop lights on it. Fair play to him, and screw Kornes too he needs to just realize he is also one of the muppets and people don't like him or the other media goons, they are not nice people and Clarry calling them out and having a dig at them is well deserved regardless of how he should be conducting himself...hope he doubles down haha not our problem anymore but still love the bloke even more so for doing that even though he knows it won't be well received. Love it even more because its not MFC problem so go to town son!!

2 hours ago, thirty-one said:

Max did an interview with Triple M and uh, he sounds fond of Clarrie still but he sounded less fond of Trac....

Max was a great friend and mentor to Clarrie. They had and will always have a special relationship.

Nonetheless, he seemed fully supportive of him being traded for a fresh start.

I doubt Trac or any other demon player would come close to what Max has with Clarrie. But I didn't take that as a slight on Trac.

Edited yesterday at 21:461 day by Lucifers Hero

Clarry said thanks yet to all his supporters at the club?

Haven't seen anything....

2 hours ago, thirty-one said:

Max speaks on Triple M

I guess make of it what you will.

I like Max a lot and think he's excellent in the media.

But I notice here that he's gone the "grow up", "be mature" line. I hear it a lot when it comes to player movement. I've heard it for 20 or so years, to be honest.

I get where people who run with this line are coming from: nothing is forever, and certainly not in the top level of a very popular sport, where competition is ruthless. Also, there are always circumstances like the one we faced with Alex Neal-Bullen. Yes, the grown up thing in that case was to say "Yes, we love this player and want him to stay with us, but we know there's more to life than football". But...

... couldn't you mount an argument that the height of maturity or grown up thinking would have been to nip the problems we had in the bud as they became obvious.

What I mean is, yes, beloved players are always going to leave clubs and sadden fans. And there will always be excellent B-graders who are crucial to premiership success and get squeezed out when the cap space inevitably tightens. But great teams keep great players at their best for as long as possible. Great clubs naturally nurture one-club champions (or in Hawthorn's case 250-game champions who play two or three tepid seasons somewhere else).

It might be grown up for supporters to now concede that it's best to cut out losses with those two players and start afresh. It also might be grown up to say that Petracca and Oliver need to accept their fair share of responsibility for our precipitous drop. I think it's also important to be grown up about the huge mistakes of the past. Ignoring them or shrugging them away as spilt milk is not mature. To my mind, anyway.

3 hours ago, The Taciturn Demon said:

I like Max a lot and think he's excellent in the media.

But I notice here that he's gone the "grow up", "be mature" line. I hear it a lot when it comes to player movement. I've heard it for 20 or so years, to be honest.

I get where people who run with this line are coming from: nothing is forever, and certainly not in the top level of a very popular sport, where competition is ruthless. Also, there are always circumstances like the one we faced with Alex Neal-Bullen. Yes, the grown up thing in that case was to say "Yes, we love this player and want him to stay with us, but we know there's more to life than football". But...

... couldn't you mount an argument that the height of maturity or grown up thinking would have been to nip the problems we had in the bud as they became obvious.

What I mean is, yes, beloved players are always going to leave clubs and sadden fans. And there will always be excellent B-graders who are crucial to premiership success and get squeezed out when the cap space inevitably tightens. But great teams keep great players at their best for as long as possible. Great clubs naturally nurture one-club champions (or in Hawthorn's case 250-game champions who play two or three tepid seasons somewhere else).

It might be grown up for supporters to now concede that it's best to cut out losses with those two players and start afresh. It also might be grown up to say that Petracca and Oliver need to accept their fair share of responsibility for our precipitous drop. I think it's also important to be grown up about the huge mistakes of the past. Ignoring them or shrugging them away as spilt milk is not mature. To my mind, anyway.

I took this a completely different way.

To me, it was an indication that perhaps the penny has finally dropped.

We have spent 2022-25 trying to keep as much of the premiership winning 23 together as possible, not just on the list but on the field. We continued to try to get a supposed "best 23" to gel together with an argument that we needed to get the best 23 playing together as much as possible for results to come. So we kept playing the same guys over and over, and as a result didn't play other guys who were fit and at times in strong VFL form.

That extended to wanting to keep Trac and Clarry, despite what had happened to both of them in the last few years. The club's overall view was to keep everyone together where possible.

Now, whether it's because Goodwin's no longer there, or for other reasons, this is no longer our priority. So we let Trac and Clarry go, and we "grow up" and accept that our next flag isn't going to come about just by continuing to plonk members of the 21 flag winning side on the park.

3 hours ago, The Taciturn Demon said:

I like Max a lot and think he's excellent in the media.

But I notice here that he's gone the "grow up", "be mature" line. I hear it a lot when it comes to player movement. I've heard it for 20 or so years, to be honest.

I get where people who run with this line are coming from: nothing is forever, and certainly not in the top level of a very popular sport, where competition is ruthless. Also, there are always circumstances like the one we faced with Alex Neal-Bullen. Yes, the grown up thing in that case was to say "Yes, we love this player and want him to stay with us, but we know there's more to life than football". But...

... couldn't you mount an argument that the height of maturity or grown up thinking would have been to nip the problems we had in the bud as they became obvious.

What I mean is, yes, beloved players are always going to leave clubs and sadden fans. And there will always be excellent B-graders who are crucial to premiership success and get squeezed out when the cap space inevitably tightens. But great teams keep great players at their best for as long as possible. Great clubs naturally nurture one-club champions (or in Hawthorn's case 250-game champions who play two or three tepid seasons somewhere else).

It might be grown up for supporters to now concede that it's best to cut out losses with those two players and start afresh. It also might be grown up to say that Petracca and Oliver need to accept their fair share of responsibility for our precipitous drop. I think it's also important to be grown up about the huge mistakes of the past. Ignoring them or shrugging them away as spilt milk is not mature. To my mind, anyway.

i think we did all we could and decided to cut our losses. 2 years of hoping things would turn was more than enough time imv

16 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

I took this a completely different way.

To me, it was an indication that perhaps the penny has finally dropped.

We have spent 2022-25 trying to keep as much of the premiership winning 23 together as possible, not just on the list but on the field. We continued to try to get a supposed "best 23" to gel together with an argument that we needed to get the best 23 playing together as much as possible for results to come. So we kept playing the same guys over and over, and as a result didn't play other guys who were fit and at times in strong VFL form.

That extended to wanting to keep Trac and Clarry, despite what had happened to both of them in the last few years. The club's overall view was to keep everyone together where possible.

Now, whether it's because Goodwin's no longer there, or for other reasons, this is no longer our priority. So we let Trac and Clarry go, and we "grow up" and accept that our next flag isn't going to come about just by continuing to plonk members of the 21 flag winning side on the park.

If this is what he meant, it's a huge relief.

I thought he was harking back to what I see as a bit of a tired cliche that supporters are just children who don't understand that in the real, adult world, player movement is inevitable and on the whole good.

11 hours ago, Young Angus said:

Sorry but good on Clayton for having a crack at those muppets, they've all been noses into all his business the whole time and have made his life a lot harder than it needed to be, regardless of "who started it" they just make anything worse by shining their scoop lights on it. Fair play to him, and screw Kornes too he needs to just realize he is also one of the muppets and people don't like him or the other media goons, they are not nice people and Clarry calling them out and having a dig at them is well deserved regardless of how he should be conducting himself...hope he doubles down haha not our problem anymore but still love the bloke even more so for doing that even though he knows it won't be well received. Love it even more because its not MFC problem so go to town son!!

If he does come good, is there a conversation to be that the checks of the new Board were not as all encompassing than they led us to believe

I like GWS, if we couldn't win the flag, I've hoped they do. That stays the same with Clarry at the club. I hope they win the flag and Clarry takes the Norm Smith.

I'm less enthusiastic about Gold Coast.