15 minutes ago, Macca said:

Recruiting too many depth players and then giving them 2 or 3 year deals ended up clogging the list with NQR's

Of course, Taylor is also responsible as he is the head recruiter but his fortè is the draft

And because he's been so successful with drafting talent, we should lean on him to do as you've suggested ... pluck out some talent in the late 2nd round and in the 3rd round

Have a go at least

Both in this post season and in the 2026 post season (pre Tassie)

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, losing May, Trac & Ollie means that we are in a rebuild phase. The list without those 3 is not going to contend for the flag

So it's the additions that can take us back to contending

So what are we good at?

Drafting talent and swapping draft picks for proven, top 12-15 talent (Formerly players such as May, Lever, Hibberd, Langdon, Brown, Melksham and 1 or 2 others)

The good news is that we got a bit of a head start with the acquisition of Windsor, Kolt, Lindsay & Langford

Windsor is a wingman and Kolt is an onballer. Hopefully King gives them both a chance to show their worth

Lindsay will probably end up on a HBF (as a distributor/rebounder) whilst Langford is an onballer in the making

It's not rocket science but it seemingly was for the previous FD & MC

I don't necessarily agree with you that we need to rebuild without May, Oliver and Petracca. Petracca would be a huge loss because he's done nothing wrong. Oliver and May are trouble makers. We need them out to build a better culture. It's not all doom and gloom.

6 minutes ago, Willmoy1947 said:

I think his old man is going through enough without you telling him anything. Splits families and Footy Clubs. You do your own mending and look after your own backyard.

I'll stick up for my football club thank you very much. Shaun hates Melbourne hates what they done to his son and let Oliver get away with it. I think his son only has himself to blame.

1 minute ago, WERRIDEE said:

I don't necessarily agree with you that we need to rebuild without May, Oliver and Petracca. Petracca would be a huge loss because he's done nothing wrong. Oliver and May are trouble makers. We need them out to build a better culture. It's not all doom and gloom.

We are low on top level talent

2 x A Graders (Gawn & Kozzie) with a whole host of players who were formerly very good, but have collectively dropped a couple of notches

Some good young talent but we need lots more

In the premiership year I reckon we had 16+ top level players. We're nowhere near that level now

16 losses in a year where we didn't have a lot of injuries says it all

If we're not rebuilding what are we doing? Adjust the list so that we lose another 16 matches?

King has his work cut out but if he can get the team to win 10-12 games he'll be doing very well (2026)

In the meantime, we need to recruit aggressively and hit the draft hard with Taylor at the helm

Face it, unless we recruit ready-made talent, the only other avenue is the draft

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by Macca

57 minutes ago, GS_1905 said:

I remember the player cameos from before the premiership when asked who the most annoying player is from our team. 9/10 would say Trac.

Easy to understand how that annoyance turned to irritation then to borderline dislike.

Watch the Hawks B&F vs ours …. Hawks praising each other .. the brotherhood is non existent, would love to hear from Spargo on his thoughts 

1 hour ago, Demonstone said:

My arzealias do need a good pruning.

The Gawn, Viney extensions were board decisions, @dazzledavey36 .

And I think you'll find Lamb is list manager, Taylor is recruiter.

I cant believe people think we should trade Petracca for untried kids in a poor draft. Memberships will be a hard sell for years if we bottom out completely. Player + or he stays.

51 minutes ago, WERRIDEE said:

I don't necessarily agree with you that we need to rebuild without May, Oliver and Petracca. Petracca would be a huge loss because he's done nothing wrong. Oliver and May are trouble makers. We need them out to build a better culture. It's not all doom and gloom.

This post reads like drunk-posting

Have you been following what has been going on since 2021? Are you aware that there may be two sides to every story. The real story may not be good guys/bad guys but far more nuanced than that, and clearly poorly managed or ignored in the hope that it would all settle with some wins?

Clarry went off the rails, but after a break up and untreated ADHD there may have been mitigating factors, although Id concede that if he was fringe he would have been gone pretty quickly.

May is vocal in his opinions but what if - just got a moment - some of his grievances are valid? What if he doesnt rate the leaders at the club for a variety of reasons? I mean how many AFL leadership groups reportedly sit in busy restaurants complaining about team mates loudly as reported by Mark Robinson last year?

As for Petracca he may have had legitimate grievances but you dont make those public unless your ethos may be less about the team reputation and more about your own - that is unless the grievances were so terrible that the relationship cannot continue. Clearly he wanted out so badly last year that he tried to shop himself even when his manager refused to.

It just seems like as a club we either managed all these dynamics very poorly or we managed them the wrong way. End of era.

Edited 7 hours ago7 hr by Norm Smith's Curse

7 hours ago, deejammin' said:

Mate we want Trac to stay.

If you believe that I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

And if King wanted Trac to stay he would have taken the time to sit down with him. Which he hasn’t.

8 hours ago, Roger Mellie said:

He came 4th in their B & F this year - not exactly nothing!

One 4th place in a B & F compared to Tracc’s achievements is nothing.

4 hours ago, No10 said:

If King can’t manage high maintenance players he’ll back to assistant coaching pretty quickly.

Nothing to do with King. It’s about the negative impact they have on the playing group.

The Gawn, Viney extensions were board decisions, @dazzledavey36 .

How so? I havent found anything that suggest otherwise. At the end of the day its Lamb's job to draft up a contract and yes get the final tick of approval from the board with any list management decisions.

Lamb still has a massive input into this and as it stands he got this one complete wrong. Whether it was panic station from the Roos offer or not, it was completely unnecessary to offer him such a long contract at his age.

6 hours ago, Adam The God said:

And I think you'll find Lamb is list manager, Taylor is recruiter.

I'm well aware of both their roles thanks Adam.

Taylor has done an exceptional job bringing in some of the talent. Langford and Lindsay for instsnce are easily 10+ year players for this footy club. Give us some more early picks for Petracca and I think he will cook well again.

Lamb on the other has butchered some of the list management decisions over the past couple of years.

The long list of names i provided have been at the expense of Lamby. Its a long list of genuine list cloggers which has neglected in us bringing in young talent instead.

I would love to see Steven King start fresh with a whole new list manager beside him.