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 10 hours ago10 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 10 hours ago10 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.

6 hours ago, Redleg said:

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

IMO, it's quite something at age 21. For comparison, Petracca's first placing in the B & F came at age 23, where he came 5th.

8 hours ago, BoBo said:

My arzealias do need a good pruning.

better than your orchids

10 hours ago, Ted Lasso said:

Frost held down a key defensive post in a side that made a prelim and then has also played solid footy at the hawks. I don’t think there is any issue with a second rounder

McAdams equally hasn’t worked out due to injury but I’d agree if he’d been totally fit the whole time and couldn’t get a kick. Based on his output at the crows and the fact they wanted him to stay I don’t have an issue with the price we paid

We were 18th for scores v d50 entry and defensive one on ones. Frost and OMac were simply not up to it hence we threw the kitchen sin at getting May and Lever.

Yes we made a prelim but it wasn't because of our defensive capablities no one wats to relive that final in perth

9 hours ago, WERRIDEE said:

Jaded better be kidding himself If Clarry is loved more than Trac we have a serious problem. What do you think I'm saying when I say Clarry has serious issues? Clarry doesn't deserve any love with what he's put the club through. Petracca was let down by his club they didn't even visit him when he was sick. That's pretty poor, Melbournget passede never should have done that poor communications. I understand what he feels when I was bashed with a baseball bat I was told Allen Jakovich was going to see me he didn't I was shattered I felt let down but I moved on unlike Trac who hasn't moved on still feels angry about that. I wish I could tell Trac my story then maybe he could set himself free from the hatred he has for Melbourne. Trac deserves all our love, Clarry doesn't and it seems the other way around on this forum.

Wow. And you reckon you’ve moved on? Not a chance. If you honestly believe Trac hates Melbourne, why would you even want him at the club? The truth is, you’ve been carrying unresolved baggage with this club for decades, and it bleeds through every word you write. It’s not analysis—it’s just your bitterness dressed up as a narrative.

1 hour ago, Roger Mellie said:

IMO, it's quite something at age 21. For comparison, Petracca's first placing in the B & F came at age 23, where he came 5th.

I think this is a very good point and something that seems to be getting missed. No-one will argue Tracs achievements at the club, but the reality is that he is not the player he used to be. I concede he came send in the B&F and had a good year, but he definitely wasn't as damaging as he used to be. His kicking for goal and inside 50 are still sub-par.

There is a chance he could regain that form in a midfield with Rowell and Anderson and wish him all the best.

Bowey is only 21 and almost definitely will be as good or better next season, as well as in the future.

34 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

We were 18th for scores v d50 entry and defensive one on ones. Frost and OMac were simply not up to it hence we threw the kitchen sin at getting May and Lever.

Yes we made a prelim but it wasn't because of our defensive capablities no one wats to relive that final in perth

As much fun as it was to watch that (high scoring) team, they weren't going to win a premiership. We made the changes needed and won the flag in '21.

10 hours ago, WERRIDEE said:

Jaded better be kidding himself If Clarry is loved more than Trac we have a serious problem. What do you think I'm saying when I say Clarry has serious issues? Clarry doesn't deserve any love with what he's put the club through. Petracca was let down by his club they didn't even visit him when he was sick. That's pretty poor, Melbourne never should have done that poor communications. I understand what he feels when I was bashed with a baseball bat I was told Allen Jakovich was going to see me he didn't I was shattered I felt let down but I moved on unlike Trac who hasn't moved on still feels angry about that. I wish I could tell Trac my story then maybe he could set himself free from the hatred he has for Melbourne. Trac deserves all our love, Clarry doesn't and it seems the other way around on this forum.

I'm not quite sure why you think Petracca deserves all the sympathy/empathy and Oliver deserves none. Either way, let's set the record straight on a couple of things, hopefully for the final time because this off-field melodrama is really tiring:

1. The Club didn't visit Christian while he was off injured because medically, no-one was allowed to visit him. Spleen injuries = immuno-compromise = no non-family visitors.

2. The story that no-one from the club contacted him is also not true: Christian himself was interviewed by the Club in a sitdown at one point (remember that? On his couch?) and he admitted that he'd had plenty of phonecalls from the Club. He also admits that for a period of time he just didn't pick up the phone.

Be emotional about it all you want, but let's not rewrite history to suit a narrative.

10 hours ago, WERRIDEE said:

Trac deserves all our love, Clarry doesn't and it seems the other way around on this forum.

You are a pitiful human if you think Clarry doesn't deserve our love. Either that, or you have no clue whatsoever what he's been through, which is a hell of a lot more than Trac has.

But by all means, keep telling us how we deserve to hate a guy who won 4 B&Fs, 2 Coaches Awards and has never, not once, said a bad word about our club, nor tried blowing up the joint so we would trade him.

1 hour ago, Roger Mellie said:

IMO, it's quite something at age 21. For comparison, Petracca's first placing in the B & F came at age 23, where he came 5th.

I think we need one of those 'Fact Checking' threads🙃.

Trac's first placing was as a 21 year old in 2017 when he came 7th. It was his second year as he missed 2015 with an ACL injury. Quite an achievement as he was competing with Jones, Viney, Oliver etc.

As a hypothetical if Trac does go to the Suns I genuinely don’t think there will be a huge spike in local interest in the Suns. There just doesn’t appear to be massive interest in professional sports on the Gold Coast. The Suns have poor home attendances, and home games feel like away games where there is more support for the visiting team. The Gold Coast Rollers basketball team didn’t last long in NBL, Gold Coast United in A League came and went just as quickly. Even the Gold Coast Titans in their premier sport draw poor crowds.

I just don’t see a huge spike and quite frankly I don’t care. I’m at the stage now where it is best that Trac goes. He clearly doesn’t want to be at Melbourne and I certainly don’t want to move him on at any cost and I would be having talks with other clubs if Gold Coast won’t come to the party. Then go back to Tracs management and give them options. We can’t do trade with Gold Coast how about a/, b/ or c/. Or we will see you day one of pre season training. This has to be a line in the sand moment and in the best interests of Melbourne in terms of culture and on field performance for both the short and long term.

12 hours ago, At the break of Gawn said:

I find it amusing how some posters are worried about Clarry or Trac getting back to their best or becoming even better. The major flaw in both their games is their ability to use the ball. I honestly can't recall too many players who've made significant improvement in their kicking over their careers. Once a poor kick, you're usually always a poor kick. So unless Trac or Clarry learn to kick like Errol, they'll just be your average accumulator who continue to make poor decisions and skill errors by foot.

And rarely hurt you on the scoreboard

12 hours ago, WERRIDEE said:

Just curious on what you think about Frost and McAdam for second rounders. It's got me fuming they even said with Frost he wasn't worth pick 23 he was worth pick 45 but we done it anyway GWS wouldn't deal otherwise. DON'T PICK HIM UP THEN GO INTO THE DRAFT. He didn't say that about McAdam but I'm sure the same thing happened. To give a second rounder for a 28 year who had only played 50 games in 10 years due to injury is just crazy

Wasn't Frost brought in by Mahoney?