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Of course it wasn't nothing. Which is why he has been able to play as well as he has. Despite having a very limited preseason and having a badly broken hand that required surgery (that he is clearly still struggling with) Oliver has been our best mid this season. And that's also despite playing a different role - a defensive mid. A role that no doubt he is playing because of his limited preseason (because he doesn't have his breakaway speed and stamina). It must be so frustrating for clarry, a bloke used to being a walk up AA. He is working his guts out week on week out. Just look at him at the end of each quarter - he's spent. He knows he's not near his optimal condition and knows there is little he can do about that in season. Because he is so far off his peak condition he is often starting on the bench and is only playing 72% game time this season (I think the lowest of any regular best 22). He's working hard by all accounts on his wellbeing and off field stuff. Doing what is asked of him, including the things like the koz trip home. And on top of all of that had to put up with the peanut gallery in the media taking lazy pot shots - peanuts who are predominantly ex footballers who know all about fitness and preseasons, and so are simply gaslighting footy fans. Wouldn't it be great if clarry, who by all accounts is a really nice young man, had the full support of dees SUPPORTERS who instead of amplifying misinformation the media spews out for clicks, ratings and profit pushed back and got behind him. Or at the very least bothered to educate themselves about some basic facts about AFL football circa 2024 - for example the impact of interrupted preseasons and in season injury and surgery on elite athletes.

“Just my opinion, there’s no world that I’d be changing or trading Clayton Oliver. There’s no footy world where I follow that I would contemplate trading Clayton Oliver,” Lyon said on SEN. Oliver signed a monster contract extension in 2022 which ties him to Melbourne on a $1m-season deal until 2030. Lyon said he would hand back his membership if the Demons paid any portion of Oliver’s deal while he played for another club. “If they paid another club to take him, that’d be the last straw,” he said. The former Demons skipper said with the emergence of Trent Rivers and return of Christian Petracca in 2025, Oliver could recapture his mantle as one of the AFL’s premier midfielders. “He’s 27 years old, he’s won four best-and-fairests, he’s won two coaches awards, he’s a premiership player. He’s a superstar of the game who is in a bit of a hole, relatively. He’s still averaging 25 touches,” he said. Lyon added: “If you believe everything you read he’s like a 10-possession player that can’t impact. He’s nowhere near his peak. But we know his issues. “We know how well documented they are. And if I’m the Melbourne footy club, I’m looking at him as getting through this year, hopefully still playing good footy and then cracking in, big summer, Petracca back, midfield going and go again.”

Yep, it started when he watched the replay of the first half against Freo. Symptoms - nausea, loss of hope, dizziness, mood swings

Goody unwell.... unable to attend match committee meeting....out Sparrow PS Humour

I was listening and this is where the media doesn’t report what is actually said. The bolder bit Garry actually said he would under no circumstances trade Oliver who is in a form slump With regards to handing back his membership, his words were worse then trading Oliver if they were to also pay some of his salary to play for another club that would be it for me. Whilst it may only be semantics it’s how the media works and the truth gets lost in translation. The next article changes it slightly again and click bait goes wild. The biggest issue for me is Kane Cornes(who tries to be controversial just for the sake of it) made a suggestion that Melbourne would potentially pay part of Oliver’s salary and off load a first round pick to get Oliver off our books, suddenly becomes something that the club is considering. FCS this is the same person who absolutely pushed the Kossie to Port move 2 years ago as if it was a done deal. Never believe anything Cornes or Maclure say

Someone who is suffering from mental illness could potentially be more susceptible to the false narrative pushed by footy journos. Cornes pushing the story that we should offload his contract followed by journos speculating that Oliver is unhappy and/or the club is too won’t be helping Clarrie. Its amazing, given that everyone has an idea of Clarrie’s mental state, that these low life’s don’t drop the story or at least get called out by other journos with something resembling a moral compass. The whole thing is very disappointing and a horrible reflection of the general public’s thirst for news and the organisations that feed it.

the afl hierarchy have a cultural cringe that is absolutely pathetic

A first year player should thank his lucky stars for any senior game time and put his head down like he is doing. He is a skinny kid. His time will come. but feel free to continue to Goody shafting nonsense

Brown with 24 tackles deserved a call up Outstanding performance

He also got stuck into Collingwood for giving up on Ginnivan too easily. And you can get your bottom dollar that if we traded Clarry and he went on to rediscover his form, he would get stuck into us for trading him. As I said before, he’s the Trump of AFL media.

i never understand why we celebrate australia's greatest home-grown sporting spectacular with an overseas "big" name artist when we have local internationally-acclaimed artists of our own (and keep the money in the country). something to do with a power complex in the afl hierarchy no doubt

I think we need a proper review of the footy department and as members deserve to know what the budget has been spent on. Since the covid cuts we’ve gone from 2 head of footballs (Mahoney and Richardson) to 1, haven’t added any permanent coaching staff (teams used to have 4+ assistants and multiple development coaches, we have 3, Choco and I think Sam Radford) and there’s been no announcement on beefing up the recruiting or fitness teams. Pro Scout is still listed as Kelly O’Donnell despite the fact we haven’t added anyone decent from the state leagues since Mitch Hannan. And haven’t landed a good trade since Langdon in the ‘19 trade period. In 2021 we had a fitness edge, a game plan edge and a drafting and list management edge to build the list. Now I’d say we still have drafting edge. I still believe in Goody but there’s strong case to change the coaching panel. Fitness is lacking. List management is mess. Should Richo go? Should Lamb go? I don’t know, I don’t like calling for peoples jobs without all the facts. But I’d like to know what the club is investing in and how they expect better results.

2020 Draft: 6/10 Trades: 6/10 Pick swaps: 2/10 The world changed in 2020 and young schoolboys spent the year wishing they could play, after being told by Dan that COVID could be passed around easily outside. The result was that you’d have to be Nostradamus to predict which kids were going to make headway and the disruption meant many lost their way in life. It impacted the draft big time. Of the top 20 that season, only two are standouts – the top pick Jamarra Ugle-Hagan who has taken a while to develop and pick 20 Max Holmes. Holmes came from an athletic background and had played only a handful of school games at Melbourne Grammar where he was better known as an APS sprinter. To Taylor’s credit, he was apparently keen on him as well and I think we were planning to take him at pick 21 or 22 until the Cats swooped, gifting Richmond their 2021 first rounder for pick 20. With Josh Mahoney out the door, Tim Lamb was now ensconced in the role of list manager, and made some very intricate moves, most of which were designed to get us a full-forward. North’s Ben Brown had been a prolific goalscorer until knee injury in 2020, so the Roos were willing to offload him provided we offered enough. Eventually the Kangas agreed to offload the soon-to-be 28-year-old for our picks 26 and 33 with us getting pick 28 back in the deal. The pick 26 had come via a pick swap with the Swans for 31 and 43, but as I said, losing picks was not a loss that draft. Lamb had received pick 31 by offloading Braydon Preuss to the Giants and we got the Dogs third rounder for 2021 in the Mitch Hannan deal. Offloading our No.1 pick of 2021 and pick 25 for the Lions pick 18 and 19 was not as bad as it looked at the time because by virtue of us winning the flag in 2021, the Lions only got pick 18 back which became pick 20 and Kai Lohmann. But imagine if we had bombed in 2021. The 2020 draft, in general, has been a bust. Bowey and Beau McCreery (44) are the only two role players to play in premierships, while Errol Gulden (32) is the big star of that year, along with Jamarra, and both were academy picks. Plenty of clubs were burnt. Essendon’s Adrian Dodoro tried to play hardball on Josh Dunkley’s deal and ended up losing him. Instead he got to keep picks 8 & 9 to go with 10 – Cox, Perkins and Zach Reid - three strikes and you are out they say. The Crows are still hopeful that Thilthorpe emerges, they’ve almost given up on Luke Pedlar (pick 11), North now know that they erred by not taking Logan McDonald with pick 4, instead opting for Will Phillips (pick 3), while the Giants had three picks before us and are yet to get 25 games out of any of them, albeit Tanner Bruhn (pick 12) left and looks better at Geelong. 21 Jake Bowey – He’s only small but he was just so polished when we finally gave him a game late in 2021. Ironically Jayden Hunt got injured which meant that Bowey stayed in the side and by the time Jayden was fit to return, it was too late to make a change – we were in the prelim and Bowey was our classy little defender. Since then he hasn’t really kicked on. He had a ripper pre-season this year but then got hammered into by a Swan in round 1 and broke his collarbone. Now that he’s fit I’d actually like to see him given a chance in middle where his smarts may come to the fore. I’d hate for him to be branded as just a defender because I think he’s got more to offer and so far Goody hasn’t got any more out of him than what we saw in season one. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. 22 Bailey Laurie – OK, so we just took a 175cm mid in Bowey who we turned into a defender. The very next pick Taylor takes a 179cm (5ft 11in) midfielder who has exquisite skills but lacks pace. This for a list that already has six other sub-6 footers – Kozzie, Spargo, Chandler, Viney, Neal-Bullen and Bedford. I’m sorry I just don’t see how that’s smart list management. I’m also not sure why giving up our first rounder to the Lions in 2021 to get Laurie was necessary. Wreaks blunder to me. Laurie is running out of time to show he’s AFL level. Invariably he’s the sub for us, so he never gets a chance to show what he can do either. 34 Fraser Rodman – a good athlete from Wesley, whom I suspect Taylor hoped may become the left-side wingman that we have desperately needed since Brian Dixon retired! He had height and pace but he didn’t really have a penetrating kick and after two seasons a decision was made to let him go. Thankfully we didn’t miss out on any stars soon after him. Barely anyone bothered with the rookie draft that year given most VFL and TAC sides hadn’t been playing. We did trial a few players over summer and Deakyn Smith, a classy small defender impressed enough to become a supplemental player. He wasn’t really quite big enough to make it. The loss of Preuss meant we were on the hunt for a ruck back-up for Gawn and Jackson and we added Majak Daw, who at close to 30, had been released by North. Daw almost got a game for us but Gawn and Jackson were remarkably durable in 2021, as were most of our players, so Daw spent much of the season rucking in the VFL practice games. The big gamble for us in 2021 was Ben Brown, who had only played nine games and kicked eight goals in 2020 as his knees became unmanageable. He spent much of pre-season riding a stationary bike after his first knee clean-up surgery and we had to wait until round 7 for his debut against North. He had some good moments against Sydney the following week but was back in the medical room after round 9 with another clean-up required. He missed the next seven weeks and it looked like he’d miss the flag boat, but returned for the Port game as Goody trialled his new 'three-bigs' forward line with T-Mac and Jacko. By finals he was impressing with his lead-up work, often winning frees as teams chopped his arms to cope with his height. He didn’t kick any big bags but we all got used to his 50m run up to a shot on goal and he was prominent on grand final day, so his arrival gets a big tick. He was pretty useful in 2022 as well, although come finals he was sore and unable to move as freely and that’s been his problem since with four goals in a game his best return in 45 matches for us. His contract ends this season and he’ll most likely become even more involved with coaching the women’s team. Whether he transfers that to helping out our forwards in the off-season I am not sure, but he’s a very decent bloke and behind his natural mirth, he always seems quite knowledgeable.

Bizarre comment. Windsor is a skinny kid but has done everything asked of him. I would argue strongly that Brown is the same. After his game saving tackle (in 14 min of football) he was dropped. Not a great message. And in general our use of the sub has been frankly appalling. Is it any wonder players like Woewodin cant get any continuity in their game? Ditto Jordon and Bedford, Laurie Yet senior players like Salem are rushed straight back in to the side and underperforming players are given way too much grace. Lack of selection integrity under Goodwin is absolutely a fair criticism

Lose make my sad face. Win make more happy. Lose make me think lose all time. Win make me think win rest of time. explained?

And these supporters will be the first ones losing it at the club if Oliver was traded and went on to rediscover his form!

All time Brownlow Votes for Melbourne (EG is eligible games played) 1 – Robert Flower – 130.5 votes (269 EG) 2 – Clayton Oliver – 116 votes (152 EG) 3 – Greg Wells – 92 votes (224 EG) He's alright Clayton. Just need him to get back to what he does best

Brown has been shafted a few time already by Goodwin. Not exactly the type of experience a first year player should be having.

I was under the impression that Sparrow usually had a role to play on a key oppo player. Clearly he didn't do that effectively last week. And clearly he is not a stats accumulator Against the Blues in rd 9 he played well. 22 D/ 17K/6M/2T/7i50s/

Tom Sparrow’s kicking and positioning was sublime in the Granny kicked 1 and helped set up 4. He was on fire but was playing high half forward. Tom’s best mate was JJ and they shared a house together, the changes may have unsettled him, I am a huge Sparrow fan but statistically he has dropped right off. Hope he gets it all back together.

Laurie has been in excellent form and deserves another shot Brown puts a couple together like last week he’ll be in soon for sure

Disappointing to lose Tholstrup but we're very likely going to be better off without Salem and Sparrow on their current output. Last roll of the dice time for us this season, so Gawn Lever and May must all play if remotely fit.

I dont think it’s left field he has been mediocre most of the season. I hope they allow Laurie time to play as a half forward/ mid and hopefully he makes the most of the chance. Cant see either of May/Lever being in doubt without Tomlinson as cover but hey we did play without a ruck last week so…..

I would’ve like to have seen Brown rewarded for last weeks effort

For what it is worth Cornes went off his rocker in his playing days when someone laid the heat on him and his family. Or the time he made the big song and dance about retiring to become a fireman and bailed out it must have been too tough. He has no journalistic skill and relies on being controversial and peddling innuendo and suggestion . The trouble is the masses lap it up.

I usually play alone

It's appalling that so called fans call for such a great servant of our Club - one of our best to do it EVER - and one of the best all round in the modern era - to be dropped/traded/sold down the river because a season does not meet their/his usual lofty expectations. It's like we love repeating Norm Smith over and over. Where's the faith? It's disgraceful.

Things would have to be pretty bad if we pay someone to take him. He hasn’t just lost his mojo, he had a limited pre-season and he is our premier mid which means that teams can curtail him and he can’t break through tags and out run like he has done in the past. I wouldn’t be making any decisions this summer other than trying to get him fit and happy for pre-season.

Of those WA boys Rodriguez is a really good player but I’m not certain there’s a lot more upside. Will be a player but not sure on tools to separate him from other mids, currently a big bodied player for his age Blake Kelly is a serious player with huge upside super clean hands, good awareness, vision and decision making in congestion Toby Whan I expect him to climb, smooth mover, reads the play well beautiful left foot penetrating kick, plays midfield but at next level I see a really good half back who can be really damaging Basil Hart - haven’t seen a lot of Basil, but he’s a typical skilled medium forward with clean hands, good lateral movement and goal sense. Had some injury issues but I don’t see a lot of real X factor Cody Curtin - he’s close to 200cm now and will be sought after next year. Didn’t play development or Futures footy and only got serious about footy this year. Really raw but developing quickly. Different player to brother Dan, less skilled but has more athleticism and really good closing speed to be a strong key defender. He will be taken next year and with some work put into him will be a really good 1 v 1 KPD Marcus Cassidy - haven’t seen a lot of Marcus as he’s playing PSA at Trinity, but he’s a skilled big mid who can play forward and impact the scoreboard. Query on him is he’s is an absolute gun underager but is there more upside Jadd Hill - tough as teak midfielder, country boy who has played against bigger and senior players for a long time. Clean hands, good awareness and skills are ok. I think he needs to develop another string to the bow, whether it’s scoreboard impact, playing off halfback or become an endurance beast because there’s an overload of players this size Charlie Banfield and Wes Walley from this years squad aren’t mentioned but both will come into contention Banfield is a big bodied mid who can play forward around the 6ft 2 mark and not yet 17. Great endurance, strong mark and strong in congestion. Walley can be hot and cold but has plenty of X factor. Pace, lateral movement, quick feet and a fantastic leap. Has the ability to gather ground balls at pace inside F50, chase down defenders and create headaches for opposition sides. Consistency and mindset are the biggest focus points for him.

Is she the same one who got a blister, playing twister, when her friend kissed her, which really p-sed her?

I’m hoping we win every game. I don’t think anybody is actually hoping we lose games for a better draft pick. Even is they say that come Saturday night I’m sure everybody will be cheering us to win. But in the overall picture I won’t be gutted if we miss finals. I get what you’re saying about getting the monkey off our backs but I don’t see us winning the GF. So if we win one final we probably then travel interstate to a top four team. Another belting by Freo would create an even bigger monkey on our backs. Two weeks of finals gives us the same amount of time off as we have had the past two years. A longer off season will allow us to get any surgeries out of the way early and give everybody the best chance at a good preseason. We have seen recently that the deeper teams go in September it has a knock on effect to the start of the next season

But Kane Cornes told me we needed to trade him and a first round pick! Why won’t anyone listen to Kane when he tells us Pickett and Petty are leaving and then says we should trade Oliver? Poor Kane.

Everyone always comes back against us.

I'm not understanding the thinking that when you are 2 wins off 2nd then we're ostensibly out of the final race. For those that think like this, can you help me explain your logic?

Have a soft spot for Coniglio. His game in the 2010 WAFL grandfinal as a teenager was incredible. Up the black ducks

The funny thing is that articles are being written saying basically Melbourne want him out. And we’ll pay $ and a pick to do so. Same articles tell us how good he will be at other clubs and who needs him more etc. He’ll be a demon in 2025.

Agree that we cannot underestimate the contribution of Todd Viney and Mahoney ( who brought in Lever, Melksham , Hibberd, May, Langdon, Tomlinson, Brown).

You can tell him it is paid for overwhelmingly by the MCC members.

Lever was 21 years old (Luke Jackson's age)