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Well I must say it will be a shame if Essendon are decimated by the loss of a number of players they would probably wish to keep. First Saad, now Daniher. Who next ? Let the dominoes fall and the evil empire struggle to compete for a decade. Couldnt happen to a better bunch of bastrrrrrds !!!

You want to start from the bottom? That isn't ruthless, it's something else entirely. One of the commonalities among all of the recent successful teams is that they went through a period of not quite making the grade when it seemed like they should. Throughout these periods, those teams didn't flinch. They made smart decisions and chipped away at their deficiencies. Hardwick had seven - what many here would call failed - seasons at Richmond before breaking through. Had Richmond jumped the gun and removed Hardwick, I doubt they would have had anywhere near the same success. That's not because his coaching skills are any better than the next guy but because when you make significant change in an organisation, it's not a free hit. If you lose ten guys from any organisation, that has an effect on everyone. It's not that substantial change should never happen, but you'd want to be damn sure - like North Melbourne probably are - that rebuilding your team, both from an on-field and cultural/morale standpoint is what you want. I don't think this is where our team is currently at. There are many areas that need improvement but let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Couldn’t happen to a better bunch of ****wits. Worst club in the history of mankind. It’s beautiful.

I'll leave this post up as a reminder to not bring your personal politics into footy threads. It's fine to say that a player would prefer to leave Victoria to escape lockdown but no need to accentuate your point by bringing the politics into it from either side of the aisle.

Other: Connor McKenna broke his contract and went back to Ireland. Fantasia has had medicals with SA teams and will likely be traded. Hurley and Hooker are upset that Bellchambers didn't get a farewell game. Merrett is upset he was dumped from the leadership group after being VC. Add Daniher and Saad departures and it is clear they are falling apart. It is even better than watching them squirm their way thru the drug saga.

Alright @Demonland can we get a clean up in aisle 7.. thread has turned into [censored]. Anyone hearing anything else on Yze?

7 for Danniher is ridiculous

Of late, the club has tried to sign up key players a long way out from contract expiration so maybe talks are in progress or will start once the sal cap is known. Oliver has a big decision to make. He either signs for an extra 2 years to his FA year when his options are open. Or, he signs a mega 5-6 year extension that takes him to the latter stages of his career and then becomes a demon for life ?. I suspect this is what the club would want. If he follows Petracca, Brayshaw and many other AFL 'young guns he will sign for two years. There is no reason for these guys to sign up beyong their FA year. Of course, he could put off contract negotiations but that would surprise.

If they all want him, get one of them to give up 28,22, or 21

People were unhappy that “reputation” points were taken away for the laugh reaction. I took the reputation points away for the laugh so posters didn’t get “reputation” points for posts like that. As a consequence funny posters were punished. The facepalm reaction was the solution.

You are not alone Wise. I live 600k from the 'G' and get to only 3 of 4 live games in a normal year. I still purchase my annual 'Redlegs' membership, plus four full memberships for family Christmas presents. MFC are undoubtedly my preferred 'charity'.

Can’t wait for the completely irrelevant statement from Dodoro about this. Should have taken the offer last season when it would have netted them more. They just paid Joe 800k for the year to rehab and get himself right to go play in Brisbane. Nailed it ?

If there is one thing we've done well over my time following the MFC, it's developing ruckmen. Jim Stynes (Brownlow, 2 x All Australians, 4 x BnF) Jeff White (1 x All Australian, 1 x BnF) Mark Jamar (1x All Australian) Max Gawn (4 x All Australian, 2 x BnF) Not to mention Darren Jolly, Troy Simmonds and Stef Martin. That's 30 years of consistently elite performances - I'd say that'd be better than any team in the league.

I hope we've put a 5 year extension in front of Oliver. If we haven't, we're asleep at the wheel.

Mate it's strange, some of the decisions that club is making at the moment are just incredible. I personally believe when you push guys out of your club publicly you've gotta expect minimal compensation. the way the Polec Situation has gone, there is no way he's going back there. they should be happy we'll take on a part of his salary and get him off the books for them. I don't get the impression we're being unreasonable with our requests either, we just have a really clear idea what we think he's worth, and we're very interested at that price

If Fantasia, Daniher and Saad go, then with compensation picks and traded picks , you can guarantee that our first pick (23) has dropped further. This is exactly why we traded out of this draft to get Pickett last year.

So pleased he’s done a ‘deep dive’ rather than a thorough analysis.

Karma’s a [censored].

Posts over at Bomberblitz have never been so entertaining to read. Hahahaha.

I love it

I've mentioned it before in this thread. I would love Xavier O'Halloran from GWS. We might need to throw in a small sweetener to get it over the line. Otherwise, I think the club should be looking at future picks and continue avoiding this draft.

I'd much prefer a player. I only want a draft pick if it helps us trade in a player.

Why?? Swapping an in demand 25yo ruckman for a 32yo, surely we’ve gone past recycled old premiership players Sydney, GWS & Hawthorn are after him & he’s got 2 years left on his contract, play hardball with him & we should get overs

Schache will likely be delisted and then potentially rookied. We shouldn't bother with him. While he performed well underage as a tall kid, he's uncompetitive at AFL level and makes Weid look like Wayne Carey. Better to look for other options like Brown or Mihocek.

I'll be honest and say that I'm impressed that you can make any sense out of the post in the first place.

This rumour is whipping Carlton nuffies into a frenzy. A popular theory - as relayed to me by my own Carlton nuffy mate - is they’ll flip pick 7 into 2x late first round picks (with WB), swapping one for Saad and one for Oliver. I suggested that appeared a bit unfair and they should ask for Petracca as steak knives.

When I saw the tweet and his photo I was hoping that that was what the article was about. This is perhaps one of our most important re-signings. We need to lock him in.

I think we need some clarriefication.

On the surface it's one year too many, but I would have thought we'd front load at least the first 2-3 years quite heavily. I like that he's signed from a culture stand point. I remain staunch in my belief that he needs to play forward or defensive mid/tagger. I'd be happy if he was collecting 15 possessions a game as long as he's mauling the opposition in the tackle count and making the right decisions when he does win the ball. My best 22 would have him starting in the forward pocket alongside Pickett and Weideman.

Bobby Skilton Haydyn Bunton Gary Ablett snr Robert Flower all say hello........and that is just for starters

Cripps is a poor mans Clayton Oliver

Carlton to acquire Williams, Saad, Merrett, Oliver & Lachie Hunter by the sounds of things. Decent off season. Wonder if they're going to make a late play for Viney offering 6 years instead of 5.

I may be wrong but it doesn’t appear that an external party is assisting with the review which makes me very sceptical about its value. We’ll see what eventuates but I expect to see some significant changes. I’ll be mightily disappointed if we get another whitewash like last year.

Go Hard Mr. Pert, i know many are not happy with him as CEO, but he has kept Sponsors on board in a very tough year and he knows what is needed to succeed, similiar to PJ The Right People Sentiment must take 2nd place we need the best Thankyou That is All

I'm glad Pert is doing this. He was part of the architect that built the powerhouse that is Collingwood into such a powerful club that it is today. He knows and has seen success.

Jeff White just posted that his son is now over 6 feet. WOW.

Tom's right! Many supporters seem to think that unless a player is elite, then they must be junk and fair game for abuse (not being relevant). No team has won a premiership comprising only A grader's (supported by elite) look at our very own Stephen Armstrong as a Weagle premiership player. There's even a Morton who won a premiership. Oscar performs admirably and as strange as it seems I am more relaxed with him kicking than most of our other talls (he's safe, despite others like May being better kicks). Many seem to base a lot of their opinion on his early output when he was thrown into a struggling team, as a KPP, while very young (and not fully developed). As a coach I do not just see the numbers as performance. I currently have an inside midfielder who doesn't wrack the big numbers expected of the role (which others in the team could do better), but when he plays in the midfield we never lose it and rarely is a goal scored against us (they predominantly happen on his rotations). I seem to recall Omac coming into the team this year which equated to May and Lever performance lifting to new levels, which they then maintained ' making Omacs role less of a need; but would they have gotten to that point without the confidence gained from Omacs inclusion. This is not say he cannot be traded, it's just an observation that he does have value, he is a contributor, and can form part of a premiership team. Ironically calls for him being traded is actually recognition that he can play such a role (for someone)!

The Cripps rumour is crap and has been (as others have said) Chinese whispers gone mad. The same happens every year and yet every year most of you go into meltdown

It is strange, if true. North are in a no win situation now. It's been hard for North to land free-agents because those free agents could see that the list was right at the end of its run, and they were that good anyway. We were like that, where substantial free agents and wantaways wouldn't come because we weren't attactive. The best way to start attracting players to your club is to build a core group of players that make others think that they have a successful future. After that it's self-fulfilling because the good players now attract good players which makes them successful which attracts good players etc. But they need to just eat the [censored] sandwich for a few years so that they can build a young group that can attract others. They have an extra first round pick, so it will be interesting to see how they attack the trade period. As for what they do with Polec, I suppose that's entirely dependent on whether they think the relationship is salvageable. If they think they can then the only downside is whatever compensation we'd be offering them, which may not be much.

Genuinely surprised by the overwhelming positive response to this news.

tony lockett... the list goes on and on...... time to use the ignore user button

Forget the years, had to happen. Heart and soul player. I feel better for the signing. Good on you Jack.

There seems to be a bit of Chinese whispers going on I think. There's a bunch of rumours that have become intertwined and turned into something else. Not super reliable sources for all this, but the different elements are: - Sketchy rumour that Cripps may request a trade to WA due to an illness of his partner. (Not a good source at this stage) - Carlton approached Melbourne about Oliver (perhaps knowing the above) but were immediately shot down. (Good source) - Oliver was 'angry' about his Bluey placing. However it wasn't anger at the club/coaches, it was just a reflection of his competitiveness and maturity (or lack thereof). (Tom Morris, who obviously has MFC connections, spoke about this a few days ago) I think those things have merged into 'Oliver is angry about his BnF placing and has requested a trade to Carlton'.

Why? He's 26, vice captain and a top 3 B&F for the last 5 years

I'm only quoting this so the haters have to see it twice.

Contracted lad. Essendon wouldn't even entertain a trade, and if we somehow did get to the negotiation stage they'd want one of Petracca or Oliver for sure. much better to just keep talking to him and have a serious crack at the end of next year.

On balance great news. I'm wary about the 5th year and the role we intend to deploy him in, but the latter is completely within our control and if we do it right, we can make it work. Just such utter rubbish. GWS is a perfect example of how classy players aren't enough. Look at Richmond's recent premiership 22s: players like David Astbury, Dyan Grimes, Brandon Ellis, Toby Nankervis, Liam Baker, Kamdyn McIntosh and Jack Graham were in those sides. Not exactly "classy", but very much "heart and soul". And as to the "season stats", none of which you've cited, here are some: 11th in the comp for CPs per game; 12th in the comp for clearances per game; 8th in the comp for inside 50s per game; 13th in the comp for centre clearances per game. In all of those stats, the players above him are almost universally the competition's elite players (we're talking Oliver, Petracca, Fyfe, Neale, Cripps, Dangerfield, Bontempelli, Adams, Treloar, Liberatore, Naitanui). And whilst he did, fairly, finish equal second for turnovers per game, the players around him are also elite (Prestia, Treloar, Martin, Petracca and Brodie Smith are all equal-4th or higher on that metric).

I am in fierce agreement with you.

Good call @Lord Nev. I heard 4 years, you heard 5. Your source was correct. Hats off to you and good result for the club as he is definitely a heart and soul player. Now we need to balance the midfield better and play Jack to his strengths.