titan_uranus

Personally, I hate this. Trac's probably my favourite ever MFC player. Watching him annihilate the Dogs on Grand Final day in 2021 and propel us into relevance was as proud a moment as most of us have ever had as MFC supporters. It stings, bad, that a knee from Darcy Moore could spiral this way so fast. But equally, I applaud the club's maturity. Unlike last year, we're writing to members about it, and we're also allowing him to go explore in the public eye. Go and find us a deal that is reasonable. If not, you can come back and front up to the leaders you're trying to abandon. Isn't that Oliver's contract (i.e. indexed with TPP increases)? I've never heard of that being a Trac contract thing.

You did it again - Smith won his side a final in 2021. You seriously have unbridled ability to cherry pick singular moments! Also yes he was amazing this year (albeit with a side of dickheadishness). Caleb Daniel may have been under contact but was awful, and in no way was worth 25 under contract before or after that trade (plus how old is he? Judd’s 22). Anyway, my point is that 11 is as unreasonable as 38, which you think we’ll be “lucky to get” because Judd got torched by Rankine. And whilst I don’t currently believe McVee will be AA next year, I think he has potential to be an AA defender, and I’d like to see us ask for remuneration in a trade which reflects that. Again, in the context of everything, not just one game.

You really do have a penchant for highlighting singular examples to make your points. Last year Caleb Daniel was traded for pick 25. Based on that, he’s worth 11 a lot more than he’s worth 38. And Judd played a bad game this year vs Rankine? Cool. Shall we go through all the good things he’s done since debuting, plus his age, skill set and importance to us moving forward? Or is context not really your thing?

Get ready for the whole “why would anyone go to Melbourne” narrative to be run 10273 times per day as Trade Radio starts in 2 hours and runs for 2.5 weeks. Kane’s on every day!

29’s a terrible outcome for us. He’s deserting us. He can get Freo to work out how to send us 11.

Agree. I’m filthy. We gave him his chance. If he wants midfield time, he won’t get it at Fremantle. We can’t afford to lose talent right now, not in his age bracket and with his ceiling. And he’s clearly done @Ghostwriter an absolute dirty.

I don’t agree with the key forward point. They’d only have one flag if Daniher hadn’t dominated last year’s finals series. And with Andrews impassable, I reckon Geelong would have liked having a decent key forward (with two unbroken arms) to try to make an aerial contest. Neale wasn’t capable. Also worth wondering how it would have gone had Stewart been available to intercept and to make Gallop/the rest ruck more honest.

I don’t know if the stats reflect this but watching yesterday it felt to me like they got on top in the third through contest dominance. It was old school midfield brutalisation that changed the game, I thought, rather than back half scoring off transition.

Logan Morris’ repeat leads and contests in the air brought the smaller forwards into play. Ty Gallop was average but provided an outlet at times. At the other end, Harris Andrews was dominant because Shannon Neale was awful. Good tall forwards aren’t just measured by goals.

I’m just talking about this season, particularly in comparison to Geelong. Agree with the premise - the good fortune of their father son additions coming in right as their list was peaking has taken them to this level. Huge amount of luck. Likely 0 flags without the Ashcrofts. It doesn’t help equalisation that they’ll now add Draper and Allen.

Don’t get me wrong, their sustained top 4 finishes and prelims leave most of the rest of the competition for dead. I wouldn’t be mocking them for losing finals; we can’t lose finals if we don’t even make them. But this year in particular, AFAIK they’ve had a good run with injuries, a good fixture, and everything there for them to win today. And when it was all said and done, didn’t get close.

St Kilda’s ladder position and W-L record flattered them significantly. Their last 4 wins were all by a kick. Huge amounts of luck required (none more so than against us). They’d be kidding themselves if they thought they did well this year; their aggressive trade approach is consistent with them acknowledging they are nowhere right now. What’s sad is that despite all that, they have more members than us.

Please confirm you’re being sarcastic.

Brisbane had plenty go wrong this year. Injuries, a ridiculously hard fixture, then losing the first final and Neale doing a calf. To win despite all that is an elite achievement. Geelong, meanwhile, have everything you could ask for and still [censored] the bed in the Grand Final. I absolutely love it.

Except we don’t have pick 7, and I’m not sure a pick of that order is warranted anyway.

Really revealing quotes from this: When asked about those lessons, Goodwin revealed the Demons struggled to find purpose again after breaking the 57-year premiership drought. “After success you face different challenges. As a coach it (the challenge) was building towards a premiership and building a great organisation but after success things change,” Goodwin said. “The disease of me is one of those where everyone wants more, they want more accolades, they want more money and then convenience starts to kick in. “The standards aren’t quite the same, they don’t quite want to be motivated . . . you need to really shift your purpose, you need to create a new purpose for the new challenge. “Our initial purpose was to bring happiness to the Melbourne football fans who haven’t had it and to break the Norm Smith curse of 57 years. “Once we did that, we didn’t redefine our next purpose and I think that’s a big part of driving success and that was one of the biggest lessons for me.”

Vikings, Chargers, Eagles

Tell me more about how St Kilda have “recruited amazingly well”.

You've taken a bit of poetic licence here. He didn't say the last line at all (i.e. we're not "second"). And the only extent that they're front runners was a throwaway line at the end of his commentary on Flanders, saying "you'd have the Saints in front", immediately after saying there are four clubs and we'll have to wait to see which one he nominates. Finally, he also suggested that the only reason they're in the running at all is money. Not sure that makes them any more or less "enticing". The point is pretty clear. They went "aggressive" in 2019 and got Brad Hill, Dan Butler, Zak Jones, Paddy Ryder and Dougal Howard. They won a final in 2020, but haven't won one since (and only made finals one other time, in 2023). That final they won in 2020 is the only final they've won since the 2010 preliminary final. If I were a St Kilda supporter, I wouldn't be getting any hopes up next year. I'd believe it if/when I see it.

Nah let this one go. NWM was so blatantly best on ground. It’s as big a howler as you’ll ever see.

Gawn’s and Trac’s reactions are priceless.

As for the topic overall, I am generally in the "equalisation's not working" camp. Cutting off at 2001 is arbitrary but 25 years is a reasonable period to look at, and we know in the last 25 years Geelong, Collingwood, Hawthorn and Brisbane (plus Sydney) have been miles in front of everyone else. It was fun having Brisbane in the GF in 2023, given they'd been terrible for most of the previous 20 years. But seeing a rotation of Grand Finals with Geelong, Collingwood, Brisbane and Sydney for four straight seasons is boring. Perhaps we were blessed with the run we had from 2016-2021, where all bar two GFs had at least one "small" club, or a club facing some sort of drought (2016 - Dogs, 2017 - both clubs, 2019 - GWS, 2021 - us, if not both clubs). For Brisbane to get the Ashcrofts and Fletcher without proper competition, and then be able to get Allen and Draper for no cost, does not help. Some practical ways to address the issue: Either get rid of Academies and Father/Son, or keep them but increase the price significantly - if the best player in the draft happens to be the son of a club's former player, that club should have to pay through the nose to disrupt the draft to get them. I'm talking 2-3 times as much as they pay now. Amend the first round to give more picks to the bottom 4-6 and/or fewer picks to the top 4-6. Apply some sort of tax to the top 2/4/6 clubs when acquiring Free Agents - the AFLPA will never allow a ban to Free Agents joining the top clubs (that's the whole point of Free Agency), but we can't keep having good players from bad clubs walking to preliminary finalists at no cost. Conduct a proper investigation of what all 18 clubs are doing to remunerate players outside the salary cap. Whether it's sponsorship deals, third party payments, whatever it is, properly investigate it, and crack down on it. Make Geelong pay a reverse COLA tax - everyone lauds their list management as genius, when in reality they just benefit from being based in a regional town playing against 17 clubs based in big cities.

I agree about the sentiment, but not about the idea that Hawthorn hasn't "raided other clubs". For starters, their rise up the ladder last year wasn't a coincidence. At the end of 2023 they traded in Ginnivan, Chol, D'Ambrosio and Gunston (second time they've taken him off another club!), which they then backed up after one good year with Battle and Barrass. They've also traded/FA acquired Impey, Amon, Meek and Scrimshaw. Brisbane have their fair share of players from other clubs too, but nailed the 2016 and 2017 drafts (McCluggage, Berry, Rayner, Bailey and Starcevich in those two years alone) and then when they were already a good side but weren't winning finals, pulled Wilmot at 16 and Lohmann at 20 in the 2021 draft, topped off with Morris at 31 in 2023 and Gallop at 42 in 2024.

Viewed as mentorship, leadership etc, and an improvement on what we have now, he’d be a good pick up. But that sort of pick up is not a 3-year large contract sort of thing. It’s 2 years and a reasonable wage. If that’s enough to get him out of Collingwood, then away we go.

I think in context their entire 7 years has been amazing. They just went on with it after 2022, whereas we…didn’t. Of course, it helps that they had the Ashcrofts and Fletcher as father son picks. Would love a summary of what they had to spend on those three. To be fair, they’ve also had Coleman, McCarthy and Doedee on the sidelines for almost all of the last two years. If they win it next week, gee how will those three feel, the first two in particular - been at Brisbane for a while but injured when the flags came.