titan_uranus

Don’t know if this has had a run anywhere else: Riley Beveridge says Fritsch going nowhere, he and club both want him to stay next year. Josh Gabelich says the same thing about Lever.

It’s barely been 24 hours. I reckon cut him a touch of slack.

The Jon Ralph grain of salt applies here: “Judd McVee has to be kept, he doesn’t want to leave Victoria. His partner is an AFLW player and also plays for Melbourne. There’s Victorian clubs swirling, but they just need to keep him.” Fox Sports‘Diametrically opposed’: Inside Goodwin’s axing, $1.2m pa...‘Was he deluded?’ Inside story of $1.2m Dees axe... and trade watch set to re-ignite

According to Jon Ralph (yes, yes, I know): “Christian Petracca doesn’t want to leave and the club is adamant it is not letting him go. They want to set him up for a superstar return to form, he’s not quite there this year. They also want to help him off the field to set himself up for life, if he hasn’t already. Ralph said the “big one” to watch is Oliver, who nearly left for Geelong last year, suggesting the only way the four-time best and fairest could move is if he took a pay cut and Melbourne contributed towards his salary elsewhere. “If he accepted a massive, massive pay cut — let’s call it $400,000 — and Melbourne paid out — let’s call it $300,000 — he’s still on that $800,000-$900,000 a year. I just don’t think there’s any takers for him,” he said. “But if I was a fresh coach coming into this situation, would I want Oliver always in my midfield? I think I’d probably want him to move on. But it’s just so hard to factor a market where there’s enough money off the books to pay him. “I think if you’re paying over $1 million for him, Petracca and Kysaiah Pickett, that’s too much of a handcuff. Especially if they’re not going to win a premiership in the next couple of years. “I think it's a big decision ahead on Clayton. If I was them I’d move heaven and earth to move on Clayton.” Fox Sports‘Diametrically opposed’: Inside Goodwin’s axing, $1.2m pa...‘Was he deluded?’ Inside story of $1.2m Dees axe... and trade watch set to re-ignite

Hutchy ran with Waverley last night:

Hird claims he’s not interested. Eddie thinks we want two big names - one senior coach, one senior assistant or similar.

We might have the better list, right? But we have worse facilities, fewer members, less money, a 2hr round trip to Casey required multiple times per week, a dysfunctional board, a new CEO, probably/hopefully a new head of football, possibly/hopefully a new list manager, a $1m coach payout that is going to impact our bottom line and salary cap problems. It's probably no wonder we went early on this. We're worried that, in a choice between us and them, our preferred coach would likely choose Carlton.

Goodwin joking about Casey is as good as sign as any that we desperately need to sort this disaster of a situation out ASAP. We don't really need any more evidence that the enormous drive out to a place that is (sorry to those who live there) soulless and meaningless to our club, with facilities that are the worst in the competition, will dissuade some from joining our club, and will motivate others to want out.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/mate-we-need-to-talk-the-inside-story-of-simon-goodwin-s-sacking-20250805-p5mkkk.html Fairly decent level of insight from Gleeson, again. Same board member leaking to him as last week, you'd imagine. "At about 7pm Monday the phone rang. Simon Goodwin was at home in Malvern when Brad Green called. “Mate, we need to talk. Are you home? We need to come over for a chat,” Green said. Goodwin knew the news wouldn’t be good. Green rang from his car in the MCG car park soon after the board met, with president-in-waiting Steven Smith joining online from Europe. They’d decided that, after nine years, a premiership and no finals victories since, Goodwin’s second successive season of missing the finals would be his last. Green arrived at Goodwin’s house about 7.30pm with head of football Alan Richardson, a former coach himself and now in the uncomfortable position of having to help deliver bad news to another coach. With them were interim chief executive David Chippindall and board member Angela Williams. They wanted to give Goodwin the news personally and, as a group, convey the unity of their decision. With the decision made, they reasoned it would be disrespectful not to tell Goodwin straight away and risk word leaking out, as it undoubtedly would have." And on the payout: "When the quartet left, Goodwin picked up the phone to his manager Michael Doughty, a former Adelaide teammate who is still based in Adelaide working for agency TGI. It will be for Doughty to work with the club on the details of the payout. It will be for the club to decide with the AFL if it can be staggered over several years under the soft cap, as Hawthorn’s was to Alastair Clarkson. Doughty and Goodwin discussed what was next for him in the short, medium and longer term. They are, in order: holiday, probably media work next year, and hopefully a senior coaching job after that. Thus, his demeanour at his press conference with Green was as much a job application as it was termination."

So Will Faulkner on Fox reports that Longmire is top of our list. Damian Barrett (yes, yes, I know) has done a piece on afl.com.au arguing that we are would prefer an experienced coach to an untried one, and that we want to appoint the new coach before the Grand Final. We know the club's leaking, so I tend to accept these reports. Sounds like we want an experienced coach, and maybe Longmire is the first choice. Personally, he's the only experienced coach I'd want. They're mates I think, so this doesn't surprise me, but this also makes me sick. Put the supplements to one side, Hird wasn't even any good.

In: Chaplin? Out: Goodwin

The passage of time will tell us whether it needed to be done now, or could have waited 3 weeks. But for those who want the club to be #ruthless, you’ve got your wish. If this destabilises the club, well, you made your bed. I hope this isn’t Green making a #bigcall just to justify that he isn’t an interim president. I hope this has been well thought through.

Brutal. I am of the view that it’s the right call for 2026, but the timing is brutal. I wish him all the best. He brought us our first flag in 57 years, multiple finals campaigns after a 12 year drought, relevance and excitement. He also had to deal with relentless media scrutiny, a dysfunctional board/club and no proper home base. I hope he gets the recognition he deserves, whether you think this is the right call or not.

Why not? If it was something Trac or the MFC was considering, he would have mentioned that ("sources say" etc.). At trade time, journalists are hell-bent on coming up with ideas for trades that fill their columns, articles, podcasts, TV segments and radio shows. He's run with this on First Crack and in the paper on a Sunday night, which feeds perfectly into the Monday night TV shows - watch this get raised on The Agenda Setters, On the Couch or Footy Classified tonight.

I actually think there’s an interesting debate to be had here. Is being an MFC supporter a necessary prerequisite for being a board member? Is there something to be said for targeting the best in class at governance irrespective of prior allegiances? Or, alternatively, is that more appropriate for the CEO and other such roles but the board is where we want MFC people who have genuine care for the club?

They were talking about St Kilda going after TDK, and the flow on impact it might have with Marshall. Donohoe then mentioned that Marshall’s best football was when he played alongside Paddy Ryder, and that as a result he might want to stay, and that Max Heath instead might be looking elsewhere, and he mentioned that we’d been connected to him. Just dropped it into the sentence and they all moved on.

If that’s true, that’s in the top 5 dumbest takes of the season. His co-host, David King, has been banging on for weeks about how we need to move on from the Trac, Oliver, Viney centre bounce brigade, and he isn’t exactly the only person to make that argument.

I heard John Donohoe mention this on SEN today during the St Kilda game. Has it come up anywhere else?

Where in @Demonstone ’s post was there “crowing about” the win?

The opponent was truly awful but with the week we'd had, an 83 point win is at least par, if not above par. The result doesn't tell us much, so it's more about the individual moments, players and strategies that I care about more. Things I noticed: Windsor got 24 centre bounces (out of 33 total) Trac only got 7 centre bounces We kicked 21 goals despite Koz not kicking one and Melksham only kicking 1 Trac only had 6 kicks all day, two of which were shots on goal, so for the entire rest of the game he only had four kicks 22 tackles inside 50 to 2 is an insane stat Langford is going to be a gun. Clearly has room for improvement (strength, marking, right foot) but even with those limitations his talent is obvious Culley should play the rest of the season. I see something to work with there, but we have to remember this was akin to a VFL level opponent. Let's see what he does on the G against the Dogs, Hawthorn and Collingwood so that we know if/how to use him in 2026

Have a listen to the interview he did on 3AW before the Gold Coast game in Round 3, available here: https://www.3aw.com.au/what-the-melbourne-president-thought-of-simon-goodwins-comments-about-max-gawn/ Around 25 mins into the longer of the two clips. He gets introduced as interim president but tries to cut Tim Lane off to correct him that he’s not interim, he’s president for 12 months under a succession plan. IIRC he did other radio interviews that day where he said the same thing.

AFAIK Laurie doesn’t have to consent, we can delist him if we want, but we must pay him what he’s owed for next year. We can’t really afford to be paying Laurie whatever his contract allows for next year to have him play VFL or whatever. It’s terrible list management IMO.

Green did “bristle”, markedly, in a series of radio interviews earlier this year when he was described as “interim president”. He steadfastly said he was not interim.

Hiding to nothing today. No one will bat an eyelid if we win, even by 60+. A loss will be disastrous. Really just want to see intensity from all, and some promise from the kids.