titan_uranus

FWIW, my view is that Fritsch is more of an icing on the cake, and in a season where the cake was disgusting, the icing didn't get a chance to shine. We need to fix the cake (ball movement) and if we do, he'll be better for it. However, that's not to say he can't improve his defensive work, because he can. But I don't think that goes anywhere near the level of trading him out, because I don't think he's easily replaceable at all, and I think his value goes up exponentially if/when we improve the midfield.

13 players in the entire competition this year kicked more than Fritsch's 41, and only 17 had a better goals per game average. One of those 17 players was Sam Day, who only played 5 games, and another was Thilthorpe, who only played 7. Of the other 15 players who played most of the season and averaged more goals per game than Fritsch, only 6 averaged more pressure acts than Fritsch's 8.3 per game: Treacy, Ugle-Hagan, Rankine, Langford, Greene and Sam Darcy. "Not that hard to replace...with someone who can put on pressure and tackle"? I beg to differ.

GWS, Port or the Dogs for me. Although at this point I’m going to have to barrack for whoever is playing Geelong or Hawthorn.

Correct. North copped a much harder set of double ups than Hawthorn did. There are no guarantees with a bottom 6 fixture because it is set based on the previous year’s performance. Hawthorn’s just an example of how it can work in your favour.

This won't happen. For one, I'm pretty confident that he either leaves this trade period or he commits to us and, as a result of committing to us, never leaves. For another, his contract means we can't trade him without his agreement, and if we theoretically opened up bidding to all 17 clubs, the highest bidders will be clubs he doesn't want to play for. He'll only agree to certain clubs and they won't be anywhere near the highest bidders. He will either find a club he wants (Carlton, Collingwood, perhaps Essendon or Hawthorn) who his manager believes can offer something we'd genuinely consider, or he'll commit to us and say he had a very difficult year (true), reflected on everything (true), didn't know what he wanted to do (true) but ultimately realised he is a Melbourne person, even though it took him a long time to work it out.

In relation to the quoted line about acting in good faith, whilst the line comes in the analysis of the rules that were left to be decided by the judge, the paragraph and surrounds don't link that phrase solely to those rules. I don't know that the judge would have been so unequivocal on that issue if he had privately thought to himself that the club's conduct in relation to the other rules wasn't in good faith etc. It's at least open for debate I'd have thought, so I'm not sure I misinterpreted anything there. Then in relation to the second point, the judgment shows that Peter rejected the amendment the club ultimately made, which was to make it clear that the phrase "disparage" does not include reasonable constructive criticism. I find it hard to see what Peter thought was wrong with that amendment, which is precisely what the judge said. I agree though that it obviously came at the conclusion of the trial, so had he agreed with the amendment it wouldn't have made a difference to the fact that the trial had already occurred. But this wasn't the only rule left for the judge to consider. There was still at that point no agreement on the rules relating to giving interviews and using social media. So you've had a go at me for something "factually incorrect" but I'm not sure your post is completely correct either. Regardless, what I meant to focus on in my first post (but which I see on reflection was not clear) was less the disparagement point and more the point about being able to give interviews on TV and radio and post on social media. Combined, the effect of what he was seeking was the ability to go on radio/TV and criticise the club. As I said, I don't think that is something he ever should have sought in the first place. When I said the ends don't always justify the means, what I meant was that the outcome of this case, which should largely be seen as a win for him, doesn't mean that his actions can be stripped of any sense of entitlement or selfishness which would otherwise attach to them. But I completely accept that our election rules are better now. I also completely agree that Roffey's email was disgracefully misleading.

Overall record against the finalists: Sydney: 6-3 GWS: 6-6 Collingwood: 6-6 Port Adelaide: 5-3 Geelong: 5-5 Bulldogs: 5-5 Adelaide: 4-1-8 Hawthorn: 4-5 Carlton: 4-6 Melbourne: 4-7 Brisbane: 3-5 Essendon: 3-6 Gold Coast: 3-7 Fremantle: 3-8 St Kilda: 3-8 Richmond: 1-10 West Coast: 0-8 North Melbourne: 0-12 So whilst the bottom 6 draw worked for Hawthorn, it did not work at all for North, who copped 4 of a possible 6 maximum repeat games against finalists (Carlton, Geelong, the Dogs and Hawthorn). Adelaide had the roughest on this metric, with 5 of its 6 repeat games against finalists (Geelong, Port, Brisbane, Hawthorn and Sydney), meaning 13 of their 23 games were against finalists. Meanwhile Brisbane, despite making the GF last year, and Port, despite being a top 4 H&A side last year, ended up with just 1 of their 6 repeat games against finalists. Brisbane fared well getting Collingwood and us twice. It's obviously a rudimentary metric - part of the reason the finalists are finalists is because they beat the other sides. Also this doesn't take into account when a side won these games (e.g. of our 4 wins, 3 were in in Rounds 1-3).

The help of a bottom 6 draw can be seen in Hawthorn. They got each of Richmond, North Melbourne and Adelaide twice. They went 6-0 against them. The way they play is very attractive and exciting, but it's also important to note that the only finalist they've beaten since Round 13 was Carlton two weeks ago, when they had no one on the bench in the second half, and they only played three finalists in total since Round 13 (lost to Geelong and GWS, beat Carlton).

In Round 18: We were in the top 8 Carlton was 2nd Fremantle was 5th Essendon was 6th Port was 9th, 2.1% behind us The Dogs were 10th Hawthorn was 11th, a game and 10% behind us St Kilda was 15th, 4 wins and 14.4% behind us

So we just finished 14th. To be honest, I hate seeing us that low on the ladder. But if you’re going to have a down year (and let’s hope it’s just one year down), may as well make it as bad as possible. Getting pick 5 after being in the finals race with 3-4 games to play has its upside.

There’s no way they trade either of them. No way at all. Regardless, this is the key issue at play in relation to the silence - Trac wants to know if there’s a club he can nominate who will offer up something the club will be genuinely interested in. How are Carlton, whose season may have another 2 weeks minimum left, going to be able to indicate a trade of one of these sorts of players without asking them, which they can’t and won’t do until their season ends?

Agree. Too much talk about key forwards, not enough about the midfield. I’d rather spend whatever we’d have to pay Lynch on a mid, assuming we can find one.

Daicos’ worst game this year was arguably KB, when ANB tagged him right out of it. We didn’t get near them.

I think at this point there are two factors in his silence. The first would be that he is mulling over a trade request but doesn’t yet know if a club he wants to go to can satisfy us. So he can’t commit, nor can he say he wants out. So he says nothing. The second would be his mental health. I suspect he is in a much worse place than most on here understand. Stepping out of the interview late last night can IMO be well explained by that. He isn’t anywhere near his normal self and that will be impacting his judgment, decision making and persona.

I found our losses interesting this year. They were either close games, which we largely botched, or they were large scale losses. From 6-2 onwards, when we went 5-10, our losses were by 1, 2, 5 and 5, and then by 35, 38, 56, 50, 51 and 92. Six times we couldn't keep the margin below 6 goals. The other four were botched close games. Nothing in between after Round 5. Edit: so were our wins, too. After Round 5, our wins were by 3 and 8, then 17 to Essendon (but that was 40+ with 10 minutes to go), and otherwise were 38, 43, 54 and 54. One game after Round 5 that wasn't decided by a single digit or by 6+ goals.

A lot of clubs have bogey sides. Right now Collingwood and Fremantle are that for us. It'll be partly in our heads, I'm sure. It's also talent. Collingwood are smarter and faster than us, whilst Fremantle match us at contest and are too strong defensively for us to score against. There was a thread going around the other week asking when we know our season was shot. For mine, it was King's Birthday. Losing to a half-strength Collingwood by 6 goals told me we were no good.

Sadly, he's just not good enough. He didn't deserve to be dropped after the GWS game, which was arguably his best, and maybe some continuity would have helped, but the rest of his performances didn't warrant ongoing selection. I've never seen it, and I still don't. The decision to give him the contract extension was baffling given the lack of faith we showed in him.

Well, so it ends. From the Oliver trade story 11 months ago, into Joel Smith, into copping a fixture that we now can see was as difficult as could be, into Gus, we had an off-season we all wanted to believe we'd put behind us, but which ultimately wrecked us before we even set foot onto the SCG for Opening Round. At the absolute least, the capitulation from 6-2 and 4th on the ladder after Round 8 to 11-12 and in the bottom 6 with a sub-100% percentage tells us that we do not have the right list, coaching staff and general approach to contend, so it forces us to change. We can't sit still, make list changes at the fringes, and go again. Already seen a stack of posters going on about getting a key forward. That's not the number one issue. The number one issue is, and has been all year, our midfield. Even assuming Trac and Clarry get back to their peak levels next year, we don't have enough depth or support through the middle, nor do we have anywhere near enough quality ball users. We need a complete re-think of how we approach the midfield in 2025. After the midfield, I don't want an A-grade forward as much as I want a cheap third tall who can ruck and therefore allow us to stop rucking JVR. It's wasting his development. I don't hate Petty as a forward as much as others (although I find it hard to run that argument when we gave him 20 games this year for 9 goals) but if the consequence of getting a proper second ruck is that we have to play Petty back, that's not exactly a bad thing. And the other thing I care about? Our fitness. We didn't have repeat soft tissue injuries but we also didn't look fit enough for most of the year. We won just 10 of our 23 fourth quarters, which is a shadow of the side we were in 2021-23. Whatever approach we took to fitness this year failed IMO. Let's celebrate the wins of the year (getting Windsor, Rivers in the middle, McVee again (but not as a mid), Gawn's hopeful 7th AA jacket) but acknowledge that on most measurements this was a failure.

If St Kilda beat Carlton, and GC beat Richmond by about 20-odd points I think, we will finish 14th. The draft pick crew will be happy.

It's either 0 or it's 2-3+ (2 if they grade it as high impact, 3+ if they grade it as severe). Can't be 1 if he was concussed. If it's anything it will be careless and high contact.

It shouldn't be a suspension. The bump would have been fine had Moore not gone to ground. Having said that, and whilst I hate conspiracy theories, I can't help but feel he'll cop 4 weeks.

Maybe instead of searching for ulterior or worst case scenario motives, it’s just a case of Trac thinking he was ready and ok to talk to the media but realising late in the piece that he actually isn’t.

If Geelong thump West Coast, as I expect they will, they could finish 2nd (requires GWS and Port to lose, which are both possible, and to make up 7% on Port, which they could do themselves by beating West Coast by 120 at GMHBA). If they had lost to Fremantle two weeks ago, they'd be 9th right now and no guarantee to even make finals. They will IMO be one of the weakest top 4 sides we've ever seen, and if they finish 2nd undoubtedly the worst top 2 side we've ever seen. This has been the season for it.