Gawn's Beard

https://www.melbournefc.com.au/video/1695021/jason-taylor-round-1-afl-draft-recap?videoId=1695021&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1732106250001

While I tend to agree, this continually highlights how poor we are at media management. We are the medias favorite punching bag and whether the club are right or wrong on their treatment of Clarry, they can’t win in the eyes of the media. Media management shouldn’t be this hard. You have a strong lead who develops strong relationships with those who are relevant, offer up some exclusives to keep them happy and friendly & make them feel like the most important people in the industry. Then when stuff like this happens, they’ll call you first as they prioritize the relations, or you call them and ask them to shut it down. We’ve seemingly gone down the path of shutting up shop and allowing them to fill the space, which they’ll do 100 times over. Whatever we’re doing, it’s not working…

I’m wondering whether he was even meant to be there? Was he on the MFC table? Lots of photos from the club of Gawn, Viney, Lever & May but none of Clayton. Anyone there able to shed any light on whether Oliver was on the MFC table?

The timing of this stinks. Why is it only now that the AFLPA are getting involved? I don’t want to throw up conspiracy theories, however Caro’s almost throwaway line at the end re “story Christian telling the AFLPA isn’t pretty” makes you wonder…

I think that’s unfair on fans. The club (well at least amongst fans) was largely harmonious until all of this mess unfolded. If (and it is a big if) this talk about Brand Petracca, bigger crowds etc has any truth to it, then it’s a big slap to the face of the fans in particular. His statement didn’t exactly endear himself to fans either, who are understandably bruised over all of this. I’m sure time will heal all wounds etc

Maybe it was the senior players. They could have been trying to salvage the clubs season, talk through how they approach playing group, etc and were getting donuts from Trac, only to then see him post a bunch of social media vids. Would confuse me too

Absolutely I am taking the same view. The fabric of game is being pulled apart. I get why the AFL is going this direction but it’s completely changing the game, and not for the better

Don’t think it’s fair to paint Kozzy with this brush this time around. Was doing what every player should be doing in those circumstances- engage your opponent, get them off balance and win the ball. Only difference here is that Moore disappears through the floor after Kozzy had moved to engage Moore. Once he’d committed to engaging Moore with his momentum, he can’t shift it.

Gary Pert said as much on SEN on Saturday. This will have served as a massive distraction to the Board & CEO over the last 12+ months, not to mention the other ongoing litigation swirling around.

Pert here is on a hiding to nothing. He knows that every person is trawling for headlines so he has to walk a narrow path

I wouldn’t go that far. What do you expect the CEO to say?

Putting a fair amount on the shoulders of the leadership group, who will be “driving the rebuild of the program, led by Gawn & Viney”

“Conversations between [Pert] & Petracca is not about him breaking his contract or being traded”

Hasn’t come across great, and it’s hard to given the very strong cultural statements made at the start of the season which are being played back to him

If you were wanting to have a truly equal fixture, then: Rounds 1-17, play everyone once Ladder after round 17 is split into 3, Top 6, Middle 6, Bottom 6 Top 6 guaranteed finals, play each other once to determine top 6 order Middle 6 play each other once, top 2 then make up final 2 spots in final 8 Bottom 6 play each other for ladder position and determine number of balls for “lottery” draft picks (picks 1-6), with highest getting more, etc. Means 22 games plus finals. Devil is in the detail however at least we’d have equal fixture, similar interstate travel, and avoids tanking

Agreed. If they are going to do it - which seems inevitable- then they should adopt the NBA model. Not saying it’s ideal, and you’d have to play 2 rounds of wildcard games spread across a week, however it’s grossly unfair on 7th on the current proposal.

Yep agree with that. It certainly compounded the problems we’ve had as a club prior to Jackson, Roos and co. Less so now, and if Caulfield allows us to continually have the best facilities in the league for the next 50 years then we’re going to be better positioned than Collingwood & Richmond who will themselves have to be looking elsewhere

Perhaps over the last 20 years but the Lexus Centre itself has a shelf life, just like Punt Road. As a facility it’ll drift towards the back of the pack given the limited space / development potential

What’s all this nonsense on here about “he should get a week so Kozzy stamps this behavior out of his game”? This isn’t comparable to his bump against Bailey Smith. This isn’t even him electing to bump. It’s him running parallel to a player, trying to smother a hand pass with a semi-jump (if it was a full jump his hip would have made contact with his head) in the same way every other player on the ground does multiple times a game. If he gets a week then he’s unlucky, but enough with this hanging him out to dry business!

One thing that BBB does which always goes unnoticed is his deft taps in marking contests. Watch Fritch’s first goal from Saturday - came from BBB deliberately tapping the ball to the back of the contest for Fritsch to run onto. Does it week after week, and of course doesn’t show up on the stat sheet, but is invaluable to the way we play.

Yep. He’s a lock for the unused substitute role

Injury prone, poor disposal and questionable decision making. It’s a yes from me

Agree with this, but perhaps you find a way to incentivize them? Team that tops the bottom 6 earns more lottery balls for the draft (assuming that the AFL wants to introduce this at some point). Or include them in whatever wildcard / playoff the afl want to introduce. No disrespect intended, however you already have a bunch of meaningless games at this stage of the season. By having WCE for example playing against the teams around them they may stand a chance of winning a game or two and building some momentum into the following season. Their fans might actually be more engaged?

Of course, but plucking a contested mark in a large pack of players is low percentage relative to going up one handed (longer reach) and deflecting towards a teammate

This is him following instructions and bringing the ball to ground for our smalls. He’s actually getting quite adept at it - think it was Rd 2 vs Brisbane where he tapped it out of a marking contest to a small running by straight into goal