Smokey

All I need to know is are we "training the house down" yet?

Huge day for the “told you I was right, I’m smart you’re stupid” cohort at Demonland

Passing on your lack of resilience to the kids hey? What a great lesson in life that is.

Beautiful words from Gussy. We love you mate ❤️

My advice to anyone who needs it - disconnect from footy media for a bit, focus on playing golf or whatever it is you do, and come back for the trade period. All of this speculation eliciting emotional reactions is exactly what the media want and get paid on. Ignore it, its 90% BS. You know in your heart of hearts that we'll look back on all this and wonder why we got so worked up about it.

Yet it would save face with the members. Not sure which is more valuable right now.

I highly doubt player contracts allow for arbitrary non-payment to players lol

All the best Mini. Very happy he’s gone.

Being good enough to win one and actually doing it are 2 very different things. And that's the point I'm trying to make - having any sort of expectation of winning flags doesn't make sense to me.

No list, however talented, is ever entitled to a flag. A lot needs to go right on many fronts, and often requires plenty of luck too. Are you suggesting our list over the last 3 years has been comparable to that of recent dynasty teams? We don't even have a single established, consistent key forward. In no way has our list been that good. Dee's fans tend to overestimate the quality of our list holistically. Our top end talent is as good as it gets, but our middle of the road and below players are what prevents us from having Richmond or Hawthorn type success. Your expectations far outweigh the actual quality of our list.

Why is gender an issue at all here? Would you say male president if that were the case?

Fell on her sword like a good executive should. Thanks for your service Kate.

I agree with this. But I also feel he has an obligation to protect the MFC by not giving the runway for these sorts of media stories to get to this point. But I get it if he wasn’t in the right state mentally if that’s the case. The only clear winner of this is us - he’s bloody staying and that is excellent news.

I think if he had his time again, he’d realise he hasn’t gone about this the right way. I think his passion got away from him a bit here. He almost died though, so I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt. Blokes in their 20’s, regardless of their position in life, are liable to the odd bad emotionally-driven decision. But this quote from him is music to my ears. These are the type of individuals that propel clubs forward. This is leadership of the highest order. “I make no apologies for wanting to better our club and contribute to our success both on and off the field”

I am open to the possibility that no such leaks exist and that its a throwaway line used by these journos to peddle whatever made up story they are coming up with based on loose inference only. I'll use Trac as an example: - Strong club with good list under performing - Star player out all year under controversial circumstances (medicos sending him back out on the ground) goes MIA on social media (on what we would come to understand as a self-imposed ban) - Star player expresses concerns with direction club is headed (due to said performance issues) Headline: "Petracca unhappy with club and open to trade". And here's the brilliant part of it - the headline can't be refuted either way. He stays, well he "was open to a trade", and now isn't. He goes, "Told you he was going". I'm not saying with any authority that we don't have issues with leaks, but I don't think its so bad as to quantify all the nonsense around Trac and Viney these last few weeks. Journalists are bound by a professional code of ethics which I would love to see enforced upon the AFL media more. In particular, this part of it: Accuracy and clarity 1. Ensure that factual material in news reports and elsewhere is accurate and not misleading, and is distinguishable from other material such as opinion. 2. Provide a correction or other adequate remedial action if published material is significantly inaccurate or misleading. https://presscouncil.org.au/standards/statement-of-principles