Smokey

We’ve both arrived at the same destination but took different roads to get there. Yes, we need to trade him. This is a football club, not a family. I couldn’t care less about past mistakes, players sad feelings when the chips are down or anything other than looking forward and winning games with a team of players that are fully invested. No one is bigger than the club, near death experience or not.

He signed a monster contract and took a kings ransom then proceeded to act like a petulant child by exploring trades. He refuses to address media speculation and clearly isn't committed to the club. As the highest paid player on our list, this is toxic. You don't need to agree with my opinions, but you don't get to declare them categorically wrong because regardless of how much free time you apparently have to go to training sessions, you're no more inside trac's mind than any of us.

All well and good, but I don't really care to be honest. He has become a narcissist and is a very poor example for our younger players. He gets paid too much to hold our great club at ransom the way he has been last few years and he doesn't even back it up with consistent performance on the field. Trac has become toxic for our culture, [censored] him off for pennies on the dollar for all I care.

He got hit from behind, spare me. It's not like he jumped on a grenade in the trenches of Gallipoli.

Automatic 6-week sanction for "hate speech"

I’ll never understand why these sort of issues (Rankine) need to be dealt with in the public domain. If people are concerned with harm minimisation, then homophobic/other legally protected group slurs should absolutely be handled behind closed doors. Who benefits from broadcasting the narrow views of one individual in an organisation of largely tolerant and respectful blokes? Deal with offenders swiftly and harshly without broadcasting to the world which particular group their slur was aimed at. Serves absolutely no purpose doing this except for amplifying the message. And don’t get me started on the media sensationalising players experiencing mental health difficulties. The way the media has reported on Clarry these last few years has been disgraceful.

In the corporate world, it is very common that organisations will look to move someone on but give them the opportunity to resign first. We’ll never know.

Few here are clearly tired and emotional. Fair enough. Bucks has a lot to work with here. We are a few tweaks away from being good again. We’ve seen plenty from the young brigade to leave me hopeful after what was obviously a very frustrating season. Langdon is going to be a star.

Take cents on the dollar for Petracca and Clarry and just find a way to trade them. Then we can start the mini rebuild.

Petracca should be embarrassed. His disposal is deplorable, he needs to be traded urgently

Uh oh

I think the prospect of a win vs either the hawks or pies will do more for us in terms of galvanising our belief that we are still a half decent list (which may help retain a few players we want to keep that are on the fence about their future with the club) than shifting magnets arbitrarily will do. I don’t see what playing pin the tail on the donkey with the team sheet really does for us with 2 games left against contenders eyeing a flag. Getting flogged by either of these teams due to playing blokes out of their position will only compound any retention issues we may have in the rank and file right now. We have had a shocking year, let’s mot make it worse? Play our best team in their normal positions and focus on winning one of these next two games please. It’s been a really rough year, as a supporter it would be nice to go out on a high like that.

Ignoring PF was the only way I could enjoy myself on DL. Suggest everyone does the same, he's the biggest f l og here by a mile.

Max aside, we can’t rely on our senior expensive stars to stand up and execute when it matters. It’s a huge problem and greatly contributes to not being able to close out close games Petracca’s inconsistent output and horrific ball use is very deflating. Viney tries his hardest but he is extremely limited as a player. The game has gone past Clarry and I don’t think he has the tools to become a dominant force again. We can’t expect to win close games late in the season off the back of our younger players, it’s the senior players that need to drag us over the line and sadly Max can’t do it every week on his own. I really hope we make some ruthless trades this off season. We’ll be relevant again with this young core group and some astute trades.

Trade Petracca at all costs.

We have a list that can be built on. Figure out how to trade Trac to Hawthorn and Clarry to Geelong. Bucks has plenty to work with if we can move on some of the old guard that are holding us back.

Great game of footy. Cant help but think it feels like one of those honourable losses from the dark days though.

Great read, but more importantly, your username is amazing lol 😂

He's going nowhere. Thankfully. Any talk of trading our only classy forward (Pickett aside) that kicks 40 goals a season is ludicrous.

I'm as passionate as the next Melbourne fan, but seriously, if our coach getting sacked is having a material effect on your mental health then I would implore you to please talk to someone to uncover the underlying issue/s you're dealing with.

Love Brad but I reckon we should never put him in front of a camera again. Ever.

I note Tom Morris was sitting in the front row. Read into that as you will.

I hope (but am not hopeful) the club learns some sort of lesson around communications here. In the age of news delivered instantly to devices in our pockets and journalists who clamor to be first rather than right, there is absolutely no reason Brad's email couldn't have gone out last night (that also included a mention that a press conference was forthcoming). Footy is a 24 hour business these days, why on earth would we willingly provide any sort of scope to lose control of the initiative on the comms around this? Our board is mentally stuck in the 90s.

In light of this mornings developments, Dee's by 50+