Watson11

Stumbled across this on the Melbourne site when I did a Tracc search. From about 3min 15s is a very interesting listen. Especially for those who believe the President has no right to talk to the players. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/video/933178/on-the-radio-christian-petracca?videoId=933178&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1620621291001

Where did you read that rigorous physical testing happened. My experience of going to emergency is you see a triage nurse, tell her what’s wrong and then you sit on a trolley for 8 hours. How quickly and who saw Tracc would have been entirely down to the information provided to the hospital. If Tracc presented with info stating he had a knee in the ribs, and had suspected bruised ribs, then 8 hours of car accidents, fevers, and other patients are in front of him. I have no idea how he presented, or even whether our club doctor called ahead. But it seems from the facts that the triage nurse had no idea he may have had internal organ injuries.

The club is throwing fire onto this issue and leaking like a sieve. In the media: "Depending on who Petracca talks to, it’s different. If he talks to the players, his issue is with the leadership of the club and when he talks to the leadership, his issue is with the players and the off-field stuff." So players and leadership appear to be leaking to the media. That is not dealing with the issue internally. It's quite feasible and likely that Tracc has raised off field behaviour issues with leadership. Maybe it has been raised before but brushed under the carpet. But players in every club misbehave. What is different is how leadership manage the behaviour, what is tolerated, and what isn't. It's disingenuous for the leadership of the club to play ignorant, and pretend that the issue is the relationship between Tracc and the players. Their leaking may have made this situation totally irreparable. Of course I might be wrong, and Tracc might have put on one of those Max Gawn masks, arranged a coffee with Matthew Lloyd, and then found a Gary Pert mask to do the same with Sam McClure.

We can't trade Tracc. We finally break the Norm Smith curse. Trading Tracc would start the Norm Smith Medallist curse.

I am not sure how you could interpret the line about acting in good faith to be about the MFCs conduct broadly. The Judge specifically stated in para 130"The result is that the only remaining issue necessary for me to determine is whether the affairs of the MFC have been conducted in a manner contrary to the interests of members as a whole or oppressively to Mr Lawrence and other non-preferred candidates by reason of the restrictions, as they now exist in the current version of the election rules, on “electioneering”. Then paras 131-140 are a lot of legal case history as to what "oppressive" means. Para 141 is MFCs view on why the rule re electioneering is required. Para 141 is the statement from the judge that the directors acted in good faith and the para specifically refers to the election rules "In my view, the directors of the club acted bona fide, without collateral motive. They had regard to relevant considerations, and they balanced the interests of the members of the club as a whole as against the interests of a particular member (here, Mr Lawrence). In my view, the reasons given by the board in respect of the electioneering rules are founded upon matters which permitted it reasonably to adopt the electioneering rules in their current form....." The Judge could not have been more clear that he was only referring to the clubs conduct in relation to the final rule that was in dispute.

Titan, that was a reasonably fair summary but I think you have misinterpreted a couple of things. I also think the election rules would not have changed without Peter’s case, so in this circumstance the ends might justify the means. Your first point, also being what Kate wrote, was that the Judge stated the club had acted “bona fide and without collateral motive, balancing the club's interests against Peter's”. This is misleading without context. The Judge clearly stated that he was only commenting on the very final minor outstanding point of dispute. Not behaviour of the club before the case or during it. Several other rules had been changed on the fly by MFC after the claim was filed. So on the very final point regarding “electioneering” remained. On the final day of the trial the Judge asked the parties to try and agree this rule, the club amended the rule, Peter proposed an alternative rule, the club changed the rule to what they amended and filed an affidavit informing the Judge. It was only this that the Judge considered in his Judgement and stated the club acted without collateral motive, not anything else. Kate’s letter to members is embarrassingly disingenuous. Your second point is that Peter persisted with the litigation because he wanted to be able to disparage the board. If you read the judgement, this was the final outstanding point by the last day of the trial and the exchange made it clear that Peter wanted the ability to provide “constructive criticism”. The board agreed and added this to the rule but left disparage in. Peter believed “disparage” was too broad and open to including “constructive criticism”. I suspect Peter would be OK with the final result, but as this negotiation happened after the trial while the Judge was preparing his judgement, it just ran out of time to finish and MFC adopted their proposal. So MFC also changed this rule (after the trial). Your claim that Peter persisted because he wants to disparage the club is factually incorrect. I don’t have an axe to grind either way. I’ve never met Peter. But there is no doubt our election rules are now a lot better because of him. He probably desperately wants to get on the board, and I don’t care if he never gets on, but there is no doubt in my mind that at some stage members will be thankful for what Peter has done. That time will be when we have a board that is not performing, is hanging on because of egos, and everyone except them can see change is needed. A bit like what happened at Collingwood in 2021-22. These new rules make change possible. Considering what Kate wrote in her letter, it’s 100% understandable Peter would want to also send a letter to members to explain what has happened. If Kate had written a letter fairly explaining the case then Peter probably wouldn’t feel the need to defend his actions.

The judgement was an interesting read. My only conclusion is that we are currently in season 3 of “War of the Worlds”, and Kate’s letter to members was written in one world, and the Court case happened in an alternate reality.

And that Jeffo should be a 50 game player by now.

Maybe the players did care, maybe they didn’t, but it also sounds like Tracc may not have got too many RU OKs. I don’t think anybody has really tweaked how serious his injuries were or close to death he was, including players. Below is a lot of hypotheticals, but firstly, Tracc’s injuries were horrific. I’ve known someone who has had a ruptured spleen, and they were really bad, but even they had enough blood circulating around to have transfusions and surgery while they were asleep. And they were back in full exercise in 12 weeks. It must have been really [censored] up for Tracc to have surgery while awake and still not allowed to get his heart rate up 10 weeks after the injury. Since I heard that, my first thought was wondering if Tracc will ever play again. The second thought was his family would try and talk him into retiring. No job is worth risking your life for and no doubt they would be worried about another accidental knee. I have no idea which players and officials have been in touch with Tracc through this entire 12 weeks, and how often. But if the Noosa situation is even 50% true, then right when Tracc is still processing his football future, it sounds like there may not have been too many RU OKs sent his way and perhaps he may have even had to process getting the cold shoulder. I don’t know. On top of it, ignorant supporters are piling on. And this all follows having to deal with a spray from Max about Traccs lack of effort when he came back on. So we have Pies players concerned about Traccs welfare when he came back on, while at the same time our Captain is spraying him. That’s [censored] up. Goody, Max and the entire club have to get rid of their “faux tough play while injured” attitude. It’s [censored] up and has derailed way too many of our players and way too many of the last 8 seasons. And the pile onto Tracc continues to be shameful. This is a player who has played finals with a broken leg. Not to mention the only Norm Smith medalist we have ever had. Show some respect and empathy. End rant. Not aimed at you @BoBo

The pile on re Tracc is so poor. I hope with all his free time he doesn’t get on demonland. No one knows what his health status is and whether his immune system is fully recovered. It’s very different heading up to Noosa for recovery for a few weeks escaping the winter cesspool compared to jumping onto a plane full of germs twice in a couple of days to be at a game.

Pretty sure clubs do internal reviews every year, so that would just be more of the same if that is the path Roffey follows. Interesting graphic below of the Pies performance leading up to their external review. Maybe they waited too long to do it. The cultural issue at the Pies were masked over by the flag in 2010, but appear to have peaked in the years after. Cultural issues make high performance unsustainable (re Pies 2010, re West Coast 2006 etc). Our only hope to not slide into irrelevancy is to have a thorough and independent review, and if we have absolutely zero issues it would still be money well spent.

The Pies 2017 review was fraught with danger for Gary Pert but not Collingwood. They bounced back immediately and were within a fluky wind gust of winning the flag in 2018. I think it’s best to find out what is festering by those that could never have created/contributed to the problems. Ie an independent group.

We made a lot of changes mid season in 2019 before the 2020 cuts. From memory Chaplin went from forwards coach to backline, Rawlings was promoted from Casey to forward coach, and McCartney went from backline to development coach.

And we didn’t sub him off? What’s the sub for?

I personally think the review should be a Collingwood 2017 style review but that will never happen with Pert. Goody won't be going anywhere, and he can't be solely blamed for areas we have been deficient in like our poor list management since 2021, medical/fitness issues where we are fading every season and playing injured players, off-field distractions at the board level etc. But he and the coaches need to be reviewed as well. After winning a flag coaches often get an extended run at it for 5 or 6 years minimum. Goody deserves the same. But coaches almost never win a second flag at the same club if there is a 5 or 6+ year gap. I think Sheedy and Chris Scott are the only ones to do it in the history of the game, and they both contended by making prelims during that 5 or 6 year period so were not far away. So if a rebuild is needed Goody may not be the best person to do it. I have no idea why it is so hard to rebuild. Maybe coaches are too loyal to the original players that won the flag. Maybe other coaches focus on your gameplan and so if you don't adapt you get passed. Who knows.

Kate Roffey celebrating the opening of our new home base.

He was 12 years at Port. Had 6 more years after their flag.

My daughter is already asking what club he would go to. I just found out she supports Tracc, not MFC!

It was a great effort overall against Port. I thought Port would be too good but we really made them earn it. A few things in the last qtr were frustrating. When Narkle tied the scores, was Clarry our best matchup for Rozee at the next CB. It was like the GWS game on repeat. Then they ran down the clock too easily at the end. We played a zone like we were 30 points up, not 1 or 2 points down. They had 9 marks in the last 90 seconds. Last night Kane Cornes claimed we are a poorly drilled side on The Round so Far in relation to this. We are 1W and 4L this year in close games, and this follows on from the horrendous final against Carlton last year. Does Cornes have a point?

The Hawks must be very bad at tanking. They were right in the battle for Harley Reid at round 9 or 10 last year. Then they purposely smashed West Coast by 100 points and won 6 of their last 12 or so games. And last year was their worst end of year ladder position.

Tracc’s injury was bad luck. But the rest wasn’t. And Geelong had just as much misfortune with Hawkins carrying a foot injury, Cameron doing a hamstring on the eve of the finals etc. Our 2022 issues were all self inflicted.

Your quoting 2023 not 2022 like I was referring to.

How did we have horrible luck in 2022. Games lost to injury that year are below. It is more that we blew the season by not using our depth with Casey only losing a single game that year. That is not bad luck.

I agree with a lot of it, but how was giving Brayshaw a long contract a mistake? Genuinely would like to know. Does he think we would be better off if he had a 2 year contract and got wiped out? Or is he implying that we are picking up the bill to pay the entire contract out?

Crows have been below average in q1 and q2, terrible in q3, but I think have the second best q4 record this year. Don’t think Burgo is the problem.