Chook

Time will tell. 2025 is a huge year for the club, and for Petracca.

Lowered his colours this year IMO. Massively lost my respect by the way he has handled himself. No one deserves an injury like he got, but that's no excuse to go rogue.

Prime Benny Brown at North Melbourne was one of my favourite players to watch. The best leading forward in the competition and just about unstoppable at his best with decent delivery and those long arms of his. Will be remembered for a long time I think, and not too many players get that return at the end of their career. Premiership player as well if you don't mind.

Finally. I might start watching it if they put someone lucid like Jason Dunstall on to replace him.

Suck it Geelong. Couldn't happen to a nicer side. So it's the rugby heartland granny.

Over the last few years I've come to greatly admire Kate Hore's composure and leadership. That last minute from her was so uncharacteristic. She also didn't seem to be able to gather the group to resist Fremantle's momentum. A pretty bleak day for her, but hope she'll find a way to get the season back on track because it's pretty quickly going down the gurgles.

Oscar McInerny looked in incredible pain with that shoulder.

I think we have to reluctantly go for Brisbane today, right?

What an almighty choke.

How good would it be to be a Lions fan in the crowd right now. Just on top of the world you'd feel.

They don't have Petracca. We do.

This'll be a fun night 😀

"Fun movie, based on some very sketchy science. Would recommend for anyone a fan of Danny DeVito or Arnold Schwarzenegger."

I'm clearly looking at him from a million miles away, but I've never rated McQualter. I hope he leaves, and I hope West Coast sign him for 10 years.

I must admit I have a perception of her as basically a solid presence who took a lot of limelight during the good years but didn't do much of substance and didn't help too greatly when things turned sour. She will be forever remembered by association for being in so many of those post-gf photos, but not greatly missed for her concrete achievements. Thank you for your service. (Petracca claims his first victim?)

As devastating as it was to lose finals in the last two years coming in as top four, at least we put up a fight. This is just deplorable from Port Adelaide.

That won't really drive many clicks though, so I expect reporting will die down quite a lot until next year. Dees tragics and Melbourne haters will be interested but the vast majority of footy public aren't going to care about a trade that isn't happening this year when finals and this year's actual trades are going on.

Amazing how quickly the goalposts shift from "we're terrible and he'll leave" to "well he clearly WANTS to go but is realistic that it won't happen." Negative people will always find a way to be negative. The number one thing we needed to do is get Petracca to stay for next year. Once that is achieved, we're in business again as a club. Either we continue to fall down the ladder next year and Petracca leaves, or we fix our issues and he stays. If he leaves at the end of next year it's very likely because there are huge issues at Melbourne, in which case we'll have bigger problems anyway. If we return to playing winning football the chances he still leaves are pretty low - and even if he does we'll be going ok as a club and will be able to take it in stride.

As I mentioned, it would only work if Petracca bought into it publicly and said the same thing.

Having thought about this a bit, I think Petracca and the media have put the club in an impossible position (Pert and Goodwin haven't helped things due to their insistence of great club culture). We can't let him leave because doing so is an admission of massive cultural issues at the club, which the club has been adamant are not a problem. So they either force him to stay and keep up that story they're telling everyone (true or not, doesn't matter - the perception is there). Or they let him go and make it impossible to improve the club's image in the eyes of sponsors, fans, and most importantly prospective player replacements. The only two ways I can see this getting resolved to everyone's satisfaction would be for: 1) Petracca to have a change of heart and decide to stay come out and stay; or 2) Petracca to say "I want to leave but because I've been through a trauma and need a fresh start, not because of mismanagement by the club." Both require Petracca to put on his big boy pants and face the public. Perhaps there's a medical reason why he can't, or maybe he's waiting till after the season is over, but basically unless any of the above two options happen, the club cannot let him go because it would be suicide for the reputations of Goodwin and Pert in particular. Pert and Goodwin won't let Petracca leave and admit to those cultural issues in doing so (and nor should they imo, because I honestly don't think there are massive cultural issues at Melbourne), it's just that there are some problems that have been going on for a while and we're on the back of a bad season so things are bound to look rotten at this time.

The club should call his bluff. To try to get out of a massive contract by taking it to the grievance council is a huge red flag for any other club thinking about picking him up. Even if he succeeded I doubt he'd have much trust from his new club or the playing group. He'd probably tarnish his "brand" too, whatever that is.

I believe they're called "stickers" in the culture, a name that makes them even more dubious. Jackson's lifting for Freo here though now.

It's in the next 2 years or 6+ years away. No option for that so I wrote 2.

I've said it for ages - nothing will change until you start penalising the concussed player too, if they are found to have contributed to the severity. Add a one week suspension to be served after their next game back, in any cases where failure to uphold duty of care to yourself and you'll see players be more careful not to recklessly put their head where angels fear to tread. There would be outcry of course (punishing the victim), but this is not a one-way street. Every player has a duty of care on the football field, including the duty of care players have to themselves.

Glad Melbourne doesn't make hard decisions like in the glory days of 2009-2013 when we got rid of Russell Robertson and James McDonald despite having forward and mid coaches at the time.