Dee-tonator

Springfield is at least a half-hour drive from the Gabba on an extremely busy freeway. It is an excellent facility, but it is not even in Brisbane. Springfield is a suburb in the adjoining city of Ipswich.

The most wonderful aspect of this never-ending thread is how many people who have never met or spoken to Christian Petracca are confident that they know all his innermost thoughts and motivation during a period in which he has been traumatized by potentially life-threatening injuries. As long as he is with the club and gives 100 per cent effort on the field (which he has always done) he will have my full support.

Mark Twain famously said there were three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. Now we can add a fourth category: AFL media lies.

Serious answer, in Petracca's own words, as reported by AAP on June 17: "We got an initial scan around eight or nine o'clock at night, and the first scan showed two cracked ribs and then just a little bit of bleeding around the lung," he said. "I think 15 minutes later, one of the doctors was just checking my blood levels, and noticed my haemoglobin was dropping severely, and my blood levels were dropping. "So they go, 'Let's just do another scan'. And that's when they started to notice I had four cracked ribs, the grade-five spleen and a punctured lung too. "So it went from being a four out of 10 to basically a 10 out of 10, it was the equivalent of a car accident." There are plenty of other references to the injury as grade 5. Just try Googling it.

If Tom Morris said the sun was shining, I would reach for my umbrella.

Here are some facts. Spleen trauma is graded from 1 to 5 in increasing order of severity. Petracca had a grade 5 spleen injury. Grade 1 is less than 10% of surface area involved in hematoma or capsule laceration less than 1 cm. Grade 2 is hematoma 10 to 50% of surface or capsule laceration 1 to 3 cm in depth. Grade 3 is hematoma of more than 50% of the subcapsular surface area or if the hematoma is known to be expanding over time, if the hematoma has ruptured, intraparenchymal hematoma either more than 5 cm or known to be expanding, or capsule laceration more than 3 cm in depth and/or involving a trabecular blood vessel. Grade 4 is a laceration involving a hilar or segmental blood vessel if there is partial devascularization or if it is more than 25% of the spleen. Grade 5 is either a shattered spleen or complete devascularization of the entire spleen.

Many of the posters in this thread appear to have little understanding of the effects of severe trauma, which can be lifelong. Suggested reading: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/trauma/effects-of-trauma/

No hyperbole in saying Trac almost lost his life. One solid tackle after he went back on could have been fatal. No hyperbole in saying he and his family experienced severe trauma. Anyone who has experience of extreme trauma would know that to say they have "recovered quickly" is nonsense. Note that I have not made any comment in support of Petracca's current position. Despite a multitude of rumours and innuendos, he has said nothing in public, so apart from journalistic speculation we don't know precisely what issues he has raised. We do know that Roffey has admitted he made some "good points", whatever they may be. In my view, both Petracca and the club will sustain serious ongoing damage unless this mess is sorted out soon. If Roffey can't handle a crisis decisively, she is the wrong person to be leading the board.

Because he nearly lost his life while giving his all for the Melbourne Football Club, and both he and his family have clearly been severely traumatized by the event. And because she represents the top leadership of the club. Petracca may be "just a player" but his contribution to our first premiership in nearly 60 years will be remembered long after Ms Roffey and her fellow board members have been forgotten.

If headlines and wild claims are "dross", it is the job of the president, the board and the CEO to demonstrate this by providing an effective counter-narrative. So far they have been unable or unwilling to do so. Of course the sensationalist media are not interested in balanced reporting. But given that we plunged 10 places on the ladder this season and have been in constant turmoil over issues affecting two of our biggest stars, Clayton Oliver and now Petracca, they may just have a point.

The current lead story on the Herald-Sun AFL web page refers to the "disintegrating Demons". Meanwhile we have posters here suggesting that Petracca is actually the cause of all the problems, and president Roffey needs not bother about contacting him or his family. Just leave it to the football department, we are told. Is that the same football department that permitted Trac to return to the field, stuffed up Oliver's year. brought in under-performers Schache, Fullarton, Billings and McAdam, and then watched us slide ingloriously down the ladder? Roffey and the board need to show some of Max Gawn's leadership qualities and sort this mess out properly. Her waffling interview told us absolutely nothing we didn't already know or suspect. Our secretive, self-protective board don't seem to care that, if this fiasco goes on much longer, membership numbers could well plummet in 2025.

And so the Petracca saga rumbles on, damaging the club's image and everyone involved in the process. Look a little deeper into the 2024 season and we find the following: * Oliver: out of form all year and clearly playing injured by season's end. * Smith: comment not permitted. * Trade-in flop of the season: Schache (closely followed by Fullarton and McAdam). * Performance levels: disastrously down. * Already gone: Neal-Bullen. * Departure rumours swirling: Pickett. But Ms Roffey and the board apparently think all is well at the MFC. What would a bad year look like then ?

Now that the club president has acknowledged that she has not been in touch with Petracca's family for "a while", perhaps we have a clearer picture. The impact of his injuries on family members, who know how close he was to death, must be causing additional trauma that is still being acutely felt as this saga rumbles on. If the club's leader shows no interest in personally supporting the family, all the media chatter about a "toxic culture" might just have some basis in fact. Kate Roffey could clear the air immediately, simply by revealing Petracca's principal concerns and any steps being taken by the board to address them. What is being hidden, and why?

The hospital medics took time to specify Petracca's various injuries, but that does not mean they failed to recognize from the outset that he was in serious distress. A mere poke in the ribs would have been enough to tell anyone that he was in severe pain. Anyone who thinks four broken ribs would not have been causing extreme discomfort must be in fairyland.

If a player gets even a mild concussion, it is now compulsory for him/her to be taken off the field and go into the protocols. Yet a player obviously in severe pain was allowed to return to the game. Rigorous physical testing in the dressing-room would surely have revealed that something serious was amiss. In such a case, the only sensible course is to send the injured player to hospital for further examination. The decision to clear Trac for a return to the field placed his life in danger. That, whatever plausible reasons and excuses are offered, is a fact.