KozzyCan

The players will be fine. They are professionals and don't look at things with the same eyes that supporters do. Players explore their value on their market all the time, this one just got a bit out of control. Once pre-season starts it will be water under the bridge and if it leads to the meaningful change that a lot of the players seem to be expressing a desire for then they will probably be even happier for it.

Ralph said OTC yesterday that Kozzy would like to have more indigenous players on the list. I remember last year there were reports we were courting Liam Henry with that being a bit of a motivator. Not sure why it fell through.

I think we agree!

Reckon if you dug a little bit you'd find a clip of Hutchy calling for the league to get more mature and not be afraid of players requesting trades in-season.

Same age. Same super contribution...

Chol, Ginnivan and D'Ambrosio. Hawks did very well last trade period and gave up not much.

That's kind of the point I'm getting at.

Morris was starting out at that stage not many would have really heard of him. He also worked for the club. So a bit different. Would be like if Ben Gibson or Matt Burgan had revealed club secrets. Not surprised someone let their guard down in that scenario. Very different when the club is under fire from all directions and every journo in the state is looking for a quote. Was a time where the club needed to circle the wagons and sort things out behind closed doors. Instead we saw new information getting leaked every day from different sections of the club. Was a very disappointing episode for the club imo.

Reckon players are savvy enough to know anything they say to a journo is getting a run in the papers. They're grown adults. If they talk they know what they're getting involved in.

Even so.

Would be pretty concerning if players are calling up journalists just to gossip about their teammates like high-schoolers.

Imo any leaks from the playing group speak to a lack of trust in the club leadership to message properly themselves.

Believe what you want but I promise you this story isn't over by a long way.

I mean Houston and Port handled that pretty maturely I think. They were happy for him to go if a good deal could be done, it couldn't be and he was invited back into the fold. But to what you're saying, every club has leaks, it's true. Ours is a sieve and the leaks present a pretty adversarial relationship between the club and players who step out of line. Players having issues with their clubs is nothing new but good clubs should handle all this stuff in house. No coincidence that numerous senior players have admitted to be frustrated by club comms recently.

Pretty naive if you think no one from the club talks to the media.

That is madness.

Club really needs to sort out these leaks. Talk a big game about avoiding media circuses but gone to war in the press with our most decorated players two years running.

https://mcc.org.au/whats-on/latest-news/2021/july/steven-smith-inducted-as-a-mcc-honorary-life-member

Judging by her answers she probably hasn't even heard the news that Trac is staying.

We traded our second for McAdam last year. We have Sydney's second rounder from Grundy. ANB might be an avenue for us to get our second rounder back.

Imo Max is the only person at the club who has shown proper leadership this year. He's asked to do far more than any other captain in the comp.

Those guys were OOC. We would have asked for more.

I think it was certainly a tough interview to get right but only because of everything that came before it. If one of Petracca's issues with the club is that he felt he was abandoned after his injury and the president has not spoken to him or his family then there's not much that can be said for it. But if it was just that then it could have been remedied. She could have admitted fault in that area and promised to do better. Or she could have laid out a real plan for how we're going to overcome these issues. At the moment everything out of the club has been handwaving, excuses and passing the buck. Ultimately the fact that we've gotten to this point is the bigger problem than the interview itself.

What are you trying to say here? Yes, people wanted the president to speak. Yes, people wanted to see how invested she is in the club and get some reassurance over how we are dealing with the current challenges being faced. When she turned up to that interview woefully under-prepared and completely out of touch it was an embarrassment and showed she's not up to it. What people actually want to see is competent leadership.

Was more thinking of this: