0livers Army

No one here actually believes that right? As if Oliver would storm out and get all fired up and say he likes Collingwood more than us if his coach simply asked him to work on multiple roles. This is the guy who reportedly put his own hand up to play a few tagging roles in 2025 and spent a decent amount of time starting on the flanks in the first half of the year. He was 100% pushed for reasons most of us won’t fully understand despite what the formal comms says. The club can’t exactly come out and say anything about off field stuff.

Let’s not re write history. His 22 and first half of 23 were as good or better than his 21 by most metrics and right up there with the best football anyone has played consistently. Even 2025 Oliver was pretty handy and his poor disposal has always been overstated imo. That being said, there are clearly reasons we’re all not aware of to make this deal. Can only support the club and hope we are going back to making good decisions for our long term success.

Let’s not re write history. His 22 and first half of 23 were as good or better than his 21 by most metrics and right up there with the best football anyone has played consistently. Even 2025 Oliver was pretty handy and his poor disposal has always been overstated imo. That being said, there are clearly reasons we’re all not aware of to make this deal. Can only support the club and hope we are going back to making good decisions for our long term success.

Has some similarities to Oliver and would play the same role. Not quite as quick, clean and doesn’t cover the ground as well especially in defensive transition. But by all reports is a good leader and role model. I’m for it if we basically spend no draft capital and end up better off financially when considering what we’re paying for Oliver (2026 combined payments to Oliver and Steele would need to be less than what they would’ve been to keep Oliver). I’d rather Steele rotate through the middle especially with 5 on the bench instead of giving high minutes to Sparrow and Rivers in there and realising it doesn’t work by round 5 or 6. He’ll make a is harder team to play against at least in the short term and we are really thin on midfield depth without Oliver and Trac.

But that’s just my point. Even in his 2025 season, the football department rated him as the 6th most valuable player per bnf results. If he was having a negative impact on other players that would surely be reflected. I’ve been a part of competitive sports organisations and other successful professional organisations and I can say everywhere I’ve been has had its share of dheads, but if they get the job done then good organisations find a way to extract the best from them. Have a look at this year’s top 4. Brisbane, Geelong, Collingwood, Hawthorn. Don’t have to look to far to see players who haven’t got the cleanest record off field but they make it work, and they’ve all been successful consistently for a while now.

Giants doing exactly what I’d do. They know we’ve got no negotiating power. We’ve stuffed this up. Surely we had to know how Oliver would react to getting pushed out. He’s recently committed to the club publicly and is known not to filter his words. The moment we made up the rubbish about playing at Casey (if true), we slashed his trade value and then it was completely dissolved once Oliver said he likes Collingwood more than us. I really don’t know how bad Oliver would have to be off field to make us try to push him out. From reports on here he’s well liked by the playing group (at least most), is a hard trainer and has time for supporters. Anything outside that which justifies jetting off someone of his calibre surely approaches breach of contract type stuff.

What we watch from the boundary line is all we can really comment on with any added value though. This is a footy forum and I’m not sure anyone can disagree with Pickett’s comment here. Viney has been a great servant and very good player (I do disagree with the good ordinary assessment) but he doesn’t compare with Oliver, even the 2025 version, honestly. Beyond that, we’re either speculating or passing on second hand info when it comes to leadership and off field stuff.

Not unexpected when you consider Oliver’s (and Petracca’s to a lesser extent) inside 50s will generally come from a much more contested situation and often clearances than players like Close and Miers. It’s why Spargo was consistently our best in this metric; not only is he a clever user in those situations, but he’s only really ever getting it on the outside with time to think and also often with space ahead of him for forwards to lead into. Add to that that for years our plan was to hit the pockets and create a stoppage inside 50 especially from slow plays and stoppages up the field so it’s no surprise our mids are low in this metric over the long run. As I said, funnily enough Oliver adapted best out of our mids for the second half of the year to the new style in this regard, but his clearance numbers also fell. I’m really curious to see what King is planning from an overall game style but personally I hope he scraps the move ball at all costs stuff we toyed with in 2025, you just leak too much going the other way.

It’s really those 2 errors he made in the last quarters of the Collingwood and St Kilda games at crucial times that contribute to the bias. From the Alice Springs St Kilda game (inclusive) onwards, Oliver had our teams’s best inside 50 retention percentage of anyone to have played at least 5 games in that period. Of course before that game it was really poor along with our other mids.

Summary of my thoughts on the situation given it’s clearly time to accept he’s gone. I can only really comment on what I see and that’s what happens on field. To my eye, Oliver and Max are the 2 best Dees of my lifetime. Had a stinker of a 2024 where he couldn’t tackle, chase or burst through tackles but every other year has fallen somewhere between good and the absolute best. His 2021 to mid 2023 is as good a stretch of footy as any player has put together, only missing out coaches votes in 10 games during that stretch. It really was amazing during that time how many times he, along with Max and Trac, dragged us over the line. I thought his last half of 2025 was good. Defensive running patterns were back and he was contributing both ways again. I’m sure the footy department would’ve noticed this so I think we can only assume there’s other factors at play to essentially push out a top 5 or 6 player in the club, even when not anywhere near his best. Possibilities as I see it from the club’s perspective and probably a combination of these: need cap space for something we’re planning. With Petracca going too, it would make no sense to me to get only draft picks back for them as I’d assume we’d be short nearly a couple of mil from the salary cap considering we also lost guys like Spargo and Billing’s who would be on more than draftees. Off field and cultural factors. I won’t comment specifically because honestly I’d have no idea and I doubt many of us outside the 4 walls would. I would say though that having been involved in competitive organisations, every team comprises of all different types and the best of them adapt to different personalities. There’s obviously a limit, but no team has 100% everyone as friends or 100% perfect role models. I think there’s no doubt we’ve pushed him out. The club couldn’t truly believe he’d need to change role or be played at Casey. Unfortunately we’ve made the decision close to trade period, Oliver has been blindsided and then proceeded to act unprofessionally and destroy his trade value. We probably should’ve anticipated the reaction for a guy who has recently committed to the club and known not to have much of a filter between brain and mouth. For a guy this good at footy to be reported to be getting a pick in the 30s with us paying a significant portion of his salary, there must be issues. Only thing to do now is reflect on the best of him. What he achieved with the club is seriously worth celebrating and contributed to the best footy moments of many of our lives. Of course there’s the 2021 GF, but I remember the QF that year where he had about 5 or 6 goal assists and destroyed a pretty handy Brisbane midfield. His game against Adelaide that year in a losing cause it probably the best individual game I’ve witnessed while the rest of the team had shockers. To this day it’s the highest rated game by a midfielder and 4th highest ever, only bettered by Franklin’s 13, Le Cras’ 12 and S Johnson’s game against us in the 186 with about 50 score involvements.

All the data suggests not only that it did work, but it worked better than any other midfield duo in the Dees’ modern era. If Oliver is somewhere to at least his 2025 level the Giants will function fine.

It’s never been his role to be forward of the ball to get into areas to kick goals. Compare any of these stats for Oliver against any other elite mid and he’ll either be right up there or on top - disposals, contested possessions, tackles, pressure acts, score involvements, score chain starts, intercept possessions. He’s basically unrivalled in being elite at all of these things and we don’t have anyone else who fits the role of he leaves.

2023 semi against Carlton. Remember it well. One of about 10 moments that prove it’s a game of inches including the recalled Neal Bullen goal and us hitting the post 7 times (and on the flip side Kennedy and Owies nailing them from 50 out on the boundary). So unlikely that we lost that game, it seemed scripted. People forget Oliver was probably our best performer over those 2 finals that year even after the long injury lay off. His 2024 was poor but he was playing with a broken hand, ribs and underdone. Apart from that 1 year his average output is as good as any player in history. Still can’t believe we’re so keen to ship him off and I can only assume there’s off field or medical factors involved, unless our football department doesn’t understand what wins games of footy.

I remember that error well. I think that one and the one against Collingwood in the last stick in our minds and were no doubt bad and costly errors but they are probably harshly criticed relative to the countless turnovers by other players this year purely because of the state of the game at the time. The same supporters saying how bad Oliver’s disposal is want Rivers and Sparrow to be given more time in the middle which makes no sense. btw I never mentioned anything about Oliver’s disposal or decision making in my original post here. It’s not his strong suit (by foot anyway) but he’s far from our worst.

The game’s evolution from stoppage based to transition based is overstated. These things always go in cycles and teams who are consistently good in stoppages generally finish in the top half of the ladder. And regardless of the type of game we’re looking to play or what becomes the trend in the comp, I still don’t understand the popular opinion that Oliver is a one dimensional inside mid. Even this year he’s our only good two way running genuine mid and at his best he was just about unparalleled in defensive midfield statistics. Even at 80% he’ll be a big loss in this area.