praha

Source?

Suspect we'll hear something from the club today/tonight given the B&F tomorrow.

I've said it once and I'll say it again: trading him to Geelong is going to be one of the dumbest things we could do, and other clubs are going to be asking Melbourne what the hell they are doing. Reminder that Geelong dealt with this with Stevie J, Collingwood with Swan and Didak, Hawthorn with their own collection of issues, and Richmond with Martin. We somehow let our equivalent go from 4x B&F winner, multi-time All Australian, Coaches and Player MVP, to literally being the most cooked and overvalued contract in the league in the course of 12 months. We will lament this. Irrespective of his cultural and behavioural issues.

The clause is likely the trade and reduced terms. Most players can reject a trade. I suspect he may have voided his ability to reject any trade. A trade doesn't really benefit him because it likely comes with reduced benefits/incentives.

I will get over trading Oliver if we get something good in return that makes us reasonably stronger. I don't think I can get over us trading him to Geelong. Other clubs must surely be shaking their heads at Melbourne.

He probably shouldn't have been there. Don't even think he polled and a few other players way more deserving.

On top of that, reaching out to a team you'd hope you would be contending against. Just dumb!

What are his actions? He looks like he's in the best shape for years.

After how 2023 ended, then the Oliver saga, then reports about club culture, then the Petracca saga, and now this again, I am already out for at least the first third of next season. I'll still get my AFL membership but I'm not attending games. No club in the league treats its fans with as much contempt as MFC does. I am done for now. And if they let Oliver walk to Geelong of all places for nothing, it would take nothing short of a Prelim appearance to have been even contemplating returning to the club. I can't believe we are even in a situation with our 4-tims B&F, multi-award winning and All Australian, premiership winning midfielder is about to walk to [censored] Geelong on a 5 year deal for peanuts in return. Anyone even trying to justify this is deluded.

If you're in the window, Rule No.1 is to never deal with a contender. We must be in full rebuild mode to even contemplate trading to Geelong. Hope everyone's ready for the ride. It's all in for 2026/2027 in my view.

We would have to be properly dumb in the head to send him to Geelong of all places.

I'd be very surprised if this doesn't already exist.

Media relations at the club are a joke. Pert brought in Clare Petty to lead our Comms department. How are we getting destroyed in the media and always seem late to the party to respond? We've somehow gotten worse at it. In my 20 years in corporate affairs I've never seen such contempt for a major stakeholder (being the supporters in a footy club's case). The comms strategy is in the toilet. They need to work harder and better and controlling the narrative here. Seems like a massive disconnect between the CEO office, the football department, and the media team. Key job as chief/GM of comms is to control the external messaging, and build internal ambassadors and engagement to avoid leaks/disgruntled comments externally. https://x.com/JoshGabelich/status/1769602121350156534?s=19 If you're going to "deny deny deny" you need to craft it in a way that is neither the truth nor a lie. Melbourne straight up lies.

Anyone listened yet and can summarise?

This makes no sense. You don't categorically deny the rumours and say a player of his popularity and calibre will be at the club next year, while at the same time privately shopping him around, mere weeks after the club was leaking stories almost daily about Petracca (and now Kozzie). Either the club is straight up lying to its supporters, in which case we should he disgusted and very angry, or the club is in disarray. Which one? Are supporters being take for mugs or is the club breaking down?

Russell Robertson saying now on SEN that "no player is bigger than the club." Very odd from him.

I wouldn't be surprised. The football department would have signed off on the statement. The CEO has no place shopping players around. And the statement wouldn't have come across his desk. That would be a sackable offense in a large corporate if the CEO was actively and privately going against the company's approved and confirmed messaging. The board should act immediately if it's true.

Being a head coach of a pressional sporting organisation doesn't have reset outlets? You could work into literally any corporate advisory gig for a start. The head coach recruiting process is gruelling. And then you're effectively managing 50+ people. Not to mention you could charge thousands for corporate speaking gigs.

I've mentioned earlier in this thread that Gawn has badly inflated our perception of a ruck's output. Grundy isn't a matchwinner nor a dominating force but he had height and body depth where we are lacking. In my view, the Gawn Grundy 1-2 could have been like the Jolly and Ball combo at Sydney in 2005. They had their impact ruck in Jolly and Ball as the around-the-ground backup. If Grundy didn't want to play second fiddle that's fine but I think people are trying to understate his impact unfairly because he doesn't dominate like Gawn does. I still reckon he would have had a better chance to win a flag by staying course at Melbourne than leaving.

....Fages?

Sydney getting belted again on Grand Final day... very much looking forward to my normally nauseating daily morning "standup" at work being a nice final twist of the knife towards my pompous Sydney colleagues who talked a big game all year. Went to the SCG for the first time ever this year... such a fake crowd. I reckon 50% of the crowd were freebies tickets and "it" girls/marketing babes who get their Insta snap and then spend the rest of the game chatting and refilling bubblies. Definitely the Hollywood Lakers of the AFL.

Honestly if I were the Dogs I'd be looking to go back to Footscray as a name. It's their spiritual home and Footscray is a much more lively and respectful suburb these days. It's considered home of the "west". I reckon more people would get around them. Especially the growing expat/student and migrant population in the area.

Sydney will always contend for at least another decade. The ultimate goal is that Sydney is a pure powerhouse that they dominate the Sydney landscape which is the media hub of the country. GWS, Gold Coast, Tassie are "nice to haves" but Sydney's success in the actual city of Sydney is very important to the AFL strategically. They are fast becoming the LA Lakers of the AFL and the league would be damned if they ever fell from the mantle.

Yes my point being I guess that this was an important learning year for him. I still think it's crazy and a failure we didn't make a Prelim in 22 or 23.

This is a crazy take. Gawn has set a ridiculously high standard and expectation for ruck output. Grundy was more than serviceable. If you look at the past two seasons I'd argue our best patches of football in that period came when both Grundy and Gawn were playing. Ultimately we chose to maximise Gawn's output in the hope of replicating match-winning performances in 2021. Grundy in the team impacted Gawn's output. I think the handling of Grundy has less to do with what he did, and more to do with what Gawn couldn't. It is pure crazy talk to say that Grundy's performance alone relegated him to the VFL. It's just not based in reality. And yes I am suggesting we went down the path of preferencing the performance and prefences of the individual than what was best for the team.