Pates

Whether or not he’s around next year may depend on how we go at the trade period. If we manage to land a second key forward then that shoves him down the pecking order pretty quickly. I’d be giving him another year though, handy depth.

Well that doesn’t sound good at all, perhaps goes some ways to explaining why the fine was so high. Even though both players weren’t going to play finals Harbrow was still in the isolated confines of the AFL’s rules and Harley going to his place is a serious breach. I’m still on the fence with him, there were always two major challenges with him, mind and body. Burgess has done a massive job helping get his body right but is his mind going to be too much of a challenge. The only thing I’ll say about this is that this doesn’t seem like a “party all night, let’s go to the strippers” situation, it seems like he’s in a difficult headspace. I’ll go with the club on this either way, if they think they can make a player out of him that isn’t going to consistently put the club in the papers for the wrong reasons, give him another year and slash a good $30k off what we were originally going to pay him as a way of a pay back to the club. I think I’m right in saying that $50k fine goes on the soft cap next year, that may have cost someone their job.

Spot on with everything you said, whatever plans Goodwin and the match committee had going into the season for the forward line they were way too slow to change it and I really think we lost games because of it. Well summed up @WERRIDEE

So we’re parting with every player that’s not in our best 22 then? Good luck when injuries come. I think I get what you’re saying in that he’s not best 22 and unlikely to contribute to our push for finals and beyond but you need leaders and list depth. If he’s worth the list depth then he could be kept around but if we feel it’s worth more taking a punt on a younger player, or perhaps using his salary to contribute towards a top quality player then the hard decision may need to be made. But it has to be better reasoning than “he’s not best 22”.

That's my take as well, I feel like we're getting a harder punishment than other clubs.

100% the players seem content with mediocrity. Unwilling to go hard at the contest, the dogs showed what happens when you have the desire to win.

There are some positives to take and there'll be a time I take them in but right now the season is done and we've even got the cherry on top with Bennell breaking the COVID rules. A very Melbourne way to end our season, 9th placed and a $50K fine.

I won't be angry with the club if they give him another year but it should also be taken into account with the negotiation of a new deal, call it a way of imposing the fine retrospectively. Instead of giving him $250K we give him $220K (or whatever the bottom end contract number is), I think one year and on an extremely tight leash is ok and perhaps we put in a get out no pay out clause should he infringe again.

Can I ask what might is a stupid question, why do other clubs get part of theirs suspended but we don't? Seems like they're applying the rules harsher on us compared to others, is it because other clubs (Richmond) broke the rules so hard that they are giving no quarter to others?

Watching the game made one thing clear: 9th is where we belong this year. The dogs took the pressure when it came, and then they increased their own output on the other end. We've got a lot of work to do in the pre-season.

Good to see Gawn setting the standards and saying it’s not professional but I also do think this is an overblown story, especially as I said earlier in the thread that the Georgie Parker was given a pass of hers based off it being consensual. It’s in the spotlight because of the Richmond dumb dumbs, any other time we’d be laughing about it with Jayden and Christian.

I was just thinking the same thing, people never stop being addicts they are only recovering/recovered addicts. It’s still a very disappointing situation to see Harley find himself in, there are a number of ways to deal with this so it’ll be interesting to see which way we go. I wonder if he was with any other players prior to him leaving the hub, if so why didn’t they stop him? Second question is Harley’s partner and kid up there with him?

The commentators talk some garbage a lot of the times but they made a good suggestion, have him stick to Petracca for the upcoming pre-season. Hopefully could help him get a little more upper body and core strength, he reminds me of Robbo in the way he goes to ground. Needs to stay in contests for longer (as well as working on his kicking, can we get Brad Green to come and help!?).

I personally wouldn’t be doing anything like that but if they are both in on it then seriously this sort of stuff must happen all the time. What the Richmond mob did clearly had an uncomfortable participant.

So I thought He showed enough in his early games to make me think he can make this return a success but he has gone almost dead silent for quite a while. Does anyone know where he’s at and what the clubs plans are for him 2021 and beyond?

The big difference is that Petracca was in on the joke, if people are going to give the Hockeyroos girls a pass on theirs then nothing to see here. Bit of fun between mates. ”Former Hockeyroos star Georgie Parker has responded to the groping furore surrounding the AFL and a 2017 photo of her grabbing a teammate. Parker, who previously took aim at the condemnation of AFL players who touch each other inside dressing rooms, has taken to Twitter to share proof her own teammate grab was all above board. The 31-year-old was prompted to share the evidence after a Twitter follower asked if her Hockeyroos teammate Kathryn Slattery was “ok” with her groping her backside during the Australian national anthem”

Can I just have a quick mention of how good it is to see Hawthorn place in the “who gives a s***” time-slot in the last round. Welcome to irrelevance Hawthorn fans! ?

This has been a trying year in so many ways, there are issues with Goodwin's coaching that have definitely created question marks but FFS we're into the last round with us in the finals chance. Doing anything destabilising to the admin, and footy department will only hurt the club. We need to go into next season with stability and focus, I know it sucks for a lot of people who want Goodwin gone but our best chance is to stick fat right now. That's not to say there shouldn't be a strong review into the game style, player development, player contracts, recruiting, and assistant coaches. We need to decide who we are as a team and who we need to target to achieve our goals. The MCC would surely prefer for us to just be a strong entity with mutual gains on both sides.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take a 7 possie 4 goal game from him every day of the week. That one in the final quarter in particular I liked because he backed his pace and finished well.

Biggest issue is his tank, he just doesn’t seem to have the run to go in the midfield. That said if we had a group of three outside players that we could rotate in the that would be ideal. Rivers, as you said, is definitely another that could go. We need good users on the outside. Salems had a good year though, will be interesting to see his B&F finish.

Still only 7 possessions (4 goals a great effort though), but his biggest issue is that when he goes missing he may as well be in another state. He needs to find the ball more, maybe that comes from be switched up a lot but whatever it is he doesn’t get enough of it.

Almost don’t want Freo to win watching that, you could easily picture an 80+ drubbing against the Weagles. Still got the job done.

Good to see people back in the old Melbourne mentality of wanting to lose. Say hello to cuddles while you’re back in 2009.

That very uninteresting Open Mic with Trenners did seem to indicate that, I believe he said he was on the path to recovery and then when he did his medical with Richmond revealed the complications that had happened. That guy had such rotten luck. Fingers crossed this injury with Gus isn’t as serious as Mitch Clark’s (I have no idea whether there can be severity with such an usual part of the body). The good news is we have Burgess not Misson looking after him.

Yes and no. I definitely agree that the likes of the Pies, Essendon, Blues, Hawks, and Tigers have been well looked after for a while by being given a more commercially helpful draw. The Blues in particular were inexplicably given a free ride for a long time even when they were a pile of crap. It’s why I get defensive towards fans of those clubs when they complain about us getting handouts when they get handouts in a different way (ie a better commercial draw). But at the same time the Hawks are actually a good example of a club that was literally in the same position as us but through intelligent moves managed to become a powerhouse club. I think it is fair that we expect things to be shared more equally as does feel like the powerful clubs have been getting more powerful.