deejammin'

I didn’t say no one in our club is talking to Morris, I said no one from the board or Administration side of the club is talking to Morris, and I say it as our clubs board and administrators actions have repeatedly directly contradicted Morris’s reporting. There has been a concerted 3 year + campaign run through the courts and media with the intention of discrediting and removing Kate Roffey, Gary Pert and Simon Goodwin from our football club. In an interview earlier this year a certain doctor walking back his comments on the AFL illicit drugs policy said “I am only doing this to highlight Melbourne’s negative culture” and “there are only three or four people at the MFC that are the problem”. With Kate Roffey going this has only escalated. The MFC would’ve hoped Roffey leaving and the review would get us some clean air but within twelve hours of that announcement Micheal Warner was laying the faults of our club at Pert’s feet and stating he shouldn’t be involved in the review. Then multiple media outlets published statements from ex players and presidents that Goodwin should be sacked. The campaign continues. The fact media outlets are posting random open letters from supporters purely because they support this campaign adds more credence to this. In this context the idea that the board, Pert or Goodwin and the members of our administration are leaking to Morris is laughable. There might be leaks to other more trusted media sources, that as you say, are clunky attempts to reset the narrative. But Morris isn’t getting them firsthand. And because of the context of this campaign any information that could only truly be known by Gary Pert and officials from other clubs with their own motives (like say, getting a 4x B&F, Coaches award winner, premiership player who at their best is in the best 5 or so mids in the comp for a relatively low draft pick) is fraught. I don’t know whether Pert is a problem, or if he should be removed from the review, or if he did do something stupid with this Oliver situation and should be removed as a result. But given the context of the overt ongoing campaign against him and others at our club run through the media for over three years now I think we should all take any reporting with a large grain of salt.

I think you and a few others are misunderstanding what I am saying. I’m NOT saying no players or people affiliated with players and club staff are leaking, some of them to Morris, clearly Trac’s camp has. That’s exactly what Gawny was lamenting today and it has to stop. Partly as it spreads rumours maliciously, ask any player “your club is shopping player x around, why?” And they may well be able to come up with behavioural reasons, or disgruntled other players or dynamics between staff and the player to explain why. Particularly when there’s a review underway, But it’s a classic disingenuous journalism and lawyer tactic as it’s all speculation and the players don’t know that original statement to be true, it may be false, and thus they may be providing reasons which don’t exist for a situation that isn’t happening. I’m also NOT saying Clarry didn’t meet with Geelong. That’s well documented. What I am saying is that the people/person at the heart of this issue at MFC are NOT leaking to Morris. This whole thing boils down to: 1. Did Gary Pert shop Oliver to other club officials. 2. Was he doing so with the blessing of the footy department, list management team and were they planning to push Oliver out. 3. Were the board aware. None of the people from MFC who know the answers to those three things are leaking to Morris. As I said in my original post neither the BOARD nor ADMINISTRATION are leaking to Morris, especially given his history with the club. He is extremely disliked by MFC for breaking stories while an employee. Extremely disliked by the Bulldogs for breaking stories without fact checking and sensitivity checking first, Richmond ditto. Even if Pert, Goodwin, Lamb, Richo or the board wanted to leak to the media. It wouldn’t be Morris. So where did Morris’s original story that Pet was shopping Oliver around come from? Clearly officials from the other club(s) involved. This will all play out now but one of three things has happened. 1. Pert did do it on his own and will likely be gone now as he has lost the faith of the board, administration and football department. 2. Pert did do it with the blessing of at least part of the list management comittee or FD and our club is a dumpster fire that has lost the plot. The review needs to be made independent of Pert and we need to get our house in order even more than we already did. 3. Club officials at Geelong misrepresented an honest conversation with Pert where he didn’t shop Oliver around for their own advantage. Or worse made the whole thing up. Oliver and his management heard from reporters this was the case and looked into Geelong as he was hurt by this reporting and flattered by their pitch. All three scenarios are possible and I don’t trust Tom Morris or Sam McLure to give us any unbiased or truthful opinions on this. I don’t believe the board only found all this out two days ago and that’s why it’s stopped either, as reported by Morris tonight. They would’ve been across the media the whole time. And there’s no way the board was leaking that to Morris. They are the only ones who would know. That’s what I was saying, agree or disagree, but nothing is “clearly the case” here.

I’d say it clearly is. He’s been well updated on the Geelong side but has so much wrong on our side.

Tom Morris is the LAST journalist anyone on our board or administration would ever talk to after his disastrous time at the club. Anything he says is either second hand or straight up made up. No credibility at all.

All this argument about what punishment Clayton should’ve would’ve could’ve had. The time is gone, cutting off our nose to spite our face now will not help. I’m glad he’s staying, he makes us a better team, his form dropped against Port when he hurt his hand and never recovered. We’re a better team with him, Geelong are worse without him and we’ve missed out on a 2026 pick which wouldn’t have helped us next year anyway. I don’t care what the media say, their bias against us is clear. Maybe our club is a dumpster fire, maybe it’s not. There’s actually been very little concrete proof. I’m backing Clayton in for a huge 2025 and with a bit of luck with injuries and our young blokes improving, + pick 5 a new forward and mid coach and some cobwebs cleared out in the program we’ll be a formidable team.

These reporters better hope that they have dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s if Pert can prove he never did this, defamation lawsuits incoming, especially if Pert’s job is effected, or he’s moved on. If he did do it then I’d say Perts in huge trouble. But let’s just hypothesise: Geelong have wanted Oliver for two seasons. They saw MFC was weak with the departure of a president, the Petracca saga, a review and CEO Pert unpopular. So they have a conversation with Pert about Oliver then they start a story that Pert is shopping Oliver around through media allies. They then meet with Clayton and his management and try to get Clayton to say he wants to go to them to force MFC to take a low ball trade for him all the while having the footy media push SUPER hard for MFC to do it. Not entirely implausible. Geelong senior management are hardly squeaky clean, ask Bomber Thompson.

I just don’t see a trade to Geelong happening. A. Geelong don’t have the currency, their first round pick is too low and with Smith and Clarry a future first is likely to be the same or worse. B. What currency they do have is going into Smith first. C. We are low on quality mids and Clayton’s value is at an all time low. D. He has a huge, multi million dollar contract and if we want him to stay he stays. E. If there’s any credence to the idea we’re pushing him out it’s idiotic. It would be a colossally stupid decision and the fact the club made a statement within a day of it coming out saying he’s staying tells me they know this. I’m taking a break from footy media until the end of trade week. They’ll probably throw up five more of my favourite MFC players who are disgruntled and leaving in the next two weeks as they clearly hate Pert, Goody and the club and are sticking the boots in. They’ve been waiting three years for our on field performance to drop so they could. The media is so Geelong friendly there is no doubt some of this is Geelong sensing weakness and trying to make it happen through their media mates. The sad thing is this has been the most successful period of my lifetime and yet the footy media coverage has been so negative since 2022 it’s been so difficult to fully enjoy it. What the AFL media is doing to us MFC fans through this period can never be forgiven. All clubs have issues, maybe we’re a basket case, only time will tell but these media [censored] have done everything in their power to make the last three years totally unenjoyable for us and it’s a disgrace. The treatment of Essendon through the drug scandal was more friendly in the media than this!! I have no doubt the back end of this year crowd numbers and this years memberships were badly tarnished by the constant negative critique of our club. Shameful, clearly some people just hate having a successful MFC or MFC supporters enjoying football.

This is embarrassing. So many basic errors. I know we have injuries but what is happening?!

It wasn’t a sling tackle. But it was high. It still should’ve been Goldy’s ball. The inconsistency in HTB between the two teams is staggering! Hanks and Gillard both pinged for breaking tackles, while Freo players get an eternity for it to be called ball up. Terrible.

This is the most pathetically one sided umpiring performance I have ever seen!!

I know. But after a terrible year I’m just going to dream. I don’t want us to, nor see us trading away pick 5 so that’s the only way it happens. Almost definitely won’t, that’s ok, but I think he makes us better and whoever he goes to after the dogs he will be desperate to get back to his best form and stick it up Bevo.

If we could get him for a second rounder I’d go for it. At his best he makes our mids so much better. Also releases Langdon or Windsor into the ANB role, or plays it himself.

Stinear’s tactics are mystifying to me. We’ve lost a heap of experience and class so we play a loose, run and gun, risky inside kick attacking style of play with little focus on our contest and defence. Especially given our skills are not up to it. Bizarre. As a result when we lose, we lose huge in a comp that will come down to percentage. He’s lost the plot.

If we’d gone after Mabior Chol instead of Fullarton and McAdam last year we’d probably be in finals and Steven May’s ribs would be feeling far better. He’s a quality player.

They should report on the meeting between the five members of the AFLW leadership group with the CEO at the Pies in 2023. A year later four of the five were no longer at the club, I wonder if their concerns about culture were taken seriously?

It’s even more horrible seeing West and Sheriff rip it up for the wees and poos. Given all Kennett and Hawthorn’s appalling attitude to AFLW over the first few years of competition they have no right to have a team as good as they’ve got!

The Petracca thing was upsetting and clearly there’s work to do on his side and the clubs side to get the relationship fixed. But a year is a looong tune in footy. Our list is strong, some new assistant coaches, another good draft and another preseason into our young guns and Clayton means we’re undoubtedly better next year. As for the media, let’s just look at the scoreboard. Petty to Adelaide at the end of 2024, Nup Clayton disgruntled and leaving, Nup Viney to Roos, Nup Trac leaving, Nup Kozzie leaving, Nup ANB, no reports until the DAY the club announced it, that’s a Nup. The Media is 0/6 for 2024 for our club. Whatever player manager scuttlebutt and contract play the media picked up on their narratives about us are always worse than the actuality, compare that to talk about culture with Geelong and Stengle and the Pies with Noble etc. Crickets. You think maybe the media already knew the hatchet job they wanted to do on the MFC and just waited 3 years for our on-field to drop off to the extent they could jump on us about anything they could find? Sure looks like it!

I think today’s VFL game will be very important. I’m yet to see Fullerton be convincing at VFL level, hopefully he puts his best foot forward. Verral has played some excellent games as a ruck forward but he goes missing. Today is huge if Gawny doesn’t get up. Selection may we’ll depend on it, I’d be surprised if Goody and Gawny aren’t there today watching the rucks like a hawk.

Huh? My point is it’s easy to get caught up the emotions of how it happened with MFCSS and the recent loss to Brisbane and the North debacle on all of our minds but ultimately they never really got close. They didn’t even win the last quarter. Not sure what your Biden reference is. I speak in complete sentences. Although if I could run the best program on student debt relief and lowering health care costs in US history alongside a healthy job market and strong economic growth I would.

Near capitulation?! Pull the other one! We kicked 5 in the last, they kicked 5 in the last, to overcome our lead they needed to beat us by 3 goals in the last. They didn’t, enjoy a super win.

Excellent win! A true show of grit hardness and a strong culture. We did the basics better; contest, defense, hardness at the ball. Our leaders were excellent, Viney, Lever, May, Langdon, McDonald, ANB, Melksham all outstanding. The kids are showing a huge amount and we are right in contention without FOUR of our best 22 from last year and at least 2 of our best five players (Gawn, Trac, Brayshaw, Smith, not to mention the forgotten man Spargo). We have been belted from pillar to post by the media this year and it seems to have infected some supporters on here (and me at times). We are a SERIOUS football club with flags in all three comps in the last three years, we’ve been in the 8 for 87 of the last 92 weeks including 60 odd weeks in the top 4. We’re in the top 6 for attendance despite being 9th for membership and have enough cash in the bank to FINALLY build a home with stable leadership and a relatively stable board. Yep, ruck selection next week will be interesting, yep a few players are below their best. BUT we’ve won three of the last four losing one game by less than a kick (that we should’ve won) and remain in the hunt despite being targeted and having HUGE injury adversity. This is a club to be proud of, let’s keep the negativity to the selection thread and get out there and push back on the [censored] notion that our club lacks culture or is a basket case. We’re serious, we have a flag and we’re in the hunt for more with one of the most talented young lists in the comp and a dedicated caring and underrated senior premiership coach. GO DEES, [censored] THOSE DOCKERS, we owe them one!

Before his knee injury Ben Brown played in the ruck in the VFL and had his best game of the season. Looked the most effective of our rucks Verral, Fullerton and co. For those suggesting Fullerton plays im genuinely interested have you watched the VFL? While he moves well, gets to contests around the ground and has some nice athletic attributes, he is easily out muscled in the ruck and rarely wins hit outs. He could play but it would be a very different style of play for us. Whereas Verral looks more like a real ruckman and can be very good up forward also watching every VFL game I think his best far exceeds Fullerton but he is also young so can go missing and can still be bullied by the larger bodied ruckmen at VFL level. I’m not sure what we go with but I don’t think Verral would be anymore a surprise than Fullerton and my Smokey is BBB to ruck a full game if his injury is fully healed.

Except this week when Harris Andrews did the exact same thing against Adelaide in the third quarter and a throw in was called. The commentators even called it “Neale-Bullen like” when describing their shock it wasn’t called. FWIW I think the May non called clear mark on the wing and Ed Langdons clear HTB tackle in the backline contributed more to us losing the game than ANB’s call. They’d already drawn even by then whereas the previous two calls happened when we were ahead.

It’s up to us now. Beat Freo and the Pies and we go into the bye two games clear in the 8 guaranteed in the top 4. We have rarely taken these chances since 2021, cmon Dees! Two big wins! Set the season up, put Freo and Pies away!

Nick Daicos is a protected species. In a week where ALL the talk was about HTB and more of it being paid he had the absolute classic HTB that is ALWAYS a free…play on called. Any other player in the league that’s a free. If it’s Clarry they’d pay it ten times over!!