Jaded No More

He was never the disgruntled one. It was always the club who was unhappy with him and his behaviour.

Why would you trade a top 5 player during their poorest season to date? It's like buying shares at the top price and selling when they crash. At worse Clarry never returns to the same player, and we trade him at the end of 2025 after a full pre-season. At best he returns to his previous form and we don't make fools of ourselves trading out a top 5 player after ONE mediocre season. Even if you are a cut throat fans with no attachment to players, it makes no sense to get rid of Clarry now when his value has never been lower. The chances of his playing worse next year after a good off-season, are slim to none.

What are these apparent growing tensions? Because last week I saw Goody and Clarry hugging and walking arm in arm off the field post win.

I think it’s hilarious that fans think Fullarton would be shocked by what Goody said. There would be dozens of far worse things said to players by coaches on a weekly basis. Goody can’t lie and say oh sorry I totally stuffed up not playing a 19 gamer part time ruckman who can’t win a hit out at Casey. He would have taken their two top quality rucks to the cleaners. And we would never have lost clearances by 9000.

I don't think you know Goodwin all that well if you think he would trade him in a heartbeat. The reality is that players of Oliver's calibre come around so rarely. They also get traded so rarely, and for good reason. Trading him after one poor year for reduced value would 1000% not put us in a better position. Please tell me who you think we could get in return for Clarry that would make us better? As for not being a good influence or a media distraction; do you want to have a chat about Max Gawn all those years ago? How about Dusty? Toby Greene? Ummm remember the time Lance Franklin took a mysterious year off football? You cannot expect loyalty from players, and then turn around and throw it back in their face at the slightest hiccup. Oliver is a champion of our club. He's won 4 B&Fs, 2 coaches awards, and is a 3 time AA. And he's 26! Were you a perfect human at 26?

No tampering, just a lot of pressure on a kid who let’s be honest, is no rocket scientist.

It was 100% not money related. The pressure from his family to return to WA would have trumped any offer we had on the table. We didn’t lose him because of money. He was very happy at the club, and happy with the multiple options we put to him. Unfortunately he is a very immature kid and he wasn’t in the driving seat. I won’t say more than that, but trust me when I say that he didn’t leave for the money. Adelaide could have given him $2million and he wouldn’t have gone.

Losing Gus was the straw that broke the camel's back after Clarry's bad off season. Then Trac almost died and the camel was like "I'm out folks".

If we could find farms for these players instead, I am sure we could also get away with doing the dodgy stuff Geelong does. I mean please find me an A+ grader at another club who hasn't been offered or recently signed a long term deal? West Coast are willing to offer Reid 10 years, is that not a wild risk? The reality is, that you only have two options now to keep star players, pay them overs and risk damaging your list balance, or give them long term deals. Both options are risky, but both are necessary. You think if we didn't offer Clarry, Trac and Gus long term deals, someone else wouldn't have? Gus was being chased by Freo hard. If he left because they offered him 5 years and we only offered him 4, this place would implode. Likewise if Trac or Clarry left the year they signed those long term deals, what would we have said? We have not lost any player we wanted to keep beyond Jackson (and money was not the driving factor I assure you), and have been able to lure key players; May, Lever, Langdon, hell we got Grundy who was hot property. So these long term contracts have never stopped us from doing what we needed to do. We just recently signed Kosi, extended Roo and apparently convinced Petty to stay. List management is all about risk vs reward. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. It's really bloody unfortunate that after 6 concussion free years, Gus had to say goodbye to his career because Maynard is a POS!

Was he playing against two quality AFL ruckman? I highly doubt that what Goody is saying publicly, he hasn't told Fullarton privately. Do you think Tom is walking around wondering why he isn't getting a game? Or do you think he's been made fully aware of what he has to work on?

Wonder when the club will announce it There is always that seed of doubt when anything gets reported by Morris.

Mental health recovery is never linear. He has missed 1 game this year, and that was due to injury. To me that says he is doing all the right things since he was banished from training in the pre-season. If he wasn't doing the right things off the field, firstly you can bet your bottom dollar the bin divers in the media would be ALL over it, and secondly he wouldn't be playing, and going to WA with Kosi, and getting hugs from Goody post game. Of course if he goes off the rails again the club will absolutely revisit the idea of trading him, and so they should! But they will absolutely categorically not trade him because his on field output is down. I think they expected this to be the case this year, in fact, they were fine with him playing very little football this year anyway as long as he got himself right off the field. That he's played all but one game is a massive bonus.

Do you know the nature of the injury?

I understand that this was what Twomey thought, and maybe that is what we thought to, but clearly we were sold a player who is not a ruckman or who needs a LOT of work in order to become one. He's played 19 games and he's 24 already. Not really sure that we thought he would be anything other than a complete break glass in case of emergency option this season. What I don't get is why we got him, and also kept Schache.

Losing the hitouts wasn’t the problem. It was not competing when the ball hit the ground that was the problem. Gawn does two things better than any other ruck, he wins his own clearances (he averages 5 a game!), and he takes marks (averages over 5 a game). Those are his elite stats that we cannot replace even if we “win” the hitout stat. Fullarton would therefore have not helped as he neither wins hitouts, clearances nor is a particularly strong contested mark. I hazard a guess that we recruited him as a backup for a tall forward rather than as a ruck backup. It has to be a real priority in 2025 to have at least one ready to go ruck on our list outside of a 33 year old Gawn.

Do you ever think that the problem here is that Clarry has set an impossible standard for himself? Imagine not pulling coaches votes regularly being the condition for getting traded. Oliver has been playing at a level so far above normal for like 90% of midfielders for his entire career. He is having his first ever below standard season, which is still comparable to most midfielders best seasons. And there are very clear and specific reasons why that is happening. I understand that his pay packet demands he stays at the level we’ve all become accustomed to, but I also understand that he’s a human who has battled a lot of demons (pardon the pun), and is struggling with his fitness (77% average TOG is certainly not normal for him). To trade him now, especially when his value would be relatively low, is not only a ridiculously poor list move for a team lacking midfield depth, but also a culturally shocking decision. We asked Clarry to do certain things to remain part of our club. He has done those things as far as I’m aware. To go back on our word destroys the trust that the club has built with the playing list. It’s fraught with danger and it tells players that we won’t accept imperfection and flaws and fluctuations in their careers. We have a whole host of very talented youngsters that we want to keep on our list long term. How do you think they’ll feel seeing one the greatest players to ever pull on the red and blue, traded after a poor 12 months? Imagine if Richmond had gone ahead and traded a problematic Dusty all those years ago. 3 flags gone. I can’t wait for the nuffies to call for Trac’s head next year when he’s rightfully going to struggle (probably) on the field with form/fitness.

How does it blow your mind? Maynard ended a career before and got off with a premiership medal. The devil works hard, but the Collingwood fan club MRO works harder.

I think that’s the problem, I don’t think he would have competed any better than Petty or Roo and he can’t take a contested mark making him a liability. Goodwin said post game that there is nobody on our list who could win ruck contests against Darcy and Jackson except Gawn. If that’s not the worst vote of confidence for Fullerton you’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is.

Credit to Goody for again helping to keep a required player.

Let’s hope he never has to ruck again because we find a second ruck going into next season. That has to be very very high on our list of priorities given Max is going to be 33 next year!

I agree that he can go another season, but from what I heard he was set on this being his last season. Hopefully he’s changed his mind.

Your username suits you

Ok let’s refer to his nasty hand injury then 🙄 Not having a pre season, has a monumental impact on performance Will you call for Trac to be traded if he struggles next year?

Melbourne leaked it early because they heard there weren’t enough meltdowns on Demonland after that loss.

He’s still a bin diving misogynistic [censored]