Jaded No More

The tiny glimmer of hope we had left, is now gone with Trac out for the season. You don't win flags without your best players.

Bye bye 2024, you were trash Sending Trac all the positive healing vibes. I'd give you my spleen if I could!

Bloody hell poor Trac. Hope he makes a full recovery!

Yep LJ is more of a long term loss IMO Certainly not a loss from a leadership perspective however

This is @WalkingCivilWar one chance to get his job!

You’ve clearly never heard a Melbourne player speak about Gus. There is a reason we wanted him to be involved at the club and especially on game day on the bench. It wasn’t some sympathy job offer. The club knows full well how vitally important his leadership was. Forget the fact that he was incredibly versatile and excelled in just about any role you gave him, forget that he’d help our midfield woes, forget that he often stood up in big moments. Good players come and go, but great leaders are hard to find and harder still to replace.

Of all the players who departed our club since 2021, the only one that’s left an irreplaceable hole, is Gus. The rest would make no difference to our fortunes right now. But the loss of Gus on field and off it, has had IMO an immeasurable negative impact on the team.

It's irrelevant. If he has something personal going on off the field, and they want to keep it private (which they clearly do), then by all means don't discuss it. But this constant need by the Collingwood PR machine to make Maynard the goddamn victim, and paint him as Mother Teresa, is putrid. He was upset after what he did to Gus? Good, so he damn well should be. At least he still gets to play football.

Or you can poke my eyes out with a blunt knife instead 😭

This is the [censored] that makes my blood boil. Just [censored] OFF mate.

Yep, they’ll get on it right after they stop using a Nokia 3310 to give us ARC decisions I’m sure 😑

I never said he lied. I have no doubt Trac said he was fine to go back on and try to play thru the pain. But if the doctor turned around and said sorry we think you may have internal injuries, you need to go to hospital, there is no way known that Trac would or could overrule the doctor.

Club confirmed he’s had a procedure done. No idea if for the hole in the lung or the spleen tho. Neither sound good.

Yep, so a doctor had to sign off on him returning to play. It wasn’t Trac saying “I’m going back out” while a doctor ran behind him with a broken stethoscope yelling “but you’ll die” 😂

You do realize that what he’s saying makes the medical staff even more negligent, because it seems like the players are calling the shots. Which is ridiculous as the players are NOT doctors. I don’t think the decision to get back on the ground was his alone because a doctor would have to sign it off.

Went in to hip and shoulder Howes who is a 10 gamer. Would never do that to Viney tho, would he? Gutless moron

It's even stranger that when we needed him most, grand final day, he literally did not miss a shot. So it's not as if he's never kicked beautifully under pressure! The mind boggles.

It's our inability to execute forward of centre IN HIGH PRESSURE GAMES that's our biggest weakness. Every side has games where they can't kick straight and their opponent can't miss. It happens regularly and it's happened to us many times. The issue is that when we are under pressure, we seem to totally lose composure forward of centre. Our entries are putrid, and our goal kicking is not much better. We lost an elimination final last year because two of our most experienced players missed absolute sodas. That's mental, and that's a problem. The issue this year however, is that when things go against us, we completely drop our heads. We've been in many games in the past where things have gone wrong, and we've always been able to arrest momentum and claw our way back. We've rarely ever been out of games, until this year. And that has nothing to do with our forward mix, and everything to do with our midfield getting regularly smacked. We didn't lose yesterday because the Pies kicked a couple of miracle goals, or because our forwardline was worse than theirs on paper. We lost yesterday because our pressure rating was abysmal, we got smashed in clearance again, and we were severely punished on turnovers. JVR, Kosi and Fritta are better forwards than all 6 of the forwards the Pies had on the field yesterday combined. Only Hill is a really quality forward. Edit: I also want to be clear that our forwardline is absolutely a problem, and we desperately need Petty to pull himself together, or to find a quality tall to help JVR. No arguments here. But no forwardline, no matter how good, can play good football if their midfield can't execute a 2m handball.

Is our forwardline great? No. Is it the reason we are losing? No. Who the hell was playing in Collingwood's forwardline yesterday? Absolute nobodies, that's who. Still managed to pile on 14 goals.

Maynard getting a vote. Just kill me.

Ridiculous over reaction. You're trading Trac, Lever, Gawn, Fritta and Kosi are you? Let's rip the guts out of the team, and just bottom out again and go for draft picks, because that worked out so well for literally every club that's done it. We still have a good nucleolus, but we need to bring in some key players to plug obvious holes. That's not the easiest thing to get right, but it can be done. We did it in 2018/2019, and went on to win a flag in 2021.

How did you get from AFL being nothing like a war, where everyday is life and death, versus the game means nothing? My dad served in the military for 20 years. He’s a mad passionate football fan and he would tell you categorically that football and war are nothing alike.

If you look at the photo Trac posted on his socials, he certainly appears to have needed something done. You don't often have a finger monitor and an IV in your arm if you're just in for light observations to some cracked ribs.

Incorrect. My friend who is a doctor saw him sucking in the air on TV and immediately said “he punctured a lung or bleeding internally” If they didn’t know the extent of the injuries, they should have taken the right precautions and sent him to hospital immediately, given the risk of internal injuries was very high. Imagine if he got hit again after being sent back on the ground. This is not a hamstring or a knee, the risk is not worth it. Much like we take no risks with head injuries.