Very Jaded

He missed half of 2023 with the hamstring, came back for finals and injured his knee but kept playing. Missed the entire 2024 pre season, for both publicly known reasons and also reasons a lot of the public doesn't and will never know. Came back to play round 1 2024, and broke his hand. His hand was so badly broken he couldn't lift weights for nearly the entire year. It was insane to not put him straight into surgery, but there were reasons why we wanted to keep him playing and focused on footy. It was not good for him physically, but actually it really helped him mentally which was rightly the priority. He also injured his PCL again at the back end of 2024. So essentially he's had no continuity with his body for 18+ months. He completed a full pre season this year, but as we know from guys like Tmac, Viney, Lever etc when you miss so much footy with persistent injuries especially entire pre-seasons, it takes a really long time to get back to peak fitness. The problem for Oliver is that to play his role effectively he has to be 100% fit aerobically. Not 99% fit, but 100% fit. Until 2023 we never saw him battle injuries that impacted his fitness. Yes he had ongoing shoulder issues, but they didn't prevent him from running, doing weights and so on, and he didn't miss entire pre seasons as a result. I think it is a credit to both him and Trac for doing so much work this pre-season to get through a whole year without any soft tissue injuries given how much footy they missed. Although in the grand scheme of things Trac missed 6 months, but was very fit prior to injury. Clarry has battled for almost 3 times that long with a variety of issues that impacted his fitness. As the year has gone on you can see that Clarry has naturally improved his fitness due to playing more and more games, and that has really improved his game. I agree that footy is moving away from needing multiple contested beasts, but you always need players who can win the ball and use their hands to release others out wide. That will never change, and it will be even more noticeable come finals. Viney is at the back end of his career and his skills will never get better. Trac has his own mental demons to deal with, and we have no idea if he will ever over come them. Clarry also has mental demons, but from a physical point of view he is only going to get fitter (unless injuries stop him of course). I am not sure who wins us clearances if he leaves, when we all agree that Viney and Trac need to play predominantly different roles in the future. Do I think Langford, Lindsay, Kosi and Windsor will be good mids? Absolutely. Will they ever get to the contested winning abilities of Clarry? That is a big unknown.

Agreed I am not sure if we made him sub with the plan of taking Adams off, but it made no sense as height wise they are not like for like. Sparrow is actually a good sub option as he can play multiple roles, half forward, wing and inside mid. Even half back at a pinch. He is a low impact player, but will be happy to fill any sort of role.

Gotten better as the season has gone on because he is finally getting closer to full fitness after missing so much footy. Spent more TOG today as well than he has in a while. Oliver will be back to his best with another full uninterrupted pre season under his belt. I have no doubt about that. His quick hands in close are going to become more important the less we play Viney and Trac as midfielders and the more we try to get Kosi Windsor etc on ball to use their speed and skills.

Literally just saw you talk [censored] about McVee in another thread. I can count on one hand players and coaches you don’t constantly get stuck into. Jefferson has also underperformed, sorry to break it to you.

Looks sore. Wouldn’t surprise me if he is carrying a an injury.

I really like Chaplin. I hope he stays and takes back the job of defense coach.

Because we’ve lost our ability to set up at stoppage

I know you love Jefferson but by any measure Roo and Petty are better. Your blind hatred for almost our entire playing list is one of the most bizarre takes on this site. I have no idea why you even support us.

In 2021-2023 we had an amazing ruck mid connection and then we lost our midfield coach who was a brilliant coach and it all went downhill. We have to get a top quality midfield coach next year. It’s the most important area of the ground.

The way our mids set up at stoppage is goddamn woeful. I know who our stoppage coach is and I know that he needs to be the first one replaced. We constantly chase tail in the middle, because we are constantly set up wrong. The only times we looked like winning a clearance was when we had Windsor wide able to run at the footy. It’s a crime to be losing clearances with a midfield like ours on a regular basis.

I don’t disagree but it’s a hard task to play such a good tall forward duo with such inexperience. Defense needs experience. Tmac was brilliant on Darcy but to expect Adams to go with Naughton was really a baptism of fire.

If May doesn’t get suspended for his inability to vanish into thin air, we win that. A valiant effort with a makeshift defense. Really great signs from Windsor Rivers and Judd Love to see a new look midfield next year. Viney and Trac need to be redistributed to other roles.

I’m going to guess Melksham was not one of the players you ran into 😂

It is certainly not in the player’s best interest to sulk and put up an average performance. Their future coach will undoubtedly be watching today. I heard Paul Roos say that he watched the last few games of the season before he took over as coach, and was so impressed with Nev Jetta he saved him from a certain delisting. Opportunity aplenty for players to show their next coach what they’re made of. As Gawny said, footy waits for nobody.

She drank so much she time travelled to the future

It literally doesn’t matter who the club picks or what process they go through, the same whiney [censored] on this site will complain and moan and tell us all how bad of a decision we made, how much this club is a shambles and how unhappy they are. Some people just love the sound of their own miserable voice.

What’s he said that’s upset you? He was asked if he’d like to coach again and said we are an appealing option with a great history. How dare he?! Should have said I would never coach that loser club!

Any chance his re-signing gets announced before I die of old age? 😂

That’s news to Stafford who left last year 😂

Losing a grand final by under a kick is very different to losing 4 finals in a row and never even making a prelim post a grand final win. I think had we made a prelim post 2021 things would be different. Buckley may be the wrong guy for the job, but discussing him like he’s been a total failure at the Pies is simply wrong. It’s like saying Longmire was a total success but ignoring his grand final record.

People talk about Buckley like the Pies didn’t lose a grand final under him by less than a goal thanks to some Dom Sheed shenanigans. Should we look at the loses Longmire suffered in grand finals?

He’s being managed. I reckon his season is done, or alternatively they’ll bring him in next week and manage another player as we have a short break ahead of the Hawks game. Chaplin mention management ahead of that game in his presser. I would give Lindsay the rest of the season off and set him up for a big pre season. He has nothing left to prove this season, has shown plenty.

I’m becoming quite confident that Buckley was always our main target

Sorry but if McVee is going to not stay at Melbourne because he’s played one game as a sub after some very ordinary performances that he’s gotten away with all season, then frankly speaking he doesn’t belong in our team. I want to keep him, without a doubt, but he’s had a contract for 18 months that he’s yet to sign. I don’t think where he starts in round 20 will be the deciding factor.