rufus

It is diabolical that 2 of the players you have identified to move on are pretty much at the absolute peak age for contributing to team success in a football career. Other clubs who've bitten the bullet have generally done so when the players are well past peak and they are being acquired externally for their leadership more than their on field performance. Until we understand and address the perennial issue of why almost every single MFC player regresses in terms of their contribution to the team in their peak years, this ongoing cycle of being a below average football club will repeat. What hope do our young players have when relying on these types of players for how to go about their careers? We get nowhere near the output back for the investment we make in the top end players on our list. The leadership in terms of how they've helped the club both on and off the field is appalling. I think we do need to bite the bullet and move them on...but for it to have come to this is absolutely shameful.

The focus on Goodwin is just not the place to be looking. Good players find a way...and all these premiership players come up short in pretty much every tough contested game they are in. They just aren't very good. There's enough evidence now. What happened in 2021 I have no idea...but before and after too many of the highly rated players just can't deliver when the heat comes on. Time to go in a different direction (if we can even offload these crazy contracts)

These 2 contracts are unfortunately going to kill our chances of building another premiership list for the next 10 years probably. But we had to give the contracts I guess (or the Oliver one at least). Oliver was with Bont as the best players in the competition and still so young. Many signs suggested he would become an absolute great of the game. From the outside it looked a no brainer to lock him up. Maybe people on the inside should have been more across how pear shaped it could have gone. Who knows. Petracca I would have been more wary of as his better performances have always been driven by the pressure applied by his teammates and getting it to him in space. He's always been fumbly and unable to execute under physical pressure so the contract just doesn't match the quality. If we can't come to a mutually acceptable parting with both of them then I reckon Petracca has to be played purely as a full forward. Try and get some space for him and see if he can hit the scoreboard a bit. Maybe we can get about 75% of the value of what we're giving to him out of him. Oliver I have no idea how we can find a way to get anywhere near the payback for the amount of investment we're making in him. We're once again being burned by senior players on big bucks (in these cases very big bucks) regressing as team footballers and dragging the whole thing down. Maybe our focus over the last block of the season should be purely to put these 2 in a position to rack up 40 touches a game (because we all know how much the footy world love a good haul of possies) to try and inflate their value.

I think you are right in a way about the small club thing. But at the same time, look at the Bulldogs for example. Now they also haven't been great since 2021. But other than a few inexplicable efforts where they looked like they just lacked intensity, they just seem to deliver value to their supporters. They don't constantly lose games where you walk away going 'what the hell was with the lack of intensity today'. You don't look at their senior players often and think 'what on earth has happened to him'. Really, they have done a great job of giving their fans something to enjoy for most of this century. As an MFC fan, I completely expect we will lose some or all of the next 4 games, and it will mostly come down to intensity and not getting what we should be getting from senior players. This is in in line with most of what we have seen this century, and it is an indictment on the culture that the club has fostered. But to my mind, that is on the players more than anyone else. Hell you'd think that at some point simple personal pride (even if they don't give a toss about the club or fans) would drive these guys to produce something extra...it just rarely seems to.

Absolutely spot on. Ultimately this is our problem now, and has been our problem for generations. We just don't seem to be able to compete as hard for as long as the perennially competitive clubs. Goodwin seems to have been able to get the appropriate pressure/intensity levels out of the players more than any other coach since Northey, but it still hasn't been regular enough to avoid costing us finals over the time since the flag. Is that really on the coach? Or is it on the players? Or is it the club culture in general? The analysts are wondering why we reverted to slow, kick down the line on the weekend. Well, it is a product of our lack of intensity. Without the pressure, we do not get the ball back in positions or scenarios where we can move it in a more dangerous manner. I honestly think the AFL deliberately make the pressure rating stats difficult to find because if they were easily accessible, none of the analysts would have a job anymore. Everyone would plainly see that games where both teams bring pressure are decided by talent, and in games where there is a difference in pressure levels the outcome of the talent gap and hence the final result can shift relative to the pressure difference. This game is really such a simple one I reckon.

Amazing how different a football team can perform when they apply pressure. We were manic with pressure in 2021 and then gave it up in 2022. It cost us finals matches and possibly another flag losing to ordinary teams by being outhustled. The move to a more attacking style was always going to be ugly with our post 2021 pressure levels. Glad the penny seems to have dropped a bit...but is the pressure going to be a non negotiable or will we pack it in again? History says it might go in the too hard basket.

Here's the issue though (and I'm someone who always rated Salem): why do we get such up and down performances from him? At his age and experience level we should be getting consistently decent output. But we get good games mixed in with shockers. Much like we've gotten from the majority of similarly experienced MFC players over the years. The coaches must be so frustrated. So many of our senior players seem to perform like rookies. You expect and work around the inconsistency of youth...but if you can't rely on your senior players executing their role consistently then what hope do you have?

The key thing in the whole communication from Green, in my opinion, is the line about empowering the playing leadership group in shaping our 'high performance' culture. Hopefully that empowerment/expectation extends to the whole playing group. For mine, who we bring in is midfield coach is nowhere near as important as our playing group taking ownership of setting the standards and driving excellence. The Hawthorn Football Club understand that in the end it's the players who get to dictate what the club becomes. Hopefully we are taking a leaf out of their book.

One thing that I do like about this is that as a player Jones did something that so many other MFC players this century inexplicably have not done: he continued to improve throughout his career and was the best version of himself as a footballer during the peak physical/experience years of an AFL career. Have never been able to understand why we get burnt so badly by players letting us down with inconsistency and under performance in their 'peak' years. It has to be something in our culture and a lack of expectation of professionalism that we drive within the club. Hopefully Nathan can contribute to a club wide change on this front.

Had to happen after the diabolical way the club has managed things over at least the last few months. The person at the top has to be accountable. I hope we can find a strong candidate, external to the MFC, to come in and try to right the ship. For the first time in living memory I'd like to SEE the culture fixed, not HEAR about how the culture is fixed.

If he gets us to the top 4 again in the next few years then he's an genius. And if we get there again and he has to watch us fumble and choke under opposition pressure during the resultant finals then if I were him I'd walk away anyway. Goodwin is the least of our problems in my opinion. A playing group who are doing the right things to be in tip top shape to compete, and who deliver when put under pressure by the big teams is the starting point. Reality is he's achieved a lot with a lot of forces going against him.

The utter stupidity of floating him for trade this year beggars belief really. I kind of hope it was a bit of a lone wolf action because we can weed that wolf out. We talked up how happy we were with his efforts during this season, so to turn around and look for offers is just poor form. That's not even considering the fact that we were never any chance of getting fair value in a trade anyway. Just dumb. Having said that, regardless of what muppetry is going on in the MFC admin, my view is that the position we currently find ourselves in is on the players. And it is very much on the top end talent, including Oliver and others who are getting paid a good amount of money. Had we stood up under pressure on the field over the last few years, I'm sure there would be less unrest and we'd still be an attractive destination for prospective players. If some of what we hear is true, then in some quarters we've been afforded some deplorable levels of dedication in terms of leaving no stone un turned to be in peak shape to perform on game day. And in other quarters we've had high paid and highly rated players who've done a lot of finger pointing without really looking like they're prepared to put the team on their back and take us to the next level. Although I really dislike him, I thought Sam Mitchell had some great words after their finals exit this year. When asked about his message to the players, he said something like: 'This is your club now. The coaches and the admin will be here to guide you and help you as needed, but it's your club and it's up to you to take this thing where you want it to go'. I thought they were brilliant words and I wondered whether we've taken the approach at Melbourne? Maybe we did and the players weren't quite good enough or we didn't have the right characters who could ensure we went about it the right way and eeked everything possible out of the talent we've had at our disposal?

It has always seemed strange. You'd think our performances over the last however many decades would just make us irrelevant...but outsiders do seem to hate us. Maybe it's because we are a bit whingy as a football club. There is always a reason or an excuse as to why we fail. A bit like the England cricket team who generally puff their chest out and go alright when things line up for them but go to water when the real heat comes. It's hard to respect sports teams like that. I thought I read somewhere that Pert at some stage recently said about how one thing he can always do is control the media narrative. Maybe that got a few backs up and has us in the gun at the moment. End of the day, the fans are all a bit fired up and would love to shut these nuffs up the only way you really can...and that is by winning. But unfortunately that means diddley squat unless the playing group shares the sentiment (and I mean really shares the sentiment, doesn't just say they share it).

Things seemed to get less manic and messy after week 1 of the trade period which was a relief. Almost felt like people stopped feeding the media with leaks like what had been happening for months prior. Hopefully it has been weeded out. Our stance with contracted players was great and one which I hope other 'smaller' clubs lean into. At the end of the day, the player and manager need to take responsibility for the contract they agree to. If a player wants out when under contract, it should only eventuate under circumstances where the club feels they are either equal or better off than they were with that player at the club, or they are satisfied that the assets they are acquiring position them to be equal or better in the near future. With Oliver, I thought it was pretty clear that with what was being offered our best option was to work with him at the MFC to try and get him back towards his best. We need to be just as strong next year. Better outcome would be that those who might have wanted a move will take responsibility to lead the turnaround and drive this club forward, repaying the faith that has been put in them with these big contracts.

Out of interest, when did the idea of a club trading someone and continuing to pay part of their contract originate in the AFL? I don't really remember it prior to Grundy and as far as I know it doesn't happen in many other professional sports does it? At least it doesn't seem like in other sports you have players still being paid by a former club for multiple years after leaving? To me it just seems like a crazy path to go down. If you're going to part with a player it's hard to swallow the idea of paying them to play for someone else.

This is a good point, and ultimately I reckon it's the key reason why we ended up with 1 flag and no more from this group. If you add Oliver to the 5 you've listed, I reckon we have 1 in that group who is both a good enough player and good enough leader to drag the team over the line in big games. I reckon another 2 seem to be great leaders but probably just not quite good enough players. And the other 3 who are good enough players but who just don't have the leadership qualities. At the end of the day, a club can do everything possible off the field, but ultimately it's only the guys that go out on the field that can drive the final result.

It's actually a little ironic...if the reports are true that he doesn't feel wanted by Melb then how wanted do you feel by a club that seem to think your valued at about pick 20 and half your current salary?

Agreed. Time for this club to show some stones.

My own personal view (not knowing what disruption, if any, this player actually causes behind the scenes for our club) is no, we shouldn't accept that deal regardless of the full salary being paid. I'd rather spend a season letting him play the role he is best at and hopefully dominating so that worst case if he still wants to go in 12 months we might actually have some interested parties with some currency. The idea of trading an asset when it is at it's lowest value just makes no sense.

This would be a decent outcome for all 3 parties.

We're a joke if we are prepared to be paying over half a million bucks for a bloke to play in Geeling every year till 2030. Not going to happen surely. The first thing that needs to be covered off in any potential deal is to get rid of the salary. It'll be one thing to front the members and explain how our player management has seen the departure of popular players, but to also expect members to cop the idea that we'll be paying for the privilege of seeing them play somewhere else is a bridge too far.

Not sure why we should pay any of it? I don't think that'd be easy to sell to the MFC supporter base. If it's truly him who wants to go, the difference between what Geelong is prepared to pay him and what we were going to pay him should be written off by him.

Who knows what's actually going on. But if he's dead keen to leave, and so keen that he's willing to take a pay cut, surely that works in our favour. A pay cut would mean a completely new contract wouldn't it? Which would mean his contract with us was mutually agreed to be terminated. Which means he goes to Geel as a free agent. So the full contract would be off the books plus pick 6 or whatever it is in free agent compo. That could be a win win scenario.

My only interest on the topic of who coaches is that we have the person who gives us the best chance of winning it all. And my feeling is that the last 4 years have shown me that Goodwin has given these guys a method (albeit a very boring one to watch and maybe to play) that can win it all. We've been let down by the guys on the field in pressure moments consistently over the last 3 years. I'm starting to think Goodwin's effort to get this group to the ultimate prize was a pretty remarkable one. The same players who won it all have looked slow and pretty poor in pivotal contests once teams worked out they need to move the ball in ways that don't allow us the kind of numbers advantage we want. I am not confident that any other coach in the AFL could do better with these guys. And I reckon Goodwin himself will be in trouble if he loosens the defensive principles and tries to play a style where our players either win big contests or we get scored against regularly. Unless we turn over a lot of this list it is going to spell real trouble imo.

The things we've heard about Petracca's concerns around the Oliver stuff aren't clear at all. The way I see it, the concern might be one of a few things, each of which are very different: - maybe he's not happy with how we may have let Oliver get away with more than we perhaps should have for too long - maybe he's not happy with the way Oliver has applied himself - maybe he's not happy with the dumb way the club tried to 'scare' Oliver into line last year. If it's the third one above, he'll probably be loving what we've gone and done this week! We just looked like a joke doing it last year, and we look even worse this year.