The heart beats true

I think Ben Brown and the JVR are likely the replacements, but for one of them 2023 is too late, and for the other it might be too soon. I personally think Bruce is just a placeholder type of player, but I’ll still take him if he straightens us up. 👍

I get your point Kent, but I also think the club can only recruit players that are available. I’d say our preference is to get in quality key position forwards, and Bruce may fill a hole for a few seasons. Then we will likely try and increase our draft hand for this year and bring in another longer term key position player.

Are there? I keep waiting for names to appear. A bird in the hand….

Bruce is ‘chronically injured’ in the same way Lever, Gawn and Petracca are - he did his knee once. Some posters love a whinge about players being ‘chronically’ injured simply because they were injured in 2022.

The way I see it Tom Mc missed half this year with an injury that’s very hard to recover from, and Brown is playing on borrowed time, and ideally for his and the clubs sake he plays 14-16 games a year - giving him time to recover. JVR isn’t ready to play consistently week in week out on bigger blokes. Weid can’t do it at the AFL level. So if either Brown (with dud knees) or McDonald (with a dud foot) are injured we are left with not much. We know this because we saw it throughout the last 12 weeks of 2022. If Josh Bruce is half as good in 2023 as he was in 21 we’ll kick 20-25 more goals for the year, and win at least 3 more games than we did this year. He’s the best forward option linked to us this year that I’ve heard.

We lost Mitch Brown, and Bruce is an upgrade on him. It’s that’s simple. He might come good and play in a premiership, or he might play a few cameos along the way that help us protect JVR and the like. Think of him as a coverage player and it makes a lot of sense.

He was a pick 3 originally. We live in an odd world where quality players in the system for 30-50 games of development are worth less than they were 3 years ago even thought they’ve still got 10-12 years of footy to play. Something needs to change as it’s not at all reflecting the equalisation processes of the AFL.

You’d have to think that the club would have some thing in their contracts with coaches that outlines when they can’t accept a new job. Anyone know how a coaches contract works? I’m all for giving people opportunities, but not 2 weeks out from a season.

SWYL - I’ve never heard the term ‘Cloud Fairies’ before. Sounds like a brilliant band. Thanks, you made me laugh. As for religions I can only speak on behalf of my experiences at Catholic school. My parish priest as a child was Gerald Ridsdale, my Year 8 coordinator was Robert Best. That’s number 1 and 2 in the most convicted sexual child abusers in the state. The church continues to pay their legal fees even though they’ve both been in jail for 25 years. I know victims, and as a teenager I was groomed by another Brother I’ve reported multiple times to the taskforce (and never had any reply). Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but they can’t simply turn away from the truth of the pain that their organisations have created. That’s likes only following your team when they win the flag. I only have 1 religion now. The Demons. Weirdly it doesn’t stop me praying to someone I dont think exists for a key position forward.

Gees that’s an ordinary comment, but go ahead, fire him up all you can.

I feel for Jayden. He’s been on the edge of our team for the best part of 5 years. That’s a hard place to be. Over the last couple of years when he made mistakes you could see him beating himself up about it. I hope he can play with the freedom that makes him so great to watch when he’s up and about.

Let me dream A F

When he said about the coaches being creative with what’s on our list for our forward line I interpreted that as 2 words. Harrison. Petty.

Does any other club spend so much energy trying to appear to play hard ball through the media? What’s the point? He wants to go. Let him go and get a good deal done that suits you. It’s weird.

Horrible, horrible time to be a North supporter. However I’d feel much worse for them if they didn’t boo so often when we played them, and learnt the holding the ball rule.

It’s called list demographics. Geelong won the flag with 13 players over 30! They simple have to bring in talent. Richmond aren’t far behind in age. We are at a different stage with our list.

But the fact everyone knows this is my point. So many things happen at footy clubs that nobody ever hears. North put it on the record, and exposed him publicly - while also spending a lot of the year not managing him properly and playing him when it only benefited the club. They misread the player and the situation, and nobody is left there to be held accountable. That’s why I don’t blame him for getting out. People will waffle on about money and him being a spoiled brat, but if your employer publicly hung you out to dry while also continually proving to be incapable most would be out the door ASAP.

Or he could be a generational talent, and a bunch of disgruntled men, who have all been sacked since, horribly misjudged the situation - and the club will now not get anywhere near his value back. Welcome to the big league of managing humans, with all their emotions, that are also incredibly valuable assets. They got it wrong.

They dropped him for the biggest game he was going to play for the year - at home in front of family and friends. You have to know when to protect your young players, and they did the opposite. He’s 19.

The recent return home of top level talent might make clubs more inclined to take the value from the local clubs when it’s presented in the future.

North treated him poorly. I honestly don’t blame him. He’s been there less than a year and he’s looking at not knowing who his coach is. They know he’s going so they are going to try and get max value this year.

Thanks. I feel like a McFlurry now.

I always thought the C in Chris was for something else.

There’s an awful lot of people who seem to love to criticise everything the club does. We don’t turn over the list! No one wants to come to us! Why are we allowing this player to leave! Why are we recruiting that guy! Have a little faith. Our winning percentage over the last few years is insanely good, and we have an excellent track record of recruiting and trading well. I honestly don’t know how some of you survived as Melbourne supporters. This is the best team, and club culture, I’ve seen in my lifetime.

That’s a very good point. Shows you where the value really is.