Lucifers Hero

Yeah, little Atticus is special. The little kids in my life are Pies supporters or Bulldogs ... shame. Glad you like the new pic of 'my boy'. Thought it was time for a McVee update. I love the new pic; he is in full flight and moves so gracefully.

I'll be renewing my two Redleg memberships and hoping for more day games. A delightful part of day games is a little 4 yo named Atticus who sits nearby. Little Atticus and I hi-5 every goal and when we win (we always do when he goes) he stands on the seat and belts out A Grand Old Flag as loud as his little lungs allow. All the while he is dancing just like in 'Happy Feet'. He is a joy to behold.

@Demonland Change of title and move thread to the main board, please. It was all so 'much ado about nothing' !!!

The last line is interesting. My interpretation is senior players are not getting enough support and/or not ok with some FD decisions ... ?

It was a drive-by sniper comment. Until recently we had Toby Bedford and have never shied away from recruiting indigenous players or NGA players. Maybe he should produce a ladder of which clubs has the most indigenous players !!! He needs to get his facts right. I totally trust @WalkingCivilWar report that Ardu's sister lives in Melbourne not Kozzie's sister as Ralph reported. Also, iirc Kozzie's mother sadly passed away in SA several years ago where as he says she lives 3 hrs from Perth. Ralph like many of his cohorts is an 'unreliable witness reporter. Worth keeping this handy when reading their reports. Edit: My bad: thanks to @Dee Boys for clarifying it was Kozzie's 'old Mum' who passed away. His Mum is in WA.

I heard Ralph's comments differently. I heard that: Christian and his partner have been driving this - via other reports this is correct Christian spoke with rival teammates - not that they both personally approached other clubs. Christian was even keen to talk with pro scouts and list bosses - not that they exhaustively approached pro scouts. I took 'keen to' to mean he wanted to but didn't. It was reported elsewhere that Christian consulted close confidants within the club and outside the club, which is his right. For example we know for a fact he had coffee with Lachie Neale. Doubt that was to discuss going to Brisbane. Unfortunately, Ralph generalises without context or back up. If I may say, we need to be really careful in paraphrasing what someone says as it can give negatively trigger people. I may have misheard Ralph so am happy to be corrected. In the meantime I encourage people to listen to OTC before getting into Christian and his partner.

Yep, they should have named the premiership medal after him. I vaguely recall reading some clubs objected to that as it would be linked to a particular player/team, conveniently ignoring that he played/coached 10 premierships in 17 appearances. Played for or coached 4 clubs in two states. If some clubs objected I know which didn't: Melbourne, Carlton, North and Sydney.

Very enjoyable results: Carlton lost Essendon lost Collingwood lost Geelong lost Melbourne won

Hi Rab. Good points. The club now has time to work on a trade on its terms rather than his next year, if things don't work out. Off field #1 goal next year is minimal bad press from anyone. Hopefully, the public dialogue by both parties stops and if the media start it up next year both club and Christian jointly shut it down. Of course winning will help.

Thanks for answer. My view is Max should stay captain in 2025, hand over in 2026 if our dramas are sorted, if not at the latest 2027 while he is still playing.

If the $1.7 is for 2025 wouldn't the club take slight unders in a trade to get the $ off its books? A form of 'salary dumping'.

He definitely is and will be admitted to the Legends AFL HofF. Not sure people are advocating to 'move him on'. I'm looking for an orderly, planned transition. Question: when and how do you think we should transition the captaincy given 2027 will be his last year. I say 'transition' because I hope Max is still playing when he hands over to help the new skipper.

Barrett, is being disingenuous with the $1.7m comment. He covers himself by saying 'at various stages of the deal'. But what will the headline be? The contract was said to be around $1.m pa on average for 7 years. If the remaining 5 years includes $1.2m and $1.7m as has been reported, the other 5 years he plays for around $800k pa. Still a pretty penny but Barret like others is not telling the full truth. It is another 'click bait' comment to discredit Petracca and paint him as selfish.

I'm with keeping Max as captain, for now. But you raise some really good points. I hope the club has a succession plan to 1) identify the candidate(s). 2) a hand over that Max buys into. The more the club does to prepare someone the better the transition. Sparrow and Rivers may well be in the leadership group next year. Regarding standards. Based on 6 losses (5 from rnd 12) by 6+ goals, suggests a lack of fitness and or a commitment to win. Players are responsible for adhering to club standards in their own fitness/committment in how they rehab if injured, match recovery, manage diet, effort, prepare for games etc etc. The leaders are responsible to enforce the standards and 'discipline' players who fall short. Max is our best media manager and club rep but I wonder if he is too much of a 'mate' (as is Goodwin) with, players to enforce standards. They are rightly lovable and loved but that isn't necessarily good leadership. And I haven't seen traits in Richardson to be the 'bad cop' to Max and Goodwin's 'good cop'. If Max is the 'bad cop' at times how much support does he get from Goodwin and Richardson? So yes, who is enforcing standards?

I don't understand why people are blaming the leaks and mfc brand damage on Christian and his advisors. It means you believe the Morris/McClure trash ... if we believe them we need to believe reports the club/players leaked and ipso facto they have also damaged the club's 'brand'. Lets face it the damage to our brand started 12 months ago when other players' poor behaviour was front and sent in the media and is where the poor culture narrative started. The brand damage continued thru 2024 as did the associated poor culture narrative. The Christian drama has been sorted in 3 weeks. The dramas and brand damage by others of 12 months are still not fully resolved. Stop blaming him for the club's image woes!!!

For all those that think Christian's commitment is half hearted and he is staying because he had no choice, lighten up and enjoy what is ahead. Otherwise it will be a miserable year around here if folks keep playing that song. Lets remember Richmond fans got behind Dusty, who actively wooed other clubs, no takers, he stayed, And. the rest is history: 3 Flags, 3 NSM, 1 Brownlow. Christian is quite capable of doing something similar. As I said earlier get behind him.

Folks on here wanted Christian to speak. He has spoken. He is staying. Time to get behind him Time to drop the bickering. It is my guess Max was a major architect of the bridge that was built between the club and Christian. Max will make sure the player are all behind him. I'm ecstatic !!!! Onward and upward to 2025.

Wish he would! 2027 seems a stretch. If he doesn't get to WA this year he will probably try again next year when the WA clubs will be better prepared for a trade. My fear is other WA players will follow. Except for my special boy McVee most of them have extended their contracts. But as we know contracts don't mean much. McVee will be upgraded from Rookie to Seniors later this year but at this stage is contracted only for 2025. I'm hoping when he is upgraded his contract will be extended. If it isn't I will get very nervous.😓

A passing interest. In the FTA days it was in the wrong time slot. Nowadays, other things to do. Of the little I saw - a very clever show!

We must be in different generations Mr D ... I only recognise a handful of those characters! Just as well I didn't try too hard to solve the puzzle, eh!. My brain would be fried trying to remember something that isn't there!!! As always thanks for your work ...

Succinct as usual, dc. 👏

I'm beginning to wonder if our doctors were in touch with his family or hospital medical staff while he was in ICU. If so they would have known Christian nearly died on the operating table. I hope to God that info somehow made it to our doctors, to our player welfare staff and to Roffey. I hope it was just an oversight her not saying that other senior people made contact with the family during that critical period. I would be very angry if that was my son and no one bothered to check in.

It didn't sound like any senior person reached out to them while he was in ICU or in the early days when he was in virtual isolation at home. Now, I understand the family being a bit upset and he may have a good case for being disappointed re lack of communication/lack of caring.

Managers saying a player is happy and going nowhere is the equivalent of a Board saying a coach has their full support ...