Lucifers Hero

I wonder how long it will take for this to become a Caroline Wilson pile on thread🙄

The jungle drums are very loudly saying he is a shoe in at GWS. Jungle drums from multiple jungles...

A problem for Ess is that if Clarkson brings in own people Ess will have some hefty staff contracts to pay out straight out of the soft cap . The AFL will probably bankroll some of the retrenchment costs were it to be North (like they did us) but all hell would break lose if the AFL were to help Ess, Clarkson's ego may lead him to the big club but I hope his political skills are well and truly honed. His bully-its-my-way style won't work at Ess. Not all staff or board members want him.

Thanks. Feel for North to have put their welcome mat out only to be ditched 'at the altar' so to speak. Any info on who might replace Yze?

Jaspa Fletcher is also a F/S who is expected to go in the earlier part of the draft. They don't have enough points for both but will get a good comp pick for Mc Stay, bring some of their 2023 draft currency into 2022 and they will get the deals done. As you say they may also trade out players for picks this year.

The Howe trade isn't so bad in that we got pick 29 back which became part of the pick trade package with GCS that enabled us to get Oliver. There were other aspects of the Coll and the GCS trades which I've left out to not overly complicate the end result of the Howe trade. I can come back and list them if anyone wants to know all the permutations. But the bottom line is we got Oliver.

I have always liked Spiderman for wearing a red and blue outfit!

I know he played in that game. His OTT celebration had an element of 'up yours' about it which to me was in poor taste. Howe was similar. In the video he claimed to be 'back at Melbourne now'. Sure he can support both clubs but my (rhetorical) question was who he would support in a final. That is when we would know if he is one of us.

While the Gabba looks like a 'fortress' they play weaker teams there, like Geelong at Kardinia Park. A look at their record there this year: Wins: Port, North, Coll, Eagles, Giants, Saints, Bulldogs, Suns, Carlton Losses: Ess Only two of those teams made finals last year. Of the two wins vs this year's top 8 teams the Coll win was early in the season when they weren't doing much. Like Geelong they tally up wins at their Home ground but fall short in finals when they come up against the best teams. Dees by 5 goals!!

Take him to the Richmond doctor!! Are Collingwood not playing Grundy to avoid aggravating an injury/'hide' his injury status. Caveat emptor!

He celebrated big time when Colll beat us in the final game of 2017 and stopped us making finals. Will he barrack for us vs Coll in a final? Or was that little video just for show?

The credit for those drafts doesn't go to Clarkson as he didn't leave Port until after their 2004 GF win by which time most drafting decisions, especially at the top end, would have already been made. He wouldn't have had the gravitas at that time to exert much influence. In his latter years Clarkson burnt a few 1st round picks/first round draftees to get Mitchell, O'Meara, Wingard. A bit like Ross Lyon at the Saints he left the list in an ordinary state. Ess should learn that 'all that glitters isn't gold'. But then again they might just bring out the worst in each other.

From bigfooty: I am going for Lions by 30 in the best four quarter display we have seen all year full of individual brilliance, team defense, desperation, focus, accuracy, no injuries, and a huge fillip for the finals series (that is re the Lions not the Demons btw). theyve definitely had the wood over us recently, our last 3 matches against them stick out to me as some of the more painful ones in the fagan era. the home and away losses sucked in particular where we looked a million bucks and then wilted in both. BUT none of those were at the gabba. i reckon we're up for it Feel like we'll get the Dees this week. Wouldn't be confident against them at the G, but equally we beat them this week and they'll have to go the very long way to the GF. Meanwhile, I'd back us against Sydney week one - home or away. Players such as Fritsch, Pickett and Meklnsham concern me match wise. I think Andrews should have Brown measure, but those three I mentioned give me headaches as does Petracca going forward. Hopefully our mids learn from last time we met by not putting it up high for the likes of Lever and May to have a field day. Joe should do what he did against Weitering and drag May / Lever to places they don't want to be and give the likes of Cam, Linc, Charlie room to do there thing. We haven’t even got close in recent times and we now also have a worrying trend for allowing teams to go on goal runs late, this is music to Melbourne’s ears. Again, I desperately want to be wrong. Rayner is looking good, that boy will have mountains of confidence carrying us over the line last round. Eric has found his range now compared to last time when we met them. Matho in as a stopper, we didn't have a proper stopper last time. Gabba factor. I'm very confident we'll be a good show this time. Players will know this is the time to prove a point and knock this hoodoo over Viney tore us a new one last time we played them. So does Matho go to Oliver or Viney? Viney was the difference in our last game. Gawn, Oliver, Petracca & Viney are all as dangerous as any other player in the competition. Keeping them reasonably quiet will go a long way in winning this game. Their whole midfield dominated us. Clug was alright, Harmes tagged Neale out of it, Berry tagged Langdon but nobody else did much. I unfortunately have 0 confidence in this game and kind of want to put serious money on Melbourne @ $2 I'm confident in our ability to beat Melbourne this time around, however, it'll hinge on whether or not we can make the most of our periods of dominance and not waste them as we did against the Saints, and whether or not we have the concentration necessary to apply ourselves defensively for the majority of the game. Hopefully, our boys come out and make a physical statement early, especially after the mauling the dees gave our mids earlier in the year. Besides that, we couldn't have asked for a better dress rehearsal before finals. C'mon Lions! Biggest H&A game at the Gabba since the "If it bleeds we can kill it" game in 2001? If we don't win this game I'm gonna go berzerk! If we do the same as the last few and concede 5 goal bursts. We can’t play slow and controlled. It doesn’t work nowadays. We have to back our kick and run offense no matters what. Run is the key. I think size is the key we need Matho to blanket petracca like he did with jack steele last week and Berry to tag clayton oliver. Size against Kozzy an Co isn’t going help. I don't think it's any disaster if we lose this week. All that means is that we're probably not good enough anyway and we'll win a home final from 5th. I welcome the Tigers . We won't stuff up like last time. If we beat Melbourne then we're in with a chance at the flag. I don't think it's a super strong . Actually a win on Friday probably means 3rd, and likely Swans at SCG. We did play very well there earlier in the year so lets get it done on Friday My favourite: Not confident at all. Whether it is AFL or NRL, for some reason any time a team named Brisbane plays a team named Melbourne, they go to mud. It’s all mental. We can definitely best them but I’m not sure the team actually believes it and that’s a massive issue. 🙂🙃🙂

Good chance their is a 'sting in the tail' of Grundy's contract figuratively and practically. He signed in early 2020, before the sal cap was cut and the year before they did a salary dump and off-loaded Treloar, Phillips and Stephenson (for less traded picks than they were worth) and they had back-ended contracts so had to be traded. There is a very good chance that Grundy's contract was also back-ended so the next 5 years may well be more than the mooted $1.0m per year. The Treloar trade looked ok in terms of picks for $ trade off, until Coll tried to reneg on part paying his contract for the remaining years. The AFL forced them to honour the verbal agreement. Question is how much of his contract will Coll pay? The more they pay the better trade they will want.

A few words were used that will fail the DL auto censor! The repeatable ones: Won't play finals now so he's back in 2023, how depressing Not worth getting upset over friends. Life is too short. Don't give them the satisfaction I guess he does wear a navy blue jumper so the verdict shouldn't surprise anyone. ******* w***ers! If you really think He got weeks just for being a Carlton then you are truly delusional. If Carlton supporters want to show thier dissatisfaction, don't attend this weekends Melbourne home game. 20,000 at the MCG will be the feedback the AFL needs and will listen to. Team goes better with supporters support. Roar of affirmation makes it more likely to get free kicks. So make us even marginally less likely to win by some sort of ridiculous boycott . Not surprised he didn't get off the MRP and Tribunal have never given us a break in recent years No don't think he got weeks because he's a Carlton player...Think he got weeks because he isn't a Geelong or Richmond player... And people try to tell me we aren't absolutely shafted by the AFL on a continual basis. If Cripps wore a red or yellow sash he wouldn't have even been sighted. I ******* hate this league. * the AFL. Call it an AFL conspiracy all you want, but once the player is concussed from that action, there was really no coming back from that. Not with how the current rules are implemented, anyway. If Crippa’s name was Trent Cotchin and he played for Richmond, this wouldn’t have even been cited by the MRO. So are we going to contest the tribunal verdict with a further appeal on Thursday night? You are totally correct with what you say about Cotchin & Lynch as they truly are snipers who take cheap shots at players but don`t get pinged for them!!! Selwood takes some cheap shots and is never suspended either, but at least he is not a weak [censored] like those two.... They sound just like DL when an MRP/Tribunal decision doesn't go our way...

As others above said.

Update for McVee, D. Smith and Moritz-Wakefield contracted as A and B rookies respectively for 2023. It is hard to see many OOC in 2022 being recontracted (excl Jackson). Note that Chandler will be promoted to the senior list at the end of this year. I wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of players contracted beyond 2022 encouraged or choose to depart.

Our competitor fans are back in the doldrums when facing the mighty dees! Bigfooty: "We need to beat them in clearance" and "Lewis Young to ruck number 1" are mutually exclusive. Start the transitioning process by getting rid of the players who won’t be (or shouldn’t be) on the list next year. Pitt for TDK a no brainer. The rest is the ol' deckchairs on the Titanic. Pittonet is a must, I don't mind JSOS around the ground but should be a huge no at the centre bounce. Harry should ruck in the F50 instead of sitting 2m off the contest as if he's going to rove it. Infuriating. Needs to watch some Jeremy Cameron footage. If the ball doesn't get to him he finds it himself. Harry has been far too one dimensional lately. Melbourne will be on the rebound, after their loss to the Pies too & a top 4 place in jeopardy, can’t see Demons dropping this one , the game could get nasty, quickly . Keep the fingers crossed we don’t lose Cripps. I'm tipping by the end of this game percentage won't be anything to worry about compared to the doggies, they'll be well ahead. Dees will slaughter us. Slowly emotionally checking out for the year. The highs were exhilarating and the lows demoralising. I feel exhausted. Still love em. Struggling from above the shoulder Feel we are going to get torched by their smalls on transition. Melbourne: Oliver, Viney, Petracca, Brayshaw, Gawn, Jackson. Us: no Hewett, Kennedy, and possibly Cripps... Strange as it seems giving Cripps a week rest(susp) and going all or nothing v the pies appeals to me We will get smashed out of the middle. Going to take something incredible to be otherwise. This could very well be a 15 goal loss. Melbourne will absolutely spank us. Backs to the wall, undermanned, season on the line, MCG, big crowd, ton of support. These are the games that define clubs. We pull this off & it’s up there with the great Carlton wins. Keep the faith, people their form is as poor as ours but they have most of their cattle. not without a shot but could hardly expect us to do too well given the last couple of weeks. more likely we're the team melbourne springboard into the finals from. Poor form? Beat Freo by plenty at Optus and just lost to red hot Pies. Please can we have some of this “poor form”.. exactly, if they are in poor form then what the hell are we in ? Dunno if it’s mentioned already, but we could put all our eggs in the Pies game. Identify and rest those players this week who would most benefit from the extra recovery (and basically concede this week’s game), and have one last final crack against the Pies. Im the eternal optimist but sadly the season is done. Our 1 wood of clearance and contested ball is seriously compromised without Cripps, Hewitt, and Kennedy. I just don't think it can be recovered from here. I'd give some serious consideration to dropping Harry this week. Omitted. Send him to the ressies and tell him to start taking some actual marks. We aren't going to risk one of our biggest commodities in some suburban cow paddock when its all on the line the next week. Imagine the backlash if he got injured. Seems a bit too bold for Carlton though (fans included). We’d rather go down as a slow sinking ship. In our desperation to see some success, we seem willing to tolerate far less than 100% from our stars, while placing the blame elsewhere by swapping around our ‘bottom 6’. It’s a really bad practice imv. Our form compared to when we played them in the preseason is completely different. We look a totally different side. Think they might really get a hold of us Think we got to the bye, then started looking at the fixture & projecting wins, when all we were doing early in the year was taking each game on its merits. Gunna be tough, but we can win this Almost hoping Cripps gets 1 week, then fingers crossed v the pies we get back a fresh Cripps, Hewett, Kennedy & Zack Williams Melbourne are 4 wins and 6 losses in their last 10 games just like us but I agree after yesterdays performance it feels a world apart in terms of where both sides are at.

Thanks for asking. Am a bit busy for the next little while. But I'll do the weekly 'What they are saying at ..." thread and maintain the 'Contracts' thread as changes happen.

^^^ 'Officialy off' sounds like a twist of what Richardson said (paraphrasing): "there will be no announcement until after our season is over. The club said to Jackson to forget about the contract and just give us the best football you have over the next few months." I took it as a way for the club to take pressure off him. More click bait.

I don't think it was a media con at all. But the above posts sound like a few here believe it was. What intel would we be giving away? If anything the comments by our leaders this week should have prepared Freo for what we actually did last night?

I could list a few reasons but then we go down that 'rabbit hole' again so I won't. My post was about the idea the club set out to con the media. For what?

A nice 3% boost to 131.6% while shaving 5% off Freo to 114.9%. My conviction about a top 2 finish wobbled a little last week after the Bulldogs loss last week. Now firmly back on the finishing top 2 and a series of Home Finals!

Of course I am aware but all the fist pumping makes it look like it is. Anyway, by all accounts Freo was also 'fully loaded' so what happened to them last night?

So now we have this grand conspiracy where key club leaders (Richardson, Goodwin, Petracca, Brayshaw) are conning the media? For what end? Implied in this thread it is to not fess up that we are loading? Really, I would have thought saying nothing or a few straight bat words around training loads etc would be a lot less embarrassing than admitting to complacency, arrogance, lack of ruthlessness, lack of buy-in. The media are generally idiots and after click bait. Why on earth would our club waste time to con them? Not to mention to spend time getting our leaders to all sing from the same song book! I don't for a minute believe everything that comes out from the club. But to think this weeks meeting and club commentary is just a charade to fool the stupid media is insulting to the club.