On 11/03/2014 at 10:22, The Hood said:

Lets face it if Chip walks to the Hawks or Cats or other top club the trend would be hard to ignore; MFC as feeder club to the rich and successful! We do the development, the top club just pays the money and tops up where ever they may have a gap. Rivers, Maloney, Silvia, I think we are running at 100% hit rate for UFA so far and so early into free agency. The only good news is the AFL decided to keep the current compo rules, so we may get something if Chip walks.

Interesting that the AFL players association is working so hard to develop a two tiered competition of the winners and the feeders just to pander to the wishes of their elite players. Of the 800 players on lists free agency really helps a very small number of top shelf players. Your average journeyman has to battle for a contract, they don't get to play clubs off against each other to bid up their contract income.

The Hawks will be a big suitor for him. Lake is just about done, so they'll be looking for another FB and Frawley fits the bill nicely. They have money to burn after Franklin left, so expect them to make a big play for him. He'd have to consider them given the state of their list, especially if they go deep into the finals again this year. We're talking a pay rise and almost guaranteed finals for the rest of his career. Very hard to pass that up.

  On 11/03/2014 at 10:10, DemonOX said:

This whole process give me the shitzs.

It's better to know now than have a year of "will he wont he stay" again and again year after year.

We will end up like rugby in that players will come out at the start of the year with one yr remaining on their current contract and say I am playing next three seasons with the hawks for example.

It's such a shame we had to go down this path but lets not forget the players wanted this.

I am really tired of liking certain players then they leave.

I don't care about the 'will he, won't he' stuff. I care that the parameters are being changed on the fly...again. And we are being bent over a barrel...again.

  On 11/03/2014 at 10:11, Demonof94 said:

Unfortunately loyalty to your mates just doesn't suffice any more.

Ablett

Franklin

Thomas

Sylvia

Voldemort etc

Money speaks loudest. Success second-loudest. Neither of which we possess currently

Ablett, Franklin, S, yes

The others no, Thomas to be with dad, Sylvia...I don't think we tried that hard.

Frawley's decision is crucial. At the start of the 2015 season he will be a 26 year old All Australian Defender. If his decision is to leave then our chance of success in the next 5 years is lessened significantly. Our chances of replacing him with a key defender of his quality and experience are minimal.

The answer will be in Frawley's decision. Can we build to contend for a flag or are we a small, battling club who exists to develops players for the bigger, stronger clubs.

god the administration of this club has been nothing short of pathetic.

god i hope we hold onto both he and dunn.

they would have to be just about the youngest blokes on this list, i reckon:

Jason Porplyzia, Ben Rutten (Adelaide Crows); Jonathan Brown, Ash McGrath (Brisbane Lions); Michael Jamison, Kade Simpson, Jarrad Waite (Carlton); Nick Maxwell, Tyson Goldsack (Collingwood); Dustin Fletcher, Leroy Jetta, Jason Winderlich (Essendon); Garrick Ibbotson, Luke McPharlin, Matthew Pavlich (Fremantle); Corey Enright, James Kelly (Geelong Cats); Brad Sewell (Hawthorn); James Frawley, Lynden Dunn (Melbourne); Leigh Adams, Michael Firrito, Brent Harvey (North Melbourne); Domenic Cassisi, Kane Cornes, Tom Logan, Paul Stewart (Port Adelaide); Shane Edwards, Jake King, Chris Newman (Richmond); Sam Fisher, Jarryn Geary, James Gwilt, Lenny Hayes, Clint Jones (St Kilda); Adam Goodes, Nick Malceski, Ryan O’Keefe, Lewis Roberts-Thomson (Sydney Swans); Sam Butler, Dean Cox, Darren Glass, Matt Rosa (West Coast); Matthew Boyd, Daniel Giansiracusa, Dale Morris, Robert Murphy, Tom Williams (Western Bulldogs).

  On 11/03/2014 at 12:33, DemonAndrew said:

god the administration of this club has been nothing short of pathetic.

Too smart by half 'Andrew', but don't get me started on this again.

  On 11/03/2014 at 10:22, The Hood said:

Lets face it if Chip walks to the Hawks or Cats or other top club the trend would be hard to ignore; MFC as feeder club to the rich and successful! We do the development, the top club just pays the money and tops up where ever they may have a gap. Rivers, Maloney, Silvia, I think we are running at 100% hit rate for UFA so far and so early into free agency. The only good news is the AFL decided to keep the current compo rules, so we may get something if Chip walks.

Interesting that the AFL players association is working so hard to develop a two tiered competition of the winners and the feeders just to pander to the wishes of their elite players. Of the 800 players on lists free agency really helps a very small number of top shelf players. Your average journeyman has to battle for a contract, they don't get to play clubs off against each other to bid up their contract income.

And they dont get to play in successful teams. FA has inadvertantly created a system where more than half the leagues players will never have the opportunity to taste the ultimate success, while the games stars reap the rewards.

reality set in for me today regarding this issue. I support a Club which is destined to be a lower tier feeder club stuck in a cycle between mediocrity and rebuild. The reality that a third of the league in this great game that I consider the best sport in the world , is also destined to be stuck in this cycle.

Even if MFC scrambles to the top for a premiership which we all would love, thats not enough. I need to see the club, and ALL clubs, having the opportunity to chase eternal success. Not a fleeting few years of finals before plummeting to the bottom again and being raped of key players by the big clubs who will continue to rebuild and top up.

More galling than this reality of MFCs future is the sad reality that the game I love is reduced to a English Premiership style league, the type that I used to be always proud that the AFL was nothing like. A few teams constantly enjoying success while the others make up the numbers to fill the fixture.

Have no doubt guys, our great game is very very sick at the moment but unfortunately the symptoms are yet to fully appear and it seems will take most by suprise.

The writing is on the wall for the Melbournes, St kildas NM, footscrays etc.

Yes perhaps the odd 2 or 3 years in the finals every decade or so is still possible for all but I assure you , solid sustained success and growth of these small clubs is no longer a possibility. We will spend the rest of our football following years hoping the 'house of cards' doesnt fall in while fruitlessly hoping the next messiah can convince our stars to stay while we rebuild.

FAAAAARRRRKKK

Bye bye

Think it is a bit harsh criticising the club for front-ending his contract. He signed in 2010 and free agency was enacted in 2012. Think it very unlikely they could have somehow known or predicted the minute details of free agency two years in advance. In any case the nature of the contract may have helped in acquiring Vince and Tyson and at the time the club was doing all it could to keep Chip out of Gold Coast's clutches and the front-loading May have been player/manager driven. I also don't think the restricted unrestricted businesses of great consequence. If he wants to leave the club is almost in an untenable spot trying to keep him and his new club wiill hold the whip hand in terms of creating a very difficult to match contract. Pleasingly if he does leave we will get a nice draft pick for him. Would be very surprised if dunn left.

Make no mistake we will get compensated nicely if Frawley leaves. There's not much else we can do.

We might lose him but we can trade off the compensation pick for another senior player and beef up our forwards or mids quite handsomely.

  On 11/03/2014 at 09:02, hogans_heroes said:

thanks AFL for continuing to kill the smaller clubs

So much for equalization

We got Clark and Dawes, yes we traded for them but I'm pretty sure Lions fans were pi##ed as losing Clark. We win some, we loose some.

  On 11/03/2014 at 13:09, Munga said:

reality set in for me today regarding this issue. I support a Club which is destined to be a lower tier feeder club stuck in a cycle between mediocrity and rebuild. The reality that a third of the league in this great game that I consider the best sport in the world , is also destined to be stuck in this cycle.

Even if MFC scrambles to the top for a premiership which we all would love, thats not enough. I need to see the club, and ALL clubs, having the opportunity to chase eternal success. Not a fleeting few years of finals before plummeting to the bottom again and being raped of key players by the big clubs who will continue to rebuild and top up.

More galling than this reality of MFCs future is the sad reality that the game I love is reduced to a English Premiership style league, the type that I used to be always proud that the AFL was nothing like. A few teams constantly enjoying success while the others make up the numbers to fill the fixture.

Have no doubt guys, our great game is very very sick at the moment but unfortunately the symptoms are yet to fully appear and it seems will take most by suprise.

The writing is on the wall for the Melbournes, St kildas NM, footscrays etc.

Yes perhaps the odd 2 or 3 years in the finals every decade or so is still possible for all but I assure you , solid sustained success and growth of these small clubs is no longer a possibility. We will spend the rest of our football following years hoping the 'house of cards' doesnt fall in while fruitlessly hoping the next messiah can convince our stars to stay while we rebuild.

FAAAAARRRRKKK

What a rant...

We have been the beggars to our own fall since 2006, the decisions we have made and the poor drafting we have done has led us to thins point.

This is not some institutionalized rich/poor divide like in the EPL - we have done this to ourselves.

And it isn't written in the stars that we have to continue to be everyone's [censored].

We used FA to our advantage with Sylvia and Vince.

It is not our lot unless we let it be.

  On 11/03/2014 at 20:03, rpfc said:

What a rant...

We have been the beggars to our own fall since 2006, the decisions we have made and the poor drafting we have done has led us to thins point.

This is not some institutionalized rich/poor divide like in the EPL - we have done this to ourselves.

And it isn't written in the stars that we have to continue to be everyone's [censored].

We used FA to our advantage with Sylvia and Vince.

It is not our lot unless we let it be.

Im only replying to you o this subject because of your knowledge on the subject, it says on the AFL website that compo picks will stay this year for FA and it depends on age and size of the contract so surely Frawley is group 1 compensation as he will sign a long term $$$$$ contract and he's only 26 yrs old?

  On 11/03/2014 at 20:10, mjt said:

Im only replying to you o this subject because of your knowledge on the subject, it says on the AFL website that compo picks will stay this year for FA and it depends on age and size of the contract so surely Frawley is group 1 compensation as he will sign a long term $$$$$ contract and he's only 26 yrs old?

You don't like me?

Compensation should be similar, but if he goes for less as a UFA - that will affect the compensation.

Primarily, this hurts our ability to keep him.

  On 11/03/2014 at 20:18, rpfc said:

You don't like me?

Compensation should be similar, but if he goes for less as a UFA - that will affect the compensation.

Primarily, this hurts our ability to keep him.

Its not going to make any difference because if he leaves it will be for more money, no one leaves for less money at the age of 26 , Will finish about 11th and get a first round pick he's going to sign a 4 yr $ 750,000 deal similar to Dale Thomas we got pick 21 for Sylvia I'm not that concerned about if he goes its a loss but we have PR now and he can develop picks I watched him on 360 the other night with Bomber saying how he's got the passion back again and I think he's sticking around for longer than 3 years, look how Clarkson got Gibson he never played like that a North we need PR to find someone like Gibson and turn him into a star, we made FA work for us last year with Vince and I see no reason why they can't do it again.

All articles that have appeared this morning definitely seem to think that if he does go then it'll be automatically a first round pick because of his age and likely contract size.

The Age story also states that most oppo clubs actually believe he'll stay as he wants to see the club have some success.

For what it's worth, I completely agree with munga AND RPfc - our inability to achieve any success over a sustained period of time has us cast as a mid- to lower-tier club like north, footscray et al, and the big clubs will cherry pick from us.

It's a perpetuating cycle, and free agency is a boon for the likes of Adelaide, west coast, hawthorn, Collingwood etc, while an absolute disaster waiting to happen for the likes of us.

I hate it, and never wanted it in the afl.

Once thru remove compensation in a year or two ten we will REALLY see the small clubs such as ours suffer.

  On 11/03/2014 at 20:41, DemonAndrew said:

All articles that have appeared this morning definitely seem to think that if he does go then it'll be automatically a first round pick because of his age and likely contract size.

The Age story also states that most oppo clubs actually believe he'll stay as he wants to see the club have some success.

For what it's worth, I completely agree with munga AND RPfc - our inability to achieve any success over a sustained period of time has us cast as a mid- to lower-tier club like north, footscray et al, and the big clubs will cherry pick from us.

It's a perpetuating cycle, and free agency is a boon for the likes of Adelaide, west coast, hawthorn, Collingwood etc, while an absolute disaster waiting to happen for the likes of us.

I hate it, and never wanted it in the afl.

Once thru remove compensation in a year or two ten we will REALLY see the small clubs such as ours suffer.

I don't see it that way as long as there's a salary cap everyone can benefit, I'm going to put my faith in PR and see how it plays out.

  On 11/03/2014 at 15:11, Al said:

We got Clark and Dawes, yes we traded for them but I'm pretty sure Lions fans were pi##ed as losing Clark. We win some, we loose some.

They would be laughing themselves to sleep.

We paid big money for a guy who cannot get on the park and at best will not until well into the 2014 season if at all.

I'd be shocked if we didn't get band 1 compensation, if he leaves he is looking at 700 k and at least 4 years

  On 11/03/2014 at 10:11, Demonof94 said:

Unfortunately loyalty to your mates just doesn't suffice any more.

Ablett

Franklin

Thomas

Sylvia

Voldemort etc

Money speaks loudest. Success second-loudest. Neither of which we possess currently

Sorry but your post made a lot of sense until you mentioned little voldemort. You know he has no mates.

IMO only a miracle will keep Frawley at the MFC.

We need to win far more games than this list is capable of getting.

If he leaves who could blame him certainly not me.

Very poor planning by the club.

Front-loaded his contract so now his pay is outside the top 25%. Top teams will be lining up for him. Can't see how the club will be able to match an offer from top-tier teams like Hawthorn, Swans, Pies, even Dockers who will all have big pay-packer players retiring and will have the room to afford him.

  On 11/03/2014 at 15:11, Al said:

We got Clark and Dawes, yes we traded for them but I'm pretty sure Lions fans were pi##ed as losing Clark. We win some, we loose some.

You mean Lions fans are laughing about not having to pay $500,000 for a guy that can't get on the park?

  On 11/03/2014 at 21:05, Cudi_420 said:

Very poor planning by the club.

Front-loaded his contract so now his pay is outside the top 25%. Top teams will be lining up for him. Can't see how the club will be able to match an offer from top-tier teams like Hawthorn, Swans, Pies, even Dockers who will all have big pay-packer players retiring and will have the room to afford him.

His contract was signed 2 years before FA was introduced it hardly seems fair I hate CS but he can't be blamed.

Free Agency can help the club.

It doesn't have to be a hindrance.

In the NFL where Free Agency is at its most fluid - contracts are rarely signed mid-season. Usually players are re-signed in the days before the FA period or during the first week.

Contracts in the AFL will be, predominantly, signed in August/September every year for the 'FAs' that choose to stay at their club.

We spun Sylvia leaving through FA into Vince.

Keep Frawley and we can go and target some 26-28 year old pros to help at the fringes.

Lose Frawley and we can go to clubs with a top 5 pick and ask what they will give for it.