Free Agent compensation is completely independent of an application for special assistance.

For one, considering the amount of free agents that have left clubs, the AFL has much less discretion awarding FA compensation. They just look to a previous FA getting a similar salary/length of contract and say "oh, he went for band 1? Then this club will get band 1."

Special assistance is at the ultimate discretion of the AFL. And they dogged us again.

You think I don't know that's what it's supposed to be. Supposed being the operative word here.

Everyone knows the AFL make the rules on the run. Jackson is just giving them a bit of a nudge with this one.

My thoughts exactly. Frawley is not worth pick 3 and clubs would have voiced their opposition to this. I think there'll be less angst to pick 3 now that we were knocked back.

Frawley may not be worth pick 3, but he is worth more than pick 21 (band 2 compensation) and pick 23 (band 3 compensation). I would suggest his worth is much closer to pick 3 than pick 21.

Not worth pick 3 - are you kidding? why do people continually overrate draft picks.

Lets look at the last 10 pick 3s and tell me how many are better than Frawley? I would say Griffen and Martin (who every club appear to reject last year), with Tysons one good year putting him up for discussion. He easily beats the rest, can take key forwards and comprehensively beat them.

People somehow think pick 3 would be a guaranteed star, that Frawley is sh1te and we're getting over compensated.

This is far from the truth. I think if people were truthful and this was a normal trade, they would baulk at Frawley for pick 3.

There are no recent trades of an AA key defender in his mid 20's being traded, making it difficult to find a baseline for Frawley's worth.

The closest comparable would be:

a 31 year old Brian Lake being traded for a 6 place upgrade in the 2nd round and a 3rd rounder.... or

Josh Gibson + pick 69 for picks 25+41

I think we can all agree, as Frawley is 6 years younger than lake was and has very comparable statistics (there was an article on the AFL website comparing Frawley to the best FB's of the last 10 years incl. lake) he is worth much more than Lake was traded for.

Gibson was traded at 25, however it really should be noted that he had played 65 games, compared to Frawley's 139 at the same point. He had shown glimpses of his Hawthorn form, but was inconsistent and hadn't performed to the level Frawley had.

His agenda?

1. To get whatever he could from the system to benefit the club. Perhaps it will be our last chance for a while as we plan to move up and be more competitive.

2. Set a baseline on what others would have to do to prove 'special circumstances'.

3. Make a point that will influence the equalisation discussion.

Just a guess.

The downside is that it paints us as poor cousins and beggars, which would make us less attractive to marquee signings....

Not sure why everybody keeps going on about Frawley's worth. It is entirely irrelevant. What is relevant is his age and new contract, and where our relevant pick sits. If we were at pick 10 this year, we'd get pick 11. It has nothing to do with value.

When MC "retired" there were posts here stating that his original contract would count towards our salary cap even though we would only pay MC the settlement amount. Can someone confirm this?

If this is the case could our application include having MC's unpaid contract amount excluded from our cap on the basisof exceptional circumstamces that surround MC? Roos spoke of MC being our best player around the time of the GWS loss, which ironically is the team that MC injured himself both times, and it immediately after this game that we applied for the PP.

There had to be some strategy behind this because, despite the compelling case for some draft assistance, PJ would have been aware that the AFL was strongly opposed to giving us assistance even before the application was made. The result was telegraphed in the weekend's papers where it was suggested that while the application was doomed, we would benefit from it because it makes certain, the band one compensation available in the likely event that James Frawley jumps ship as well as the AFL's support in our securing a reasonable outcome with Mitch Clark's transfer to Collingwood.

What this episode shows is that we lack the clout of the powerhouse clubs like Sydney, Hawthorn and Collingwood who all receive favourable benefits from various AFL rules and action including fixturing and how hard we have to work to achieve success both on and off the field. Whilst the application failed to achieve its more obvious outcome, I would like to think that its effect will be to underpin the club's recruiting strategy for the coming months. Time will tell.

Frawley pick 3.

The second post answers the first. PJ is a shrewd operator. Never ask for exactly what you would ideally like to have, so you can actually get what you are after!

My thoughts exactly. Frawley is not worth pick 3 and clubs would have voiced their opposition to this. I think there'll be less angst to pick 3 now that we were knocked back.

Makes no difference what he is worth, as everyone keeps saying it is how long a contract and how much a contract and how old the player is. With reported offers aqll that leads to Band 1.

The second post answers the first. PJ is a shrewd operator. Never ask for exactly what you would ideally like to have, so you can actually get what you are after!

Makes no difference what he is worth, as everyone keeps saying it is how long a contract and how much a contract and how old the player is. With reported offers aqll that leads to Band 1.

Listening to Caro on FC last night she seemed to be hinting to not count the chickens before they hatch on the Frawley compo. Lyon was talking about getting pick 3 and they sort of cut away as Hutchison started talking about something else and you could hear her say "don't" before being cut off.

We need a pre-paid COLA set up for a couple of years...

aaaaand the AFL's response

Watching the Mitch Clark situation with interest. Pick 11 was sacrificed for him and his few performances were of a high standard. KPFs don't grow on trees.

How will we respond when he nominates his "preferred club"

Can anyone explain what the great man was angling at when, the other week, he clarified that the club has not asked for a priority pick but rather "special assistance" under rule 19. This rule is that which determines if a club should receive a priority pick.

Was this just political speak to make us look less pathetic? Is there more happening behind the scenes we're not privy to? What else could 'special draft assistance' be except for a priority pick?

PJ is a very astute man.

He said when he was first appointed that we had to get rid of the ethos that we deserved handouts.

By reading the play within the AFL and the reactions of other clubs, he realised that the AFL WOULDN'T give out a priority pick.

So don't go asking for one.....ask for "special assistance" That can take the form of other than draft picks.

The words from the AFL are:

"The AFL concluded that while Melbourne has a poor on field record in recent times, this does not of itself constitute “exceptional circumstances” or a justification for awarding priority draft selections".

"Special assistance" may yet be forthcoming. Don't expect to see it trumpeted so that Caro, Damien, Eddie or others latch on. There are a number of ways that the AFL can assist our circumstance, without them being "exceptional".

not sure what the magician has up his sleeve that keeps the afl commssiion me'merized, but I guess we'll see in good time, some time after the trade period & the fixture release ?

When MC "retired" there were posts here stating that his original contract would count towards our salary cap even though we would only pay MC the settlement amount. Can someone confirm this?

If this is the case could our application include having MC's unpaid contract amount excluded from our cap on the basisof exceptional circumstamces that surround MC? Roos spoke of MC being our best player around the time of the GWS loss, which ironically is the team that MC injured himself both times, and it immediately after this game that we applied for the PP.

Without knowing the internal workings that situation sounds incorrect - if they paid him out there would be no reason for his original contract to be counted, rather than the payout. Thinking aloud, I think the club would have made an application for MC's pay out to sit outside the salary cap and that it was denied, meaning that the payout falls under the cap. The ideal situation would be that the club arranged for his full payout to fall under this years cap, depending on what the payout was there's a chance we end up paying some of the settlement in next years cap.

Watching the Mitch Clark situation with interest. Pick 11 was sacrificed for him and his few performances were of a high standard. KPFs don't grow on trees.

How will we respond when he nominates his "preferred club"

I hope it will be

What is your best offer or you can try your luck getting him in the draft.

I think PJ's agenda was to help us snare a star player. An extra pick which we were quite obviously qualified for would possibly have helped us get Dangerfield across the line. The AFL and the other clubs didn't want us to have that opportunity and we will probably now miss out.

I thought that PJ was simply annoyed with the narrative in the media around priority picks. As he stated MFC can not ask for a priority pick as the AFL have removed them from the agenda. MFC could only request "Special Assistance" and the request was for this not for a Priority Pick. If you look at the Media prior to that interview they kept banging on about Priority Pick this and Priority Pick that but in reality the AFL have removed Priority Picks from there suite of assistance for badly performing clubs and have only left the option of requesting Special Assistance.

If I was the CEO of MFC I would be annoyed with the way the media kept on talking in temr of Priority Picks as it is a beat up and was not what MFC could or had requested.

Edited September 29, 201410 yr by PugtheMagician

Imo he has asked for assurance that if it's line ball they give us pick 3 for frawley to help offset the loss of Clark

The special assistance will come in a number of forms - its about compensation for JF, its about Mitch Clark, its about money, its about the draw, its about Sat home games, its about being treated fairly so that we have an opportunity to be competetive on and off the field.

We won't necessarily know until after the draft and fixturing IMO

The special assistance will come in a number of forms - its about compensation for JF, its about Mitch Clark, its about money, its about the draw, its about Sat home games, its about being treated fairly so that we have an opportunity to be competetive on and off the field.

We won't necessarily know until after the draft and fixturing IMO

People mention this a bit on here. I don't see the AFL doing anything to help us if Mitch goes apart from sticking with their flimsy version of the rules.

It's up to us what trade we can make, there will be no icing on top from the AFL.

People mention this a bit on here. I don't see the AFL doing anything to help us if Mitch goes apart from sticking with their flimsy version of the rules.

It's up to us what trade we can make, there will be no icing on top from the AFL.

The only thing they can do/will do is put some pressure on clubs to give us something decent back.

It is a terrible look and they know it when a bloke retires, gets out of a contract, and goes somewhere else (especially a good team) for very little.

I would hope that we can pry a decent player out of Geelong that they want to offload for reasons other than playing ability (fat contract, personality issues, application issues, etc).

unless we can do a swap of clark for HL we will get screwed over the clark defection

unless we can do a swap of clark for HL we will get screwed over the clark defection

Still the best option isnt it. I dont think we'd lament much seeing M Clark on their LTI list

People mention this a bit on here. I don't see the AFL doing anything to help us if Mitch goes apart from sticking with their flimsy version of the rules.

It's up to us what trade we can make, there will be no icing on top from the AFL.

We are very stiff with MC. They used it to knock us back for a PP last year. Now he is in essence flouting the rules to get to the club of his choice. We finally get a potential marquee player after a decade and this is what happens.

The powers that be only need to consider how we have been stiffed in order to give us a better deal on the other things I mentioned.

We are very stiff with MC. They used it to knock us back for a PP last year. Now he is in essence flouting the rules to get to the club of his choice. We finally get a potential marquee player after a decade and this is what happens.

The powers that be only need to consider how we have been stiffed in order to give us a better deal on the other things I mentioned.

...but they used our ability to trade him this year as a reason to knock back a PP. I don't hold out any hope of assistance in this matter at all, we are on our own here.