47 minutes ago, RedBlueandTrue said:

With our lack of a home base and being a smaller club, we are one of the least attractive teams for anyone looking to join. Anyone wanting to be in Melbourne will try and go to almost any other Melbourne-based team before us, with the exception of maybe North. Until this changes we have to offer long contracts to good players to be competitive - just the way it is. No one is driving to Casey if they have a choice unless there's a significant financial incentive.

I am aware of our disadvantages and we can only win an unfair game if we draft well.

But we are not going to win by offering long-term contracts which turn our best players into liabilities.

We need to be more willing than other clubs to turn the list over but making sure we hit on our picks.

Youse don’t know the details, neither do I, how many strikes has he had ? one, two, three your out.

We didn’t really hand up one of our greatest ever players at a massive discount, just for fun.

Yikes, Claz is making his eagerness to bro-down with JUH very public now(instagram).

Best of luck with that GWS 😬

4 minutes ago, Mel Bourne said:

Yikes, Claz is making his eagerness to bro-down with JUH very public now(instagram).

Best of luck with that GWS 😬

Crikey...that's got "trouble" written all over it.

11 minutes ago, Fat Tony said:

I am aware of our disadvantages and we can only win an unfair game if we draft well.

But we are not going to win by offering long-term contracts which turn our best players into liabilities.

We need to be more willing than other clubs to turn the list over but making sure we hit on our picks.

I guess I just don't really see an alternative. Draft stars and hope they're willing to sacrifice better lifestyle options because they've fallen in love with the club? I think those days are gone. Maybe the last couple of years have just left me a little pessimistic. It hasn't worked out for Clarry but I'm glad we had Trac locked in and could extract maximum value! I also believe we were close in 22 and right in it in 23 and you don't get those opportunities if the gun players aren't kept happy. If we can get a home locked in so many of our issues will disappear overnight... can only wait and cross fingers

16 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DP0vv_7FXh-/?igsh=MThsMDFvZnNkYjN4eg==

The music in this just makes me tear up. It's like the Insta post with Clarry and Trac set to M83's Outro.

These two were forever linked to the greatest footballing moment/game of my life.

Very sad stuff.

I'm glad we're parting ways with both, but wish it went differently overall. They were both on track to play 300 games.

4 hours ago, jnrmac said:

Clarrie come out to thank the club, supporters and coaches yet?

Plenty of time to post [censored] memes apparently

Interesting

To be fair, he doesn't have a social media manager doing it for him.

2 hours ago, Lucifers Hero said:

There was nothing wrong with Oliver's contract!!!

Trac's was almost identical!

And, we were not taking either of them back.

But look at the different trade results:

Oliver:

• F3rd pick

• GWS take only about 50% of the $1.3+ pa salary freeing up only about $700k in sal cap for 5 years

Petracca:

• 3 - first round picks (2 top 10 2025, F1st in 2026)

• 2 - second round picks (ND 37 in 2025, 2026 F2nd)

• 1 - third round pick (2027)

• GCS take 100% of his salary freeing up $1.3+m pa in sal cap

Giving GCS

• 3 - second round picks (ND24, ND28 in 2025, 2026 F2nd)

The sal cap benefit of the Trac trade should not be underestimated.

As much as we all love Oliver and feel that the club has 'shot bambi' people need to ask themselves how two champions can have such a different trade value.

It isn't the contract!

Spot on mate.

If you don't offer lucrative contracts, good luck keeping players.

You've often got the same people on here saying "It'S a bUsiNeSs!" but then saying "iT's A [censored] cOnTrAcT!"

You can't have it both ways. If it's a business, you've gotta pay up for your best talent.

Sure, it'd be great to have all your best players accept unders, but footy has changed so dramatically, good luck keeping who you need by paying unders. It's precisely why we landed Mihocek.

15 minutes ago, RedBlueandTrue said:

I guess I just don't really see an alternative. Draft stars and hope they're willing to sacrifice better lifestyle options because they've fallen in love with the club? I think those days are gone. Maybe the last couple of years have just left me a little pessimistic. It hasn't worked out for Clarry but I'm glad we had Trac locked in and could extract maximum value! I also believe we were close in 22 and right in it in 23 and you don't get those opportunities if the gun players aren't kept happy. If we can get a home locked in so many of our issues will disappear overnight... can only wait and cross fingers

We would have got similar value for Petracca had he been uncontracted.

Petracca and Oliver were special cases because of selfishness and immaturity.

2 minutes ago, Fat Tony said:

We would have got similar value for Petracca had he been uncontracted.

What?

5 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

Spot on mate.

If you don't offer lucrative contracts, good luck keeping players.

You've often got the same people on here saying "It'S a bUsiNeSs!" but then saying "iT's A [censored] cOnTrAcT!"

You can't have it both ways. If it's a business, you've gotta pay up for your best talent.

Sure, it'd be great to have all your best players accept unders, but footy has changed so dramatically, good luck keeping who you need by paying unders. It's precisely why we landed Mihocek.

We are better off losing them and getting draft picks than hamstringing our list with long-term contracts. I am happy to pay people what they are worth, but the length of the deal needs to be reasonable because otherwise we risk becoming a basketcase when things go wrong. We are too small a club to easily get out of the hole.

2 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

What?

I think the deal would have been similar. Cameron got 3 first round picks and we would have got similar.

The return for Petracca was around 2 first round picks (in weak drafts) when you factor in the later picks. It looks better on paper than it really was.

Cee Oliver plays for another club now

He's their problem now and Problem with a capital P

3 hours ago, Previously known as LITD. said:

I had forgotten about that

Indeed a sad day for millions but so too for the club.

Apparently he died tring to save his fiancee .

Heart breaking.

58 minutes ago, Mel Bourne said:

Yikes, Claz is making his eagerness to bro-down with JUH very public now(instagram).

Best of luck with that GWS 😬

A future 3rd never looked so good.

2 hours ago, Demons11 said:

The fact the Saints are paying some of Steeles contract, I’d say we would have a net impact of approx 250-300k.

Ok that is for the first two years. Still leaves us with another 3 years @ $700k

My point was Oliver's contract was not an issue as Trac's was almost identical. Otherwise the trades would have been similar. and they could not have been further apart as I demonstrated

Other issues were at play to have us with a great trade (picks and no subsidy) with Trac and a terrible trade result with Oliver.

59 minutes ago, Mel Bourne said:

Yikes, Claz is making his eagerness to bro-down with JUH very public now(instagram).

Best of luck with that GWS 😬

What could possibly go wrong?

23 minutes ago, Fat Tony said:

We would have got similar value for Petracca had he been uncontracted.

Petracca and Oliver were special cases because of selfishness and immaturity.

Tbh i think bigger chance in a world where we don't offer long contracts Trac is gone at the end of 22 and we're a bit further away while he wins a premiership with the pies lol. We'll never know.

Selfishness and immaturity? Were they immature to negotiate deals that could set them up for life? Selfish to ask for so much? They're just people trying to look after themselves. I get that you would've just let them go to other clubs and used the picks to draft some more kids but I don't see how that gets you closer to a flag when those kids are getting offers for longer deals at better clubs down the track.

The action is really all you need to know. Yes, Oliver might have slowly been returning to form and I wouldn't have minded another year from him but I'm not in the club. The fact is that they didn't want him around anymore and that surely means that the expectations were not being met and we were better off without him.

It is one of the quickest falls from grace I've ever seen in the game. You hear people say that he's always been a certain type of character yet we barely heard anything about his life outside of the game before 2023. And I don't remember one person hating the deal when it was made in 2022.

2 minutes ago, RedBlueandTrue said:

Tbh i think bigger chance in a world where we don't offer long contracts Trac is gone at the end of 22 and we're a bit further away while he wins a premiership with the pies lol. We'll never know.

Selfishness and immaturity? Were they immature to negotiate deals that could set them up for life? Selfish to ask for so much? They're just people trying to look after themselves. I get that you would've just let them go to other clubs and used the picks to draft some more kids but I don't see how that gets you closer to a flag when those kids are getting offers for longer deals at better clubs down the track.

The comments around character were not about them demanding long-term contracts. More that they thought they could have the long-term security and then cut and run when we are no longer a contender.

I understand our reasoning for giving Petracca and Oliver the contracts - we thought we could win flags in 2022-2024 because we had 3 of the very best players in the competition. But even in those special cirmcumstances, it has proven to be an error in hindsight.

Now our circumstances have changed and we should not be giving any long-term contracts given our current situation. Let players go for draft picks and find cheaper replacements who have been squeezed out by their clubs - even if they are a bit older. If we draft well, we will come out ahead.

The way for us to win is to draft well and organically grow our players to be elite. We are not going to be able to win by paying for free agents.

1 hour ago, Adam The God said:

To be fair, he doesn't have a social media manager doing it for him.

Came out of his exit meeting posting pictures of himself in a Casey jumper. Has sent a few congratulatory messages to Jamara..

He knows how to use social media.

Poor form

1 hour ago, Adam The God said:

If you don't offer lucrative contracts, good luck keeping players.

You've often got the same people on here saying "It'S a bUsiNeSs!" but then saying "iT's A [censored] cOnTrAcT!"

You can't have it both ways. If it's a business, you've gotta pay up for your best talent.

Sure, it'd be great to have all your best players accept unders, but footy has changed so dramatically, good luck keeping who you need by paying unders. It's precisely why we landed Mihocek.

I dont mind long term contracts. The only thing i would change is that if the player or player manager in anyway indicates to the club that he wants to leave while contracted, the salary component is null and void. We would still try to get a deal done for picks, but at least we dont ahve to worry about the salary aspect of it. This would also help naturally disincentivise players who look to sign up long term and then break contract when things start to turn sour. There is always the occasion that they may increase the salary which is fine but at least you are not hanging the club out to dry.

If on the other hand the club initiates the trade then the salary component remains.

i think its a simple change. It wont stop the leaking of a player is disgruntled to the media but it wont make it official either so the club can continue to come out and plead ignorance and play a straight bat saying its not entertaining any deals as the player is contracted and they havent heard anything.

I dont think this changes the Oliver situation at all but it would have given us a little more leverage in the Trac deal, where without his salary in the frame, we could have gotten a bit more for him on the open market.

2 minutes ago, Fat Tony said:

The comments around character were not about them demanding long-term contracts. More that they thought they could have the long-term security and then cut and run when we are no longer a contender.

I understand our reasoning for giving Petracca and Oliver the contracts - we thought we could win flags in 2022-2024 because we had 3 of the very best players in the competition. But even in those special cirmcumstances, it has proven to be an error in hindsight.

Now our circumstances have changed and we should not be giving any long-term contracts given our current situation. Let players go for draft picks and find cheaper replacements who have been squeezed out by their clubs - even if they are a bit older. If we draft well, we will come out ahead.

The way for us to win is to draft well and organically grow our players to be elite. We are not going to be able to win by paying for free agents.

Yeah I just don't really agree - I think it was the right decision to offer the contracts and if you get a different roll we win a flag and everything's a whole lot better now. I think we were always going to struggle with our contract situation after having a crack at the flag and this would've been considered at the time when the contracts were offered but deemed worth it for a crack at multiple flags. You don't win flags without gun players. Would've been hard to get guys like Lever and May without offering overs in terms of length, doubt we win one without them. Are 5 year deals ok? Were pretty long at the time. Claz and Trac are not far off standard for players of their levels these days.

Clearly it hasn't worked for Clarry but I really don't see how we could've ever competed without offering longer contracts than the opposition. I'd love to see how many premierships we win on average from 22-24 if you could simulate it a million times.
I sure as hell agree with you that we need to draft well to be any chance of competing ever!

39 minutes ago, RedBlueandTrue said:

Yeah I just don't really agree - I think it was the right decision to offer the contracts and if you get a different roll we win a flag and everything's a whole lot better now. I think we were always going to struggle with our contract situation after having a crack at the flag and this would've been considered at the time when the contracts were offered but deemed worth it for a crack at multiple flags. You don't win flags without gun players. Would've been hard to get guys like Lever and May without offering overs in terms of length, doubt we win one without them. Are 5 year deals ok? Were pretty long at the time. Claz and Trac are not far off standard for players of their levels these days.

Clearly it hasn't worked for Clarry but I really don't see how we could've ever competed without offering longer contracts than the opposition. I'd love to see how many premierships we win on average from 22-24 if you could simulate it a million times.
I sure as hell agree with you that we need to draft well to be any chance of competing ever!

I think Petracca was already signed to the end of 2022 and Oliver to the end of 2023. And if Petracca or Oliver had have left we might have kept Jackson. (You need to put that into the simulation.)

My point is that we had all the stars aligning for long-term deals to work and it still backfired massively. We should learn from this, because we won't be in a position where we have three of the best players in the competition in the same side for a long time.

I also think you can win a flag without absolute top line stars. The Lions this year had McLuggage ranked #12 in the competition on AFL player ratings, Neale #27 and Ashcroft #40. They are excellent players but none of them would be considered superstars IMO. (Melbourne had the same number in the top 40 and the Dogs had 5!)

2 hours ago, Fat Tony said:

We would have got similar value for Petracca had he been uncontracted.

Petracca and Oliver were special cases because of selfishness and immaturity.

Thankfully he was under contract then!

Long term contracts aren’t always a bad thing.

As @Lucifers Hero says, Clarry netted us such an awful return for other reasons (off field stuff, and our mishandling which led to us having no negotiating leverage).