1 minute ago, dice said:

And Stringer and Green.

But to get the CEO and the coach on the boat as well suggests it may have already been planned?

Yeah it would be pretty hard to get that many people on a Friday together pretty quickly imo

11 hours ago, Harves said:

No one is forcing him out.

Delusional. We are 100% forcing him out.

People have been known to have stopovers on their long haul flights. Maybe he's a frequent flyer member with Star Alliance or Skyteam as both UA and DL fly SYD - LAX. Or maybe he just hates QF.

More importantly though I hope he's wiped his browser searches and social media presence before he gets to immigration or he might be visiting El Salvador as well.

1 hour ago, Temporarily Hopeful Demon said:

So by your logic Dazzle is inferior to Oliver because he never made it to the highest level? Wow

unless Dazzle is Robbie or RDB……which of course he’s not, as far as football is concerned, he definitely is inferior to Clarry. All of us are.

14 minutes ago, Harves said:

No that’s Lachy ash

Sorry Harvey, but that looks more like a white t-shirt to me 😆.

Sorry, couldn’t help myself

6 minutes ago, Demon Disciple said:

unless Dazzle is Robbie or RDB……which of course he’s not, as far as football is concerned, he definitely is inferior to Clarry. All of us are.

I meant as a person.

And Gawn will go down as better than Clarry :)

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by Temporarily Hopeful Demon

17 minutes ago, Harves said:

Yeah it would be pretty hard to get that many people on a Friday together pretty quickly imo

Firstly it wouldn’t when you have an opportunity like this thrown your way. Secondly how do you know this boat trip wasn’t planned already and Clarry was invited along?

If this was a long planned meeting they’d meet at the club to have a look around the facilities etc. like how Trac had a casual chat with Dimma first then went for a proper meeting.

This doesn’t scream “signing a contract” in the same way that a walk around the Tan in a hoodie doesn’t scream professional long planned meeting that wasn’t thrown together last second.

51 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

Or, wait for it, he has friends in Sydney he wanted to catch up with on the way.

Also possible that he pushed his flight out by a day to accommodate a last minute meeting with GWS.

It’s not that hard to figure out.

Don’t take me so seriously Jaded. Life is too short, and in this thread there is an infinite number of reasons and even more possible outcomes.

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by Strawberry Fields

On 03/10/2025 at 16:30, WERRIDEE said:

Rubbish I'd take pick 12 and run. Oliver is cooked.

And yet you've had him in 43,567 best 22s you've churned out this year...

You know what… With all the nonsense and bickering that has happened on this thread, I’ve decided on the most likely “story”

1. Clarry has the meeting 

2. Told about other roles 

3. Says “All good by me coach, but do you mind if I have some fun with some journos”

4. Coach says “Why not”

5. Clarry flies to Sydney as planned to catch up with some mates as planned… After telling a journo to FO. 

6. Flies to USA, Business Class if you will leaving a bunch if Demonlanders melting down. 

Nice job Clarry. I’m a fan. 

As a slight aside here ...

There's been a lot of mention of mental health in this thread.

Clarry apparently has ADHD. ADHD, like autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia etc. is not a mental health condition. Or any kind of health condition. These are a neurological differences which impact how these people treat information and interact with the world. They're disabilities, though as with all disabilities, support and environment can help reduce how disabling they are.

On the other hand, many people with these neurologies do indeed experience poor mental health because life can be a real struggle, even at the best of times.

So sure, Clarry needs to take responsibility for his actions, but he'll always be banging up against the way his brain is wired, which he can no more undo than anyone with a mobility impairment can get out of a wheelchair and walk.

Good luck to him at GWS, they seem to do OK at supporting players who don't always fit the AFL mould.

23 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Mate you dont deliberately force someone out and then demand a first round draft pick..

Doesn't work that way.

But by signalling we'll pay 700k pa, we are saying we want him out the door, but we'll pay this if we get something back. We're not getting a first rounder, but a player might be handy.

GWS have a lot of handy smalls. We need small forwards. I'd start there.

Here is a @Ghostwriter egg on your face type scenario.

Imagine you have a guy called Clayton Oliver.

2x AFLCA player of the year, best and fairest, all Australians, he's done it all, and this guy desperately wants to get back to his best because he feels he owes your club.

Imagine you pay that guy 700k a year to play somewhere else.

Imagine that given this guy has had no serious injuries and seemingly retained his power, he goes to this new club and does rediscover his best, and we pay a get worse in the midfield, while he dominates and makes All Australians somewhere else

I think everyone associated with the MFC would have a MASSIVE egg on their face if that happened.

They'd better be right about this.

1 minute ago, Ted Lasso said:

Here is a @Ghostwriter egg on your face type scenario.

Imagine you have a guy called Clayton Oliver.

2x AFLCA player of the year, best and fairest, all Australians, he's done it all, and this guy desperately wants to get back to his best because he feels he owes your club.

Imagine you pay that guy 700k a year to play somewhere else.

Imagine that given this guy has had no serious injuries and seemingly retained his power, he goes to this new club and does rediscover his best, and we pay a get worse in the midfield, while he dominates and makes All Australians somewhere else

I think everyone associated with the MFC would have a MASSIVE egg on their face if that happened.

They'd better be right about this.

I would suggest we are trading the person rather than the player

1 minute ago, adonski said:

I would suggest we are trading the person rather than the player

And what specifically makes you say that? all the information from the club is that this is simply about his role, and us not having a spot for him in the midfield.

If he's fallen off the wagon again in a big way i get it, but i've not seen any of the most credible posters on Demonland even vaguely hint anything like that has happened.

the optics of this suggest it's a football decision, which makes it a really big gamble

1 minute ago, Ted Lasso said:

And what specifically makes you say that? all the information from the club is that this is simply about his role, and us not having a spot for him in the midfield.

If he's fallen off the wagon again in a big way i get it, but i've not seen any of the most credible posters on Demonland even vaguely hint anything like that has happened.

the optics of this suggest it's a football decision, which makes it a really big gamble

The role stuff is the polite way of managing the optics

11 hours ago, Redleg said:

I hope not.

2nd round and nothing else imo would see us paying very little of his contract.

If we are paying a chunk of his salary we are looking at 12.

Anyway we will know soon enough.

You can't just view the Clarry trade is isolation, you have to view the whole picture, which could be that we're able to offer someone like Humphrey a huge contravt by freeing up 700k+ from Clarry's pa wage.

6 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

But by signalling we'll pay 700k pa, we are saying we want him out the door, but we'll pay this if we get something back. We're not getting a first rounder, but a player might be handy.

GWS have a lot of handy smalls. We need small forwards. I'd start there.

I do know for a fact that Melbourne and a few other club had enquired about Pheonix Gothard but supposedly that was quickly shut down by the Giants as they rate him pretty highly and think he will play games next year.

Maybe it means we will be searching for a small forward as well 🤷🏽‍♂️

Just now, adonski said:

The role stuff is the polite way of managing the optics

Understatement.

FWIW, this is also what might have been said to Clarry, but both he and his management would understand exactly what the intent was.

Equally, so much of what goes on at this time of year is optics.

3 minutes ago, adonski said:

The role stuff is the polite way of managing the optics

I am sure it is, but the question remains what's driving this decision

as i said in my first post, if this is a football decision, and we pay him 700k a year to play elsewhere and he comes good, the MFC will look ridiculous, again.

Gotta give the FD the benefit of the doubt that they know what they're doing, but this is a path i wouldn't take unless i was 1000% convinced Clarry is cooked, but the other clubs don't know that.

1 minute ago, Ted Lasso said:

Gotta give the FD the benefit of the doubt that they know what they're doing, but this is a path i wouldn't take unless i was 1000% convinced Clarry is cooked

As above, this has little to do with Clarry the player. Whether he's cooked or not is irrelevant, clearly the club feels that the cost of keeping him is too high.

There may also be some performance data behind all this, but time will tell if he really has lost a yard or not.

None of us really knows.

10 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

But by signalling we'll pay 700k pa, we are saying we want him out the door, but we'll pay this if we get something back. We're not getting a first rounder, but a player might be handy.

GWS have a lot of handy smalls. We need small forwards. I'd start there.

I agree that a handy player is more desirable than a 2nd rd pick, but the machinations of luring a decent GWS player needed to occur before King had the meeting with Clarry.

I don't believe that the decision to shop Clarry was solely King's. He's basically just walked through the door. The $700k pa we're paying would be a List Manager's decision, and something that was probably ratified by Guera and Green. Again, it's not a decision that's made on the spot after King's meeting with Clarry.

I don't have confidence in our List Manager to believe that we'll be adequately compensated for Clarry.

3 minutes ago, bing181 said:

As above, this has little to do with Clarry the player. Whether he's cooked or not is irrelevant, clearly the club feels that the cost of keeping him is too high.

There may also be some performance data behind all this, but time will tell if he really has lost a yard or not.

None of us really knows.

It becomes pretty relevent pretty quickly if he's playing AA footy next year.

we would all need to have a serious think about WTF the MFC is doing so wrong, and why we couldn't help him return to form but someone else could.

I'll watch with interest either way

Very astute comment by Faux Phoenix. I reckon there's every chance we end up with the Giants first pick which is why we've gone so hard with the salary component

29 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

But by signalling we'll pay 700k pa, we are saying we want him out the door, but we'll pay this if we get something back. We're not getting a first rounder, but a player might be handy.

GWS have a lot of handy smalls. We need small forwards. I'd start there.

I don’t believe the signalling either. I reckon someone slipped in furphy. We would have said something along the lines of we would consider taking on some salary to get some picks coming back our way.

The specifics of up to half is media hype - it would be a massive rookie error from a negotiation standpoint point so refuse to believe we would have said much more than we are open to explore salary concessions.