10 hours ago, Pennant St Dee said:

Weren’t you leaving Demonland and not signing up as a member .

He’s gone, he was great best after Robbie I’ve seen but the ship has sailed and time for us all to move on and you to keep your promises.

I think it's one of those 2 year long farewell tours, like Elton John.

Surely Oliver is worth more than pick 30s plus paying his contract is crazy! Would be better to hang on to him, are we that desperate to dump his contract?

19 minutes ago, Demonsone said:

Surely Oliver is worth more than pick 30s plus paying his contract is crazy! Would be better to hang on to him, are we that desperate to dump his contract?

hes a complete and utter distraction, and is crazy unprofessional on and off the field. seeya clarry time to grow up

Just now, Demonland said:

It's almost like... basic negotiations

Edited 14 hours ago14 hr by Very Jaded

12 minutes ago, Harves said:

hes a complete and utter distraction, and is crazy unprofessional on and off the field. seeya clarry time to grow up

I agree, but to pay his salary for him to play somewhere else is a very bitter pill to swallow.

I'm almost inclined to say pay him his full clip to play at Casey and do whatever he wants off-field for the next four years, and don't show up to the club.

1 minute ago, Vandenberger With The Lot said:

I agree, but to pay his salary for him to play somewhere else is a very bitter pill to swallow.

I'm almost inclined to say pay him his full clip to play at Casey and do whatever he wants off-field for the next four years, and don't show up to the club.

I do understand what you are saying but we have to use a certain amount of salary cap anyway so its not going to really change things too much. Im just happy to see the back of him, enough is enough. Thankyou for winning the flag in 2021. no DH policy moving forward no matter how good you are.

A trade is made for the excess value that a player has beyond the contract that he's on. That is, how much extra are you willing to pay for a player than if you were able to get him right now as a free agent.

Oliver is on a contract that is underwater. That means he's on a contract that is significantly better than what he would get if he were a free agent with the choice of every club in the league. This is a combination of contract size, length and the quality of his expected play for the remainder of that contract (including his off field risks). Because of this, if we were to get rid of him without paying any salary, we'd have to pay additional picks/players just to get GWS to take him on. Instead we can add value by paying an amount of that contract to get it back to a neutral contract.

If we pay an amount of the contract to get it back to par value (ie, letting GWS pay the same amount as the market would offer Oliver as a free agent) then you would expect to get nothing back from them. We'll have to receive something, as the AFL won't let it happen otherwise, but that's how the trade will work. However that 'something' could be a future 4th round pick. If we're getting more than that it's because we're contributing more money to increase the value of the contract to GWS.

It's not pretty but the issue is that Clarry no longer plays football at a level that is worth the contract he has. It happens in a lot of sports. Just look at baseball trades for high salary players and a lot of them just become untradeable or get traded alongside their best prospects just to get the salary off the books. This is a version of that.

16 hours ago, The Lobster Effect said:

I think after his contract extension he broke up with his girlfriend which set off a domino reaction with him going off the rails, getting injured, missing preseasons and losing fitness and confidence (and the contested midfield game evolving a bit). Plus obviously Goody, Pert, Roffey leaving since then. In Melbourne's defence he was coming of a 2 time AFLCA player of the year award.

There must be more to it, as Hellfire typed, "In the fullness of time Demon fans who can't comprehend this trade will hear reasons that may shock them".

If what you mentioned was all that it was, then many have been in the same situation and the club stands with them.

Something that indicates an intractable was there (thought he was down to earth type). How did they miss that prior to the long contract?

Look it's definitely not ideal he's leaving but let's face it in terms of form, his has dived totally.

A few glimpses of the champion of yesteryear this year but again nowhere near the player he used to be.

I'm somewhat conflicted how I feel.

Part of me hopes a great deal he rediscovers his mojo providing it's not at Cwood or geelong.

As a player, at his best his talent is enjoyable to watch probably at times by opposition players.

He's not freakish type talent like Kozzie but he is the penultimate workhorse and ball magnet with the greatest symbiotic relationship in the comp with his mate Tracc.

I get that since Gus is no longer around that left Tracc not so committed and with Tracc gone the same for Clayton.

Shame to lose Tracc though as he still has plenty of good footy left in him and could have been a captain candidate.

But Oliver could have handled things differently as the club has definitely helped him out.

But it's a two way street. He's definitely helped out the club especially being an integral part in winning a long awaited flag.

So let's all just call it a draw and hope good things for him and us.

Time to move on and hopefully up.

Edited 13 hours ago13 hr by Previously known as LITD.

Why not we hand over Clarry and pick 28 in return for pick 12.

Seems fair to me if they can’t provide a suitable player.

I think MFC have stuffed this up big time. Not in this world should we accept a pick in the 30s for the calibre of Oliver. It's just insane.

Keep him.

By the looks of it the absolute worst outcome would be to keep Oliver on our list. In the AFL he would take up an onball position at the expense of a Langford, Windsor or Rivers, and there is no point having him run around in the VFL without even considering the likelihood of him relapsing if he is not getting games at the top level.

It feels like we are walking a tightrope of trying to retool our list without going into a rebuild.

To do this we need to turn the Petracca, Oliver and McVee picks into under 25 year old talent, get their money off our TPP and free up cap space so we can chase free agents over the next few years. I'd be happy to keep Trac if the club feels he will fully buy into the new Footy Department and not request a trade next year, but if we feel he will go no matter what then we are pribably best of getting the best deal we can which means trading him this year.

3 hours ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

I think it's one of those 2 year long farewell tours, like Elton John.

Deep Purple's current tour is called exactly that... The Long Goodbye tour annnnd they released a "Stellar" album last year called = 1 and have another in the pipeline!! LONG MAY THEY LIVE!

42 minutes ago, BKKBooga said:

I think MFC have stuffed this up big time. Not in this world should we accept a pick in the 30s for the calibre of Oliver. It's just insane.

The calibre of Oliver’s 2 years ago I agree but current Oliver absolutely

43 minutes ago, BKKBooga said:

I think MFC have stuffed this up big time. Not in this world should we accept a pick in the 30s for the calibre of Oliver. It's just insane.

Didn't gc offer up pick 7 part of a salary dump to the cats?

Isn't that what we were sold from the AFL... Cough GC.

So pick 36 is a huge win on that precedent

2 hours ago, Previously known as LITD. said:

Look it's definitely not ideal he's leaving but let's face it in terms of form, his has dived totally.

A few glimpses of the champion of yesteryear this year but again nowhere near the player he used to be.

I'm somewhat conflicted how I feel.

Part of me hopes a great deal he rediscovers his mojo providing it's not at Cwood or geelong.

As a player, at his best his talent is enjoyable to watch probably at times by opposition players.

He's not freakish type talent like Kozzie but he is the penultimate workhorse and ball magnet with the greatest symbiotic relationship in the comp with his mate Tracc.

I get that since Gus is no longer around that left Tracc not so committed and with Tracc gone the same for Clayton.

Shame to lose Tracc though as he still has plenty of good footy left in him and could have been a captain candidate.

But Oliver could have handled things differently as the club has definitely helped him out.

But it's a two way street. He's definitely helped out the club especially being an integral part in winning a long awaited flag.

So let's all just call it a draw and hope good things for him and us.

Time to move on and hopefully up.

I agree PK LITD, the loss of Gus has left a huge hole in the team, he was the glue that helped keep the group together. I expected CP5 to step up and take up the slack by showing extra leadership but he has gone down a different path which has further destabilised our senior group. Clayton stayed on the straight and narrow racking up the accolades until hit by injuries to his hand and then hamstring which seemed to affect him more than most players. As much as I loved them both in our Red and Blue, Tracc has moved away from being one of us and Clazz has acted in a really unstable manner, cutting the fences and burning the bridges that once made him our former elite champion.

In all my 80 years I have never seen anything like it since Barassi jumped ship to Carlton and The Red Fox was sacked by a bunch of imbeciles in 1965. I will always remember 25/09/2021 when they both shone brightly for our mighty demons and helped to deliver us the Holy Grail. Nothing we get will compensate their loss but it’s time for a massive reset and let our younger brigade thrive and show their leadership under the wings of Max and Jack.

Reported on around $1.4m a year. Has been nowhere near that for the past couple of years and it appears with King that he wants players to play multiple positions. It’s a huge chunk of cap for a player to doesn’t fit into plans.

As sad as it is, it makes sense to pay some salary and invest in youth. Realisitically our next window (for a flag) is 3 years away by which time Clarry will be close to off the books. Take the future 2nd/3rd rounder and move on?!?!

Given GWS have traded pick 14 and another for pick 12, will this be used in a Clarry trade?

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by Adam The God

6 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

Given GWS have traded pick 14 and another for pick 12, will this be used in a Clarry trade?

No

12 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

Given GWS have traded pick 14 and another for pick 12, will this be used in a Clarry trade?

In our wildest dreams.

Get him back and put him through rigorous weekly testing for anything illegal running through his system, catch him out then sack him on the grounds that he broke the conditions of his contract. Or threaten to unless he takes a pay cut, or a payout.

Sounds a bit messy eh. Oh well lets go with the 3rd rounder.

My guess is Oliver and 42 for 35 and f3.

35 and 28 and Petracca to the Suns for 7 and 8.

We keep 24 and flip it into future picks on draft night.

On 12/10/2025 at 16:20, HeavendHell on Earth said:

I cannot understand the sentiments of half the posters on this forum.

We see emotional reactions [he was and still could be a champion player] clouding what are hidden but most likely logical reasons for the club’s current perspective and action.

We see Clarrie on a field of sport for one or two hours for half a year.

Most of us do not see anything else. We do not see his relationships with his peers or his individual needs, his attitude to the rigors of training and the rest.

Certainly, none of us know what goes on in Clarrie's mind. We only guess and that is why there are so many comments here. But there are many people who have better ideas than you and I and those are the people who have been around him in his journey as a footballer and as a person, such as our current and noble captain and previous well-meaning coach. We guess, but they do not leak, as it should be.

Sure, we get crumbs and make guesses. Sure, I never got the reason why a visually unfit player with injuries was being played in parts of 2024; until someone suggested it was better for him to play than being away.

In my opinion it is simple, [as if anything is really simple] I don't think Clarrie has realized that the world of being a well-paid athlete and what that encompasses does not easily overlap with some other choices or actions he probably makes.

It is not the actions of a new president and coach, but a better-informed new president and coach and club. In the longer term as many suggested it just might be in Clarrie's best interest as a footballer and as a person to start again somewhere else to deal with what for him and some supporters view as a betrayal.

[Sorry I posted for the second time when I said I would not].

Or.. like me, posters understand everything you have said and still are a bit emotional about it?

We have lost Brayshaw, Neal Bullen, Clarry and Petracca all way before we would have thought. They were a big part of a era that i loved.

There were times that i wished i wasnt as fanatic about this club. I've been through all the rebuilds, the tanking and thrashings. I've read just about every training report on here since 2001.

When these guys were drafted i knew we were finally for real as a club and its been a great time. I understand why they are being traded. I dont have to like it.