grazman

Only a rumour - but was brought up on fox footy. Apparently Treloar wanted to spend 3 days a week in QLD during the season. Don't know whether that was disinformation/misinformation.

Short answer is yes. Be thankful we are Melbourne and not Collingwood. The club didn't bust any relations with its players in offering them up for trade (at least from the outside) - T Mac himself and his manager were very complimentary of the club and their honest approach about discussing the opportunities that would be available for him next year - I imagine it was the same as with other players as well. I haven't seen one piece of negative social media with how the club dealt with guys like Preuss and Hannan moving on. Meanwhile down at the Carringbush...

To be fair, there were rumours that Stephenson's behaviour in the hub might have been a problem, that and his preparation (again rumours) were somewhat below professional expectations. If you read closely between the lines and his desire to be away from the club to relax in the company of his family and friends you might see a similarity with a former Demon who has just moved clubs again.

Given how he was treated by North, I think it would take a miracle rather than a phone call. He's checked out - it's nearly impossible to turn that ship around.

Never any interest from Adelaide I suspect. Would have been an absolute steal if we could have got him. Knee injury aside I rate him higher than Williams and Saad as a HBF.

The deal will get done. You can't effectively push a guy out of your club and when you have a chance to trade him act like he's a required player. It's not like he will stay at North if a deal isn't done. Higgins is a completely different scenario because North aren't pushing him out.

Steven May.

Yes, but hopefully with the right result in the end in both cases.

Maybe not though - Josh alerted the Bulldogs to some unprofessional behaviour in terms of preparation and commitment by other senior players who promised to deal with it, but haven't. He's obviously had enough and Essendon have provided the lure with the opportunity to play with his younger brother. Looking at the interview with his dad when we drafted Kyle they look like a family of straight shooters.

I think now we've brought Brown in that bringing someone else in might be contingent on freeing up salary cap space ie. T Mac being traded. I assume Phillips contract might be more than what we were offering Smith.

Not if you really want that player to go for Salary Cap room or perhaps cultural reasons.

You aren't going to match a bid if you don't want to keep the player at the club though. Clearly pick 23 and Dunstan for Crouch and say pick 85 is better than trying to do a trade with the Saints who aren't going to cough up a first rounder for Crouch.

Such is the way at AFL house. Not really a surprise after Crouch racked up a strike for drug possession.

Hence 90% - unless we plan on cloning him and getting 9 Ben Browns ?

90/10 isn't 900% it's 90% - just saying.

There's whispers around that his attitude is a problem... seems to fit with Lord Nev's mail that we did our due diligence and passed.

only Free Agency. Trade week doesn't actually start until Wednesday.

It's a tactic. Clearly the quiet talk where they asked him to explore his options to support his partner in QLD didn't work so well with him saying he was staying. So now they have to make it untenable for him by publicly announcing he isn't wanted.

They will have a massive hole in their TPP now with so many wanting out and need to pay someone - draftee's unlikely to resolve the issue for them, - I think they are well served for KPF even with Cameron leaving, but they may want some insurance there and down back with Corr going as well.

I stand to be corrected, but... the issue was two fold. Firstly Mitch Clark cut his grass and secondly how the club treated Stef when he came forward to complain about an issue. Very untidy and left a bad taste in his mouth.

Agree - and he can take over from Carlisle in organising their end of season trips!

Might also put paid to any interest that the Saints had in Brown - you couldn't imagine they'd be able to fit both he and Crouch into their salary cap after bringing in Hill and Zak Jones last year.

The B&F thing may have been blown out of proportion, I have a feeling if he was annoyed it wasn't so much about where he placed, but who placed above him... not speaking with any real insight - just a 'drive-by' observation.

From who? I haven't seen any evidence that he's uncoachable. I doubt that the coaches in 2017 (B&F), 2018 (runner up) and 2019 (=B&F) thought he was uncoachable.

Interesting that Collingwood have asked the question given how tight their TPP is. De Goey possibly De Gone?