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You are thinking about it the wrong way around. Back when the draft started, kids did choose - Darren effing Jarman said 'no, thanks' to us and chose the powerhouse Hawks the next year. That was stopped in favour of the far better solution of a draft in which any kid that didn't want to go to a club was kicked out of the sport for two years. The same attitude change will happen in the next few years if the AFL is to turn truly professional - players will have little to no say in their trade destination and all contracts will be honoured so if we go and get a bloke with two years to go on his deal - we don't have to renegotiate. The NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL and every other regulated sports are run under these rules/guidelines. These are the sports that the AFL honchos look to for emulation. The AFL has to get there too.

Abolish this in the next CBA and the league will right itself in a few years largely because of it.

I really doubt that. Luke Ball got to ND30 and he was a better player, with a more acceptable history of injuries and personal issues.

Yes, for one prospective recruit. Which is why you want to get as many of these deals done now as possible. You only want to go to the Russian Roulette Table of Irrelevance once a year...

We get Dangerfield next year, the Crows get Pick 12 and we lose Pick 4. The Pies get Dangerfield's equivalent next year, the Crows get Pick 12 and the Pies lose Pick 10. The teams down the bottom will be punished more in this scenario. I don't like it at all.

Well behind? We won't know for years. Pick 3 is yet to be used/traded/lost under the couch - until that is known, free agency as it stands isn't the massive evil it is portrayed to be. If we trade it for Shiel - we are immediately far ahead. If Brayshaw comes on in two years time - we are likely ahead. The better run clubs can make the most of Free Agency as it stands. However, remove the compensation and the stakes are changed. The top tier free agents will still look for the bigger clubs. But hopefully it will be the bigger paycheck, and the AFLPA have got to pressure players to not accommodate pressure on them to sign under market value for clubs - equalisation under a salary cap with free agency requires players being paid their market value or higher. If only the small clubs are paying higher than market - we have a problem.

The 'Free' in free agency isn't the nature of the deal - it is the players movement not being hampered. With that said - if Hawthorn gave up their pick we would have Pick 17, not Pick 3. And we would have to surrender Pick 4 next year if we get Dangerfield. That would be a terrible result. The teams up the ladder surrendering less than the teams down the bottom for the same player? That sounds pretty arse about to me.

Who would pick him up before that? Would Collingwood? I think that it is fraught picking up blokes who have committed elsewhere - in the draft, especially ones with his history.

If he went into the draft, he would get to 33.

Just say to people; in the same way that FA wasn't meant to be an equalisation measure, Compensation wasn't meant to be fair. It is there to compensate lower clubs on the ladder more than higher clubs. If maths is a guide and talent is easily measurable - Hawthorn is 100 and Melbourne is 30, and Franklin is worth 10. Hawthorn lost a tenth of their talent, if we were to lose Franklin, we would lose a third of our talent. Of course we should be compensated more. Aven't dey 'erd ova fair go, cobba? It's 'Straya!

So that's what happened; he must have left, his people needed him...

Not only is that OK, that is how Free Agency becomes an equalisation force in a salary cap regulated sport.

OUT: Moloney, Rivers, Sylvia, Frawley IN: Byrnes, Kent, Vince, Pick 3 FA has taken a few players but when you look at how we have used (or not used) FA, it is not the train wreck some think it is. Compensation has helped though...

Yes, get a membership and you want see ads. As an aside, the site doesn't control the ads. The ads are controlled by you, they troll through your search history to give targeted advertising - I see Masters and Bunnings ads everywhere because I recently bought pretty much everything they sell. I need a power sander...

Is Frost OOC?

As Lamashtu implies - it's a hypothetical scenario that can't happen.

Shooting the sh!te with a few friends has got to be different to discussing this with a journo. We are going to let players talk to the friends aren't we? And GD has only said that we are going after him - knew that! Mahoney said it - and that we still have the offer out there.

He spoke about the club he is being kicked out of too... He was also accepting a personal award at the time. I think he can be forgiven for talking about himself and his motivations in his acceptance speech.

I don't disagree. My issue is not with those that question and prod and push, but when the talk goes immediately to the personalities involved and a desire to move on them - I have to roll my eyes. We love a good bloodletting.

To those hand wringers worried about the 'state of the club' - we can only move forward with the best we can do from now. The present. Roos is not going to just [censored] off and leave the club in 2017, he is a Demon now. He will have coached 66 games and hand balled the life consuming job of head coach to Goodwin. Roos may even move up the chain and give our board some appreciated help when it comes to football decisions and AFL industry lobbying. Jackson is doing a fine job from all reports and the board look to be quiet if not impressive, I will take quiet. What you are seeing is the club waking up from the malaise, what we don't need is for, once again, the grudges and anxieties that plague those that follow this club to manifest themselves under Roos and, more importantly, under Goodwin. Building a winning culture, comes before winning, winning will bring out all the dormant Demons, and only with all the desperate groups and factions behind the club will we be strong enough to thrive long term. Thinking of ways to strengthen that is helpful, looking at the avenues to tear it down is, seemingly, the Melbourne way...

Nah. Good service isn't a cushion for disloyalty. And we are going to trade Jones because he hasn't re-signed, we have about a fortnight... It will not happen.

That sounds sensible, Redleg. Although I will say that this time last year, Tyson wasn't being talked about, I don't know what Roos and Viney have on the stove...

What was wrong with that? The bloke is thankful that being at the club and being a footy player has allowed himself to work through some, from what I have read, some pretty hefty issues. Good on him. Most footy players are that self-involved and arrogant - at least he is giving it with some eloquence.

What a driven little f'er he will be if we pass on him because of 5 whole spots in the draft... And more condolences to the family of the kid we end up taking over him, he will have about a month to get going. This is probably why we were thinking about doing the trade with the Bulldogs for 6 and 21 for 2. We can pick up Stretch and the kid we won't get because Stretch went early...

'Remain in contention' - do you mean 'keep winning flags?' They would never give up something commensurate to ND3 while they are as good as they are for Frawley. They also wouldn't have ND3 would they? They don't need him, they are doing just fine without him, and if we asked for something akin to ND3, they would move on to the next bloke in their list, or they would pry him out through the draft at Pick 19.