rpfc

I guess when lifting someone by the throat - balance is important...

He might be a good 'bridge' forward while we await Salem and JKH to be able to play more. I don't think we have got to 'critical mass experienced players' yet so I am open to this. Get some talented kids, surround them with professionals, try and get/keep some stars - that's my list management philosophy in a sentence.

We are 4 and 13 with a percentage of 73. It represents an 100% increase in wins and a 40% increase in percentage. And it is still a terrible season. So say the thousands of supporters that didn't return as members in 2014.

Do you really think that finishing 16th reverses the threat of the above? When are posters going to realise that while our form has improved - the MFC has had another terrible season. Where we finish in the morbid milieu down the bottom is far less relevant to how we perform against the Hawks, in Perth, and against NM - and over and above those games - who we attract to the club in October.

It's a saying. Range Rover had a stink because he decided to take 'are you going to stop beating your wife' axiom literally. Do you want to go down that road? PS. Not a real road.

What a wall of text. Dappa Dan circa 5 years ago would be proud... And it is frustrating to read that player X is worth $500k and Y is worth $300k, because posters are not making a real effort to know what players are actually worth, what we have to pay them (to reach the cap floor), and the fact that our issue is getting good players - not overpaying them.

What?

lol Do you think the game was equal back then? We were just the ones with our feet on the neck of (most of) the rest of the competition...

Oh, we have no problem with the opinion. It's the need to dance on graves that's hard to stomach. Just my opinion. Sorry if I've disappointed or...

Well done to a bloke who had the gall to want to play for our football club. And the AFL changed the rules at the last second on Compensation - it wasn't Shannon's fault (lol at the inference that it was his fault). We were thinking we would get Band 4 for Moloney and Band 3 for Rivers and with the AFL determining a team would get one pick for every net player lost of the total value lost - we were using Band 5 Byrnes to bump up the compensation to one pick of Band 2. So we thought:Rivers and Moloney for Byrnes and Pick 20 instead of Rivers and Moloney for Pick 30 and Pick 50. We were trying to game the system and the AFL changed the rules half way through.

Except for the fact that in the AFL players can veto trades... And most of the big clubs sell their player in January but if they have already signed a contract elsewhere - they are off on a Bosman - the club gets nothing or incredibly little if the club that signed that player is nice enough to throw them something to take the player a few months earlier...

YES! You are my poster of the week, jnrmac.

The above is utterly ridiculous to the fabric of contract based employment in an equalised sport. The NRL allows this but announces it publically, so the AFLPA's solution is just as stupid but without the ethical detergent of telling the truth... Some of you would say "this happens anyway, rp, the deals are done way in advance!" and while you are correct that the 'deals' may be done - the contract is not. To have a player sign a contract months before his previous one is to expire leads us down the road of European football where a player is allowed to sign with anyone up to 6 months before their contract is up. The AFLPA say it is because of 'security' but why should they have the security of TWO current contracts. Fulfil your contract and sign another in the month it expires. Also, clubs should not have the added liability of having these deals set in concrete 8 months before the player is theirs - why should the risk go entirely to the club in this instance? The AFL has to step in to protect the security of the game. No contracts ratified until October 1. No players re-signed by clubs during the season. Players have the security of their contract. They don't need the security of their next one while they are yet to fulfil their last one.

Those turning their nose up at $700k know this - the cap will be $10m in 2015 and at least $12m in the last year of the this mooted 5 year contract. The cap is increasing by $400k/$500k on average. Did you know that? The TV rights in 2016 will probably send that number higher. Worry about getting and keeping good players, not what they are paid - just missing the point.

Wrap it up...

The compensation is also to be ratified by a select panel that can change it so it is the behest of AFL House what we get really. I see the Frawley compo as a neat way the AFL is going to give us the PP we need without actually giving us a PP. I think Frawley will be Band 1 if he goes.

Yeah, I think that those 4 are not only good enough to form a very good forward line for a few years at least - only one of them is going to cost heaven and earth to keep around. The other three are role players (but very effective role players).

The bands for FA compensation are a form of equalisation; when a lower team on the ladder loses a player three of the bands will give them a better pick. Band 1: The pick after that teams 1st Rd pick. Band 2: The pick after the 1st round. Band 3: The pick after that teams 2nd Rd pick. Band 4: The pick after the 2nd round. Band 5: The pick after that teams 3rd Rd pick This is why Franklin was Pick 19 with Band 1 and Sylvia Pick 24 with Band 3.

We are losers. The alternative is reality. Beating the Lions and GWS leaves us 6 and 16. Yay... Beat the Hawks, and/or WCE, and/or NM and you have my attention - beat the Lions and GWS and you have no ground gained and no pride restored.

Are you actively not comprehending what people are saying? Who 'wants' to win the spoon? Who is 'happy' to be where we are? A few of us are saying that we are one of those deckchairs on the Titanic and what does it matter how we are shuffled? Another terrible finish is assured. Nothing is ever 'pure and simple' and neither is this. And you seem to be enamoured with what others think about the club. Why? The AFL isn't a peer review system - it's a zero sum game where no-one gives an inch nor cares what others think about what they are doing - except Dees supporters are always worried about what the footy world is going to think...

You are glorifying rubbish games against rubbish opponents with our rubbish team. That's where my 'rocks for brains' head is at - what if we lose these games? What happens? Are we suddenly a bad team? A worse team? What happened that is so bad - and please don't mention how others see the club... If the club wants to get something out of the last few games of the season - take it up to Hawthorn, play some football in Perth, and try to be bold and confident against NM. Winning these piddly little games against terrible teams doesn't interest me as much as that.

That should give you some pause though shouldn't it? McKenzie was offered a big contract by Adelaide but stayed in the rookie list an extra year to help out the Dees. What a great bloke. Some on here wouldn't bat an eyelid if he was delisted this year... Teams want their own good players to sign a year before their contracts are up, and they keep their fringe players until they are not of use, or re-sign them at the last hour if they can't find anything better. The more good players waiting until the end of the season to sign anywhere is progress for a league that desires to be equalised. More movement of players, more market-reality contracts, more spread of talent.

Jeez, the wool has been pulled over your eyes... Do you think the Hawks or Pies were embarrassed to the point where they gave up their PPs a decade ago? Nah, they used them well and won flags on the back of the talent they got. Teams don't want us to have a PP because they want to keep their feet on our necks - it amazes me the level that our supporters care about what other supporters think of us - and here it is again in this thread. Northey used to get the whole club in an "us vs them" lather and we need some more of that around here. Stop caring what your loser friends think of our club - they can GAGF. We should do what is best for our club. I don't care about where we finish down the bottom, I don't care about what picks we will get, I even am getting ambivalent about Frawley's decision - all I care about, as Robbiefrom13 said, is how we finish the season and then how we can build the list after the season.

You are essentially trying to diminish the rights of the players to explore their options because plenty have said the players 'have the right to explore their options.' It isn't cliché to remind posters (or inform them) that the sports to which AFL is most aligned - NBA, NFL - allow for contracts to completely expire before they are re-signed. At both the behest of clubs and players. I would argue the bigger clichés with regard to this Frawley situation are; 1. The club needs to know soon, for planning reasons. 2. The longer he waits, the more he is 'out the door.' 3. He has shown poor character by not telling what he is going to do.

Who says he is to be recruited as a midfielder? Do you throw out there a team of 'tall, robust midfielders?' Jimmy Toumpas isn't a classic example of a 'list clogger' - he is a kid trying to find his feet and through no fault of his own - gets compared to another who has been quite special for PA. I really wish a few could get past the fact that Wines doesn't play for us.