KozzyCan

That's not how free agency works. You can't just kill a contract because the compo will be better than the trade.

We had multiple clubs interested in him. His form hadn't dropped off yet and most of his off-field issues were still pretty hush hush. He also hadn't had the preseason from hell yet. I think we absolutely would have gotten two firsts out of Adelaide had we traded him last year.

His trade value was much higher last year than it is this year.

I've been reading the thread on and off, I must have missed the examples you're talking about. That being said a lot of people mistake a situation changing for a journo getting it wrong. For example the Petracca story which was very real and Morris was spot on despite the club eventually holding Petracca to contract. I would say Sam Mclure has a much worse strike rate than Morris. An obvious example being his West Coast/Reid call. So I take his reporting with a massive grain of salt but have generally found Morris to be pretty reliable even if he hedges his bets a bit.

This is Lloyd regurgitating McClure's articles. When Oliver requests a trade it will be on, but until then it's still where the club left it at the BnF.

Examples?

Sliding Doors is pretty much the worst thing produced by the AFL media and that's saying something. No idea why anyone reads it.

Because we've already flatly stated we're not interested as of 3 days ago? Just because we had a chat with him a month ago doesn't mean we're still keen.

I don't think we're getting Membrey in any case. Personally would just move Petty back and use Tmac as Depth. No more than two talls in the forwardline. Go smaller and focus on moving the ball rather than playing a bunch of NQR key forwards.

Is Clarry joining a cult?

I really hope the experiment is over.

Do you think he'd be a decent replacement for ANB? We're going to miss his gutrunning and goal-sense.

Was really hoping for more from this guy.

How exactly were these results calculated? I find it crazy that we are above West Coast who I would expect to be in the top 4 at least. Is it just our recent success that has seen us jump so high?

Apart from the fact that Geelong have clearly been planning this for a year. The club has no poker face. Anyone could call their bluff. But I think this discussion has run it's course. Have a good one.

I said it in another post. You take the Paul Roos position: "every player is tradable for the right price." If Oliver's manager was coming to us midyear to discuss a possible trade we should not have shut it down but said "make us an offer". Keep the ball in Geelong's court and see what they were willing to pony up. Furthermore if Oliver wanted to explore his options, let him. If we're in the position where we have a contracted player who wants to leave and a club that wants to get him we have the most leverage. As soon as we became the ones shopping him that leverage was gone and Geelong knew it. No big statement at the BnF was going to change that.

I never blamed the club for the behaviour of our players. I don't know how you got that impression at all? Oliver's issues have been discussed to death, if the club believes it's best to move him on I am completely fine with that. What I'm not happy with is how the club has handled the potential trade. They have made our position weaker on numerous occasions, by flip-flopping rather than maintaining any semblance of a poker face. You can call that playing the game if you like but I think it makes us look stupid.

Petty namecalling. Truly the domain of a winner.

Yes, the game we're playing is [censored]. We have made so many grand declarative statements that have been complete bs that it's obvious to everyone and their dog that we're bluffing. A little subtlety goes a long way. I don't know why you keep bringing up Oliver's issues. They are irrelevant to my point. We can choose to trade anyone for any reason but the way we are handling this has not helped us.

So were publicly declaring Oliver won't be traded under any circumstances for the benefit of who exactly? Geelong know we're happy to trade him, the media are saying we're happy to trade him. We've only served to make ourselves look dishonest.

You're barking up the wrong tree mate, I'm not saying we can't trade Oliver I'm saying the club could have handled all this far better than they have. If he has to go then so be it. But you can't tell a potential buyer that there's no way you'll sell only to turn around five minutes later and ask what they're offering. It just makes it obvious that the club is all talk and we'll fold easily.

As soon as Pert was shopping Oliver around our trade position tanked. Geelong were reportedly shaking trees mid-season and we shut them down, we should have told them that anyone is tradable for the right price and let them come up with an offer that worked for us. If Oliver was one misstep away from being booted then I don't get why we did that, or why we didn't see the writing on the wall last year and traded him while he still had value. We have clearly flip-flopped on whether we want him at the club and that more than anything has made our trade position weak. I don't think the club will come out of this looking good at all.

Yep if after all this we trade Oliver for unders it's going to be difficult to trust anything the club says.

TPP has gone up substantially.

What does the term matter? What do you call it when the players we actively pursue choose others clubs over us? Do you disagree with the notion that we're currently struggling to attract talent that can improve our list?