Ron Burgundy

I agree.

Great timing for me - I'm on gardening leave for the next few weeks. I'd like to see Gary Rohan in the red and the blue next year. Petracca on one forward flank, Rohan on the other. I think I could stomach this trade for Watts.

I appreciate this. Franklin is apparently an elite trainer. I've never seen that description applied to Watts. Several clubs have won flags since 2008. They've all achieved this without Jack Watts on the team sheet. This is all a known 'known' to me. In short, his presence on the list is not a 'make or break' for us. From afar, this has however been handled very poorly. Seems to be a messy divorce. It lacks class to see the Captain come out with the words he has IF we are actually trading him. Specifically, I'd like to know what Lewis thinks of the cultural impact that this may have on the rest of the list. It may be absolutely nil, which would be a relief, obviously. But I've not taken any comfort in the tough guy responses from many here about this. I've seen this script before - and I was a supporter of the fierce approach adopted by the club at the time. I, like many here (and also within the club at the time), were completely wrong. History shows this. In particular, the execution of that strategy was unsatisfactory. As Niall Ferguson states, we cannot predict the future based on history. But we can certainly learn from it. Goodwin strikes me as a far more impressive coach than Neeld, and I do take some comfort in that. In short, I hope we're not blowing up a good thing here for a second round draft pick. This could end up being a positive, but, in my observation, the messaging and execution of it needs to be handled more delicately and, plainly, a lot better than it has been to date. We have a young list and Watts is a popular figure. It would be naive to think this won't unsettle a few of the colts. Perhaps Lewis should be handling the media a bit more going forward too.

Yep, I'd love to know what Lewis thinks. For all the party boy stuff on Jack Watts, not many partied more than Buddy Franklin and Josh Gibson at a similar age to Watts. That club did okay during that period.

Is he going to the B&F tonight?

I find the political references to the 'trade Watts' and 'retain Watts' camps to be absolutely absurd. My attitude to this issue stems from a player and list management perspective. It's a rational view, and is not based on 'feelings'. That said, I have an emotional attachment to this club, and, to the extent that I think the club is exercising poor judgement or making a bad decision, it will have an emotional impact on me as well. The amount of paint by numbers, binary, inflexible 'logic' that is apparent on this thread is incredible. Clubs are about people. Some here seem to think this stuff is like playing Madden NFL on X-Box. I expect every successful senior coach will tell them otherwise.

I'm not enjoying this trade period.

I'm probably out of line - apologies. I enjoy your posts more than any other poster - they're always interesting. And insightful. You seem to lack empathy though - seems to be a conscious decision. You strike me as a very clinical bloke, and in my opinion the beauty in sport is not always that scientific. That said, you're clearly an intelligent and considered person - you need not ridicule other posters as often as you do. In my opinion, that is.

Roos realised what type of peg he had in Watts. And he didn't try to force it in the wrong hole. Interesting that many here label Watts as soft, but it seems the clubs most interested in him (Port, Sydney and Geelong) are probably the three hardest teams in the comp. Good AFL lists have diverse skill sets. You can't win a war with just tanks.

Such an unfortunate execution. Reminds me of the final scene in Breaker Morant.

As an aside, and I don't think it's remotely relevant anymore, but a few years ago Gubby Allen told me that virtually every club had Watts as their first pick in 2008. Kevin Sheedy was standing next to him and nodded in agreement. Suspect JT would actually have picked him. I thought we should've picked Hurley.

This is absolutely unreliable, but I'd thought the recruiting department is not happy about this potential trade. Agree that JT is a very good recruiter though.

Does this 22 also have Pedo in it? Or is TMac doing back up ruck work as well?

Great post. What I also find interesting in this debate is to observe the settings/views on the importance people apply to the human stuff v technical (clinical list management) stuff. It provides a very revealing insight into the respective personalities with whom we interact on a regular basis. You're clearly in the human stuff brigade. This is the territory that the great sport journalists like to interrogate. It's what makes supporting clubs like ours real. Albeit unlikely, I hope Watts stays with the club and one day holds the premiership cup aloft. Rich narrative in that. Particularly from where we now sit.

It's obviously not a decision being lightly made. In my view, it's an unnecessary gamble to take. The value simply does not break well.

That's what concerns me. Everyone here wants the best for this club. My view is that in a year or two we will want/need a player exactly like Jack Watts. Many here disagree obviously, but I have lost faith in the ability of this club to get these decisions right. That Roos wouldn't trade him says a lot to me.

And many people in Kansas believe the world is 6,000 years old. They simply choose to ignore the data.

Same principle applies to Jordan Lewis and Sam Mitchell, surely.

Didn't they recruit Matt Crouch with the pick we gave them for Bernie? They should thank us. Pick 45 should get it done.

Every team in the comp can fit an AA player into their side. Somewhere.

Read the Herald Sun article. Despite the fiction here, he's ranked 'elite' for forward pressure stuff. Just look at the stats.

Not that this is remotely remarkable here, because we're all passionate Demons supporters, but this is how I feel right now. A bit of background. Amongst my friendship group, I'm one of only three MFC supporters (I live in Sydney). I'm known to be strangely addicted to the club. In 2004 and 2005, when I worked in a large law firm in London, I had my parents record every Demons game and air-courier the VHS cassette to me each week at a cost of 80 bucks a game. I watched every game 'live' at 10pm each Thursday night. My son, Henry, is the youngest ever member of the club. I signed him up as a 20 week foetus during the Neeld years. The club accepted his application. I agreed to act as his proxy. He is now 4 years old, but he's in the system as being a member for 5 years. Anyway, what I'm saying here is that I passionately support this club. And I have done so for a very, very long time - Jack Viney style. Relevantly, I know its history. Better than most. I spoke to Neale Daniher following our horrendous loss to the Swans at the SCG in round 5, 2003. I told him that I thought the club got it massively wrong in letting Woewodin and Powell go. He strongly disagreed. He nearly lost his job at the end of that year (we had both hands on a preliminary final the year before but for savagely bad luck against the Crows), and I'm sure a wiser and more reflective man (legend that he is) would now agree with that view. Trading Watts, a supremely talented player who clearly loves the club, is a bloody disaster. It's unlikely that it will improve the list in any material way. In short, this the lowest I have felt in all my years supporting this club. And I've not experienced that many highs during the journey. To the sociopaths who don't see the value in this stuff, it's exactly why Paul Roos was brought in to change the culture of the joint and it's exactly why Watts will have several better clubs courting his services right now. The human stuff is important to the fabric of this club, to any club. And I fear that Goodwin is a little nerd with a blind spot on this who, like Neeld, might be destroying something very important here. This sucks. I feel very sad.

Lever + Watts + one semi elite experienced outside mid + retain all other required players + not an abhorrent run with injuries/suspensions = we're in the mix for top 4 in 2018.

He's just not. The stats won't help you. Just say you don't like him and you'd prefer to see him play elsewhere. It's more credible. Watts is a strong body and he is hard at it. For all the posters here who want hard dudes from the set of the movie 300 playing for the Dees, they were all digitally enhanced. FWIW, I met Gerard Butler in NYC. He was fat and unathletic. Would prefer Watts next to me in a battle every day of the week. I went out with Mackie in NYC after they won the flag in 2011. He said the only MFC players they respected were Rivers, Watts, Jones and (I think) Frawley. I can't believe I'm so emotionally invested in this. Clip to the ear.

Not everyone 'within' the club is happy about this approach. An older, more experienced Goodwin might very well give the rookie first year Goodwin a few words of wisdom on this one. I suspect he still has a binary code on this stuff - a seasoned, modern senior coach seems to possess more EQ on the human stuff than the old dinosaur coaches and the coaches new to the ranks. I would love Goodwin to reach out to Hardwick on this before pressing the ejector button on Watts. I strongly suspect he would have a few pearls of wisdom that would be pertinent to the issue at hand. And it'll be around the human, non technical stuff. Ironically, I think Goodwin's trying too hard (and I like him). Quite often, the ability to know when to manage certain issues from 40,000 feet, and to know when NOT to squeeze the grip too tightly, comes from experience. It's about materiality. It takes a fairly refined perspective on things. David Gonski is big on this. But it takes years of experience and knowledge to know when to simply oversee from above and when to micro-manage. Sure, Jack probably needs a boot up the arse on some things. But he also needs to be respected and feel safe on certain other issues. He is a loyal and supremely talented player. He adds value and dimensionality to our list. I really fear that we're about to lose a good soldier here. To the absolute detriment of all of us. It's killing me to read this thread.