Mos Def

If its bad news it should be released very late the day before a one dayer in Melbourne. Bury it as much as possible.

I would like to see Brock.. but I feel it'll be McDonald for 09 and McLean from 2010 onwards. If not McDonald or Brock in 2009, I hope it goes to Green ahead of Bruce.

No point in recruiting Cousins, not for the reasons of anything that has already happened to him, but because it's not going to help us win a flag. He's in the position Stuart Dew was in last year, he has to go to somewhere with a realistic shot at a flag, given his age..

FWIW, I'll back in where I heard it from, that picks in the 80s were discussed. At the end of the day though.. CJs management were actively shopping him around from the end of the season until trade week.. if the MFC thought he'd definately come back after they refused to trade him then they were playing with fire. The thread has become about CJ but it really is still about Bailey and his man-management. A young player who had the best season of his career and was showing some signs of genuine improvement walked away because of the treatment of the coach, and appeared to have the sympathy of at least one teammate and most likely a number more in the matter..

I think you'll find they offered something in the 70s/80s, but anyway, I agree, it was far below what he was worth, in a year where no one was being traded for high picks because of GC and WS. As for scapegoating, if the rumour mill is right and CJ copped some vicious serves after some of his better performances, then it appears he was indeed a scapegoat. Guys can play 22 games a year and still be a scapegoat for what is wrong according to a coach. FWIW... i'm with chooker... we offered him a two year deal at a reduced rate despite him showing the best signs of his career since joining us at the end of 2003. I don't think we have a lot to complain about.. that's the risk you play when you don't re-sign a bloke you want before trade week...

Carlton have stated they made an offer for CJ during trade week (albeit a low-balled one, at least it's a starting point), and in any case, if you've got a player out of contract who is um-ing and ah-ing about re-signing (eg Ryan O'Keefe), you're playing russian roulette by not trading them. Sydney played that game with O'Keefe because they knew he would be unlikely to go into the PSD, with so many clubs having picks ahead of the two he had expressed interest in going to. I'm playing devils advocate here, but I don't feel we have that much right to complain about a guy walking away from the club when he hadn't re-signed and his management had been shopping him around with the clubs knowledge for a month before trade week. And I agree, I thought CJ showed some really good signs in 2008, the scapegoat line came from Alan Johnson (in Caro's article), but the whispers about CJ bearing the brunt of some public lashings from Bailey have been around for a while. The buzzwords here are respect for the club and loyalty, well, it's a two way street. From the outside looking in it appears to be that there's a young player feeling disrespected or victimised by the coach, and he's out of contract and another club with a brighter future is offering him more money to jump ship. Would I hope that any player, especially a father-son, would knock back that offer, I'm not surprised and don't blame him for jumping at the opportunity. From the sounds of it neither does Colin Sylvia..

That's fair, but if we take it that Sylvia is not the only player who sympathised with CJ's decision, then the coach spraying him infront of the group is hardly going to build any unity, if anything its going to drive a wedge futher between the coach and the players that sympathise with CJ. I reckon with both Carroll on CJ we've got what we deserved for not trading them during trade week. Carroll was on the outs by that stage, and CJ hadn't re-signed and from the newspaper reports a few weeks ago his management was shopping him around to a few clubs as he was out of contract. If its true that CJ was being made the scapegoat (and lets be honest, how was CJ of all people the scapegoat for the crap we put up with in 08?), then I don't blame him for wanting to leave, and I don't blame Carlton for wanting to get him on board..

I read this article this morning and if anything I'm less impressed with Bailey than I was.. Like mo I can't see how people have misread the exchange between Sylvia and CJ, I think it may be reflective of more than one player that getting away from the MFC might not be a bad idea. Bailey's yelling at CJ and attempt to get him up in front of the players to explain why he was leaving doesn't seem to have gone down that well. That sort of rah-rah stuff doesn't work with modern players, it's not the 80s anymore. Bit disappointed the article didn't attack what Bailey tried to implement this year. It was just a bit of a puff piece. Was hoping for something a bit harder from Caro, she's usually better than that.