deejammin'

I know. I get it fine. I was responding to a poster suggesting that he was moved on to gain cap space for Lever, I agree the reasons you give are the reasons the club gave for moving him on, I was arguing exactly what you are.

That is exactly what I had heard we were paying, and on top of paying Fritsch base salary we are not saving so much that our cap was so tight that it made the Lever deal happen. Let me ask you, I’ve asked this question directly to both senior members of our list management team and both said it had nothing to do with it. Why would they do that? What do they stand to gain by giving themselves less outs for why a popular player is gone? You believe what you want to believe, I’m done talking about it. I hope we made the right decision, I am yet to believe we did, I do not believe it and see no convincing evidence it had anything to do with Lever. The argument you are making is the equivalent of arguing we delisted Jack Trengove to get Lever, it freed up space, were the two things directly related in any way, no, but hey you could make the same ludicrous argument about cap space!! I’m not going to comment on this til the end of the season as I’m sure I’m annoying people by constantly posting in this thread.

If the goal in getting rid of Watts was salary cap space we would’ve fought harder in the negotiations with PA for them to pay more of his salary, possibly even resulting in us taking a lower pick. We didn’t, we are still paying a significant portion of JW’s salary. Salary cap management is complicated, no doubt, and little things can make a difference, but this was not the case here, we had the space for Lever and Watts, we chose to get rid of Watts. You can not believe me if you want to, but anyone from the club will tell you the same, if the only way you guys can reconcile getting rid of Watts is that it helped get Lever then you’re clutching at straws.

Paul Connors was positioning his client the best way he could after MFC publicly trashed Watt’s reputation during trade period. If this was the reason the club would’ve used it to appease fans like me. They didn’t, because it’s not true. Go to a members function and ask any of the list management team, they will openly tell you as much. The reasons ProDee has stated are the reasons he was let go, Lever has nothing to do with it.

There’s no truth to this. Mahoney said as much during trade week, we could have easily paid both salaries and kept both. We’re still paying a proportion of Watts’ salary on top of paying Fritsch a base listed player salary. There’s is a small amount saved but not enough to be the difference between getting Lever and not. Ask anyone from the club, it is categorically not true.

With all due respect, I’ve heard your opinion, you’ve heard mine. MFC chose to get rid of Watts, we both support them and hope it was the right decision. We’ll see what happens with the season ahead. For what it’s worth though if you don’t care what Watts does/has done you had decided you just wanted him gone then I’m not sure you’re in a position to judge objectively whether it was the right move or not. I’ll happily stop posting on this now, there’s many other exciting things for us to talk about, hopefully even agree on.

4 goals is a decent return from a second forward who can pinch hit in the ruck. Cameron Pedersen’s best is 3 for example. I think he would’ve been handy backup for Tmac and Cam at the very least. I’ve made my point, we’ll see how it goes. I hope it was the right call. As for Sylvia I had no qualms with him leaving and was wrapped to get Bernie for him at the time. You’re clearly the type of person who plays the man not the ball.

I think we have to play Pederson for Tmac as we need a back-up ruck. I think we probably intended on playing both TMac and Pederson round one if they were available. We have excellent depth in mid size forwards and small forwards but are very thin in KPF/Back up rucks. We are now an injury away from having both Pederson and TMac out and needing a Weideman etc in for second tall forward/backup ruck. That was my only point, I have no problem with trying a smaller line-up but having only two KPF will put a lot of pressure on Gawn and Hogan. WE can always go the Grigg/Richmond route and have Petracca or a mid sized player play back-up ruck I guess. The downside would be the risk of injury.

His standards looked fine during his two outstanding years under Paul Roos and during the first half of last season while carrying the ruck. They also look very fine this pre-season with Port Adelaide. My gripe is with the MFC trading away a valuable player we didn’t have to. Let’s wait and see, you may be right, we may improve out of sight and PA fail. I hope so! If that happens I will happily make a big mea culpa publicly to you on this board. Will you do the same if our forwardline is decimated and we fail to out do Port or make finals?

I think it is definitely Pederson and Hogan as our KPF the only problem is when Pederson goes into the ruck do we have just Hogan forward? Does Gawn rest forward? Is this enough rest for him? Is this sustainable for multiple rounds with only two guys? It also makes the idea of rotating Hogan through the midfield more difficult. We may need a third tall (Weideman or Smith) anyway. However my point was more if we sustain injury/suspension to Hoges or Pederson we may need Weid or Bull very soon.

I’m trying to let it go, and I’m happy to stop talking about it and generally I’m excited about the season ahead. However, I don’t think our club is perfect, mistakes can still be made and to this point in time it looks to me that trading a quality player, who was desperate to stay and perform for our club, who can play in a role we are short staffed in (Tom McDonalds foot says hi), seems a bad decision. I won’t be providing round by round commentary, I’ll get on with the business of barracking hard for our dees, but if Jack contributes to Port finishing higher than us at the end of the season I will be very very angry about what a lot of us felt was the wrong decision at the time. If we do better without him I’ll happily admit I was wrong. On a pedestal!! My word! No player in MFC history has been more readily thrown to the wolves, no-one has been criticised more often or more publicly and no-one has had the earliest part of their career more badly managed. Go back to Misso’s pre-season report last year, he says that 4-5 players had rocked up under done but generally the vast majority of players were well prepared. Of those 4-5 Jack was the only player thrown to the media. The other 3-4 remain anonymous, far from being placed on a pedestal Jack has been our scapegoat, often unfairly. Jack played a great first half of the season not only playing various forward roles but battling well in the ruck when we were struck down with injury. His hamstring hurt him for the rest of the season but he was one of the very few to turn up to play against Collingwood in round 23 and yet because he was traded he has been described on here as everything from terrible and soft to a culture killer!! Classic scapegoating. Despite all of that the bloke was still loyal to the end and wanted to stay and perform for our dees! I’ve made my point, I will stop banging on about it. I hope to be proven wrong by MFC doing better than Port, but with a thin KPF line getting thinner by the day I think we will miss JW and some on here should show more respect to someone who stayed loyal and bled red and blue despite being hung out to dry during the worst times.

Geez a second or third key forward who can kick 6 goals and give off a few would be handy if Tom McDonalds foot injury keeps him out for an extended period... I said it when we traded him and I see no reason to change, it was a silly decision to trade away a talented player capable of playing as a second or third forward when our KPF stocks are so thin. We are now down to Hogan and Pederson for round one, any bad luck with injury or suspension and we will be forced to play Weiderman or Smith. I hope those guys play as well as Jack will for Port or we’ll look very, very silly.....

Geez if this hot spot does it’s usual thing for us and keeps Tom out for months then our key position forward stocks are very thin. We need Weid and Smith to start firing...

I appreciate it. I just think good clubs back in a strong culture to turn players around, particularly if they have a talent that our list needs. I also know a lot about Jack, he is a professional, a lovely guy and a great clubman and I think that statements about his negative impact on culture are greatly exaggerated. Plenty of our players like a good time and as far as I hear, that is all Jack is guilty of.

Great game by Watts. Immaculate kicking, plays the forward role well, runs hard, shares the goals, I wouldnt mind a few more players like that on our list. For me it’s a simple equation, if Jack Watts contributes to Port finishing higher than Melbourne this year (and/or going deeper in finals) then it was a massive own goal and a silly mistake to trade him. if we do better than Port I will let it go. I’m barracking hard for us to finisher higher. I still think Jack is a good player in a role we have a thin list in. Hopefully Goodwin and Co show me why I’m wrong. Go dees!

The idea that so soon after such a massive scandal that brought the sport into disrepute, threatened to ruin 3 seasons, was found by the head WORLD anti- doping body to have been against the rules of world sport, that [censored] off, frustrated and bored the fans to no end and that may still have a large amount to play out with regard to the health of the players involved and their families long term, (let alone the impact on the integrity of the competition during the period doping players were aloud to play)... the idea that so soon after all of this the AFL would even consider letting Hird have ANY official role within the sport is beyond astounding, the fact it is a coaching position is just beyond stupid! What an immoral farce this league has become.

Without Jack our forwardline is 1 injury away from Weiderman regardless of his form, 2 injuries away from T Smith and 3 injuries away from having literally no key forwards left to play the game. If Hogan’s bad luck continues, Pederson gets injured and TMac turns out not to be a forward You have literally no forwardline. It’s not that far-fetched, it nearly happened last year. Meanwhile Port have the luxury of playing Westhoff as a utility, Dixon will be salivating at having Watts kicking to him and he will rotate with Ryder in ruck for the most mobile rucking duo in the AFL. And this is after they already finished four places higher than us this year. Well done MFC you have given a free hit to a better club while making us weaker when you could have done nothing. I hope it’s worth it.

I agree, they’d be a lot weaker if they had no Jack Watts and had to play Westhoff forward, Clurey and Howard showed a bit this year and Hombsch and Broadbent can be excellent. So many options through the middle.

Ports team next year: Sam Grey Charlie Dixon Chad Wingard Robbie Grey Jack Watts Steven Motlop Jared Polec Trav Boak T Rockcliff Hamish Hartlett D Howard J Westhoff Matthew Broadbent T Clurey, J Pittard Ruck: Paddy Ryder, O Wines, S Powell-Pepper Int: B Ebert, J Neade, J Hombsch, D Byrne- Jones That’s a damn good team.

That’s an excellent point but also in response to Jack needing to set training standards for the younger players as far as I can see it’s our younger players setting the standard. Our B&F is a second year player with all remarking on his training standard despite copping some flak over pre-season. Our co-captain is one of our younger players and sets an incredibly high standard. When we started slowly and needed to be dragged back into the game more often than not it was our YOUNG players (Oliver, Viney, Hunt, Hannan, Petracca) that stood up. Jack was not on his own in being a senior player that went missing, the following all either went missing or played absolute shockers in important games this year: Gawn, Vince, Lewis, TMac, Jones, Melksham. The only truly consistent senior players were Jetta and Hibberd. Before I get jumped on, I’m not saying all those players were worse than Watts, or aren’t good trainers or that any of them should be traded or anything like that. But putting the failures this year solely on Jacks shoulders is highly hypocritical of a leadership group that was far from consistent. And as far as being a bad influence on our young players I find it more likely that our young players would be a good influence on Jack as they are clearly leading the way atm.

For us to improve Petracca has to play more midfield minutes next year. He’s not a bad link man but he’s no backup ruck and while he had some good days as a marking option he was also monstered by bigger backman a few times. Hannan took good marks in the forwardline but was rarely the one kicking it in. Also they were both in the team with Watts so I’m not sure how you replace him with people already playing? So if TMac or Gawn or heaven forbid both get injured what then? You rate Keilty and Smith higher than Watts? Cmon. I can see you don’t. Also I’d love Weideman to surpass Cam, but he needs to earn it and be developed properly in the VFL. He already cost us being gifted games he didn’t deserve this year. Without Watts we may be forced to play him even earlier next year purely due to bad luck with injury. Yep, it lost us games. We kept getting it forward and not scoring particularly in the second half of the season with Watts and Hogan out. Putting emotion aside this is the bit that mystifies me about the Watts trade. Forwards, Rucks and outside deliverers of the ball are the three weakest areas of our list. At worst Watts is decent backup for our first choices in these positions. At best he could make the new Lynch/Shaun Grigg role his own, hit up and deliver to our forwards, chop out and be an extra kid in the ruck. We need a backup for Max before we even trade Watts. Once he’s gone we need a backup ruck AND another forward/backup ruck in case TMac or Pedo get injured or fall off a cliff. I don’t see a better option than Watts for these roles coming in, especially for pick 29. Also if we’re planning to do a Richmond we better hope Dean Kent, Hannan, ANB and Harmes all improve out of sight cos without Watts you have no-one to drop them for. Edit: Idiotically put the wrong responses under the different quotes.

So if Watts is going and is traded for pick 29, we are going for: Hogan CHF/FF, TMac CHF/FF, Cam Pederson Link man/Back up ruck. With Weiderman pushing for either Cam’s spot or TMacs forward spot. Now I foresee a number of problems with this: Cam Pederson is 30 approaching 31, having played 1 good season in the role he has to play. The end could come quickly or one bad injury could have him gone. 2: Weiderman does not play well as a link up man, he doesn’t get off his opponent and take marks off a lead and his field kicking and decision making at afl level are suspect, watch his kick to the forward line after his first possession against Brisbane late in the season if you need reminding. His skills are more in line with what Hogan and TMac do and at this stage it will be awhile before he is doing enough to surpass them at afl level. If he gets games through injury and is still playing like this year we are in trouble. 3. One or two injuries and we’re stuffed. If Hogan has another horrible year you will have TMac, Pederson and Weiderman. Lose two and we’re finding ourselves with no credible KPF and no back-up ruck. 4. Our backline fails to fire and needs TMac or TMac’s KPF skills turn out to be a flash in the pan. Again you are relying on either Weiderman stepping up or a hear-to not on the list backup ruckman. So who are we going to get to play 3rd forward and/or back up ruck for pick 29?

I see your point but I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. I think Jacks good performances and upside are worth preservering with and I also think the timing is bad as we don’t have any hard running outside link players with good skills to replace his role in the side. If it hurts us infield next year and helps another club, particularly if we get very little for him I don’t think it is worth it. The statement has been made give him a chance to respond, in our colours, would be my preference.

I’ve read it. Players are different these days, some need a firm hand others need to be looked after. They’re not all the same and a good coach won’t use a one size fits all approach. I think what has been shown is that Jack responds better to support and his performance reviews being kept out of the media ala Roos, he does not respond well to macho bravado ala Neeld. I hoped Simon would see this and try harder to get the best out of Jack. I have no doubt Longmire or Hinkley will. all that aside all we have done is hurt his trade value, which if we actually want to trade him is not good management.

NO Connors said those things as he knows Gawn agrees with him. look you can disagree with me, maybe my judgement is clouded because Watts is one of my favourite players who I think is unfairly judged and maybe others judgement is clouded as they think he is not good enough and have always wanted him out. To me this feels like trading out Junior MacDonald, a decision made for philosophical reasons which will hurt us on field next year. I think it’s a terrible idea. But if it happens and I am wrong I will be first to admit it. I just want what we all want, Demon success. Also im not comparing Jack to Martin as a player I’m comparing the way their clubs have treated them. I think it’s a fair comparison, but who knows what will happen and yes it’s pure hindsight.