Jaded No More

I passionately hate that we sell those games, and for as long as we do it, we really can't complain of who/when/how we play the week after. It is our choice to sell those games, which was good while we were garbage and needed money, but it is now costing us on the field, which is the only thing we should care about at this stage.

From a playing perspective, the draw is OK. No multiple 6 day breaks, but a block of interstate games which again, we sell some of those, so we only have ourselves to blame for that. We play GWS, Sydney, Richmond, Port and WCE once, which is not bad as I think they'll all be strong again next year. From a commercial point of view, this draw is, again, absolute rubbish. We have ONE home Friday night game and it's in goddamn Adelaide, where we will likely lose to Port. We do get to host the pre-Anzac clash this year where revenue will be high, but how they can justify giving us just 1 Friday night game, is beyond me. Only 2 Saturday night games, again both away, and a heap of rubbish Sunday 3:20 games. The deadzone! Having said all that, if we are good enough, we can make finals this year and it is in our hands. Sick of excuses to be honest.

No issues with that. Home game on our home ground. A great way to start the season and test ourselves. Will be a huge turnout. Very happy.

He’s currently in one of the most spectacular parts of the world according to Insta. He needs to enjoy it before the drab Burgo interviews start coming his way.

Wrong forum... think you’re looking for the Collingwood site

The amount of pathetic handwringing in this thread is laughable. Go follow North if you want your club to never make any trades.

I hear this every year, yet our record indicates that we can pick up handy players later in the draft (see Hunt, Omac / Tmac, Hannan etc).

Exactly. Not only is he the best player traded, he is also the one with the highest ceiling at 21 and doesn't come with a bag of personal off field issues! I'm confident we will get back into the 1st round of the draft next year, if we strongly believe we need to. Imagine how North fans (sorry, fan), must feel.

Great outcome given retirement is never an easy decision for a player, and well done to Garland on his career! Always one of my favourites, gave his all and got the most out of himself. Wishing him the best in the next part of his career and glad he is sticking around the club doing something he is clearly passionate about!

Low risk trade, if it works fantastic, if it doesn't, well we took the same punt as we would be had we taken pick 66 to the draft. Nice move given we have so many mid range picks this year we can't even use them all. Welcome Harley and best of luck!

I loved reading Watts' post this morning thanking everyone, and likewise I was happy to see the club put a thank you on their website. At the end of the day this was a ruthless decision that the club felt it needed to make for the overall betterment of the club and the playing list. While it is hard to swallow when you lose a fan favourite, I truly believe it is the best thing for the club, and even for Watts. While Watts no doubt loves the club and his mates, he could probably use a change of scenery and moving away from that fishbowl that is Melbourne. Perhaps less pressure on him and less scrutiny might help him get the best out of himself, something he never did in 9 years at our club. We all wish him the best, but at the end of the day I want to play finals and I want to win a premiership. I am sick of our lack of success, and so is everyone else. There is no doubt we missed on finals this year because we were mentally lacking, not because we lacked talent to get there. Hell you could argue that the eventual premiers don't look much better on paper than we do. Watts is the last of the remaining senior players from our losing era who doesn't seem to have brought in to the culture change, and the FD decided it was time to stop letting those types of half-arsed standards be set. It is hard to ask young players to go at 110% when some of the senior players don't. Lets move on from this and look to the future. Our list is better off with Lever than it was 2 months ago, and we are in a good position to make a serious go at finals in 2018, maybe even top 4. I wish Jack nothing but the best, but I am a Melbourne supporter first and always. My loyalties are with the club, and I will back them on this decision, unless I see serious evidence to the contrary.

If that is honestly what you think, then I'm sorry but there is no point discussing this further. Lever is already a better player than Watts ever was, at 6 years his junior. His bravery, his contested marking and his reading of the ball is elite. Those are things we've been crying out for, not just from Watts, but from our team. We got absolutely destroyed in contested marking this year, and Lever fixes that almost immediately. He also allows Tom McDonald to play forward/ruck. Watts is a nice player with very high kicking skills, but poor defensive skills and extremely poor contested marking for someone of his height. I've always liked him, and I truly wish him nothing but the best and I truly hope he flourishes at Port. But for god's sake, lets not go crazy here. Lever is already a better player, and his ceiling is twice as high and twice as long as Watts'.

Also for all those crying for Jack, aren't you glad that once he announced he wanted to go to Port that Melbourne did the right thing by him and got it done? Would a stand off until 4:59pm on Thursday made everyone happier? At the end of the day we did right by Watts getting the deal he wanted done, and we still have 2 days to try and swap picks or complete other trades.

Because we landed the best player who happens to be 21 and has 10+ AA years in him. Please lets not lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day we have significantly improved our list by adding Lever. Does anyone here really think we can't win a flag without Watts?

Lets not start this again. We don't trade him, he spends the year in and out of the side, he is worth pick 50 next year.

We have not been robbed, Lever was a good trade. He is literally the only quality player who has been traded thus far and we landed him! I agree that pick 31 for Watts who we invested 9 years into, is a poor outcome. But I trust the club has other plans, and to be honest I don't see the point of fighting the trade when it is clearly us who wanted him gone. Would be a super dick move to say 'go look for a new home, but oh wait we don't want to trade you where you want to go because they won't give us a good pick for you, when really you aren't that great which is why we want you gone in the first place'. I know this is a very divisive trade that will upset a lot of people, but at the end of the day Watts has brought this on himself. We all wanted and needed him to change, and he hasn't. His talent is not lacking, but his attitude clearly is not what the club is expecting from a senior player. It is time to move on. We got Lever, a 21 year old gun who fills a real gap on our list and pushes us closer to success, so at the end of the day we win the trade period.

Can we stop this Hogan nonsense now?!

First world problems much?

We are trying to remove Watts for behavioural reasons, and you want to bring in Stringer? Errrr no.

And we also let go a whole raft of loved and senior players at the same time. It is a completely different scenario! It's like comparing us letting Jones go before his time is up in the game. It's got nothing to do with the Watts scenario. We got over Woewodin and Farmer leaving, and they were much better players. We will get over this too.

What will people say if our 1st pick next year is pick 18? Did we pay over? We could finish top 4, and with compensation picks etc it might well end up pushing towards the end of the 1st round anyway. Besides, we have commodities on our list that we can trade for a 1st rounder next year if we felt very strongly after getting someone specific in the so called 'super draft' (e.g.- Salem, Brayshaw, who knows maybe even Weids if he has a good season). I'm not saying we should trade any of our better players, but if we desperately wanted to get back into next year's 1st round, we could make it happen. Everybody is so quick to think their club has gotten screwed in a deal, but sometimes it's a win win and believe me there isn't 1 Crows fan or administrator who wouldn't give us those picks back to still have Lever. He is an exceptional player with massive scope for further development, and he immediately makes us a better side. Considering we were 0.05% off finals last year, adding someone of Lever's calibre to the team is a huge boost!

We get deals done every single year because we are good to deal with! There is a lot to be said for being a fair and transparent club to deal with, it makes life a lot easier for us and encourages players to nominate us, as they know we can get a deal done. We didn't pay over and we didn't pay under, we paid market value for a gun 21 year old. Would you want less if Hogan was to leave? Trac? Oliver? No, we would want more. Lever is in the same class.

Agreed. It's more plausible that his negative reaction to the hard truths combined with his poor pre-season preparation and the Bondi Trip while injured, all combined into "he can get stuffed with that sort of attitude we are sick of him". If Watts doesn't want to take the advice on board after 9 mediocre seasons where he has completely under performed, than he never ever will change. Personally I don't care if he stays or goes (as long as we get a good return for him if he goes), but if he stays he better seriously change his attitude because if he spends 2018 in the VFL he will be worth nothing at the trade table next year!

It was a gamble we took that landed us Oliver was it not? If history has taught us anything is that drafting key position players is such a big big risk. We've drafted a few with early picks and only Hogan has proven to be worth the price. Lever is a proven gun defender and he is only 21. We essentially drafted a top 10 player but he is ready to go and is AFL proven who has 10+ years left in the game! That is a very very difficult thing to achieve, and the chances of doing this in the draft are I would say less than 20%. How many draftees go on to be A grade players who play 10+ seasons? We obviously think our window is about to open, and are trading for the now. Anyone who watched us last season knows that we desperately needed help in defence, especially if TMac ends up forward (which I suspect he will). We never really recovered down back with the loss of Frawley, and Lever more than fills that gap for us now. Midfielders, especially outside runners, can be found later in the draft, and are a cheaper commodity on the trade table. Besides, who knows what pick 35 has in store for us, or what we will get for Watts.

It's a good deal and there's nothing to say we can't trade back into the first round next year. Glad we got it done.