Jaded No More

Hahaha I kept looking at that word thinking that's definitely not right. I'm gonna blame the drugs again. Am definitely not a Collingwood support!!! I think reading the Tom Scully thread for the 197th time has just about pushed me over the edge.

Hahaha sadly nothing footy related, but Tom and I do share a common knee injury. I had a bit of my tendon cut out today and sent to a lab in WA to get cells harvested for this new trial in tendon treatment. Apparently I am one of only a handful of 'commoners' to have this done, but a few footballers have done it and are now back playing footy. However, I have been given plenty of pain killers (on top of the 12 vials of blood they took), so I'm a bit out of it right now. But being bed bound (for like the 10th time in 2 years), means I have nothing better to do than read Twits and post on Demonland.

I can't believe I was 75% correct, that's a better than normal strike rate, and all done under the influence of heavy drug sedation. Amazing. I should go buy a lotto ticket while I'm still high on pain killers, and if I win I'll donate some of the cash to the Keep Tom Scully From Making The Biggest Mistake of His Life Fund.

Scrap Morton being an out, he is apparently in Darwin and got stuck in a lift. Yes I know I need to stop following Twitter updates but it's definitely the most interesting thing to do while sitting around in a hospital. Reading Tom Scully threads is like adding insult to injury.

From my brief investigative work on Twitter this morning, it looks like Bate, Gawn and Tappy all made the trip. Haven't seen Bennell, and you'd assume he'd be going up to Katherine if he was on the trip, and Blease twitted about the weather back in Melbourne. From this I will conclude that Gawn is gonna be the emergency, and Tappy and Bate will replaced Bennell and Blease. Although that could be a bit of a strange strategy, dropping two quick runners in those conditions and bringing in two bigger bodied slower players. Of course I could be a shite detective and get it all completely wrong.

Correct. If for example our apparel sponsor decided to use Tom in their ad campaigns and catalogues, they would pay him separately just as Puma do with Judd, Buddy and Hodge. The players come in and have their own relationship with that company, completely separate to the club/AFL. The same would apply if say Tom was dabbling in property development with a private real estate company.

Of course they would, it's just smart business, but it wasn't Tom seeking out those things, and clearly his management went to GWS seeking an offer because they realise the MFC offer is so good that in all likelihood Tom would sign it. If the offer was poor, or if they knew Tom was not happy with the club and wanting to leave, they would be in no rush. They'd milk out this process, getting both parties to raise the price and leave the decision until the last possible minute where in all likelihood Tom's price will be at its peak.

I think it's absolutely the opposite. Tom wanted to wait, and fair enough, but Melbourne wanted to get things moving so they approached his management with a contract. That Tom chose to break his own rules and actually listen to our offer to me is a very good sign. His manager then went out to seek an offer from GWS to get some sort of comparison happening. To me that is yet another indication that Tom was happy with the MFC offer, and that is the only reason his management felt the need to go to GWS and ask for a formal offer (otherwise Tom would have signed with Melbourne and his management would have been left red faced). If Tom wasn't interested in MFC at all, his management could have waited until season's end for an offer from GWS for Tom to sign. I believe Tom and the club 100%. Why? because I choose to believe good over evil, and I know for a fact that Tom is NOT lying, has NEVER lied and will continue to be honest with the club. I think it's valid for him to want to see how we play out the rest of the year and know who is going to coach the club (and I hear he likes Bailey, so there is no need to make links between Tom staying and Bailey going). As has been said already, if he wants to stay and is happy at the club then he will. The financial gap is not so enormous that it cannot be bridged.

Why? I think that it's a relevant thing for Tom to consider, as is all the other stuff mentioned in that interview. It was a good interview and it laid out exactly what has been happening, no BS, just a lot of clarity and now we wait for Tom to decide what he wants to do. Hopefully he chooses to stay with us, and hopefully we make finals and that makes his decision to stay an even easier one to make.

Because so many players just switch clubs with the same ease as they do undies. This isn't a cashier job at Coles we're talking about, you can't just jump ship every few years when you're unhappy/unsuccessful/want more cash.

Exactly. They report sh!t that never happens, let alone stuff that does happen. I'm sure Lynch said he went too far with his comments, because it put a serious dent in GWS' move, but FFS why would he then turn around off air and declare that he's going, when at the time no offers were made, nothing was signed and nothing was even decided (and it still hasn't). Besides, just because Lynch/Schwartz/Sheehan believe that Scully should go, doesn't mean he will. I think he'll make a life changing decision based on his opinion and the opinion of his family, and not take life advice from his accountant, media commentators or indeed his manager who works on commission. Laughable. Can we at least give this kid some credit? He isn't some homeless bozo we picked up off the streets.

Oh FFS. OK it's official, some guy heard from his mate that Lynch nodded his head. It's all over.

I don't know why I bother, however, Thompson did NOT return home because he was home sick. He returned home because he had family matters he had to attend to. He didn't simply get home sick, chuck a hissy fit and left. He told the club he wanted to go, and he helped us out by saying that he'll go to whichever SA club gave us a better deal. That is as much as any departing player can really do. Of course given he had to return home we had no leg to stand on so had to take a relatively poor deal, although in reality we replaced him with who is now our Vice Captain. Granted Moloney is not as good a player, but he has given us great service and will continue to do so for many years.

Oh lord, that has to be the worst one of all thus far!

The question was put in a way that suggests "nobody would ever leave Melbourne to go play for a South Australian club by choice". That still remains to be correct in the case of Thommo. He had no real choice, and it wasn't his desire to leave the club and go back home. Therefore the example is flawed.

No he didn't, he said "we can pay Tom as much as GWS can because of the nature of our list and how young it is", and that we still believe that over the life of his career, Scully will earn similar amounts of money at both clubs. Clearly he wasn't saying we'll pay Tom $1mil a year because we have a whole list of players worthy of big money (unlike GWS who have nothing!), but he was definitely playing down the financial difference between the two offers. I cannot believe that Schwartz just sat there refuting everything he said, what an absolute joke. If Scully stays I will personally ring up SEN and let him have it. What a great supporter of our club he is. Fool.

Biggest misconception in footy. Thommo went back for family reasons. He needed to be close to his family and made it very easy for the club to strike a good deal for him in return. I cringe when Melbourne supporters boo him. Stupid. Besides, with the way both SA clubs are going at the moment, I don't think the proposition of going back there is very appealing. Port Adelaide are struggling to pay the electricity bills, how the hell are they going to pay for marquee players?

Perfect response. Strong, unwavering, talking down to the media and their ridiculous beliefs that Tom is a liar, and most importantly understanding that we can match the offer from GWS over the life of Scully's career. I want to punch the Ox in the face. He is being a real [censored]!

I'm madly in love with this kid. What a star!

This is the worst thread in the history of Demonland. If we have to go through this sh*t with Trengove next year I'm going to shoot myself.

Hahahaha gold. And GWS are the drunk desperate guy trying to get a root anyway they can. Brilliant!

Are you insinuating that Scully has lied to you, the club and the general public?

Really depends what additional revenue we can generate for Tom by being a player of a Victorian team, with very well connected people in high places.

So jealous! I had planned to go, but thankfully I didn't book anything because as it turns out I started a new job this week. At least the game is live on Ch.10.

And not once did I dispute your point or have a go at Tom, I actually said that I have no problems with him waiting the season out before he signs. The point remains though that if he does, he will remain one of a few, and indeed probably the only high draft pick to leave their club for money. In fact, Harbrow is the only young 'potentially elite' (but not in the same league as Scully/Martin/Kreuzer), to have defected so far.