The heart beats true

Harley Reid turned 19 and really let himself go.

I’m now firmly of the opinion that the AFL is trying to make it really obvious to clubs that the compensation for teams that finish lower will be really strong. I think they are trying to have clubs be more open to Free Agency, and to structure contracts as such. Why sign a player who’s good but not great beyond their FA year, if you can be rewarded with a top 10 pick for them? I think the AFL has been disappointed with the impact of FA, and this is their way of making it more palatable for everyone.

In shocking news, every club thinks every player is worth a first round pick.

This from Tim Lamb in The Age says a lot. Looks like a massive own goal: With Dan Houston [changing his mind], is there a concern these instances are causing other players to have concerns about coming to your club? Yeah, obviously, when stuff’s in the media, if you’re a player, if you’ve got choice, and there’s noise around a club, which there was [around us] at that time, then obviously, that could have an impact. But in terms of Dan specifically, I can’t answer that. But yeah, that’s a fair point you’re asking. Is that something you need to address internally and clear up for the future, to make sure the players do want to come to your club? 100 per cent. We don’t want to be a club that players don’t want to come to. We want to be a really attractive place for players to come to. Are you attractive at the moment? (Long pause) That’s a good question. Hard to answer. Yeah, it’s hard to answer. Is it concerning that you have to pause and think about it? I’m just trying to give a measured answer.

Noble is wildly over valued in my opinion. I don’t think his skillset is particularly difficult to find.

I just think the system is currently interesting for clubs. I’ve always felt like historically clubs have offered contracts to avoid FA taking someone away. If the compensation is going to be considerably better than what someone would get in a trade it might swing back the other way a bit, and make FA more attractive to everyone to explore. Might be the reasoning behind the consistent overs on compensation. You never want to lose your top 5 players to FA, but perhaps after that it becomes more attractive.

ANB for 28 is an absolute steal if Battle if worth pick 8. Both finished 3rd in their respective BnF’s. The only difference is one of them has a contract - and somehow he’s the one less valuable. Something wrong with the system if that’s the case.

My partner refers to the clubs shenanigans as ‘The Real Housewives of Casey’.

St Kilda are a dog of a club. Forcing Battle not to come to the BnF, and then making out like bandits with a top 10 pick for him. It's such a 1970's 'us against the world' mentality. No modern player would want to go there now. They've revealed themselves to be petty and small minded.

I love the way you spell ‘Carrryst’ PF. It really helps me get in character when I read out your posts in my head.

Imagine if this whole thing has just been an elaborate promotional campaign to sell BnF tickets?

I don’t think discussing a players personal neurological diagnosis is constructive. Nobody but them can know how it impacts their life.

Clayton’s been a distraction for years, and his last 2 seasons haven’t been worthy of his contract. The club can wear some responsibility for the scale of the contract, but I’m of the opinion 80% of the responsibility for this sits with the individual. Oliver still doesn’t seem to understand the expectations of the club (as witnessed at the Brownlow). He's been in the system for 9 years. He should get it by now. This might be the circuit breaker the playing group needs. It lets the other players see the club won’t let anyone stand in the way of team success. I hate that it’s played out how it has, but if Clayton left last season and we had watched him play this season for someone else like he played for us we would be thinking we dodged a massive bullet. Maybe this is the right call?

Why? What if the teams get better? Who knows what the future holds. Nobody saw ‘21 coming. Sometimes you’ve got to make moves to improve.

So many questions. Is it AFLPA protocol to write a cover letter to a trade request? What else is required? A reference from your former landlord, and a series of tasteful headshots? 🤔

I never mentioned anything about a 2 club transaction. But if you look at what they’ve committed to with Smith, and the picks they have, they’d have to give up something genuinely valuable to anyone to get enough capital to bring in Smith and Oliver. Also, I’m so over the narrative that other clubs are so wonderfully run. I know stories about Geelong, and its culture, that would make people’s toes curl. They benefit massively from the fact that no journo in Melbourne can be bothered to drive down there to dig dirt on such a short news cycle. It’s not as perfect as people think.

Geelong can’t get it done, unless they off load something of serious value. I don’t think they have much they can afford to let go.

Wildly ambiguous titles. I wonder if I could be the clubs new General Manager of Dog Reiki and Paranormal Choreography?

If you think the clubs a mess wait until you see my golf game.

Is the media being that harsh on us really? The Tracc story was a big story, as is the Clarry story. They are just doing their job, admittedly some of them with more integrity than others, but it’s not like it wouldn’t be a huge story if De Goey or Chad Warner wanted out, or was looking around. We aren’t doing well as a club in terms of our player management, and this is the ramifications. It’s disappointing, but to blame the media isn’t the solution. You could also argue that without them none of the issues would be publicly exposed - and therefore the problems would fester for longer.

This whole story just proves what everyone else could see every night. He got told he wasn’t getting a new contract last week, and so he had a sook about it and didn’t show up to work on Monday. So instead of taking the high road and showing up and thanking every body who he worked with publicly, he stayed at home and cried into his beer. I never understood how he held so many prominent positions, and the way he’s acted just proves that he wasn’t fit to hold them. If you don’t have any discernible talent the least you can do is show and be gracious. That he couldn’t do that tells me he doesn’t understand how utterly replaceable he is.

It’s become too problematic at the very top end. You can’t have the best junior player in the country going for the equivalent of 4 x third rounders to a club. They just need to make the system cost more to the club that’s going to get them - and everything I’ve read says the AFL is going to do it after this year.

I’m confused. Where has it been stated that Pert lives in Noosa? Is that true?

Sorry if this has been discussed previously, but what’s our access to him, if any?

Well the only logical conclusion from this is that our boys need to have a wild footy trip, and a poorly managed WhatsApp group.