Bryce Gibbs to Hawthorn?

[MrFujiMoto]

You would normally notice good players (even when playing for s**t teams) when you watch games. Must admit I don't get to watch many Carlton games but who is this player Gibbs? The games that I have watched shows him as not prepared to do the hard work and I have yet to see the 'classy player' that some posters have mentioned.

I don't think his heart is in it at the blues to be honest. Seems to have lost interest over there. Sound like anyone else we have grabbed recently?? Burgoyne, Gibson, Lake perhaps. All of them had HUGE question marks over their commitment to the contest in their last 1 -2 years at their previous clubs.

 

[MrFujiMoto]

He is perfect as the 5th-6th midfielder who can work well in traffic. He is not a nuggety type so suffers in judgement. He is a number 2-3 midfielder at Carltank and it is not his strength. He is highly skilled and a great runner who may benefit from the hawthorn ethos of when it is your time to go you go. At this stage I would have him filling Hodgey's sweeper role. He is a lot harder in the contested mark than in the clinches. BUT.......How much do you want to pay for a 5th-6th midfielder?

Snap

 

[Leather Poisoning]

Most of us agree that on exposed form Gibbs isn't worth what most free agents are paid.

So we would either need him to take on a specific role and do it extremely well (like a sweeper role) or we would need him to double his output, not just stats.

I think we could make something really good of Gibbs - but I don't like the thought of throwing him a Hodge/Mitchell salary on a gamble.

 

[GOHORCS]

We are currently rating Gibbs on the development he has had at Carlton, which I rate only marginally better than what a young player would get at Melbourne. The Blues are useless as **** on a bull at developing talent. Gibbs is a highly talented midfielder / defender / forward that suits our model well. Gibbo was seen by some as being a little soft at North and we turned that around. Hawthorn have a mentality of go when it is your turn, the team demands that of each other and I am sure that ethos would rub off on a player. So when you look at it you have a versatile player, with pace and a good kick (almost thumping) who has shown glimpses that he can get in and get a ball but often doesn't. That is something the Haks would be looking at and I am sure if they think he could develop that we would go at him and I hope we do look at it. Former no1 draft picks with 150 games of experience don't come up often and we have the system to get the best out of him.

Yes but we need to get him cheap. He is a restricted agent so that won't happen so we don't bother. Carlton will match anything we offer unless it is 6 years at 400k or something. (Wouldn't that be just perfect for us Bigfooty people, 400k for 6 years, no promises just that. Just dreaming)

 

[spotthedot]

I feel quite ill!
please please do not go anywhere squibby gibbs...heart the size of a split pea! my 20 year m'ship would be drop kicked out the door! most over-rated player in many many moons!

 

[spotthedot]

Soft?

don't see this one in there...collective 'oh dear that was as soft as butter!"

 

[MrFujiMoto]

I feel quite ill!
please please do not go anywhere squibby gibbs...heart the size of a split pea! my 20 year m'ship would be drop kicked out the door! most over-rated player in many many moons!

Surely someone who has been a member of the club is not as fickle as that. I still remember the same calls from some supporters when we got that spud Hale. Some supporters seriously under estimate the value of a football system and just how strong ours is.

 

[Procrastinator35]

Free Agents are way to expensive & any club that indulges in them is committing a virtual suicide....Very happy to see Hawthorn FC steer clear of all free agents & maintain our current policy of cherry picking players from other clubs with adequate compensation via draft picks.

Don't be fooled into thinking that there is no price to pay for Snaffling a so-called 'Free agent'....Truth is, their the biggest & most expensive risk of all.....Just look at the past 2 years free agents & you'll see what I mean. The effects on a clubs list both in terms of morale & salary cap are way too deleterious

 

[MC_9]

Hill was a slightly built second year player last year, where as Gibbs was a 7th year player and (afaik) part of the Carlton leadership group.

There's not one player in our current 22 that would shirk a contest today. I'm hard pressed to think of any on the list that are close to getting a game that would. Just look at Shiels on Saturday night. Did what needed to be done for the sake of the team and now he's out for 3-4 weeks. Mitchell the week before made sure he'd get the clean handball off to a teammate rather than protect himself from an oncoming bump. Nothing I've seen from Gibbs in his career suggests he would ever intentionally put his body on the line like that. Certainly wouldn't want to be paying him any more than $300K/yr to find out.

That probably has more to do with our culture and our leaders. You go when its your turn. With players like Hodge, Mitchell, Gibson, Sewell, Lewis, etc that all play kamikaze football, it rubs of on the other players and even ifs its not their nature, they will still go in hard.

There are not all that many players like that at Carlton, and not much leadership.

As other have said, if the recruiting team thinks he will help the side then I am all for it. He is a very versatile and skilful player, meaning he will fit in well at Hawthorn.

 

[MC_9]

Yes but we need to get him cheap. He is a restricted agent so that won't happen so we don't bother. Carlton will match anything we offer unless it is 6 years at 400k or something. (Wouldn't that be just perfect for us Bigfooty people, 400k for 6 years, no promises just that. Just dreaming)

I don't think we will see a team match an offer any time soon, regardless of the salary. If a player wants to leave, they will not force him to stay. It will only hurt the club.

 

[Prudster]

I don't think we will see a team match an offer any time soon, regardless of the salary. If a player wants to leave, they will not force him to stay. It will only hurt the club.

It's hard to say though. No club would ever match the salary for Goddard, Betts, Thomas or Franklin. But offer Gibbs 400k over 3 years, and i bet Carlton would match it, simply because they could get more from you in a trade than the 3rd round pick they would get.

 

[Leather Poisoning]

Of the free agents so far it seems that Goddard is the big success story.

I think Ellis might work things out at west coast.

But the Eddie betts, daisy Thomas, Lance Franklin ones are all fairly excessive risks that I wouldn't be too keen on our club taking.

We have huge cap space and are on the verge of having some holes in the list. Balancing that with team harmony.

At the moment it seems the options are:
- pay huge bucks for frawley, Mundy or Gibbs
- trade and pay big bucks for some under developed GC or GWS
- give incremental pay rises to existing players and bring in role players
- do a typical HFC move and surprise the crap out of everyone.

 

[GOHORCS]

I don't think we will see a team match an offer any time soon, regardless of the salary. If a player wants to leave, they will not force him to stay. It will only hurt the club.

Yes I know. That is why it is highly likely that Carlton would be likely to do it, maybe Melbourne.

 

[MrPremiership]

At the right price, sure.

But, you'd take anyone "at the right price".

If Carlton are serious about a rebuild, they would let him walk and take the first round compensation pick and smile. Same with Dees and Frawley. Whether that helps us snare him at a lower price, who know. Definitely worth a look.

One thing you have to look at, is he in the top 50 players in the competition? If not, then does he deserve to be the highest paid player at our Club? Coz if he wants $700+ he would be close to that.

 

[Randy Campbell]

If he was to embrace Hawthorn.

 

[WaverleyWiz]

It's as clear as day that Gibbs needs out of Carlton. His best is very good and I think he needs a new environment to start showing it again. As a few previous posters have mentioned, his ball use fits our "can't kick can't play" policy so it wouldn't surprise me if the Hawks quietly have their hat in the ring and are smart enough not to pay overs for his services.

I've been doing some thinking on our need for inside mids of late.
How hard up will we be for tough inside mids when Mitchell, Hodge and Sewell retire....I'm not entirely sure when we have Lewis, Shiels, Anderson and Langford pretty much all already in the side plus Hallahan potentially replacing Sewell in the long run and I'm wondering if there is scope for Taylor Duryea to also run through the midfield long term.

With all of Rioli, Hill, Smith and Hartung as outside runners I think Gibbs may be looked at as one of the better dual position players available come the off season and at the right price ($400-500k) I'd certainly hope (and know) that the Hawks do their due diligence.

There has also been mention of who will eventually replace Hodge in his floating role. Other than the obvious one in Jed Anderson I'm prepared to say that it will be Grant Birchall as Anderson will probably become more of a full time mid and Gibbs could then assume Birchall's current role as one of the link men out of defence.

Whichever way the club goes with recruiting, I will back them to the hilt as the recruiting team has a 90% strike rate ever since Graham Wright has been in in charge (only down from 100% due to the Garlett gamble....which was just that....an affordable high risk high reward gamble!)

 

[Brown Blood]

I feel quite ill!
please please do not go anywhere squibby gibbs...heart the size of a split pea! my 20 year m'ship would be drop kicked out the door! most over-rated player in many many moons!

So if we got gibbs you would stop your membership!

Mustn't be worth much to you if that is the case.

And you talk about heart!

 

[Roughies Boys]

At the right price, sure.

But, you'd take anyone "at the right price".

If Carlton are serious about a rebuild, they would let him walk and take the first round compensation pick and smile. Same with Dees and Frawley. Whether that helps us snare him at a lower price, who know. Definitely worth a look.

One thing you have to look at, is he in the top 50 players in the competition? If not, then does he deserve to be the highest paid player at our Club? Coz if he wants $700+ he would be close to that.

Easier to snare Frawley at a cheaper price due to him being unrestricted

 

[Holy Rioli]

Where is this tweet? Nothing on Sam McClure's twitter page suggesting anything like this that I can find.

 

[Judd2Sewell]

A lot of people just going on reputation and hate.

He's no Glenn Archer but he's not that soft.

He was Carlton's best player when they came back to beat the Tigers in a Final in front of 94k so not sure he goes missing when the pressures on either.

Would be a good get at a reasonable price.

Exactly.

 

[cs61]

People can't get over their opposition player bias and can't picture what players could become with a chance of clubs. Its the same as when Hale came over, many only saw him as the player struggling to get a game for a team outside the 8, rather than what he could be at Hawthorn.

Gibbs has absolutely no support at Carlton, and its not clear what his role is. Put support around him, and put him into a game style where you can focus on his strengths, he would improve significantly.

No idea who we after in the off season, as there are many options available to us, but as if we wouldn't turn someone the talent of Gibbs into a gun player.

I can't believe there are players the quality of Gibbs and Frawley available in free agency, and lots of people are "meh" about it.

 

[SHAKESPEARE]

Where is this tweet? Nothing on Sam McClure's twitter page suggesting anything like this that I can find.

It was through 3AW twitter

 

[Prudster]

People can't get over their opposition player bias and can't picture what players could become with a chance of clubs. Its the same as when Hale came over, many only saw him as the player struggling to get a game for a team outside the 8, rather than what he could be at Hawthorn.

Gibbs has absolutely no support at Carlton, and its not clear what his role is. Put support around him, and put him into a game style where you can focus on his strengths, he would improve significantly.

No idea who we after in the off season, as there are many options available to us, but as if we wouldn't turn someone the talent of Gibbs into a gun player.

I can't believe there are players the quality of Gibbs and Frawley available in free agency, and lots of people are "meh" about it.

I don't think people are meh about these players. People are meh about having to pay 700-800k per year for them, making them amongst our highest paid players. I doubt anyone at Hawthorn would be meh about getting them at 300-400k, but, especially with Gibbs, that is simply not likely to happen.

I also think it is risky to assume we can turn any player into a gun. Look at Gibson, Hale and Burgoyne. All of them had shown quite a bit to that point, but were discontent with their team. Sure, they prospered in our team, but they had already shown the ability to do everything they do now. Gunston is a bit different, as he was always going to be a gun, and Adelaide were rightly annoyed to lose him.

Now look at Gibbs. We have no real need for outside players with good disposal. Sure, it's great to add more, but we have more pressing needs. To suddenly turn him into an inside player, or a tough player, when he hasn't really shown too much ability to do either, is a risk to take. Is the risk worth it for 400k per year? Probably because at minimum we have a good outside player, who has shown quite a bit at that role. Is it worth it for 700k per year? Not a chance, and it would surely piss off a lot of players who will be far more important to the team, but are getting paid far less.

 

[Suntory Boss Coffee]

If Hawthorn and more specifically Clarkson think that he can make a valid contribution to the side then I don't see why not.
And to all the people saying he is "too soft", a "pack lurker", etc. He plays at ******* Carlton, what do you expect?
The coaching staff know what they want. You should trust them once in a while.

 

[Cyrilyouchampion]

In an ideal world you're right but Free Agency is really a one time deal for an AFL player in their prime and while we shouldn't be getting involved in bidding wars f players just chasing cash. You can't expect players in their prime to come to us and be underpaid.

Remember free agent cost you nothing in terms of trade that's why they are worth paying a bit more. Look at Burgoyne, he cost us pick 9 and Willo and also a decent salary. Now if you could get as good a player who's a free agent wouldn't you pay him a but more ?

Pick 9 or a good player is worth a lot more than a bit of salary space surely ?

I did mention that they should be paid market value (which is probably more than what FA's are being paid at their current club) or slightly less which is not exactly "underpaid". In terms of Frawley and Gibbs, their market value is probably $500-600K. They can either go to another s**t club and be paid $800K and not have the chance to play in premierships, or forgo a $100K-$200K (refer Lake) and play at a successful club and join the queue for bigger pay packets once you've proved your worth.

For the Hawk players who have shown loyalty and taken less money, they'd be pretty pissed off if a blow-in came to the club and was paid overs. Look at Sydney, they can deny it all they like, but I reckon Tippet and Franklin wouldn't be on many of the players' Christmas card lists.

In terms of Burgs, Hawthorn took a big punt and it paid off handsomely, however things may have been completely different if Willo had set the world on fire at the Bombres and Burgs did his knee again.