As a near 20 year member of BigFooty and former Collingwood Board Moderator, I hope you will allow me this therapeutic indulgence:
Dear Collingwood FC,
DISCLAIMERS
We understand that we need to further replenish the top 6 talent that can win you flags and that Grundy, De Goey and Moore need more friends in this regard.
We appreciate the pointy end of the draft usually gets you these players.
I’d suggest that the trading team expected much more than what we got.
We acknowledge that the trade period is not yet over and we’ll still shift picks around.
We know the players traded out had flaws (defensively especially), that footy is a business and that they weren’t untradeable.
We note that the list sizes have shrunk and as has the player cap.
We acknowledge that moving on these players will clear up space for potential trades or free agents.
We also get that there may have been mitigating circumstances with regards to ‘HUB life’ that may have made some positions untenable and that there are simply things that we cannot know.
SO THEN WHY ARE WE SO ANGRY?
Because the above justifications aside, you simply cannot trade out so negligently below market value!
The current deal has seen us trade out Treloar, Stephenson, Phillips and Atu effectively for a mid to late first round pick (14) and a future second round pick (say in the mid to late 30’s). The Pick 65 for Phillips carries practically no points and we won’t use it. There isn’t a Collingwood supporter alive who thinks this passes the pub test!
In the past, we’ve had times to trade out players for behavioural concerns in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, such as Tarrant and Shaw, but we got fair compensation by way of Pick 8 and Taylor Adams respectively.
But us getting horribly below market value on Thursday has actually been a slow-moving train wreck in the making. Our more recent trades in the Ned Guy era have been with Sam Murray 2017 that inexplicably involved a second round pick in the future for an NEAFL standard player who couldn’t get a game at Sydney, the loss of two first rounders in getting an ageing Beams with concerns, a pedestrian 2019 period with lots of noise and now the biggest fire sale in the history of trading. Our negotiations have been particularly weak since the 2015 trade period, which coincides with the Gubby Allen period and Ned Guy’s arrival.
There were recent claims that the recent Geelong final has prompted the sudden need to push contracted players out for draft and/or salary cap gain, but last year we had last year we had contracted players in Scharenberg, Phillips, Cox and Aish getting the tap on the shoulder from the Club, with Aish ultimately being traded. There were also murmurings of trading Treloar to the Gold Coast for a high pick just after the ink dried on his contract.
The claims that this is a sudden pivot are demonstrably false.
With regards to getting clearing cap space for potential FA / trades next year, we’ve been told this all before, yet have watched the likes of Charlie Dixon, Tom Lynch and Jeremy Cameron walk on by to other clubs despite the fact that we haven’t had a decent key position forward for close to 10 years.
Given the extremely low value of the recent trades, I’m interested to know how we trade in this ‘big fish’ given that we’ll likely need high amounts of capital for drafting Nick Daicos. They’ll presumably need to be unrestricted free agents only.
And on Tom Lynch, we know for a fact that Ned Guy was at his parents’ house and that Nathan Buckley caught up with him, so it is disgraceful for Geoff Walsh to claim that we never had any interest. Then Guy and Walsh continually feeding the spin that that we’re well positioned with “two first round picks” as though we just picked up both Pick 14 and Pick 16 is nothing short of pathetic.
Treating us like idiots right now isn’t helpful to your cause!
LIST MANAGER
Ned Guy was brought in in 2017 to ironically fix our salary cap issues and yet all of the current contracts causing issues relate to players that we’ve tried to get off our list in the past 2 years. Mason Cox’s trigger, Treloar’s massively back-ended contract, Stephenson’s back ended contract, Phillips getting paid miles over his worth, are all one his watch. As is the Beams into 4 years renegotiation.
As for Guy’s negotiation ability, that’s been covered above, but the desperation conveyed by Ned and his team was palpable and ultimately resulted in one of the biggest lose-win negotiations across 3 clubs in history.
Were he let go, there would be no suitors for his services as a list manager in opposition teams. His position is untenable.
GENERAL MANAGER
Geoff Walsh has given us tremendous service over the years and once upon a time nutted out some great trade results. Unfortunately his past 4 years involved in trading have been extremely poor and he seemingly has one foot in retirement. His disrespect to Collingwood fans on Ed’s breakfast show was unacceptable.
COACH
It is an indictment on the coach that I believe both Stephenson and Treloar with regards to the calls suggesting that they seek a trade and in the case of Treloar, that the players don’t want him there. He has form with his treatment of Heath Shaw.
On top of that behaviour, he is a coach that was appointment without due process, who has been afforded one of the longest stints of any coach without a Premiership. Most fans would acknowledge that he has strengths, but also significant weaknesses, particularly by way of being an exceedingly poor match day coach, who is not helped by having a bevy of best mates who are ‘yes men’ and never bring any ideas to the fore.
We will likely go into 2021 with diminished expectations with a probable and subsequent contract extension and the same ol’ same ol’ coaching staff who offer no contrary ideas or solutions.
PRESIDENT
When Ed came to us with the motto “Only the best”. We didn’t realise that he actually meant, “only the best mates”. The appointments of Buckley and his hand-picked team of mates, Geoff Walsh post the ‘Captains Call’ of Gubby Allen and of Ned Guy who had literally no list management experience before joining Collingwood, are all appointments by the President and were undertaken without due process.
For all the good that Ed did for us from 1999 and into the current century, we are and continue to be at the behest of the President and his many Captains Calls. Whilst the Board is an impressive list of business leaders, there would be a query over if there could possibly be sufficient numbers to question one of McGuire’s decisions.
So here we are, staring down the barrel of 2021, with the coach coming out of contract at year’s end. We’ve traded out two definite starting 22 players, potentially 3, so then we have our President with an excuse to justify another 2 or 3 years into the 2020’s for his mate Nathan as we “rebuild”, meaning that Buckley will end up become the longest serving coach in history not to have won a flag.
Another major issue is McGuire’s desire to fully comply with the soft cap. There’s nothing wrong with paying some tax for quality football requirements if we run a bit over and it brings competitive advantage. We are not a ‘for profit’ entity.
We were on seemingly track to good processes after Peter Murphy’s review, but regressed to type rapidly thereafter.
We need to bring in the process that makes the “only the best” motto an actuality with particular regard to the list manager, football manager and coach. If that requires a new President, then now is the time for that change.
CONCLUSION
We the members and fans are mortified at recent events, evidenced by a similar pattern of recent ineptitude and with a sense of powerlessness as we stand by and wait for more of the same. If you're taken aback by the fact that we ain't falling for the usual spin, then please re-read the above and take action.
FIGJAM (aka. JtP from EB&W)
Dear Collingwood FC,
DISCLAIMERS
We understand that we need to further replenish the top 6 talent that can win you flags and that Grundy, De Goey and Moore need more friends in this regard.
We appreciate the pointy end of the draft usually gets you these players.
I’d suggest that the trading team expected much more than what we got.
We acknowledge that the trade period is not yet over and we’ll still shift picks around.
We know the players traded out had flaws (defensively especially), that footy is a business and that they weren’t untradeable.
We note that the list sizes have shrunk and as has the player cap.
We acknowledge that moving on these players will clear up space for potential trades or free agents.
We also get that there may have been mitigating circumstances with regards to ‘HUB life’ that may have made some positions untenable and that there are simply things that we cannot know.
SO THEN WHY ARE WE SO ANGRY?
Because the above justifications aside, you simply cannot trade out so negligently below market value!
The current deal has seen us trade out Treloar, Stephenson, Phillips and Atu effectively for a mid to late first round pick (14) and a future second round pick (say in the mid to late 30’s). The Pick 65 for Phillips carries practically no points and we won’t use it. There isn’t a Collingwood supporter alive who thinks this passes the pub test!
In the past, we’ve had times to trade out players for behavioural concerns in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, such as Tarrant and Shaw, but we got fair compensation by way of Pick 8 and Taylor Adams respectively.
But us getting horribly below market value on Thursday has actually been a slow-moving train wreck in the making. Our more recent trades in the Ned Guy era have been with Sam Murray 2017 that inexplicably involved a second round pick in the future for an NEAFL standard player who couldn’t get a game at Sydney, the loss of two first rounders in getting an ageing Beams with concerns, a pedestrian 2019 period with lots of noise and now the biggest fire sale in the history of trading. Our negotiations have been particularly weak since the 2015 trade period, which coincides with the Gubby Allen period and Ned Guy’s arrival.
There were recent claims that the recent Geelong final has prompted the sudden need to push contracted players out for draft and/or salary cap gain, but last year we had last year we had contracted players in Scharenberg, Phillips, Cox and Aish getting the tap on the shoulder from the Club, with Aish ultimately being traded. There were also murmurings of trading Treloar to the Gold Coast for a high pick just after the ink dried on his contract.
The claims that this is a sudden pivot are demonstrably false.
With regards to getting clearing cap space for potential FA / trades next year, we’ve been told this all before, yet have watched the likes of Charlie Dixon, Tom Lynch and Jeremy Cameron walk on by to other clubs despite the fact that we haven’t had a decent key position forward for close to 10 years.
Given the extremely low value of the recent trades, I’m interested to know how we trade in this ‘big fish’ given that we’ll likely need high amounts of capital for drafting Nick Daicos. They’ll presumably need to be unrestricted free agents only.
And on Tom Lynch, we know for a fact that Ned Guy was at his parents’ house and that Nathan Buckley caught up with him, so it is disgraceful for Geoff Walsh to claim that we never had any interest. Then Guy and Walsh continually feeding the spin that that we’re well positioned with “two first round picks” as though we just picked up both Pick 14 and Pick 16 is nothing short of pathetic.
Treating us like idiots right now isn’t helpful to your cause!
LIST MANAGER
Ned Guy was brought in in 2017 to ironically fix our salary cap issues and yet all of the current contracts causing issues relate to players that we’ve tried to get off our list in the past 2 years. Mason Cox’s trigger, Treloar’s massively back-ended contract, Stephenson’s back ended contract, Phillips getting paid miles over his worth, are all one his watch. As is the Beams into 4 years renegotiation.
As for Guy’s negotiation ability, that’s been covered above, but the desperation conveyed by Ned and his team was palpable and ultimately resulted in one of the biggest lose-win negotiations across 3 clubs in history.
Were he let go, there would be no suitors for his services as a list manager in opposition teams. His position is untenable.
GENERAL MANAGER
Geoff Walsh has given us tremendous service over the years and once upon a time nutted out some great trade results. Unfortunately his past 4 years involved in trading have been extremely poor and he seemingly has one foot in retirement. His disrespect to Collingwood fans on Ed’s breakfast show was unacceptable.
COACH
It is an indictment on the coach that I believe both Stephenson and Treloar with regards to the calls suggesting that they seek a trade and in the case of Treloar, that the players don’t want him there. He has form with his treatment of Heath Shaw.
On top of that behaviour, he is a coach that was appointment without due process, who has been afforded one of the longest stints of any coach without a Premiership. Most fans would acknowledge that he has strengths, but also significant weaknesses, particularly by way of being an exceedingly poor match day coach, who is not helped by having a bevy of best mates who are ‘yes men’ and never bring any ideas to the fore.
We will likely go into 2021 with diminished expectations with a probable and subsequent contract extension and the same ol’ same ol’ coaching staff who offer no contrary ideas or solutions.
PRESIDENT
When Ed came to us with the motto “Only the best”. We didn’t realise that he actually meant, “only the best mates”. The appointments of Buckley and his hand-picked team of mates, Geoff Walsh post the ‘Captains Call’ of Gubby Allen and of Ned Guy who had literally no list management experience before joining Collingwood, are all appointments by the President and were undertaken without due process.
For all the good that Ed did for us from 1999 and into the current century, we are and continue to be at the behest of the President and his many Captains Calls. Whilst the Board is an impressive list of business leaders, there would be a query over if there could possibly be sufficient numbers to question one of McGuire’s decisions.
So here we are, staring down the barrel of 2021, with the coach coming out of contract at year’s end. We’ve traded out two definite starting 22 players, potentially 3, so then we have our President with an excuse to justify another 2 or 3 years into the 2020’s for his mate Nathan as we “rebuild”, meaning that Buckley will end up become the longest serving coach in history not to have won a flag.
Another major issue is McGuire’s desire to fully comply with the soft cap. There’s nothing wrong with paying some tax for quality football requirements if we run a bit over and it brings competitive advantage. We are not a ‘for profit’ entity.
We were on seemingly track to good processes after Peter Murphy’s review, but regressed to type rapidly thereafter.
We need to bring in the process that makes the “only the best” motto an actuality with particular regard to the list manager, football manager and coach. If that requires a new President, then now is the time for that change.
CONCLUSION
We the members and fans are mortified at recent events, evidenced by a similar pattern of recent ineptitude and with a sense of powerlessness as we stand by and wait for more of the same. If you're taken aback by the fact that we ain't falling for the usual spin, then please re-read the above and take action.
FIGJAM (aka. JtP from EB&W)
