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Recommitted Jordan Ridley [UFA 2029] - name was floated for a move to Brisbane in 2025, stayed

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But, since being a top 4 side, playing in grand finals and winning one have gained:
Will Ashcroft
Levi Ashcroft
Fletcher
Marshall
Annable
Plus adding Allen and potentially Ridley to a grand final team.
Great time to be a lions fan

But Essendon stole prior from you so makes up for getting Ashcroft x2, Fletcher, Marshall, Annable, Allen, Draper and Ridley for very little draft capital
But, I guess if the shoe fits
Don’t forget Mal Michael and Damien Cupido.
 
The Lions have to be careful now that Essendon is turning into our feeder club. Sure, take the punt and get Draper who fills a need but to double down on another busted up player out of that system? It's the equivalent of raiding Carlton, nothing much good is going to come out of this.

We're just as much of a feeder club to them as they are to us.

Jaxxon Prior, Josh Green, Tom Cutler... Do I need to go on?
 

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I hope the club plays hard ball.

He's is contracted for another 4 years he needs to suck it up,get him self fit and honour his contract

Time for clubs to put the foot down

I get the sentiment, but first things first, you do what's right for your club.

If club & player can reconcile then all good.

Ain't no point flogging a dead horse though, if a player is steadfast on leaving, you get the best win / win deal you can & move on.

Ryan O'Keefe outcomes are rare.

Edit: from my biased observations, the Lions seem pretty fair to deal with trade wise.
 
Anyone know what these "family connections to Queensland" are? Supposedly they are driving his desire to move to the Lions according to reports.
 
I get the sentiment, but first things first, you do what's right for your club.

If club & player can reconcile then all good.

Ain't no point flogging a dead horse though, if a player is steadfast on leaving, you get the best win / win deal you can & move on.

Ryan O'Keefe outcomes are rare.
Don't care he's contracted till 2029 he needs to honor his contract it's the principle of the thing. it's time clubs take away the power from players whilst under contract.

if he's so desperate to leave we send him to a club who has the best trade commodity which you blokes don't have
 
Don't care he's contracted till 2029 he needs to honor his contract it's the principle of the thing. it's time clubs take away the power from players whilst under contract.

if he's so desperate to leave we send him to a club who has the best trade commodity which you blokes don't have

The power of the long contract works both ways. You get to drive a harder deal in a trade if you chose to do a trade. So did Melbourne last year with Oliver & Petracca. They chose not to entertain any trades. Fair game, zero sympathy for the player from me too. They wanted the big contract.
 
Don't care he's contracted till 2029 he needs to honor his contract it's the principle of the thing. it's time clubs take away the power from players whilst under contract.

if he's so desperate to leave we send him to a club who has the best trade commodity which you blokes don't have
how did holding daniher to contract work out for you
 
"The fish," a sage proverb tells us, "rots from the head down." At the Essendon Football Club, the stench has been lingering for the better part of two decades. The news that Jordan Ridley, a player of rare poise and a best-and-fairest winner, wants out is not another tedious chapter in the broken free agency model. It is not a story of a player chasing a few extra dollars. It is the entirely rational act of a sane man fleeing a burning building.

This, one must stress, should be the exception that proves the rule. We can, and should, bemoan the transactional nature of the modern game, the erosion of club loyalty for the highest bidder. But to apply that lens here is to wilfully ignore the subject. This is not a player problem; it is an Essendon problem. Ridley’s desire to decamp to Brisbane is not a sign of a flawed system, but a damning indictment of a flawed and flailing football club.

For what, precisely, would a sensible man be staying for? Essendon has perfected the art of mediocrity, transforming it from a mere state of being into a core institutional identity. They are a suburban club playing dress-up in a powerhouse’s clothes. They possess the facilities, the supporter base, and the history of a giant, yet they are run with the strategic foresight of a local committee arguing over who brings the orange slices. The weight of the sash, once a symbol of pride, now appears to be a lead-lined burden, dragging a generation of talented players into a vortex of perpetual disappointment.


One cannot, and should not, discuss Essendon’s present woes without exhuming the ghost of that great and terrible past. The doping scandal—and let us call it what it was, not the sanitised "supplements saga"—did not just cost the club a season and its dignity. It inflicted a deep and lasting psychological wound, a trauma from which it has never recovered.

The club’s present-day fitness and injury management, a ceaseless parade of soft-tissue calamities that would be comical if it weren’t so tragic, is the natural and pathetic endpoint of that scandal. In the decade since, a crippling fear has taken hold. Terrified of ever again approaching the "line," they now operate so far behind it they might as well be in another postcode. Where successful clubs push the boundaries of sports science, embracing cutting-edge techniques to find a fractional advantage, Essendon remains huddled in the past.

Their approach to conditioning feels antiquated, governed by a terror of innovation. They are too scared to try anything new, too timid to push their athletes to the absolute peak for fear of what might be lurking in the shadows of their own history. The result is not a robust, resilient playing list, but a fragile one, perpetually breaking down under the demands of a game that has long since left such timid methods behind. The players’ hamstrings are not just failing; they are a physical manifestation of an institutional failure of nerve.

So Jordan Ridley walks. And who can blame him? He looks north to Brisbane and sees a professional, well-run organisation. He sees a club with a clear plan, a stable culture, and a medical department that doesn't appear to be staffed by faith healers. He sees a chance to actually contend, to play in September, to fulfil the potential that would otherwise be squandered in the name of another five-year plan at the Hangar that will inevitably be abandoned after two.

His departure is not a betrayal. It is a diagnosis. It is the clearest possible signal that, for all the talk of fresh starts and new dawns, the fundamental rot at Essendon remains. It is a club haunted by its past, paralysed in the present, and with a future that looks depressingly like a carbon copy of the last twenty years. Ridley is not just leaving a football club; he is choosing competence over chaos, ambition over atrophy. He is a good player who has realised he is in a bad place, and has made the only sensible decision a man in his position could.
 

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Don't care he's contracted till 2029 he needs to honor his contract it's the principle of the thing. it's time clubs take away the power from players whilst under contract.

if he's so desperate to leave we send him to a club who has the best trade commodity which you blokes don't have

You can't send him anywhere, he has a contract..........
 
Bombers will be missing finals for the next 5 years at this rate.

Even when they do make finals, they will get smoked by a club filled with NGA kids.

Cancel your Kayo subscriptions, and go on a holiday in September.
 
Don’t disagree and when the Lions were perpetually shit for over a decade and every club was putting us over a barel and taking our players at a time that every draft was compromised through the introduction of the Suns and Giants so our first round picks were compromised, nor any other club or the AFL didn’t care either and we were openly mocked, but through bringing in the right people off field and good list management look where we are and now all we hear about now is equalization and the academies and father sons are the death of Victorian clubs and don’t dare bring in players from other clubs like y’all have been doing for years. Sounds about right doesn’t it?
And the AFL introduced academies becuase of it.
 
5 more years of pain atleast

But atleast some kids starting to show something

An opportunity to bring all of

Caddy, Roberts, Kako, Z.Reid, L.Hayes, A.Clarke, Zak Johnson, Vigo, Pick 4, Pick 5, Pick 6, Pick ~16, Pick 22, Pick 25, Top 3 2026 pick (Walker/Cochrane) all through together

Led by Durham, Caldwell, Nic Martin and X.Duursma
 
5 more years of pain atleast

But atleast some kids starting to show something

An opportunity to bring all of

Caddy, Roberts, Kako, Reid, L.Hayes, Clarke, Zak Johnson, Vigo, Pick 4, Pick 5, Pick 6, Pick ~16, Pick 22, Pick 25, Top 3 2026 pick (Walker/Cochrane) all through together

Lead by Durham, Caldwell, Nic Martin and X.Duursma
Would all those kids want to even stay if we have 5 years of crapness? that's the concern i have. We cant have another repeat of 13 loses in a row and looking hopeless
 
lol depth. Ridley would be you second best defender behind Andrews the bloke is a legit gun when fit
I don't know that much about Ridley to say if he's a good pick up for the Lions I've never really taken notice of him when played against the Bombers. But Payne would be the Lions best young tall defender RIds may well play 3rd tall in a Lions well developed defence
 

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"The fish," a sage proverb tells us, "rots from the head down." At the Essendon Football Club, the stench has been lingering for the better part of two decades. The news that Jordan Ridley, a player of rare poise and a best-and-fairest winner, wants out is not another tedious chapter in the broken free agency model. It is not a story of a player chasing a few extra dollars. It is the entirely rational act of a sane man fleeing a burning building.

This, one must stress, should be the exception that proves the rule. We can, and should, bemoan the transactional nature of the modern game, the erosion of club loyalty for the highest bidder. But to apply that lens here is to wilfully ignore the subject. This is not a player problem; it is an Essendon problem. Ridley’s desire to decamp to Brisbane is not a sign of a flawed system, but a damning indictment of a flawed and flailing football club.

For what, precisely, would a sensible man be staying for? Essendon has perfected the art of mediocrity, transforming it from a mere state of being into a core institutional identity. They are a suburban club playing dress-up in a powerhouse’s clothes. They possess the facilities, the supporter base, and the history of a giant, yet they are run with the strategic foresight of a local committee arguing over who brings the orange slices. The weight of the sash, once a symbol of pride, now appears to be a lead-lined burden, dragging a generation of talented players into a vortex of perpetual disappointment.


One cannot, and should not, discuss Essendon’s present woes without exhuming the ghost of that great and terrible past. The doping scandal—and let us call it what it was, not the sanitised "supplements saga"—did not just cost the club a season and its dignity. It inflicted a deep and lasting psychological wound, a trauma from which it has never recovered.

The club’s present-day fitness and injury management, a ceaseless parade of soft-tissue calamities that would be comical if it weren’t so tragic, is the natural and pathetic endpoint of that scandal. In the decade since, a crippling fear has taken hold. Terrified of ever again approaching the "line," they now operate so far behind it they might as well be in another postcode. Where successful clubs push the boundaries of sports science, embracing cutting-edge techniques to find a fractional advantage, Essendon remains huddled in the past.

Their approach to conditioning feels antiquated, governed by a terror of innovation. They are too scared to try anything new, too timid to push their athletes to the absolute peak for fear of what might be lurking in the shadows of their own history. The result is not a robust, resilient playing list, but a fragile one, perpetually breaking down under the demands of a game that has long since left such timid methods behind. The players’ hamstrings are not just failing; they are a physical manifestation of an institutional failure of nerve.

So Jordan Ridley walks. And who can blame him? He looks north to Brisbane and sees a professional, well-run organisation. He sees a club with a clear plan, a stable culture, and a medical department that doesn't appear to be staffed by faith healers. He sees a chance to actually contend, to play in September, to fulfil the potential that would otherwise be squandered in the name of another five-year plan at the Hangar that will inevitably be abandoned after two.

His departure is not a betrayal. It is a diagnosis. It is the clearest possible signal that, for all the talk of fresh starts and new dawns, the fundamental rot at Essendon remains. It is a club haunted by its past, paralysed in the present, and with a future that looks depressingly like a carbon copy of the last twenty years. Ridley is not just leaving a football club; he is choosing competence over chaos, ambition over atrophy. He is a good player who has realised he is in a bad place, and has made the only sensible decision a man in his position could.
Looks like someone has just had a big chug of ye ol’ truth serum. What a summation.

A plight that most Essendon fans who are honest with themselves, would wholeheartedly agree with.
 
Glorious.

If it happens, it happens. Won’t lose much sleep if a deal can’t get done. But we also have Ambrogio so I wouldn’t rule it out.

For all those tearing up about the Lions being a destination club and managing to add gun players to an already stacked roster, maybe you should have raised objections when our carcass was being picked apart by all and sundry at our lowest ebb.

Swings and roundabouts and all that…
 
Two firsts and a second for an injury riddled player

View attachment 2413064

Lions firsts ain’t worth shit and seconds even less. No thanks

Your trading for a player you assume will be healthy so we will take back 1x healthy player of equivalent skill (fringe AA) or a high draft prospect via a 3rd team and we’ll pay the difference between what you intend to pay Draper and Band 1 compo (probably $1m which we will frontload)

That’s fair value and if you aren’t inte
 
Lions firsts ain’t worth shit and seconds even less. No thanks

Your trading for a player you assume will be healthy so we will take back 1x healthy player of equivalent skill (fringe AA) or a high draft prospect via a 3rd team and we’ll pay the difference between what you intend to pay Draper and Band 1 compo (probably $1m which we will frontload)

That’s fair value and if you aren’t inte
Sure. Convince one to come and we’ll talk.
 
Lions firsts ain’t worth shit and seconds even less. No thanks

Your trading for a player you assume will be healthy so we will take back 1x healthy player of equivalent skill (fringe AA) or a high draft prospect via a 3rd team and we’ll pay the difference between what you intend to pay Draper and Band 1 compo (probably $1m which we will frontload)

That’s fair value and if you aren’t inte

Unfortunately this is a compassionate trade request and the Riddler is at his lowest value. It’s sad but it’s a cruel world innit.
 
I don't know that much about Ridley to say if he's a good pick up for the Lions I've never really taken notice of him when played against the Bombers. But Payne would be the Lions best young tall defender RIds may well play 3rd tall in a Lions well developed defence

Ridleys best role is 3rd tall similar to Stewart or Sicily. He’s been playing taller and it’s been hurting his production having to be more accountable.

Was a legit 120ppg SuperCoach Captain level option as a 3rd tall.
 

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