- Oct 16, 2017
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Don’t forget Mal Michael and Damien Cupido.
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Recommitted Jordan Ridley [UFA 2029] - name was floated for a move to Brisbane in 2025, stayed
- Thread starter Elixuh
- Start date
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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?
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
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
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Yep. Make them bleed for him
lol depth. Ridley would be you second best defender behind Andrews the bloke is a legit gun when fit
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.
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.
rye
⠀
- Apr 24, 2022
- 4,437
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how did holding daniher to contract work out for you
DrLucienSanchez
Debutant
- Jul 26, 2012
- 67
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- AFL Club
- GWS
"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.
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.
You can't send him anywhere, he has a contract..........
- Apr 15, 2013
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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.
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.
And the AFL introduced academies becuase of it.
- Aug 15, 2011
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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
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
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
- Aug 16, 2010
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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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- Oct 16, 2017
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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…
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…
- Feb 14, 2023
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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.
- Feb 14, 2023
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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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