Opinion The Great Roo Cull - 4 years on. How do you feel now?

[Firestarter]

What's there to feel? Turns out the problem was the coach so wouldn't matter either way.

 

[amaz199]

Boomer's cull (although I thought was reasonable at the time) I think was the wrong call thinking about it again. If we had young players that could front and center, fair enough. But we didn't since the ones we had weren't good enough.

If Brad got some young guns to take Boomer's role, I would gladly go back to my previous view on the culling of Boomer. But much like his coaching career, in a nutshell, it was all talk and messy walk.

 

[amaz199]

Also, Brad saying he would play them if they were available, pretty much highlights one of the issues with the previous regime. If they are available and in good form/fitness, fair enough. But (obviously) I think most of the angst is stemming from when they were out of form and still got a game.

 

[Bowski]

I may be wrong but wasn't Wagner touted by the club as a player who would benefit from Boomer's demise. Ooph.

Like most I disagreed only with Boomer, 1 more season would been perfect imo.

However, I did take solace from the fact that while I didn't 100% agree with the call it was at least a bold one, something the club had been missing for quite some time under Scotts.

I feel we will be reaping the rewards of this tough decision in the next few years.

 

[Mjs94]

Haven't really changed since my POV at the time - it was the right time to move on Dish, Spud & NDS, but the wrong time for Boomer. He had just kicked an equal-career-best 36 goals in the year while still averaging more than 20 touches... how many players do we have capable of that? s**t decision

How many players in the AFL as a whole are capable of that? Was a very bad decision. The other three were done.

 

[ferball]

How many players in the AFL as a whole are capable of that? Was a very bad decision. The other three were done.

Just on performance he probably earned another year.

But it is what it is now and with any luck we'll be watching the future run around in about a month.

 

[muttley45]

Like most I have read, agree Boomer was gone too soon, I always thought he would get to 450 and re-assess, it was certainly not form related at all.

 

[Nutjob]

It was a great decision by the club to move the club forward into a new phase. You could argue boomer deserved another year, but it was the right time for the club to move on the other 3.
I’m here supporting to win flags, not scrape into finals and that’s all we would have done if we continued down the same path.


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[Zondor]

Like most I have read, agree Boomer was gone too soon, I always thought he would get to 450 and re-assess, it was certainly not form related at all.

But it was certainly dopey Scotts and Joyces related. Even the Blind Freddie Board finally stopped buying those guys Horseshit. :stern look

 

[Bigeasy]

What is the point of keeping an unaccountable 38 yo who may kick you 35 goals but who's opponent will be the architect for most of our losses? Boomer' s last year was good offensively but shithouse defensively. He and Dal were the holes the opposition worked their way through our "net".

We were never going to win a flag with that team, we didn't have another gear the top 4 sides had and prologing Harvey's career made no sense for a team that needed a big fix.

Boomer was a champion and he has been looked after by the club post career and he seems content but one thing still irks me about this and that's Boomer's selfish behaviour after the decision was publicly announced. To me that confirmed that the club made the right decision to not offer him a new contract.

Remember Boomer couldn't wait until AFTER the season to find out his contractual position, no no no, Boomer needed to know BEFORE finals and when he was told well ...... You all know the rest.

CLUB>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>individual

 

[Ahern2Boof]

You're dead right and he actually didn't need to... it wasn't relevant to his playing career. I guess on all of the players I was focusing on their relationship with North since then and Nick always comes across like a former St Kilda player to me.

Dal Santo is a St Kilda man who finished his career at North. Waite and Higgo are North men who started their careers elsewhere.

 

[The Filth Wizard]

Dal Santo is a St Kilda man who finished his career at North. Waite and Higgo are North men who started their careers elsewhere.

Yep, that's how I see it.

Now I miss Waitey again.

 

[Luke72]

Yep, that's how I see it.

Now I miss Waitey again.

Me too. Waitey was a good man shackled in a family business for too many years

 

[Marstermind]

Petrie had been cooked for at least a year. Funnily he was the only one to continue his career elsewhere. Dal Santo and Firrito could have gone around again, but the thinking on finishing them up was sound. The timing - three days after securing a finals spot, four days before the last H&A game - was awful and the manner of the announcements was amateurish. I don't buy "They were wanting to know" argument. Tell them, keep it in house, plan the most respectful way of announcing it and do it properly.

The call of Boomer was wrong from whatever angle you approach it. He'd just broken the games record and was playing well. Whilst the handling of the other three was poor, the way Boomer was treated shown a massive disconnect between the football dept, coaching team, and the fans. It was actually quite shameful what and how it happened.

The other decision was on Daniel Wells. The club handled this perfectly. He didn't have three years left in him as his time at Collingwood would eventually show. Imagine if we still had Wellsy on the books last year. What he was offered was more than fair. Good luck to him for getting money for nothing at the Pies, but the club did well holding firm on him. Unfortunately we got nothing from the compensation pick.

 

[SMaturin]

Educate me on the ‘letting Boomer go helped net LDU’ angle.

Is it as simple as keepingBoomer would have seen us finish higher, hence without the draft pick?

 

[ferball]

Educate me on the ‘letting Boomer go helped net LDU’ angle.

Is it as simple as keepingBoomer would have seen us finish higher, hence without the draft pick?

Yep.

I reckon anyway.

There were some close games we lost that year that his experience and composure might have helped us win.

He was a match winning player and was still playing games where he'd kick multiple goals at vital points to bring us into the game or on to a win in his last two seasons.

 

[Uncle_Leo]

3 of the decisions were right as many have said. I said that from the start and still agree with it.

There is no way you should be telling Boomer when to retire, there are arguments the other 3 were taking peoples spot in the team, we still haven't replaced Boomer.

That GWS game after the announcement at Etihad was horrific, top 5 worst days at the footy.

 

[The Warlord]

Given Boomer is back onfeld for us, no problems for mine.

 

[Elroo]

Dal Santo is a St Kilda man who finished his career at North. Waite and Higgo are North men who started their careers elsewhere.

Thats how I have always thought of Stan Alves.

 

[lockheed]

You forgot Farren Ray.

Who?

 

[Horace]

With all due respect to Farren, no I didn’t .

Well that's better than his parents. When they completed the paperwork for his birth certificate, surely they meant to name him Ray Farren. What were they thinking?

 

[Heaps of fun]

Petrie had been cooked for at least a year. Funnily he was the only one to continue his career elsewhere. Dal Santo and Firrito could have gone around again, but the thinking on finishing them up was sound. The timing - three days after securing a finals spot, four days before the last H&A game - was awful and the manner of the announcements was amateurish. I don't buy "They were wanting to know" argument. Tell them, keep it in house, plan the most respectful way of announcing it and do it properly.

The call of Boomer was wrong from whatever angle you approach it. He'd just broken the games record and was playing well. Whilst the handling of the other three was poor, the way Boomer was treated shown a massive disconnect between the football dept, coaching team, and the fans. It was actually quite shameful what and how it happened.

The other decision was on Daniel Wells. The club handled this perfectly. He didn't have three years left in him as his time at Collingwood would eventually show. Imagine if we still had Wellsy on the books last year. What he was offered was more than fair. Good luck to him for getting money for nothing at the Pies, but the club did well holding firm on him. Unfortunately we got nothing from the compensation pick.

Two second rounders for Levi Greenwood and Wells and we used them to pick two players with obvious flaws that would prevent them from becoming AFL players. Nielson was a short fullback that didn't intercept or kick and Josh Williams never went near a contest in his junior footy career. We can be such a dumb club.

 

[Cyber_punk]

As with most here the Boomer cut is the one I'm still filthy over. Still easily best 22, coulda push toward 500 games.

 

[Orange Peanut]

Educate me on the ‘letting Boomer go helped net LDU’ angle.

Is it as simple as keepingBoomer would have seen us finish higher, hence without the draft pick?

That's my take SMat. A lot of close losses that year, someone with experience and goal sense could have got us back into a couple of them and then we'd have missed him.

 

[Hatchy1992]

The only possible reason I can think of that led the decision making in delisting Boomer was salary cap restrcitions. Perhaps we weighed up his age and what he was asking for and decided financially it wasn't worth it in order to invest in the future.

However if it came down to money, I am sure he would have taken a paycut.