Toast Farewell Graham Wright

TylerDurden

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Mar 5, 2007
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Wright may not have been the official list manager by title but there was seemingly a clear division of duties between him and Mark McKenzie where Wrighty was in charge of the trade/free agency period and McKenzie was in charge of the draft - albeit with list management as a whole likely a committee decision between the two of them, Clarko and others.

For those saying he was no longer list manager he was always the one discussing trade week in the media. It was clearly still under his scope as GM.
Correct. We don't have a list manager.
 
Tipping he has the relationship with Merrett too, and he'll get him to the Pies.
Surely Wright was selling "HFC is a great club, come play for us" as opposed to "I'm a great footy boss, come play for me"???
 
Aug 31, 2008
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If you read most of the Merrett articles it has the Pies leading the race. Just putting 2 and 2 together.

I think you'll be proven right, he either stays or goes to the Pies. All three clubs don't have that much to offer in terms of future success, but we are behind the other two as it stands.
 
And there was I thinking that the pies got rid of players because of their tight salary cap
Getting rid of players maybe fixed that.

And I'd be paying JDG year-by-year for at least the next season - availability issues & stuff
 
Jul 16, 2017
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Definitely can see Bombers matching any FA offer and forcing a trade, hope we stay the course with the draft and find another Impey or Scrimshaw
 
Definitely can see Bombers matching any FA offer and forcing a trade, hope we stay the course with the draft and find another Impey or Scrimshaw
As discussed during Trade Period, their compensation pick (should they finish low) will likely be more valuable than whatever they'll receive via trade.

They could well be looking at a Top 5 Pick + freeing up $750,000 to 'lose' him.
 

Birdofprey

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LOL if Merrett goes to the Pies it'll be absolutely nothing to do with Wright, it'll just be because he sees them in a stronger position than Hawthorn or Essendon.

But I suppose with the pull of Wrighty we landed Lynch and Coniglio, so maybe I shouldn't be too hasty.

I think Wright was great for us, and engineered some nice trades and represented the club well. But your post is good one - reminds us that there are many factors that influence where players go, particularly how competitive the potential club is, and the potential influence of the "impartial umpire" otherwise known as the AFL. The idea that individual people (Wright, Clarko, etc.), can have a stronger influence on player decisions than potential/expected success is a little naive of all of us.

We gotta win some games of footy before we can expect alot of interest from free agents.
 

Davo-27

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Sep 9, 2006
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Zach Merrett will be 26 next year and will have almost every club enquire. There is Buckley's chance we land him.

The reality is he will look for a mixture of team success and money, 1. we are usually smart with our contract offers so we rarely lead money offers 2. we are trying to fix a list that was not tended to well during a successful era and therefore is in need of building up, so its unlikely he will want to spend 2-3 years getting us to the top end and challenging regularly again, so i agree its less likely we attract a good talent like him atm.
 
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