Even Crawford said the Hawks offer was more than Gws and ours , I get the feeling they will match it and he will either stay or we will have to trade
We can't lose there.
If they match it, Hawthorn is locked into a 9 year 10 million dollar deal. They'll then have to delist a bunch of players, because they've made list decisions already. Great morale for the player group, suddenly delisting a bunch of guys so they can beat Sydney to keep a guy for 9 years who doesn't want to play for them. And they'll lose the compo pick.
If we decide not to trade, they're stuck with the deal, as matching our deal is a binding contract. Buddy would also have to agree to any other trade they proposed, and he'd be pretty annoyed, so might just say no.
Bottom line, matching our offer is very risky for them. I don't think they will, and will just take their compo pick and run. Then give it to us for Mumford.