Player Watch Jarrod Witts (Traded to GCS 2016)

[jackcass]

<Puts on hindsight hero cape>

If anything, we traded him a year too late. Grundy was always going to make the grade, we could of taken the punt on Grundy to take the no. 1 ruck role in 2016, told Witts as such and got a decent return from him/used him for Treloar.

Witts declined the offer to be traded the year before as is his right as a contracted player.

 

[jackcass]

Wits getting the round one gig was a contentious decision. Grundy was the number one ruck the back half of 2015 and has for the vast majority of the time the better prospect. Even when they played together Witts was payed as the forward/second ruck.

It would have been an incredibly brave decision, but Witts sought assurances that the number one ruck was up for grabs (which it still was), but if we'd made the call then and there that we were going with Grundy, we'd have got a top 15 draft pick for him instead of the unders we got last year.

Master stroke stuff and not something I'm losing sleep over, just pointing out that in hindsight, 2015 was the year to trade him.

Hardly contentious when it's based purely on form. Witts was good pre-season, Grundy was bog average. In fact Grundy was lucky Witts got the infection in his split webbing which delayed his return because Grundy's form prior to the bye still wasn't great.

 

[Collingwoodity]

board has hit peak stupidity imo

This board or the CFC Board?

 

[didaksrightfoot]

We didn't really have a choice.
The guy wanted out, and you can't have two number 1 rucks if neither of them is able to play another position, or dont want to stay in the 2's.

Its why Geelong got rid of a young Mumford when everyone knew his potential.

In fact - if you look at the top 10 for hitouts this season (http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_player_rankings?year=2017&rt=LT&st=HO)
Only Grundy, Kreuzer and Goldstein are still with their original teams.
For a league that still doesn't have huge amounts of player movements - that is pretty huge
---

We tried again and again for these guys to work in tandem and it repeatedly showed it couldn't work. As the lesser player of the two - it was really on Witts to turn into even a passable combo-Fwd option - and he was given plenty of development to try to do that. That never happened unfortunately, and he was too good to want to stay in the 2's.
Witts could have a pretty good AFL career, but if I had the choice between the two, I would take Grundy every day of the week and three times on Sundays.

 

[Collingwoodity]

Here we go again, shouldn't got rid of Witts, should have kept Williams. Got nothing for Cloke, why didn't we draft Stewart, Picken, Kelly - seriously people they would have been our whipping boys again, move on and look ahead
Witts is rubbish face it did nothing in all the years with us, in a garbage side like GC something was bound to give hardly set the world on fire!


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These are all mistakes by CFC.

We traded out our best KPF of the past 25 years (Cloke) and left Moore as our best KPF and White and Cox as 2nd/3rd forwards with NO backups. We passed on Stewart twice. The second time was more stupid than the first time.

And Williams: we have been carrying poorly performing players for years and we decide to draw the line on our only AFL quality small defender. (Ramsay and Sinclair were injury riddled unknowns).

Absolutely a ridonculous decision at the time it was made, and given Marley's performance this year and our lack of quality small defenders, a stupid decision in hindsight too.

Picken, well, a premiership player at another club. I won't go into him again but the other 2 are clear fails this past off-season. The club cannot escape criticism for their incompetence.

 

[half_back_flank]

Witts declined the offer to be traded the year before as is his right as a contracted player.

Because we told him the gig was still for grabs when he sought assurances on the number one ruck gig. It really was, but if we'd told that we'd made a call then and told him Grundy would be given preference, he'd have been more inclined to agree to a trade and get us what he was worth.

 

[jonbe54]

These are all mistakes by CFC.

We traded out our best KPF of the past 25 years (Cloke) and left Moore as our best KPF and White and Cox as 2nd/3rd forwards with NO backups. We passed on Stewart twice. The second time was more stupid than the first time.

And Williams: we have been carrying poorly performing players for years and we decide to draw the line on our only AFL quality small defender. (Ramsay and Sinclair were injury riddled unknowns).

Absolutely a ridonculous decision at the time it was made, and given Marley's performance this year and our lack of quality small defenders, a stupid decision in hindsight too.

Picken, well, a premiership player at another club. I won't go into him again but the other 2 are clear fails this past off-season. The club cannot escape criticism for their incompetence.

JFC! AND FMD!!

Cloke WALKED when he couldn't be promised a gig in the seniors with a clear and obvious decline since signing the big contract.

 

[jackcass]

Because we told him the gig was still for grabs when he sought assurances on the number one ruck gig. It really was, but if we'd told that we'd made a call then and told him Grundy would be given preference, he'd have been more inclined to agree to a trade and get us what he was worth.

So you're suggesting that we lie to players in the hope that they may jump a certain way?

Would have been fantastic if He'd agreed to go the GWS as part of the Treloar deal. Would have saved us a 1st round pick. Wasn't to be, move on.

 

[jonbe54]

Sooo glad I have some people on ignore

 

[half_back_flank]

So you're suggesting that we lie to players in the hope that they may jump a certain way?

Would have been fantastic if He'd agreed to go the GWS as part of the Treloar deal. Would have saved us a 1st round pick. Wasn't to be, move on.

Oh please, lying? I'm saying we could have a hard call to tell Witts we were going with Grundy in 2016. Telling him this in oct 2015 would not have been the hardest sell in the world given Grundy had held the ruck spot for the second half of the year anyway.

I'm not losing sleep over it, I've clarified several times.

 

[didaksrightfoot]

Oh please, lying? I'm saying we could have a hard call to tell Witts we were going with Grundy in 2016. Telling him this in oct 2015 would not have been the hardest sell in the world given Grundy had held the ruck spot for the second half of the year anyway.

I'm not losing sleep over it, I've clarified several times.

And thats fair.
I just think that we wanted one more trial to see if they could work together - because the potential upside could be huge.
I was happy with the club taking that gamble and not pushing him out the door at that stage - but a year later we had a much clearer answer (and unfortunately it probably cost us a better draft pick for Witts - not the end of the world)

 

[jackcass]

Oh please, lying? I'm saying we could have a hard call to tell Witts we were going with Grundy in 2016. Telling him this in oct 2015 would not have been the hardest sell in the world given Grundy had held the ruck spot for the second half of the year anyway.

I'm not losing sleep over it, I've clarified several times.

We clearly have a different appreciation of what telling someone something untrue is but I'm just a simple country lad. Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck....

 

[Maggie5]

Sooo glad I have some people on ignore

It is tempting though to click on 'show ignored'.

 

[half_back_flank]

We clearly have a different appreciation of what telling someone something untrue is but I'm just a simple country lad. Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck....

Actually, it would have been excellent piece of list management. Very little difference to Geelong pushing out Kelly ect and Mitchell and Lewis last year. Yes they were uncontracted, but still clearly best 22 (which Witts was not in Oct 15).

Fair play though, did laugh at the country card being played. When I saw it I was in the middle of taking down half a km of fence.

 

[Black_White]

Article today on him....we should of moved on mason cox instead!
This will prove to be a massive mistake amongst many!
Thoughts?

Need someone better versed in the world of AFL listed/Rookie/international players to step in here.
Was Cox a senior player at Witts trade time?
If not, can we trade him as he was a special catagory player?
I am one who always said Witts was "glacial", but in his last year I did see an improvement in his pace. Still not great, but he had obviously taken that criticism (I wasn't the only one) and worked hard to address it.

 

[12kilos]

We got ripped of with Witts that was the major issue. Another huge f--k up by our football department.
Picks 44 and 62 give me a break. I would have rather played hard ball,and get nothing for him. And I would think the Lions would have beaten the suns to him.
They may have even chocked and offered us a pick between 15 to 20 , or possibly a future second rounder.

 

[Scodog10]

What part of . . . he was only good as first ruck and Grundy was clearly better don't you understand?
What part of . . . he was a free agent and could walk for nothing don't you understand?
He was never going to get first ruck duties with Grundy there and had the good sense to look for greener pastures.

I find that really difficult to understand myself given he most definitely wasn't a FA.

We got ripped of with Witts that was the major issue. Another huge f--k up by our football department.
Picks 44 and 62 give me a break. I would have rather played hard ball,and get nothing for him. And I would think the Lions would have beaten the suns to him.
They may have even chocked and offered us a pick between 15 to 20 , or possibly a future second rounder.

My assumption is Gubby didn't rate him. He made it widely known what he thought of our list and last off-season was the result. The form of Williams and Witts will forever remain signposts of Gubby's period as our football manager...

 

[jackcass]

Actually, it would have been excellent piece of list management. Very little difference to Geelong pushing out Kelly ect and Mitchell and Lewis last year. Yes they were uncontracted, but still clearly best 22 (which Witts was not in Oct 15).

Fair play though, did laugh at the country card being played. When I saw it I was in the middle of taking down half a km of fence.

Other than 1 is at the start of their career, the other 3 the end, could be twins.

Happy to agree to disagree. You don't think Witts was a viable best 22 prospect in 2015 whereas I don't think either he or Grundy had taken ownership of the 1st ruck role.

 

[half_back_flank]

Other than 1 is at the start of their career, the other 3 the end, could be twins.

Happy to agree to disagree. You don't think Witts was a viable best 22 prospect in 2015 whereas I don't think either he or Grundy had taken ownership of the 1st ruck role.

Yeah sure, I'll agree to disagree because it's evident you really don't know what you're disagreeing with. So yeah, rather than keep going round in circles about a bloke who doesn't play for us any more, let's cease.

 

[jackcass]

Yeah sure, I'll agree to disagree because it's evident you really don't know what you're disagreeing with. So yeah, rather than keep going round in circles about a bloke who doesn't play for us any more, let's cease.

LOL. It's not too hard really. I disagree with lying to players. I disagree that Grundy had locked Witts out of contention for a spot in the 22 on the back of his 2015 season.

You're the 1 who wants to lie to players to manipulate them into accepting trades they don't want to do, and the 1 who didn't rate a guy as "best 22" despite the fact it was way too early to make that call or the fact he's currently "best 22" in another team, but if it makes you feel better you can make it all about me.

 

[half_back_flank]

LOL. It's not too hard really. I disagree with lying to players. I disagree that Grundy had locked Witts out of contention for a spot in the 22 on the back of his 2015 season.

You're the 1 who wants to lie to players to manipulate them into accepting trades they don't want to do, and the 1 who didn't rate a guy as "best 22" despite the fact it was way too early to make that call or the fact he's currently "best 22" in another team, but if it makes you feel better you can make it all about me.

It would have been an incredibly brave decision, but Witts sought assurances that the number one ruck was up for grabs (which it still was), but if we'd made the call then and there that we were going with Grundy, we'd have got a top 15 draft pick for him instead of the unders we got last year.

Master stroke stuff and not something I'm losing sleep over, just pointing out that in hindsight, 2015 was the year to trade him.

Edit: Lifted word for word from the previous page, a post that you actually quoted and removed these couple of paragraphs.

Seriously, mount a credible argument for the above.

 

[didaksrightfoot]

Getting back to the topic at hand - does anyone actually think that Witts would be playing in our 22 this year?

Im not denying that he is an AFL quality ruckman, but Grundy is clearly better (and will hopefully hold be a dominant ruckman over the next 5-10 years), and Witts showed time and again that we couldn't really utilise him as that combo fwd. (For all of Mason Cox's deficiencies, and ? Over his long term future, he is a better fwd than Witts ever showed).
Do you think Witts wouldve been happy in the VFL all year barring a Grundy injury?
Do you think we could've played both rucks in our 22? (Which we had experimented with for a few seasons, with no success).

 

[DWil6]

This thread probably should be "We got dudded on the Witts trade". He was never going to stay in the VFL, Grundy is better, he can't play as a forward. He was worth more than Cameron Wood and we gave pick 10 for him. We should have got more.

 

[nahnah]

Really hope Grundy takes him to the cleaners this weekend

 

[didaksrightfoot]

This thread probably should be "We got dudded on the Witts trade". He was never going to stay in the VFL, Grundy is better, he can't play as a forward. He was worth more than Cameron Wood and we gave pick 10 for him. We should have got more.

And that is a more appropriate discussion to be having.
I don't think you can compare to the Cam Wood trade - trading had changed a hell of a lot in the years since.

What would be fair is going through the other current best 22 rucks who are not at their original teams and see what they cost. (Including 7 guys in the current top 10 for hitouts)

I dont have time to do that, but my hunch is this: that getting a clubs number 1 ruck to move is pretty costly - but getting those guys who are backup/playing VFL, is pretty cheap - just because clubs know they cant really hold onto a guy who they cant give games to.
But - going through that list will give us a better idea of what it has cost for these guys, and how that compares to Witts.