I appreciate that opinion & fully understand that you could be 100% correct in it.
What I like to put forward here is that as a club, since Roos took over as coach, we have always been second to none at looking after our players should they move on. We go back to when Schneider was traded to the Saints along with Dempster who was pretty much the set of steak knives. Dempster has been a wonderful servant for the Saints & will go around again in 2016. He had run his race at the Swans but we made sure his career was extended, being a much loved p'ship player. At the time I too questioned why we pretty much gave him up for nothing but as we had no guarantee of senior footy for him, the best thing we could do was make sure he at least was looked after.
Now onto Bird! Quite clearly he had run his race with us as far as senior footy was concerned. In the end, Bird had to be happy that he would have the chance of playing regular senior footy going forward & I think that at Essendon he will get that. In terms of Bird's best footy we definitely got unders for him but in terms of recent form, I believe the best we could do was get him to a club that will utilise his strengths, enabling him to become a valuable member of that team for the next 5 or so years. Rather than attack the club, I prefer to embrace the fact they look after the person first, knowing full well that we had no place for him in the senior team going forward. No guarantees that he will become an integral part of the Bomber's midfield but that is not our problem going forward.
Bird was surplus to our needs & surely you would understand that the club would have first tried every avenue to get the best deal done for Bird but in the end, it was most likely a sweetener in building a good trading relationship with other parties long term. Swings & roundabouts!
But what do I know?
Ultimately the club achieved what THEY wanted to achieve & not what we the fans thought they should achieve.
18 team competition.
Finals in 17 years of the last 20 years!
5 grand finals!
2 premierships!
At least 8 prelim finals!
In that 20 years we have built a destination club.
We now have the best player welfare department in the land.
Yeah, yeah! That's all in the past I can hear some saying!
But my answer to that is that we have just landed two top 3 players in consecutive years after having played in a GF in one & finishing 4th while depleted by injury.
Really not too sure why so many of us demand perfection from the club & players 100% of the time, when we are far from perfect supporters of our club when things aren't going according to (our) plan.
Disclaimer:
Much of the above post is more than likely full of sh.t as I don't have the ability to state facts using hindsight.
All I really care about is............
........................GO BLOODS!
