Opinion Non-Crows AFL 4: The Centre Cannot Hold

[GROTTO]

Richmond lost their 2nd tier, because they pay their top line players more than we have.

Ellis, Townsend, Chol, CCJ, Markov, Miles, Ellis, Butler...they also had a really good "team", and I'd say each of their role players is good in that environment, rather than being a star player another club may want to attract.

Interestingly, the Hawks during their premiership run, came up with that BS of getting players to sacrifice dollars to win another flag.

It worked well, as many of their stars and those that they also brought to the Club came in at less than what they could have got elsewhere.

 

[AFC979810]

Because he'd done SFA to that point in his career, and matching Melbourne would have made him the highest paid player on our entire list - at 20 years of age.

Right. Why invest in young players you have drafted in the first round and have put 3 years of development into.

It worked out with Gunston leaving right.

But I guess you are right. Imagine how bad it could have become if we kept him. We could have won the wooden spoon for the first time!

 

[AFC979810]

I think the player retention has a bit to do with how good we have been at selecting players late in the draft.

Players like Gunston, Cameron, Keath, Greenwood, McGovern, Lyons, Tippett in fact almost everyone but Lever and Dangerfield were drafted late. This means they probably aren't at that high end of salaries and most left before their prime, going to bigger offers based on potential (Cameron, Gunston, McGovern, Lyons, Lever), rather than what they had delivered at that point in their career.

So we have drafted and developed well, but we have had a socialist salary cap policy, so those top end players can get a lot more at other clubs, but the bottom end are paid more highly (we didn't lose many on the list who weren't best 25 - look how long CEY, Brodie Martin, etc hung around) looking for more opportunities.

This policy also means we aren't attracting new players to the club. Why would Dixon / Rockliff / Polec / Ryder / Lycett come to us on $500k when he can get $800k down the road?

We've now changed this policy, so attracting players is going to be easier (e.g. Dawson we outbid Port), we just have to trust our recruiting staff pick the right ones to pay up for.

This is all great and logical. Except for the point that whilst this was all going on we had multi million dollar offers confirmed for Jeremy Cameron and for Dustin Martin.

We have always had the cap flexibility and room as all the other clubs. We have just had a shit culture that resulted in very few players wanting to come and many players wanting to leave.

Its why from the moment Nicks came in - every single thing about the club was happy. Nicks wasn't brought in to rebuild us and lead us back up the ladder. He was specifically targeted to bring in a fun atmosphere and make us a footy club that players didn't try and leave the moment they were drafted.

 

[Vader]

Right. Why invest in young players you have drafted in the first round and have put 3 years of development into.

It worked out with Gunston leaving right.

But I guess you are right. Imagine how bad it could have become if we kept him. We could have won the wooden spoon for the first time!

You don't make a 3rd year player the highest paid player on your entire list. That's beyond stupid.

 

[AFC979810]

You don't make a 3rd year player the highest paid player on your entire list. That's beyond stupid.

If we made that stupid decision after 2017 - what's the worst thing that happens over the next 3 years? We have a mass exodus and end up winning the spoon and become the laughing stock of the AFL with talk of being the first team to have a winless season.

Wow - glad we showed em how we aint stupid!

 

[Geoffa32]

Ken Hinkley says hello.

Fingers crossed he gets another contract extension before the finals.

A great result would be them winning every game during the Home and Away season, apart from the two Showdowns.

Ken signs on for five more years on the back of that. Announced in the gap week between round 23 and week one Finals.

And Geelong to not make Finals....

On SM-A325F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Vader]

If we made that stupid decision after 2017 - what's the worst thing that happens over the next 3 years? We have a mass exodus and end up winning the spoon and become the laughing stock of the AFL with talk of being the first team to have a winless season.

Wow - glad we showed em how we aint stupid!

Do you really think things would have turned out differently if we'd forked out $800K per year and kept Lever on the list? Surely you're not stupid enough to think that Lever staying or going has made any material difference?

 

[relapse]

He wasn't really wrong about us in 2021. We were rather rubbish.

We finished bottom four and 2 of our 7 wins came in the last month of the season against 2 teams (Hawks/North) that were actively tanking to get better draft picks.

He is a click bait journalist and a crappy fireman. But he is also smart in playing the numbers. Apart from blind optimism and the hope we can be the one suprise packet of 2022 - there aren't a lot of signs pointing to a rise up the ladder.

And look - I understand the optimism in Preseason. Its easy to get excited about Schoenberg, Sholl, Jones, Mchenry. I get it. We all love the AFC.

But every bottom 4 club has exciting youngsters coming through. sh*t - tell me you wouldn't be excited about Norths talent. Stephenson (pick 6), Zurharr, Larkey, Davies Uniakey (pick 4), Tarryn Thomas (pick 8), McKay (pick 21) are all under 24 years of age and have 35 - 75 games. Add in the #1 pick and Will Phillips and that's probably better than what we have on paper.

I completely disagree, Kane was dead wrong about us last year.

Last year we won 7 games, lost 3 games by less than a goal and lost another 2 games by less than 2 goals.

We were markedly better last year than we were in 2020, it's chalk and cheese to even compare them.

His call that the Crows will finish last will be just as big of an epic fail as his call in 2021 that it was the worst Crows team in history, even the Vic media were laughing at him over how much of a bad ball it was.

 

[AFC979810]

Richmond lost their 2nd tier, because they pay their top line players more than we have.

Ellis, Townsend, Chol, CCJ, Markov, Miles, Ellis, Butler...they also had a really good "team", and I'd say each of their role players is good in that environment, rather than being a star player another club may want to attract.

Richmond kept their core of 14 players who won 3 flags. 8 players won 2 flags.

What 2nd tier did they lose? They managed to keep their stars Martin, Cotchin, Riewoldt. Whilst also bringing in Lynch and keeping their mid tier 3 time premiership players.

How could they do it, but we lost all our players because of "money".

Spoiler alert - for the millionth time. We lost 90% of our players because of our environment, not because of money.

 

[Vader]

Richmond kept their core of 14 players who won 3 flags. 8 players won 2 flags.

What 2nd tier did they lose? They managed to keep their stars Martin, Cotchin, Riewoldt. Whilst also bringing in Lynch and keeping their mid tier 3 time premiership players.

How could they do it, but we lost all our players because of "money".

Spoiler alert - for the millionth time. We lost 90% of our players because of our environment, not because of money.

We lost Lever, Cameron & McNuggets because of money - first, last, and every reason in between.

As for the rest of them - who cares? They were pushed out as a result of the decision to go with the ground-up rebuild.

 

[ringo200]

Because he'd done SFA to that point in his career, and matching Melbourne would have made him the highest paid player on our entire list - at 20 years of age.

I mean it worked out OK for Melbourne

 

[AFC979810]

We lost Lever, Cameron & McNuggets because of money - first, last, and every reason in between.

As for the rest of them - who cares? They were pushed out as a result of the decision to go with the ground-up rebuild.

Why though? Its the easy excuse. This isn't MLB. There is a salary cap, it isn't richest owner gets the best players.

In my mind there are two possibilities.

1. We had a shit culture that led players to leave in droves.
2. We couldn't manage the salary cap to save our lives and players left in droves.

There are no other options.

And your statement - who cares? We all should bloody care. Our club planned for and was on the verge of a dynasty. Then we F*cked it all up and ended up with our first spoon in our clubs history.

 

[AFC979810]

By not over-paying mid-tier players and min-maxing the list. Stars + depth and not much between

Wrong 14 players won 3 flags. 8 players won 2 flags. Thats a core group sticking together over a 4 year period.

 

[Punchy Bassett]

Kane says "Where are the goals coming from for the Crows" in the same week Ben King

34

Ben King

Age

25

Ht

202cm

Wt

98kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

7.2

2star

K

5.0

2star

HB

2.2

2star

M

3.5

4star

T

0.5

3star

G

1.3

5star

D

7.5

2star

K

5.6

2star

HB

1.9

1star

M

3.6

4star

T

0.3

1star

G

1.5

5star

D

6.8

2star

K

4.4

2star

HB

2.4

3star

M

3.2

4star

T

0.2

3star

G

1.0

4star

goes down for the Suns.......

 

[Vader]

Why though? Its the easy excuse. This isn't MLB. There is a salary cap, it isn't richest owner gets the best players.

In my mind there are two possibilities.

1. We had a sh*t culture that led players to leave in droves.
2. We couldn't manage the salary cap to save our lives and players left in droves.

There are no other options.

And your statement - who cares? We all should bloody care. Our club planned for and was on the verge of a dynasty. Then we F*cked it all up and ended up with our first spoon in our clubs history.

Cameron, Lever & McNuggets are all relevant. They all left before the rebuild started, so it's relevant to ask whether or not the rebuild would have been necessary if they hadn't left - and whether or not the club was right to let them go (or whether they should have succumbed to extortion)?

The others aren't, as they were all pushed out AFTER the decision to opt for the ground-up rebuild.

Lever's departure was covered by Doedee. Sure, we may have replaced an 8/10 player with a 7/10 player, but the impact of losing Lever was minimal.

Cameron is the one whose departure really hurt us. His manic defensive pressure is something we just haven't been able to replace, not to mention the way he's taken his game to a whole new level after moving to Brisbane. In going from Cameron to Murphy we went from a 6/10 player (who became a 9/10), to a 3/10 player - a big loss.

But would keeping Cameron have been the difference between us needing to rebuild or not? One player just doesn't make that much difference, in a team of 22.

 

[Thetrader15]

Why though? Its the easy excuse. This isn't MLB. There is a salary cap, it isn't richest owner gets the best players.

In my mind there are two possibilities.

1. We had a sh*t culture that led players to leave in droves.
2. We couldn't manage the salary cap to save our lives and players left in droves.

There are no other options.

And your statement - who cares? We all should bloody care. Our club planned for and was on the verge of a dynasty. Then we F*cked it all up and ended up with our first spoon in our clubs history.

Couldn't manage the salary cap....Are you paying McGovern 750k for a 4 or 5 year deal? Are you giving Cameron north of 700k, Keath 600k, Lever 850k, Greenwood 500k, Atkins $450, Jenkins $500, Sloane, Tex $900....as you said, there's a cap, something's got to give!

 

[Thetrader15]

Cameron, Lever & McNuggets are all relevant. They all left before the rebuild started, so it's relevant to ask whether or not the rebuild would have been necessary if they hadn't left - and whether or not the club was right to let them go (or whether they should have succumbed to extortion)?

The others aren't, as they were all pushed out AFTER the decision to opt for the ground-up rebuild.

And in all cases, I think the right decisions were made. Yes Cameron would have been great to keep in hindsight, but where our cap was at and what he had produced to date, it was a difficult argument to say we pay him almost double what he was allegedly on.

 

[BRL121]

McNuggets didn't hurt us - if anything, we've gained as a result of his departure.
Doedee was more than adequate as a Lever replacement.
Cameron hurt, big time.

The rest of them left after the rebuild decision was made, so they're irrelevant to this discussion.

Given what Melbourne paid Lever, we would have been batshit insane to even contemplate matching it.

Even though he was only worth pick 19 at the most?

 

[AFC979810]

Couldn't manage the salary cap....Are you paying McGovern 750k for a 4 or 5 year deal? Are you giving Cameron north of 700k, Keath 600k, Lever 850k, Greenwood 500k, Atkins $450, Jenkins $500, Sloane, Tex $900....as you said, there's a cap, something's got to give!

Good point. Can you imagine trying to keep all those good players. No team in history can keep good players.

Its not like Richmond kept a team good enough to win 3/4 flags.

Or Hawthorn winning 3/4 flags.

Or Geelong winning 3/5 flags and then making the finals the 9/10 seasons after that.

Or the Bulldogs winning in 2016 and then keeping all their players and being able to retool and challenge for the 2021 flag.

Its almost as though you need a culture and need to make the footy club a place where players don't want to leave and use money as an excuse. Nah can't be that. Damn mercenaries!

 

[AFC979810]

And in all cases, I think the right decisions were made. Yes Cameron would have been great to keep in hindsight, but where our cap was at and what he had produced to date, it was a difficult argument to say we pay him almost double what he was allegedly on.

If only we had the same salary cap as all the other teams!

 

[GROTTO]

If only we had the same salary cap as all the other teams!

And the same commercial advantages of Victorian teams.

 

[MRB37]

And the same commercial advantages of Victorian teams.

I remember them saying when we offered Dustin Martin that huge deal that he could take $2 million less overall from Richmond, but make more money overall by staying in Victoria.

 

[AFC979810]

And the same commercial advantages of Victorian teams.

Oh good god. Its you again. Thought we had a gentleman's agreement to avoid each other. I tried blocking you, but your 60,000+ posts of fluff hijacked every damn conversation.

Well did we lose Cameron to the commercial advantages of a Victorian team?

Did Dangerfield go because he was more marketable in Moggs than Adelaide? I am sure Gunston knew he was gonna be the face of Hawthorn in 2013 as soon as Mitchell, Hodge, Burgoyne, Franklin, Roughead, Gibson, Rioli all left.

Ya think Keath went to the Bulldogs because of all the advertising. Same as Betts when he returned to Carlton? Hartigan, Crouch, Greenwood all knew the commercial advantages were there.

Why has nobody abandoned Port? How the hell did they keep Boak? How did the keep Gray? How did the avoid losing Wines / Amon to Victorian interests?

 

[GROTTO]

I remember them saying when we offered Dustin Martin that huge deal that he could take $2 million less overall from Richmond, but make more money overall by staying in Victoria.

Same with Dangerfield as well.

We all know how Geelong works.

 

[AFC979810]

But would keeping Cameron have been the difference between us needing to rebuild or not? One player just doesn't make that much difference, in a team of 22.

If we had kept Danger and Lever and Crouch and Keath and Hartigan and Atkins and Betts and Greenwood and all the others. Then Cameron might not have been the difference.

Its easy to dismiss it when its one player. But it gets harder when its 11 of 22 from a grand final side that want to continue their career at other afl clubs.