I think we are all playing a little bit of blind mans , pin the tail on the donkey , it has never been matched but...
Adelaide has to have room in their cap before any ability to match the offer is legal. If the do match...it comes back to a normal trade situation , except if deal can not be done the player has a deal. So ..any pretend match could be quite dangerous , if they match not really wanting to pay that but commit to it... my guess is the trade would suddenly been worth less than a normal trade.
But for this reason , my guess is Geelong will offer a 2 year deal on a huge amount. If they keep him for the next two years on huge money , they then face two years of Unrestricted FA speculation. After last year and this year , the may not be that keen on it. Yes if they matched they may get more than the comp but I doubt it will be the same as if they had traded him this year.
I can't see him moving for just a 2-year contract.
I think Geelong would also want him tied up for longer than that.
I would expect to see any agreement to be on the basis of 4 or 5 years.
That's where the salary cap "averaging" provisions may give us an advantage - while in the short term we will have had to cover Duncan/Hawkins/Motlop to their Sloan/Walker, over 2015-16 we will be losing quite a few relatively highly-paid older players from our salary cap.
Whatever,
- whoever gets him is going to have to pay "overs" outside their usual pay structures,
- we will be outbid by at least some Melbourne clubs,
- he will need to really want to come to Geelong,
- he will need to be able to "convince" himself that we have prospects equal to or better than other suitors over the rest of his prospective career.