On paper, a significant player.
However, when hes retired, as a person he is an ex sydney player, and shouldnt be part of the old boys network
I sense that with ablett to a bigger extent. Geelong offered him a lifetimes good fortune in geelong, he turned his back on that for $$$$
No doubt he will think he can return to geelong after and still tap int the other stuff. No way for mine, thats just greedy, as was Buddy Boots
I actually think Ablett will always be welcome in Geelong. They love him and I don't think they ever booed him. I believe they actually applauded him at his first game back at Simmonds.
The key difference being that he left for a new challenge that was helping build a new club from the ground up and proving he could be a great player in a poor side rather than people just assuming he was a great player because he was in a great side. He got the big bucks but I personally don't believe that was his main motivator. He's also quite a private guy by the sounds of things so playing in QLD was always going to help him stay under the radar. Geelong were also looked after in the compensation department. They probably should've got more than they did but they did a hell of a lot better than we did.
I think Buddy leaving could've been a lot more palatable for us if he left under the same circumstances. If he'd gone to GWS to help them build and shown he was still capable of the freakish without having Mitchell, Hodge, Lewis, Burgoyne, Rioli, etc kicking it directly onto his tit 15 times a game. If he'd gone to live in Homebush to escape the limelight instead of becoming a *gag* "celebrity" in Bondi playing for a fellow contender that offers him nothing significantly different to what he was capable of getting at Hawthorn other than extra $$$.
What he's done is the equivalent of if Ablett had up and left at the end of 2010 and instead of signing with Gold Coast he signed with Hawthorn. Then Geelong fans would boo him for certain.