Past Tom Mitchell - AFL MVP, Dual AA Rover, B&F Winner, 2018 Brownlow Medallist - traded for pick 14 2016

[Grand Uncle Horace]

jesus its not rocket science. He was regarded as a very good player but was rated as our fifth best midfielder in 2016 (Kennedy, parker hanners and jack) He may have been offered more $ than jack because they would have known jack was on his way.

We chose to pay mills and heeney $ to put them away on long term contracts.

Some here live in cloud cuckoo land that says we can and should have them all. Well you cant. If you wanted to keep mitchell in 2016 you needed to be prepared to lose a heeney or a mills or a parker or a hanners. And the 2016 version of these players - the ones which were all australians or rising star winners.

The criticism of tippett is ridiculous. Why not criticise naismith, johnson, reid, etc. They have all missed through injury. It is what it is. The club didnt stuff up with tippett. We got him for nix. Not a single player. We got buddy and then had to let go a series of players for better opportunities.

You people need to get a grip - it would be great to have mitchell but lose someone from 2016 instead.

Way ahead of KJ, even then. He also is a classic inside mid, second only to Kennedy in that specific role. Absolutely no surprise that given more opportunity that he would flourish as has.

 

[Grand Uncle Horace]

Likening Tippett to AJ and Naismith who both would have been on Twisties is ludicrous. I also doubt Reid would be on a wage that came within a bull's roar of Tippetts.

 

[The Gong]

jesus its not rocket science. He was regarded as a very good player but was rated as our fifth best midfielder in 2016 (Kennedy, parker hanners and jack) He may have been offered more $ than jack because they would have known jack was on his way.

We chose to pay mills and heeney $ to put them away on long term contracts.

Some here live in cloud cuckoo land that says we can and should have them all. Well you cant. If you wanted to keep mitchell in 2016 you needed to be prepared to lose a heeney or a mills or a parker or a hanners. And the 2016 version of these players - the ones which were all australians or rising star winners.

The criticism of tippett is ridiculous. Why not criticise naismith, johnson, reid, etc. They have all missed through injury. It is what it is. The club didnt stuff up with tippett. We got him for nix. Not a single player. We got buddy and then had to let go a series of players for better opportunities.

You people need to get a grip - it would be great to have mitchell but lose someone from 2016 instead.

I've said before that I didn't really have a problem with him leaving at the time but we're talking in hindsight now. Would you really have kept Jack over Mitchell? Sure the club wouldn't have known at the time that Jack and Hanners would fall off a cliff in regards to form so I don't fault them for choice at the time. We were flush with midfield options but you can would have to say now that having Mitchell in our side or not is the difference between being a genuine flag chance or not.

We've always been a monster contested ball side until we realised that JPK is actually human. Having Mitchell now would be invaluable. You're right. You can't have everyone but it's an interesting "what if?" discussion.

 

[drasticswans]

It was a bad mistake by the Swans in hindsight. They didnt rate him for a long time and he had to languish in reserves even when he was regularly getting 25+ disposals in Swans games. I think they never truly believed that his accumulation was contributing enough to the team. Albeit at the time he was a 30ish disposal player rather than 35+. At some point they underestimated his importance in winning clearances and extracting the ball.

If they had wanted to keep him, certainly decisions could have been made regarding a few other players futures. I think they were reluctant to let go of Jack or Hanners as being true bloods players. At the time Hanners was in peak form so couldnt even consider that. Jack however was already dropping off. They should have traded Jack and not Mitchell but thats only with the benefit of hindsight. Even as a fan though I thought Mitchell clearly had a brighter future than Jack.

I still think hes not an MVP level player as he still largely remains an accumulator and doesnt have the ball skills of some of the other top midfielders like Danger, or Cripps. People always get enamored with huge possession numbers. If you look at AFL player ratings hes not even top10.

We make mistakes but we have also gotten a few beauties. I mean JPK we got for even cheaper then what they got Mitchell for. So if we even those two trades out I'd say we came out on top. Plus even though it wasnt a trade...getting Buddy in free agency I'd say more that evens things out from what we've gotten from Hawthorn overall.

I wish the AFL had a franchise tag like in the NFL. It would be a great way for some teams to retain their talent for an extra year or two. Like Gold Coast with Tom Lynch.

 

[Tedeski]

People like going into places just to whinge

We must have a lot of people who walk into vegetarian restaurants to whinge there is no meat

If you don’t want to discuss him the gtfo out the thread and quit sooking

Only sooking here is from those whining he's not in the red & white any more.
What I did note last night in after winning is that at the Hawks he has upped the ante on his fitness which allows him to get to more contests.
So perhaps he may never have done that at the Swans. Also in hindsight, one wonders that if he had have stayed a Swan for two more years & had two such years with us, what would his market value be now, if he was switching teams for 2019.

I'd say he would be now worth a top 4 pick & would command as much as $1.2M. So assuming he signed at the Hawks for the 5 years reported & on 600-650K, as Dusty did with the Tigers, Mitchell could have really set himself up had he stayed another two years with us & put in the same hard work he has for the Hawks. He's probably going to earn up to $2M less in these next 3 to 4 years.

So I'm thinking we would have lost him anyway a few years later, such is the pressure other clubs would have put on him to leave us.
It's always great recognition by other players to win such an award. Well done to Tom. Brownlow's next.

 

[Grand Uncle Horace]

Titch was a renowned hard trainer from day one at our Club.

 

[Tedeski]

Titch was a renowned hard trainer from day one at our Club.

He said he's a harder trainer for Hawthorn last night then.

 

[Grand Uncle Horace]

He said he's a harder trainer for Hawthorn last night then.

Can remember our Club commenting on his training habits early on. I have no doubt Titch will continue to push himself.

 

[Jewelsbon]

There are many other threads where you can read and contribute.

If someone can point me to the "Ignore this thread" button so that it doesn't highlight everytime someone comes on here to fawn all over what couddabeen, then I'm all over it!

Titch was a renowned hard trainer from day one at our Club.

Serious question here and not having a go, can you actually produce anything that backs that up? I always thought that and his defensive pressure were our big knocks on him.

 

[Grand Uncle Horace]

If someone can point me to the "Ignore this thread" button so that it doesn't highlight everytime someone comes on here to fawn all over what couddabeen, then I'm all over it!


Serious question here and not having a go, can you actually produce anything that backs that up? I always thought that and his defensive pressure were our big knocks on him.

Jewels - Just from my memory of his first year and Club coverage of its players on the site and the meeja.

 

[Jewelsbon]

Jewels - Just from my memory of his first year and Club coverage of its players on the site and the meeja.

Yer I've got no idea either, my memory goes the other way. But rhen again, that could be clouded by my lack of enthusiasm for him as person (horrible to think that way but we are all guilty of it ).

 

[Tedeski]

One can only go on recent comments & I was interested to hear Tom say last night, that he really worked hard on his fitness at the Hawks these last two years & it has paid off on field, clearly.

 

[J_Moore]

Very good work with the thread title, sf51.

 

[Grand Uncle Horace]

Yer I've got no idea either, my memory goes the other way. But rhen again, that could be clouded by my lack of enthusiasm for him as person (horrible to think that way but we are all guilty of it ).

hahaha... Memory does play tricks but I am pretty sure his commitment was commented on by the Club, inc the period when he was injured in his first year. Oddlly enough I always liked him as a person from day 1 and nothing has changed in that regard since.

 

[MK38]

I can read.

It is easy

I mean what more do you want than widely reported and non refuted details?

You seriously arguing this

The reports of Horse's dealings with him after games? His repeated non selection?

I mean if you want video recordings with date stamps I have none but seriously?

I will watch with keen interest as you apply the same rigour and apply level of detail here you demand with every other single thing you discuss.

Don't want any double standards now do we?

All I am saying is no one really knows the exact details, we can hear things, we can assume but no one really knows what happened. But people always make out as if they do. If people have inside knowledge then fine. Who knows what he was like, who knows what he was actually demanding, maybe it was just extremely unreasonable. People are just blaming the club. People say things as truth but what do we really know. Make assumptions all you want but don't treat it as the truth when you don't know (apologies if you have inside knowledge and you do know).

Btw I am not quite sure what you are getting at with this, "I will watch with keen interest as you apply the same rigour and apply level of detail here you demand with every other single thing you discuss" - I have never implied I know something or treat a rumour as fact because I simply don't know. I can't argue something if I don't actually know the facts. Maybe it was all Horse's/club's fault we traded him - I don't know. That is my point most people don't know.

 

[caesar88]

Helps to be on a winning team in Victoria.

Lachie Neale had a similar season a year or two ago yet barely got a mention in the media.

 

[Tedeski]

Malcom Blight has an interesting point of view.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-08-31/the-most-overrated-award-in-the-world-blight

 

[RW]

Malcom Blight has an interesting point of view.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-08-31/the-most-overrated-award-in-the-world-blight

Interestingly, Mitchell didn't receive a vote when the coaches were asked who they thought the game's MVP was earlier this month:

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-08-02/who-is-the-games-mvp-coaches-have-their-say

 

[RW]

If someone can point me to the "Ignore this thread" button so that it doesn't highlight everytime someone comes on here to fawn all over what couddabeen, then I'm all over it!

The closest would be "unwatch thread" at the top of the page, so you won't get a notification every time someone replies to a thread.

Having said that, you still have the ability to choose which threads you read and post in.

 

[Tedeski]

Interestingly, Mitchell didn't receive a vote when the coaches were asked who they thought the game's MVP was earlier this month:

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-08-02/who-is-the-games-mvp-coaches-have-their-say

Mmmm!
I know we depend on Buddy a hell of a lot to win a game or two but I actually think that if the Hawks go into a game without Mitchell, it makes them extremely vulnerable as he is the main man in the middle. He will go down as the greatest ball winner ever.

 

[Jewelsbon]

The closest would be "unwatch thread" at the top of the page, so you won't get a notification every time someone replies to a thread.

Thanks RW, I've selected unwatch so hopefully I am now off this particular thread forever!

Having said that, you still have the ability to choose which threads you read and post in.

Yes very true, but I'm a bit obsessive with making sure all the threads are cleared and once I open it I always feel the need to read!

 

[kickthething]

Time to move on.....

 

[Jewelsbon]

Thanks RW, I've selected unwatch so hopefully I am now off this particular thread forever!


Yes very true, but I'm a bit obsessive with making sure all the threads are cleared and once I open it I always feel the need to read!

Didn't work still highlighting. This thread is going to haunt me....

 

[Opts]

Is this the thread where I can say "I told you so"?

I said at the time that we would be better to get rid of Hanners or Parker than to rid of Mitchell (and my posts at the time will show this). Players like Mitchell are so few and far between, even rarer if they're a father/son, and we handed him to Scumthorn on a platter.

Some will argue that Hanners and Parker were tied into contracts but the fact is that blind Freddie could see how good Mitchell would be 2-3 years before he was traded. We should have planned for that scenario.

 

[Opts]

Mmmm!
I know we depend on Buddy a hell of a lot to win a game or two but I actually think that if the Hawks go into a game without Mitchell, it makes them extremely vulnerable as he is the main man in the middle. He will go down as the greatest ball winner ever.

I liked your comment but I'm not happy about it.