We have the leverage of sending him into the draft. If he gets to his destination, good luck to him, but I have serious doubts he would. I would rather the club take this stand than trade him for a pick in the 20s personally. Time to make a stand as a club. We always hear about how ruthless the AFL is as a competition, well it's time we became ruthless ourselves. No more gifting of players to opposition clubs. It's easy to play nice guys when your winning flags, but we ain't anymore, and need to get ruthless if we want to win one again.
If we want to retain Lonners we inform the Bulldogs and Tom we will not indulge their request. Simple. I don't get this idea that we somehow owe Lonners and can't stand in his way. Risk attached to contracting can't be entirely one way. If Lonners went down with an ACL last season, he would definitely be holding Geelong to its contract. It's been a mutually beneficial relationship, and neither party owes each other anything but respect for the terms of mutually agreed deals.