List Mgmt. Weak Flog Jake Lever Requests Trade to Melbourne, Causes Player Revolt

Where will Jake Lever end up?


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Elite Crow

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Doing alright without Danger...

Look I'd rather keep them, but this talk of the club losing players hand over fist is silly. We have a top 10 mid and a premier CHB, both Victorian, both ignored major offers to commit long term. We have a young gun forward about to sign despite major pull from his home state.

We can't keep them all.
Let's see if we win the flag and if we don't whether a Danger would have helped
 

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Ouch .. that was brutal .. pretty sure my mum still likes me. Plenty of stories of hits and misses in trades. Be nice to see a bit more balance sometimes.
Nar your alright bob, even for a Collingwood supporter......but with the amount of quality that has left the club in recent times, to not have a top 10 pick in 10 years is unbelievable. This would never happen at your club or the bombers and a lot of others too
 

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot

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We've had some pretty big and costly misses though.

If Lever and Gov go in the one year when we are flying, on top of Danger 2 years ago, that's a disaster and sends a horrible message to the rest of the comp, "we develop them, you pay them and they will go"

We must play hard ball with any trade and make it a process that players thinking of leaving are scared to go through.
We had Dangerfield for 8 years. Plus he left because he wanted to be closer to his and his wife's parents as they were about to start a family. He didn't go to the highest bidder and I fully believe the Crows were willing to pay just as much as what Geelong paid him (if not more).
 

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot

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This is my biggest gripe. It's because we've been naive and let players get to the last year of their contracts. This needs to change so we maintain leverage.
How do you know we didn't offer them very sizeable contracts last year and they elected to hold off on re-signing and back themselves to get a better deal by playing good footy?
 

1970crow

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Are people missing the fact that Crows for the last 2 seasons has been asking him to play as a HFF/wingman with occasional run on ball. His fitness needs to improve so that he can do it for longer.

This picture that he will only be asked to play as a forward is not really a reflection of what he is being groomed for. His last few games at SANFL have been pretty good.

Must get fitter though. It takes a couple of pre-seasons to build up that tank to AFL midfield standard.
Could also be that to play as a forward pocket in the AFL you need to have the fitness of a high half forward/midfield stint player in the SANFL.
 

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot

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Maybe late first round? But not top 10.
If Lever was in this year's draft he would absolutely go top 10.

On top of that, he's already shown that he will be, at the very least, a good AFL player. With the draft there's still a chance the player may not develop. Lever has shown that he will.

He is absolutely worth a top 10 pick, and then some.
 

NikkiNoo

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How do you know we didn't offer them very sizeable contracts last year and they elected to hold off on re-signing and back themselves to get a better deal by playing good footy?
Precisely - we can't force someone to sign a contract. The players have all the power, the clubs have very limited power.
 
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Nar your alright bob, even for a Collingwood supporter......but with the amount of quality that has left the club in recent times, to not have a top 10 pick in 10 years is unbelievable. This would never happen at your club or the bombers and a lot of others too
Awwwww thanks. But I still have all my teeth. Things aren't always quite as good as they seem, things aren't always quite as bad either.
 

SellarStardom

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Maybe the club is fsr more savvy with regard to the potential of players leaving.

Gov - past drafts we haven't gone after a marking gorward nor via trade. Picked up Himmelberg and Dear but for different reasons

Lever - Kelly was no certainty so we went hard for Doedee. Relative unknown but great 1 on 1 and intercept marker. Think the club had a feeling Lever would go

Cameron - went and got Mez to replace the small forward role of Cameron. This was probably more insurance and a good player factor than fears of Cameron departing

Danger - can't be replaced, but Hampton was certainly brought in with an eye for taller mid to fill some if the void.

All up
Lever gone, Gov staying and Cameron 50/50
 

jo172

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Maybe the club is fsr more savvy with regard to the potential of players leaving.

Gov - past drafts we haven't gone after a marking gorward nor via trade. Picked up Himmelberg and Dear but for different reasons

Lever - Kelly was no certainty so we went hard for Doedee. Relative unknown but great 1 on 1 and intercept marker. Think the club had a feeling Lever would go

Cameron - went and got Mez to replace the small forward role of Cameron. This was probably more insurance and a good player factor than fears of Cameron departing

Danger - can't be replaced, but Hampton was certainly brought in with an eye for taller mid to fill some if the void.

All up
Lever gone, Gov staying and Cameron 50/50
This strikes me as optimistic, but I'm fairly certain Jenkins was brought in with the assumption Tippett wasn't going to be around for long
 

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feenix67

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But this isn't unusual. Any player who is half decent will receive big offers to switch clubs. We are not the only club where some players miraculously turn down large offers and resign against all odds.

However, most clubs tend to have more "miraculous resignings" than "godfather offer defections". There is no other club in the league that has lost talent like we have, with perhaps the exception of 20-top-10-draft-pick-GWS. It's these losses that are the unusual and concerning factor, not the retentions, which are standard fare.

Which is why the attitude of "shit happens" irritates me. It would make sense if players leaving clubs in droves was the norm, but it flat out isn't. The reality is shit happens, but only to the Adelaide Crows. This indicates to me that we are the outlier with a problem that needs resolving.

And even so, if shit really does happen, why is our strategy so abysmal at dealing with it? Why don't we use defections to our advantage and start gaining quality players with the cap and trade resources we should have?
The last paragraph I agree with. We have to accept our reality, that is we are forced to draft from a pool which is 70% Victorian, which has 10 clubs of which at least 2 will always be in a position to pay overs for Vic kids playing outside of Vic.

We need to tighten up how we handle our contracts, trade aggressively and be prepared to pay overs for top tier mature talent.
 

feenix67

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How do you know we didn't offer them very sizeable contracts last year and they elected to hold off on re-signing and back themselves to get a better deal by playing good footy?
We don't I guess, and the CBA would have complicated matters. But it's a moot point, because if that were the case, we should have put them up for trade whilst contracted.
 

LC40

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The first thing I would do is address the list and cap management. I'd get rid of unnecessary depth players, stop trading in unnecessary depth players, and stop giving inflated contracts to mediocre senior players. I'd also be much more rutheless about moving on guys who aren't good enough, even if they've played 150+ games. This would help free up salary cap space to either a) retain gun players; or b) trade in gun players from other teams. The goal here is to ensure we can compensate for the "Adelaide factor" which hurts both retention and acquisition. If we have to pay some local players less to achieve this, so be it.

I'd be much more aggressive at giving long term contracts to developing guns early on in their career. It didn't take long to realize Lever was a gun. I'd have signed him up to a 4-5 year deal after his first year, with performance clauses. Instead we gave him a 1-year extension. Teams like Sydney have given healthy extensions to players like Heeney and Mills before they can be tempted away by godfather offers. We should do the same.

Then I'd focus on the draft. We should be trading up (and only up) in the draft order to position ourselves such that if a gun SA youngster is available, we have the pick to acquire him. For example, if we believe Forgarty will be drafted around pick 7, we should attempt to trade up such that we have a pick in that range. If Fogarty is taken earlier, we still have a great pick to get an interstate player. If a player we rate 1 or 2 slides to 7, sure, grab them instead. But I'd prioritize our draft positioning around SA players within reason and trade up to get there.
Good post, it's obvious you've given this matter a lot of thought.

The Adelaide factor is real. I was listening to SEN a couple of weeks ago and Cam Mooney was asked if he ever received an offer from Adelaide.
He answered yes and said it was around $750,000 for three years.Good money back then.
They then then asked why he didn't take it and he said 'I didn't want to live in Adelaide.'
It is really hard to get a marquee player to come here especially if they're not from South Australia. I can't think of many non SA boys.

I agree, when you identify young talent sign them up quickly. Lever the perfect example but he's seems an exception.
The problem with that is that guys like Gunston weren't played enough. He was a obvious talent but as an administrator are you going to make the call and sign him up to a long deal without cementing a spot and going against the coaching staff's current assessment.
He also has to want to stay.

How many people here think the current crop of Gallucci, Poholke, Himmelberg, Signorello should be signed to long deals?
I would be happy with a couple of those names but list managers live and die on making the correct decision. tying up money is a risky business in their eyes.
Coaches aren't always right in their assessment either otherwise a player like Tom Lynch wouldn't be here in Adelaide.

The players themselves I'm guessing would be reluctant to sign for too long if they're not being played.

Let's not forget the player's manager. I'm positive Adelaide knew they had a talent in Lever but who knows if he was in Lever's ear and saying 'We'll test the market.' If that's the case they'll just wait and then it becomes a bidding war.

As for trading in depth players. The club is always under pressure to improve.
Tambling was a perfect example, many wanted him here as 'Adelaide's superior training methods would turn him into a better player.' His signing was looked at in a positive move.
Many called for Toumpos, Aish ,Watts and Vickery to be signed as these players were apparently massive up grades in what we now have.
(Or we could turn them into much better players than their existing clubs.) How many would actually say that now?

Seedsman was a big signing because he wanted to actually come and he was an injection of new talent to our list. He's a nice player who must be on good coin but is he only depth or better? Could that money be spent on Lever and McGovern. It's a risk.
The trouble with not signing these types of players is that you miss out on the ones that are effective and do improve the team such as Tom Lynch and yes ...Josh Jenkins.

The draft is an obvious way of upgrading but our continued high performance never gives us low enough picks to trade up.
Opposition teams only want star players but we want to keep them if we can.
If a team knows a player wants to leave then our hands are somewhat tied as to the demands we can ask ala Dangerfield.
Now players actually nominate the clubs they want to go too and that complicates matters further as to what they have to trade back to us.

Some adjustments need to be negotiated to address this imbalance but as the interstate clubs appear to be on the losing percentage of these dealings I don't like our chances with the Vic clubs.

I'm not trying to be a killjoy Scorpus as your post is well thought out and actually has a considered solution.
Adelaide seems to have a particular strategy with dealing with player contracts and unless changes are made at the top level in the AFL to address some of inadequacies of the system I can't see us changing.

PS I do agree on getting in crap depth players...something to be said for organic growth.
 

icrow32

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I don't see losing them as a disaster. But do agree that we are a target due to the quality of players we develop. It is an unfortunate compliment.

Agree 100% that we need to extract top value for these guys if they go.

Personally I feel we were not strong enough with Danger. Yes we got better tha the compo pick. And yes we got good value in being abke to get Milera.

But the rest if the trade was poor. Gore was never going to be an AFL player.

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The jury is still well and truly out on Milera, it's the end of year 2 and he is plodding around in the SANFL, huge concerns over a top 10 pick considering he was the only thing of worth out of the dangerfield trade.
 

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The jury is still well and truly out on Milera, it's the end of year 2 and he is plodding around in the SANFL, huge concerns over a top 10 pick considering he was the only thing of worth out of the dangerfield trade.
I agree with this 100%

Milera is not done anything yet to even show why he was a top 10 pick (before academy picks).

There's some absolutely massive question marks over him at the moment.
 

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot

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It's semantics because if you take the academy player bids out of the equation he's not.
It isn't semantics because academy players are able to be bid on by any team. If Sydney or GWS chose not to match the bid for those players then the other club would be able to take that player (same goes for father-son picks).
 

feenix67

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Precisely - we can't force someone to sign a contract. The players have all the power, the clubs have very limited power.
True, but this line of "we back the clubs culture" blah blah blah is naive. Players (and Managers) aren't stupid and they know that they hold the power in the last year of their contract, so they hold off. Problem is, even if they were planning to stay, all of a sudden the manager starts fielding all these massive offers and it gets the player thinking. I reckon this is what has happened with Jake.

When players arrive, they should be told "this is how we do things and this is why". Pay appropriately, but be prepared to lose a few for whom money is more important. Couple this with aggressive trading and the acceptance of paying overs to attract a couple of big names, and you have a viable strategy. As it stands, we're always forced to go to the draft and hope, and back in our recruiters to find good second string players to bolster depth.
 

Jarman3

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I agree with this 100%

Milera is not done anything yet to even show why he was a top 10 pick (before academy picks).

There's some absolutely massive question marks over him at the moment.
Agree on the concerns around Milera (as I have stated numerous times in previous posts), but he's also only 19 and in his second year. I'm optimistic on his longer term outlook - next year, another year older with another preseason under his belt, we should expect some serious improvement. If we don't see that by this time next year, then alarm bells will be ringing very loudly indeed.
 

Big Gazoongas

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This is an irrelevant question. No club has to directly match competing offers, they only have to get close enough. If an $850k offer was "getting close enough" then Lever would be receiving offers in the $1m+ range. If that was the case, I wouldn't do it.

But if Lever receiving an $850k offer from another club means $700-750k is close enough, I think we should at least have the ability to match that. I think his fair value is in the $600k range. Looking at our list profile, I'd happily drop a depth player like Hampton or Mackay if it meant freeing up the extra $100k p/a that would see the deal get done.
So we've confirmed you wouldn't pay him $850 per year. You carried on about players receiving big money or godfather offers and have subsequent left as a fail from the club.

You've also mentioned above that we dont have to match we just need to get close, that may be what you personally think but more likely that isnt reality.

Here is my question, if Lever came to you and said he wants $850k to stay, he won't accept anything less, its $850 or goodbye, and you weren't prepared to pay that amount of coin how would you keep him here?
 

feenix67

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So we've confirmed you wouldn't pay him $850 per year. You carried on about players receiving big money or godfather offers and have subsequent left as a fail from the club.

You've also mentioned above that we dont have to match we just need to get close, that may be what you personally think but more likely that isnt reality.

Here is my question, if Lever came to you and said he wants $850k to stay, he won't accept anything less, its $850 or goodbye, and you weren't prepared to pay that amount of coin how would you keep him here?
Bingo
 

deaneus

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Agree on the concerns around Milera (as I have stated numerous times in previous posts), but he's also only 19 and in his second year. I'm optimistic on his longer term outlook - next year, another year older with another preseason under his belt, we should expect some serious improvement. If we don't see that by this time next year, then alarm bells will be ringing very loudly indeed.
He's 19
He's an outside mid, so he's slight
His disposal efficiency is fantastic

His only problems are
- not fit enough to make enough ground yet
- doesn't get enough possessions

Once he's fitter, he'll get the ball more. I don't think there's any problem here ATM.
 
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