Adelaide's decline

[PAFC_1870]

Would it have been possible to have given him a 3 year deal, with an option for a 4th and even a 5th. If so, this would have been the best way to go. Not sure you can do that in the AFL can you?

Surely a trigger clause could be had for atleast a year.

But yeah I don't think he would have signed it, I reckon St Kilda would have had a 3-4 year deal tabled and Crows had to trump it.

 

[ADL9798]

Surely a trigger clause could be had for atleast a year.

But yeah I don't think he would have signed it, I reckon St Kilda would have had a 3-4 year deal tabled and Crows had to trump it.

Spot on. Unrealistic to suggest we could’ve offered him 3 years and expected him to stay.

 

[Gavin Excell]

All I am guilty of is possibly misinterpreting the question in the first place. Oh the humanity.

The question was possibly meant as the current team the Crows have in the AFL. I probably meant it to mean if the Crows had a team in the SANFL as well as the AFL, as in previous years. This why I gave the answer I did. Please excuse my crime.




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You must be punished for these transgressions

 

[wagstaff]

In terms of where they can grab their first win, Hawthorn game in a couple of rounds probably their best shot.

Not only are Hawthorn struggling for form with no real finals prospects but the injuries to key senior players are piling up now; not just Sicily out for the year but O'Meara injured as well.

Apart from that, can't really see them challenging for a win. Don't think they can beat Carlton or GWS, let alone Richmond and Geelong.

 

[BronCrow]

You must be punished for these transgressions

I am already finding the finest legal counsel in the world to represent at The Hague.


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[1970crow]

In terms of where they can grab their first win, Hawthorn game in a couple of rounds probably their best shot.

Not only are Hawthorn struggling for form with no real finals prospects but the injuries to key senior players are piling up now; not just Sicily out for the year but O'Meara injured as well.

Apart from that, can't really see them challenging for a win. Don't think they can beat Carlton or GWS, let alone Richmond and Geelong.

There's a few people at that club who deserve a winless season their resume. I hope we deliver.

 

[HG Pennypacker]

There's a few people at that club who deserve a winless season their resume. I hope we deliver.

Agree in terms of it potentially shaming the club into action but there are a few like keays, doedee, talia who deserve at least one win.

1-16 should still be enough to cause a major cleanout ( I say in blind optimism rather than expectation)

 

[Schulzenfest]

Spot on. Unrealistic to suggest we could’ve offered him 3 years and expected him to stay.

That says a huge amount about your club and none of it is positive.

 

[garlic munchers]

Yep. I've said it before here and will say it again. It's not unlike the Bombers drug saga and it will cripple them until everyone that had anything to do with it is gone.

Fair bit of hyperbole on this thread.

West Coast anyone?

Afl Commission investigation 2009, 2010 wooden spoon, Caro and the VFL wanna be media mafia saying the place needed to be shuttered.

Well colour me purple, the hierarchy stayed put, apart from Judd who left earlier and a couple of players who were near retirement, all the players were still around. 2011 just missed out on GF and 2012 finalists again (anyone remember that Evil Empire pantsing of the Archer I would never send my kid to WC, shinboners). 2015 GF, 2018 Premiers.

Gee a week is a long time in football.

 

[The Casey Cat]

Fair bit of hyperbole on this thread.

West Coast anyone?

Afl Commission investigation 2009, 2010 wooden spoon, Caro and the VFL wanna be media mafia saying the place needed to be shuttered.

Well colour me purple, the hierarchy stayed put, apart from Judd who left earlier and a couple of players who were near retirement, all the players were still around. 2011 just missed out on GF and 2012 finalists again (anyone remember that Evil Empire pantsing of the Archer I would never send my kid to WC, shinboners). 2015 GF, 2018 Premiers.

Gee a week is a long time in football.

That's nice. That's WC. I didn't say it's beyond a club or it's admin to regroup and go forward from something like this. I wouldn't be saying it about Adelaide if it hadn't now been two and a half years since and they reach new levels of awful each week with admin totally deluded.

 

[ADL9798]

That says a huge amount about your club and none of it is positive.

It says at least one other club would’ve and probably did offer him significantly more than that.

The point was made that the Crows were stupid for offering him 5 years and should’ve only offered him 3. To suggest that and think that he would’ve stayed assumes that we were negotiating with him in a vacuum and that there wouldn’t have been other clubs offering significantly better terms than $800k x 3 years.

 

[Schulzenfest]

It says at least one other club would’ve and probably did offer him significantly more than that.

The point was made that the Crows were stupid for offering him 5 years and should’ve only offered him 3. To suggest that and think that he would’ve stayed assumes that we were negotiating with him in a vacuum and that there wouldn’t have been other clubs offering significantly better terms than $800k x 3 years.

So they should have let him leave then. But they couldn't, because they knew what it would look like losing Sloane after having only just lost Dangerfield among several other quality players. Your club got itself stuck in between a rock and a hard place due to its own shit culture and reputation.

BTW Travis Boak and Robbie Gray have never needed anything longer than a three year deal to agree to re-sign at Port Adelaide. Clubs with a positive culture can keep players for less than what they're being offered elsewhere. The idea that you can't keep your own players without matching or even beating interstate offers is only 'unrealistic' at the Crows.

 

[ADL9798]

So they should have let him leave then.

Agreed. Even without benefit of hindsight it was a very risky contract to offer.

BTW Travis Boak and Robbie Gray have never needed anything longer than a three year deal to agree to re-sign at Port Adelaide. Clubs with a positive culture can keep players for less than what they're being offered elsewhere. The idea that you can't keep your own players without matching or even beating interstate offers is only 'unrealistic' at the Crows.

Agree with this (Sloane himself rejected bigger offers back in 2015; Tex, Jenkins and others have all rejected more money to stay previously), and the prospect of success is also important, but only within reason.

An example:

• Melbourne and Carlton offered ~$800k/season for Lever and McGovern respectively. Reportedly our offers for those players were around the $500k mark, reflective of their position within our salary structure. Culture is important when you’ve got 2 offers in the same ballpark but you’re talking about well over $1m foregone over the life of the contract.
• I don’t blame them for leaving. If it was me, I would’ve been out the door in 2 seconds.
• If culture was the main driver for them leaving then I wouldn’t have thought it would have taken such an enormous salary to lure them over to Victoria.
• You say the Crows would have been smart to let Sloane walk and that it was a stupid contract to offer, so why would closing the gap to these 2 ridiculous offers be any different? What would making them among our top 3-4 earners have done for culture?

We’ve experienced this sort of scenario a few times over the last decade, as have GWS. My 2 cents - many factors at play but in particular, the combination of (a) our consistent success in recruiting and developing elite level talents in the late 00s/early 10s, coupled with (b) being an interstate club with limited access to off-field income sources, made us particularly vulnerable to salary cap squeeze and players receiving Godfather offers we had no hope of getting close to matching during that period. Tippett, Davis, Bock, McGovern, Lever and Cameron all fall in this basket.

On your point about Port Adelaide:

• Over the last decade you have had just as many players walk out the door as the Crows have, for the most part they just haven’t been particularly noteworthy players, so no-one cares. To be frank, for most of the last decade Port have been a pretty average side with very few players who would warrant that sort of strong interest and big money offers from interstate, making it relatively easy to keep the few stars you’ve had happy.
• Given the young talent Port currently have coming through I’m sure your players will start receiving these sorts of offers more frequently. It’ll be interesting to see how you manage it.

 

[iameviljez]

Apart from that, can't really see them challenging for a win. Don't think they can beat Carlton or GWS

Don't underestimate the power of playing at home to a "hub" team IMO.

 

[PAFC_1870]

On your point about Port Adelaide, over the last decade you have had just as many players walk out the door as the Crows have, for the most part they just haven’t been particularly noteworthy players, so no-one cares. To be frank, for most of the last decade Port have been a pretty average side with very few players who would warrant that sort of strong interest and big money offers from interstate, making it relatively easy to keep the few stars you’ve had happy.

Given the young talent Port currently have coming through I’m sure your players will start receiving these sorts of offers more frequently. It’ll be interesting to see how you manage it.

Not many players we genuinely wanted to keep... I can hardly think of any.

Wines, Boak and Gray as Victorian's all knocked back opportunities to leave. Amon another good example recently.

Wingard, Howard, Ryder and Polec for instance we pushed out.

 

[ADL9798]

Not many players we genuinely wanted to keep... I can hardly think of any.

I think that probably says a bit about the state of your list for most of the 2010s. We’re currently in a similar position. Very few players I’d feel particularly miffed about losing.

Wines, Boak and Gray as Victorian's all knocked back opportunities to leave. Amon another good example recently.

Wingard, Howard, Ryder and Polec for instance we pushed out.

And we could similarly point to Talia, Walker, Sloane, Lynch, Jenkins and the Crouch brothers as interstate players who significantly contributed to our flag tilt who chose to stay with the Crows.

 

[JHF1870]

Adelaide is behind North. When was the last time we said that?

 

[JHF1870]

Not many players we genuinely wanted to keep... I can hardly think of any.

Wines, Boak and Gray as Victorian's all knocked back opportunities to leave. Amon another good example recently.

Wingard, Howard, Ryder and Polec for instance we pushed out.

Not quite true. We tried to keep them, wanted to keep them but didn't yield to their demands. Looking back I think we've won on all of those although I'd love to see Howard still playing.

 

[PAFC_1870]

Not quite true. We tried to keep them, wanted to keep them but didn't yield to their demands. Looking back I think we've won on all of those although I'd love to see Howard still playing.

We wanted to keep Polec under our conditions

We pushed them out without it getting ugly.

Getting Georgiades for Howard is a deal everyone will do.

 

[iameviljez]

Not many players we genuinely wanted to keep... I can hardly think of any.

Wines, Boak and Gray as Victorian's all knocked back opportunities to leave. Amon another good example recently.

Wingard, Howard, Ryder and Polec for instance we pushed out.

While you certainly cleaned up at the trade table for Wingard, I have no doubt that in an ideal world you'd have kept Polec and Wingard. Every club loses the occasional player they'd like to keep, whatever, but I don't think Port can pretend that either was truly on Port's terms. That's especially true with Polec IMO.

 

[JHF1870]

We wanted to keep Polec under our conditions

We pushed them out without it getting ugly.

We won in the end

 

[PAFC_1870]

While you certainly cleaned up at the trade table for Wingard, I have no doubt that in an ideal world you'd have kept Polec and Wingard. Every club loses the occasional player they'd like to keep, whatever, but I don't think Port can pretend that either was truly on Port's terms. That's especially true with Polec IMO.

We clearly pushed them out.

We put up Wingard. We didn't yield to Polec.

We made a decision. No more flakey BS.

 

[iameviljez]

We clearly pushed them out.

We put up Wingard. We didn't yield to Polec.

We made a decision. No more flakey BS.

Simply saying that you didn't accede to Polec's contractual ask isn't the same as pushing him out. Pushing them out is basically akin to delisting a player and effectively saying that you don't want them any more.

I accept that Wingard's race had been run at Port Adelaide, but in much the same way that Motlop's time at Geelong had clearly come to an end, we didn't push him out but it was clearly best for all that player and club moved on.

On that note, I'm very sorry about Motlop.

 

[PAFC_1870]

but in much the same way that Motlop's time at Geelong had clearly come to an end, we didn't push him out but it was clearly best for all that player and club moved on.

Yeah but you can't compare this to Lever, Tippett, Cameron or Dangerfield who Adelaide desperately wanted to keep.

We could afford to keep Polec, we chose to not bother.

 

[iameviljez]

Yeah but you can't compare this to Lever, Tippett, Cameron or Dangerfield who Adelaide desperately wanted to keep.

We could afford to keep Polec, we chose to not bother.

No, there's no comparison there. I can't remember a player exodus like it - of highly established senior players, from an established club - since Fitzroy, to be honest.