Confirmed Bailey Smith: 4-way trade: B. Smith (WB) & pick 45 to Geel / pick 38 to Carl / Macrae (WB) to StK / pick 17 & Kennedy (Carl) to WB

Remove this Banner Ad

Right, so Geelong fans want to pick and choose the fact that players have complete freedom of movement, but not pick and choose the parts that give clubs more generous rules for retaining the talent that they correctly identify and develop through the draft.

I wonder why that is.
It's not always about which club you support.

I remember a time when nobody wanted to come to Geelong and it was a bit of a joke. Don't get me wrong, if we bottom out, we'll be right back there again.

IMO if Top 20 picks get four years, and Top 40 picks get three, it'll at least put some curtailment on player movement. However, the idea that a person in their mid twenties who is out of contract cannot freely choose their own employer is a bit ridiculous IMO.
 
because there's precendent in the EU, it utterly changed how contracts work in professional sporting leagues including soccer, basketball, ice hocket and more.
I'm a big soccer fan, I'm aware of it. However, the Bosman rule has been around for a long time and yet it hasn't done the business here.
 

Log in to remove this ad.

Right, so Geelong fans want to pick and choose the fact that players have complete freedom of movement, but not pick and choose the parts that give clubs more generous rules for retaining the talent that they correctly identify and develop through the draft.

I wonder why that is.
Stop generalising, *some Geelong fans.
 
It's not always about which club you support.

I remember a time when nobody wanted to come to Geelong and it was a bit of a joke. Don't get me wrong, if we bottom out, we'll be right back there again.

IMO if Top 20 picks get four years, and Top 40 picks get three, it'll at least put some curtailment on player movement. However, the idea that a person in their mid twenties who is out of contract cannot freely choose their own employer is a bit ridiculous IMO.
But over the long run, generationally, with complete freedom, more players should be expected to want to play for Geelong than to play for the Dogs, which in a league where all clubs have an equal stake in, and through their ability to recruit players and develop them and put them on the park should be equal, that remains unfair. I don't really care that there have been periods of time that Geelong haven't been able to recruit players - that has basically been the case for the Bulldogs since literally 1925.

You don't see Geelong willingly share around their Easter Monday fixture, for example, which is why Dogs take issue with Geelong fans insisting on complete and utter freedom - because without restrictions and benefits to the Dogs identifying and developing talent, we'd always lose out to the clubs that get to play blockbuster fixtures, a representation of being a bigger club. Then you extend that out to the supporters and view of the "big clubs" that they're happy to have the Dogs in the league, but only to beat down on, and they don't really want the Dogs to be able to threaten their dominance of being a big club and prevent them from winning flags.
 
It's not always about which club you support.

I remember a time when nobody wanted to come to Geelong and it was a bit of a joke. Don't get me wrong, if we bottom out, we'll be right back there again.

IMO if Top 20 picks get four years, and Top 40 picks get three, it'll at least put some curtailment on player movement. However, the idea that a person in their mid twenties who is out of contract cannot freely choose their own employer is a bit ridiculous IMO.

So you hated the way Geelong screwed over West Coast when Kelly wanted to go back to WA for family/medical reasons ?
 
But over the long run, generationally, with complete freedom, more players should be expected to want to play for Geelong than to play for the Dogs, which in a league where all clubs have an equal stake in
The small Melbourne based clubs would absolutely be the losers as trading becomes more liberated, no doubt - the Dogs, StKilda and North chief among them. The expansion clubs wouldn't do well, either.

The major winners would be the biggest clubs in each state - Collingwood, West Coast, Brisbane, Sydney, etc. Geelong, I suspect, would be pretty neutral once they stop consistently winning.

I don't like the inequality either, but I also think it's unreasonable to hold uncontracted players to a club they no longer have an agreement with.
 
So you hated the way Geelong screwed over West Coast when Kelly wanted to go back to WA for family/medical reasons ?
Look, I think it was ridiculous that we could extort that kind of price out of West Coast. But you play with the rules you're given, and you only get one Alan Bond in your life...

What West Coast should have done, IMO, was trade into the Top 10 using their p14 and First Round pick, then stared Geelong down with the threat of the draft.
 
Look, I think it was ridiculous that we could extort that kind of price out of West Coast. But you play with the rules you're given, and you only get one Alan Bond in your life...

What West Coast should have done, IMO, was trade into the Top 10 using their p14 and First Round pick, then stared Geelong down with the threat of the draft.

I suspect that is what happens next time WCE and Geelong talk.

I think you missed the line ‘who is out of contract’. Nice argument

Kelly was out of contract. Geelong still made WCE pay massive overs.
 
I suspect that is what happens next time WCE and Geelong talk.
Probably. But I suspect it's also what's going to happen next time WCE negotiates for anyone who is out of contract.

West Coast agreed to pay a stupid price for a player who was out of contract. I don't see how that's Geelong's fault, any more than it's Fremantle's fault that Gold Coast were stupid enough to pony up p2 for Lachie Weller, or Brisbane and Collingwood's faults that they consistently got the other to overpay for Dayne Beams.
 
But over the long run, generationally, with complete freedom, more players should be expected to want to play for Geelong than to play for the Dogs, which in a league where all clubs have an equal stake in, and through their ability to recruit players and develop them and put them on the park should be equal, that remains unfair. I don't really care that there have been periods of time that Geelong haven't been able to recruit players - that has basically been the case for the Bulldogs since literally 1925.

You don't see Geelong willingly share around their Easter Monday fixture, for example, which is why Dogs take issue with Geelong fans insisting on complete and utter freedom - because without restrictions and benefits to the Dogs identifying and developing talent, we'd always lose out to the clubs that get to play blockbuster fixtures, a representation of being a bigger club. Then you extend that out to the supporters and view of the "big clubs" that they're happy to have the Dogs in the league, but only to beat down on, and they don't really want the Dogs to be able to threaten their dominance of being a big club and prevent them from winning flags.
If we're talking about "unfair", At least you get home finals. The Cats would gladly give up the Easter Monday fixture for a home final. And the fixtures are up to the AFL anyway, which we didn't really have many blockbusters this year.

And the thing is Geelong have had to rebuild on the run because unlike some other clubs we uncompromisingly try and compete every year.
We don't receive the same amount of high draft picks as the Bulldogs, which A. makes it very hard to trade and B. means we need to find players using high picks and C. we can't afford to pay overs for players.

But it is an attractive club to play for because the players who join know they will be playing finals most years and be in a positive fairly relaxed country Victoria environment.

You look at the amount of top 10 picks in the Bulldogs list, I wouldn't be complaining too much. There's so many the recruitment team have probably forgotten how to use a pick above ten.
 
Last edited:

(Log in to remove this ad.)

If we're talking about "unfair", At least you get home finals. The Cats would gladly give up the Easter Monday fixture for a home final (if it is even their decision).

And the thing is Geelong have had to rebuild on the run because we unlike some other clubs uncompromisingly try and compete every year.
We don't receive the same amount of high draft picks as the Bulldogs, which A. makes it very hard to trade and B. means we need to find players using high picks.
You look at the amount of top 10 picks in the Bulldogs list, I wouldn't be complaining too much. There's so many the recruitment team have probably forgotten how to use a pick above ten.
Is our home ground at the MCG, is it?
 
If we're talking about "unfair", At least you get home finals. The Cats would gladly give up the Easter Monday fixture for a home final (if it is even their decision).

And the thing is Geelong have had to rebuild on the run because we unlike some other clubs uncompromisingly try and compete every year.
We haven't received the same amount of high draft picks as the Bulldogs, which A. makes it very hard to trade and B. means we need to find players using high picks.
You look at the amount of top 10 picks in the Bulldogs list, I wouldn't be complaining too much. There's so many the recruitment team have forgotten how to use a pick above ten.
I'm just using Easter Monday as a "for instance".

Everyone agrees that the draft exists because without it there wouldn't be enough competitive balance, both in the sense of general fairness of everyone having an equal stake in the league and therefore have a claim to a roughly equal chance to winning the league in the long run, but also, generally, just for the benefit of overall interest in the league and having an engaged base of fans for its various teams.

This is on top of a salary cap btw because salaries don't alone work as pure equalisation - players consistently prefer to play for bigger clubs for a smaller salary.

The fact that you try and compete is not really an argument either, considering teams that actively bottom out make it easier for you to win a flag. Tanking teams increase the chance that a "competing" team wins a flag.

I'm not really sure about the better draft picks is really an argument. The draft picks look to equalise the past into the future. Teams that have 20 players tear an ACL in a single season and finish bottom in a season still get a good draft pick for that season, even if they are expected to have those players return for the following year - equalisation works to make it more likely for that team to win the flag in the future for recognition of the fact that the injuries prevented them from winning the flag in the past year, even if they were already expected to win the flag in the future, because of the returning players from injury. Collingwood got Dale Thomas and Scott Pendlebury in 2005 (priority picks aside) in recognition of the fact that their 2005 was so woeful that they were considered so far away from winning the flag, not in some vague sense of their likelihood of winning the flag in the past or future outside of that 2005 season.

The Dogs have a large amount of top 10 picks simply because we haven't had a large amount of success relative to Geelong in the past decade or two. As such, it is fine for us to have more top 10 picks on our list heading forward, therefore having more chance of success - becuase we ultimately had less success in the past.

Even if we were to win the 2025 flag and the 2026 flag, and the 2027 flag, that is still fewer flags than Geelong have won in the 21s century. That's the point.
 
Is the pretentious one (Mackie) still attempting to fleece the Dogs? My gut instinct tells me he’ll eventually fold & add a 2nd Rounder to the mix. Smith’s probably already got a Cats Locker with his name on it.
 
And the thing is Geelong have had CHOSEN to rebuild on the run because unlike some other clubs we uncompromisingly try and compete every year.
We don't receive the same amount of high draft picks as the Bulldogs, which A. makes it very hard to trade BECAUSE OF THE CHOICES THE CLUB MAKES and B. means we need to find players using high picks BECAUSE OF THE CHOICES THE CLUB MAKES and C. we can't afford to pay overs for players BECAUSE OF THE CHOICES THE CLUB MAKES

But it is an attractive club to play for because the players who join know they will be playing finals most years and be in a positive fairly relaxed country Victoria environment.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Confirmed Bailey Smith: 4-way trade: B. Smith (WB) & pick 45 to Geel / pick 38 to Carl / Macrae (WB) to StK / pick 17 & Kennedy (Carl) to WB

Remove this Banner Ad

Back
Top