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

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Easy to be clued up with wealthy / influential supporters in your corner.

There's all sorts of ways to skin a cat.
Came from a well do family in SA and always had money smarts.

Not all AFL players end up wealthy. Pavlich seems to be good steward with money and clever enough to listen to good advice.
 
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.

As a Dogs supporter, who do the Dogs have an intense rivalry with? GWS maybe after the 2016 pf? The problem is no one follows GWS.

St Kilda? North?

All match ups that would have struggled to fill the Western Oval, let alone Marvel.

In the mid 80s the Cats couldn't afford an extra $5k or so a year to keep Greg Williams which imo, cost us the '89 and '92 flags.

The club survived off Ablett Snr pulling punters through they gate. He retired and 4 years later we were practically dead, without a pot to piss in.

Geelong in the end were saved by having the right people in the right jobs.

Costa and Cook, Wells and Thompson, Harley and Scarlett and later Balme.

Being regional, with close proximity to the Surf Coast is now seen as a huge advantage compared to the Melbourne rat race.

Being a marginal seat has obviously helped too.

Early days some of it was luck but now it's good management all round, built on the foundations laid 20 / 25 years ago. From a 165 year old club, it's only been a very small window where we've consistently got it right.

Yes the club now has physical and geographical advantages due to societal changes but you can't take them for granted, you still have to exploit it and manage it. In old footy parlance, 'the wind won't do it for you.'
 
As a Dogs supporter, who do the Dogs have an intense rivalry with? GWS maybe after the 2016 pf? The problem is no one follows GWS.

St Kilda? North?

All match ups that would have struggled to fill the Western Oval, let alone Marvel.

In the mid 80s the Cats couldn't afford an extra $5k or so a year to keep Greg Williams which imo, cost us the '89 and '92 flags.

The club survived off Ablett Snr pulling punters through they gate. He retired and 4 years later we were practically dead, without a pot to piss in.

Geelong in the end were saved by having the right people in the right jobs.

Costa and Cook, Wells and Thompson, Harley and Scarlett and later Balme.

Being regional, with close proximity to the Surf Coast is now seen as a huge advantage compared to the Melbourne rat race.

Being a marginal seat has obviously helped too.

Early days some of it was luck but now it's good management all round, built on the foundations laid 20 / 25 years ago. From a 165 year old club, it's only been a very small window where we've consistently got it right.

Yes the club now has physical and geographical advantages due to societal changes but you can't take them for granted, you still have to exploit it and manage it. In old footy parlance, 'the wind won't do it for you.'
The same 1989 season you reference the Dogs had to get a supreme court injunction to stop the AFL winding up our club and then only had a couple of weeks to fundraise millions.

Forgive me for not having any sympathy for Geelong's historical woes if it's purpose is to feel sorry for them in comparison to the Bulldogs.
 

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



Kelly was out of contract. Geelong still made WCE pay massive overs.

Geelong as far as I'm aware are the only club to recruit a restricted free agent and have the losing club match the bid and make us pay more and it's happened twice. Danger and Cameron.
 
You only have to watch the fox coverage of the event on the lead up. An hour of Mackie sitting in a room looking at his phone with the odd chat with Connors.
Deal was nutted out weeks ago
You're exactly right, there was no real tension, nor counteroffers, nor positions getting leaked to the media. Just theatre, and the worst example of it I've ever seen. There was real tension in the Dunkley trade, but this was a joke.
 
All the best to Bailey - no hard feelings from me, and I hope the move down the coast works for his mental health.

It's a real shame we've now lost two young midfielders during the Libba/Bont/Macrae/Treloar era. Partly this is from having blessing of richess in the centre (which we've almost completely failed to capitalise on). But I can't help but think there are two other problems at play in both cases: Bevo doing Bevo things like his weird ruck ideas; and non-salary financial opportunities which both Dunkley and Smith seem to feel they couldn't access at the Bulldogs.

We'd do well to focus on these latter two problems and work out how we can improve our retention, instead of complaining about how structurally unfair the AFL is or engaging in evidence-free moaning about Cotton-on, free land parcels etc.
 
The same 1989 season you reference the Dogs had to get a supreme court injunction to stop the AFL winding up our club and then only had a couple of weeks to fundraise millions.

Forgive me for not having any sympathy for Geelong's historical woes if it's purpose is to feel sorry for them in comparison to the Bulldogs.

I never mentioned the '89 season. It's not about feeling sorry for Geelong, it's about Geelong being almost dead and buried 25 years ago until they brought the right people on board.
 
All the best to Bailey - no hard feelings from me, and I hope the move down the coast works for his mental health.

It's a real shame we've now lost two young midfielders during the Libba/Bont/Macrae/Treloar era. Partly this is from having blessing of richess in the centre (which we've almost completely failed to capitalise on). But I can't help but think there are two other problems at play in both cases: Bevo doing Bevo things like his weird ruck ideas; and non-salary financial opportunities which both Dunkley and Smith seem to feel they couldn't access at the Bulldogs.

We'd do well to focus on these latter two problems and work out how we can improve our retention, instead of complaining about how structurally unfair the AFL is or engaging in evidence-free moaning about Cotton-on, free land parcels etc.
As a fellow doggies supporter, I fully agree with this, and I'm glad we still have some supporters who don't cry like two year olds, complaining about conspiracies and poor us.
 

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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

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