Play Nice Dustin Martin to North | 31/8: DM signed at RFC for 1.3m/7yrs

[Tectonic]

Ah yes - forgot about that blockbuster - perhaps then it will be Round 2 - Good Friday - North V Tiggers - Etihad Stadium.

Whenever it is it has to be early in the year if any tiges fans want to go.
I imagine their memberships will all by nuked by round 8. #eco all around!

 

[DarkPhoenix]

North Melbourne veterans won’t know their future until Dustin Martin decision

NORTH Melbourne’s $10-million seven-year bid to prise Dustin Martin out of Richmond has put the future of at least eight Kangaroos, including All-Australian Scott Thompson, on hold until possibly mid October.

As the cashed-up Kangaroos await a decision from Martin, the club has told a number of its uncontracted players and free agents they won’t be in a position to discuss any potential new deals for some time.

That means the likes of Thompson, 31, and Sam Gibson, 31, will go into Saturday’s final round game against Brisbane at the Gabba without a guarantee they will receive a contact for next year.

Thompson, an All-Australian in 2013, remains very keen to continue on next season after another solid season in defence, but his management has no offer on the table and doesn’t expect one for a period of time.

The unrestricted free agent is hopeful of getting another year’s contract, having played all but one game this year.

Others waiting on an answer on their future include Jarrad Waite, 34, restricted free agent Lachie Hansen, 29, Aaron Mullett, 25, Ben Jacobs, 25, as well as youngsters Corey Wagner, 20, and Declan Mountford, 20

Outside of Mountford and possibly Wagner and Mullet theres not that much there I'd bite my testicles off if we lost.

 

[deano28]

How many times does it need to be said? This is the players salary spend not football department spend. They are two separate things.

At least one more time it seems GR

 

[Thewlis Dish]

I'd be pretty surprised if players like Thompson didn't already know what any likely offer will look like.

 

[Jindrrk]

How many times does it need to be said? This is the players salary spend not football department spend. They are two separate things.

You've got this dark side. We need to see more.

 

[The Filth Wizard]

Outside of Mountford and possibly Wagner and Mullet theres not that much there I'd bite my testicles off if we lost.

I'd like to see Jacobs go around again. Has really built his upper body. Only 25, will get a deal.

 

[DarkPhoenix]

I'd like to see Jacobs go around again. Has really built his upper body. Only 25, will get a deal.

Wouldn't hate it if he was moved onto a smaller contract Rookie spot, hasn't played a game since round 8 last year.

I know how important he CAN be, so give him a shot to prove himself and make it off the rookie list.

 

[Zondor]

How many times does it need to be said? This is the players salary spend not football department spend. They are two separate things.

It needs to be said 69 times thank you ver much. :stern look

 

[The Filth Wizard]

Wouldn't hate it if he was moved onto a smaller contract Rookie spot, hasn't played a game since round 8 last year.

I know how important he CAN be, so give him a shot to prove himself and make it off the rookie list.

I don't think he'd get through the draft.

 

[Gasometer]

How many times does it need to be said? This is the players salary spend not football department spend. They are two separate things.

But I just think that the money would be better spent on the Arden St Cafe.

 

[deano28]

I don't want Martin at our club, that 1.5 million can be spent on developing young players improving coaching staff.

Once Martin has he's money where is his incentive to put in a full effort, how will other players feel working alongside a bloke getting payed heaps more then themselves, Martin has a tendency to go off the rails and with all that money he will be vulnerable to do so.

I would rather just Kelly and some high draft picks and money spent in the coaching area, $1.5 million a year is out ragest Martin is not worth that much money.

I would suggest that if players are upset about money that other players earn due to their on field exploits ... then said players should pull their finger out of their ass and become better players so that they too can demand multi million dollar deals

 

[DarkPhoenix]

I don't think he'd get through the draft.

You'd hope noone would break the gentlemans agreement... again.

 

[Jonnoo]

You'd hope noone would break the gentlemans agreement... again.

did the unwritten agreement get broken?

 

[DarkPhoenix]

did the unwritten agreement get broken?

Geelong with Delaney.

We wanted to Re-rookie. Openly announced we intended to which is the international "don't touch" announcement.

 

[Jonnoo]

Flogs

 

[Heaps of fun]

Flogs

Jokes on them, we took future Brownlow medalist Will Fordham with the next pick.

 

[Horace]

lol

I saw that but didnt have the heart.

I know archereleven. Shocking thing to do, but when a post like that pops up out of nowhere, you just have to do what you have to do.

 

[GS WARRIORS]

Geelong with Delaney.

We wanted to Re-rookie. Openly announced we intended to which is the international "don't touch" announcement.

I think we knew they would take him with their 2nd pick and we went with Preuss cause * were going to pick him with their next pick.

 

[The Nostradamus]

Retire Gibson and Waite
Let Hansen go
Trade Thomas and Goldy for picks

That's 5 spots open on our senior list
2 spots for dusty and Kelly
And 3 draft picks

Sorted

 

[Alpine17]

How many times does it need to be said? This is the players salary spend not football department spend. They are two separate things.

Sorry mate I don't spend all my passing days reading this forum, that's why I must have missed that important point you made.

 

[Groin guru]

 

[The Filth Wizard]

Sorry mate I don't spend all my passing days reading this forum, that's why I must have missed that important point you made.

It's been a pretty well known thing basically forever that coaches aren't paid out of the salary cap.

 

[North Viking]

That's Brilliant, spat my dinner out reading that!

 

[Horace]

Sorry mate I don't spend all my passing days reading this forum, that's why I must have missed that important point you made.

You are either pretending to be stupid or you don't get it in any way shape or form. In case it is the latter it is nothing to do with this forum. The Salary Cap applies for all clubs in the AFL.

 

[discodaddy]

You can tell the worm is turning because even renowned simpleton Luke Darcy has clued on.

This is a post I did at the start of the year. Since then it has become likely that we will lose Goldy and also the new salary cap is a confirmed 20% increase. We are LOADED. We can front load the shit out of the Martin and/or Kelly contracts next year.

Media DO NOT GET IT!


Edit: we've also since my post renewed a few contracts.



Measuring the War Chest

I'm going to have a crack at figuring out what sort of play money we're dealing with here. This is pure guesswork. I have no real idea what people are on so I'll try to be conservative with my estimations. I'd be very happy for some corrections or more accurate estimates and I can edit my post.

2016 Outs:

c. 600k or higher:
Wells
Dal Santo
c. 400-500k
Harvey
Petrie
c. 200k
Firrito
c. 100k
Nahas
Mackenzie
Tippett
Ray?

**Aaron Black**
What the hell was he on? I feel like it was a lot. Can anyone remember?

Total Lost: Somewhere between 2.5 - 3.4 M

2016 Ins:

Williams, Hrovat - 300k?
Ahern - Who knows 100-200k?

Draftees (we can actually know this):
Simpkin: $74,730
Watson: $67,935
Williams: $67,935
Larkey: $64,395

Zurhaar, Junker, Taylor: $64,395

Total In: Somewhere between 1M-1.5M

2016 Net Deficit: c. $1M - $2.3M

Then we need to remember that on top of this there will be plenty more retirements and delistings at the end of this season. Please don't everyone lose your shit at this, it's all pure speculation.

Red = very likely to be cut
Orange = unlikely but possible

Jarad Waite
Scott Thompson
Sam Gibson
Will Fordham
Andrew Swallow
Lachie Hansen
Ben Jacobs*

*Might seem harsh but I'm a bit worried for him contract is expiring and football isn't fair.

If we assume 4 or 5 of those happen (a safe assumption, as there is constant list turnover), I reckon that we can guess 2017 losses to be around $750k-1.5M.

It is also possible, but unlikely, that someone like Goldstein (on a mega contract) could be traded but let's ignore that possibility. Some of this contract space will be needed to spend on new draftees. We usually take 3 picks in the national draft and two rookies which is approx $350k.

Contracts

However let's not get too excited because there's existing player's contract renewals to consider. After all, retaining our own players should be the priority. I can't remember who signed at the end of last season so I'm just going to ignore that factor. Also I'm going to ignore the Rookies for this.

Renewals Needed:

Green= moderate to substantial pay rise will be needed
Orange = negligible to moderate rise needed
Red = possible pay cut

2017 end
Dumont
Clarke
McKay
Wanger
Nielson
Durdin
Mountford
Hibberd
2018 end
McDonald
Garner
Simpkin
Turner
Brown
Preuss
Higgins
Atley
Vickers-Willis
Watson, Williams, Larkey
Thomas

This is in constant flux. Who knows, Durdin might break out and suddenly need a big contract to secure him. I have to say though, as things stand, these contract negotiations should be pretty routine. Most are young guys who will only want pretty standard pay rises. We are going to have to put an extra 100k or two on many of the green players' new contracts. I might be wrong but I can't see the collective pay increase for all these players being much more than $1.5 million, unless one of these player's currency was to rise very dramatically in 12 months.

The most important thing to consider is how much of the cap we are paying this year. The salary cap is $10.6M and the floor is $10,070,000. We legally must be paying that much to our players. If we really did let go between $1.1-2.5M of payments last season, then we must have front loaded a heap of contracts in 2017 to an extreme degree just to pay that salary floor. This should free up even more cap space for next season and beyond.

Furthermore, (I believe, someone correct me if I'm wrong) the AFL rules work in a way that's similar to a mobile phone plan 'roll-over' system. What we don't pay of the cap in 2017 'rolls over' to 2018 and you then can pay that amount over the cap if you choose (But you can only roll over one year, it doesn't accumulate). This could mean that we could pay extra 600k over the cap next season and really front load some contracts.

The last thing to bear in mind is the new TPP that is being negotiated by the AFLPA. Who knows what this could mean.

In conclusion we are ******* loaded next year. It's not just the cap space though, it's the payment flexibility we seem to have that gives us negotiating power. So just how much play money do we actually have? It's complicated because contracts exist over many years and are structured creatively but going off all that info, estimates and speculation, a conservative guess would be about $2 million, but I believe it could be more like $3.5 million plus. This fits with the $1.5M to Dusty and $1M to Kelly.

Make no mistake we will be going hard at bringing in a superstar or two and we've got a lot of money to splash around.

$3.5m - that's a motherload of spare cash. Even if we land both big targets there will be heaps left over. It won't surprise me at all if we land a tasty medium-sized fish while we have been watching the big fish being reeled in from the other side of the boat. A pleasant surprise awaits, I reckon.