Mega Thread Farewell our Champs - Boomer, Drew, Spud & NDS all gone at season's end

[Deadeyeroo]

If & its a big if the club is serious about this then surely Wells & Waite have to be shown the door as well. They are well behind Harvey in terms of runs on the board and form. Otherwise the club has no cred.

One things for sure, the club has put the 2 above in a better position to negotiate the dollars in a contract.

 

[GarnerSmash]

Yeah well King is a boys club sock puppet so no surprise

 

[Mav]

I'm not a Scott apologist - I would not care if he is dumped.

But your analysis of that statement is way off the mark. He is referring to best interests in the short term versus long term.

Cut the crap.

Yeah, nah

 

[giantroo]

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2016-08-24/fiveyear-focus-forced-norths-reset



NORTH Melbourne's decision not to renew the contracts of Brent Harvey, Drew Petrie, Michael Firrito and Nick Dal Santo is an acknowledgement the club's list needs a "pretty good reset", chairman James Brayshaw says.

North announced on Wednesday the four veterans would finish up at the club at the end of 2016, with coach Brad Scott saying the decision was based not on form, but on the club's need to give more opportunities to its youngsters.


Brayshaw told Triple M on Wednesday afternoon North was coming to the end of "a footy strategic period" in which it had "overachieved" to make four finals series in the past five years and two consecutive preliminary finals.

The North chairman resisted suggestions the club needed a list rebuild, but noted the official AFL statistician Champion Data had rated its playing group the ninth-best in the competition this year.

"From the board down to the footy department, all we said is 'where are we going from here? What do the next five years look like?' And I think we needed a pretty aggressive reset to give our club the best chance of playing in and winning its fifth premiership," Brayshaw said.

"I think we need to get back to the draft, we need to get some really good quality kids into the place.

"We've got some already, but we need to add to that and we would be looking in this next five-year period to have a very strong on-field performance with sustained on-field success."

North opened this season with a club-record 9-0 run, but has since won just three of 12 games to slide from first to eighth on the ladder.

Brayshaw denied suggestions Wednesday's announcement was a sign the club had written off its upcoming finals campaign.

"We've got a final to play in two weeks' time, and we've shown in recent years that we've got great ability once September comes around to be better than nuisance value," Brayshaw said

"There's absolutely no writing off 2016."

 

[Dugdale2Dwyer]

AFL trolling JB now.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

Im really sad.

And I say that acknowledging there are more important things, but Ive grown up with these blokes.

 

[TruRoos7]

One things for sure, the club has put the 2 above in a better position to negotiate the dollars in a contract.

Why the **** would we want to pay them more based on the roi we are getting from Waite and wells for that matter over the last few seasons.

 

[Only Forwards]

Complete disaster.

Are you f***ing kidding me Kingy.

You know what is a complete disaster, when blokes who played with heart support having the heart ripped out of a club as it's others attempt to shunt it somewhere else.

That's a complete disaster.

This is poorly timed and executed,but that happens, it's not exactly Chris Connelly coming down the stairs being told he's been axed by journos before being told be the club.

 

[Only Forwards]

Im really sad.

And I say that acknowledging there are more important things, but Ive grown up with these blokes.

There will be pain and we will grow.

It's sad though.

 

[Deadeyeroo]

AFL trolling JB now.

James Bradshaw

 

[Thewlis Dish]

Yep, drop JMac when is career best form.

#Logic

I think the point was there are other measures that could be taken to send a message to the middle tier to try and get them to take the next step, and they never have been under Brad.

 

[Pykie]

Did any of you read Kings article? it's spot on.

He agrees partly with the decision.

But said its a complete and utter PR disaster. This will be taught in lectures at Uni as an example on how to **** up a major press release.

People should be calling for Heaths head, not Brads. He may have cost the club close to a million bucks in memberships with this PR strategy.

 

[Deadeyeroo]

I wonder how much salary cap space is cleared with these 4, would have to be close to 1.5 milllion wouldnt it?

 

[giantroo]

I wonder how much salary cap space is cleared with these 4, would have to be close to 1.5 milllion wouldnt it?

Ch 7 stated we now have 2 mil.

 

[Horace]

Have had some time to digest all of this. Not going to pot the club for how it came out because for all we know they may have had to make plans at short notice, particularly if the players involved didn't agree with the decision. They may have wanted to make arrangements for potentially a final home game on Saturday with family, friends etc. I am sure the planned strategy wasn't just a tweet and a few paragraphs online.

Spud, Drew and Dal, absolutely correct calls. All out of contract, all on a decline, all just keeping players out. No issue with any of these guys leaving. The first two deserve to be celebrated as absolute stalwarts, while the latter was a key part of two prelim runs.

Boomer? I just don't get it. For everything about his age, or a player he is supposedly keeping out, there's also the argument that he brings experience, sets training standards, acts as a mentor etc. He's still comfortably in our top handful of players and still brings a lot of value on match day. Garner, Turner, Anderson and Wagner have all had chances to establish themselves as best 18 players at one point or another, and haven't done so for various reasons. It's a cop out excuse, PR if you will. He is one spot on the list, still comfortably best 18 and if a younger guy can't force a 38-year-old out of the side then who is that really on?

I know it's always team first, club first etc, and tough decisions have to be made, but I can't help but feel Boomer is a unique case and he has earned the right to call his own stumps. He's left money on the table elsewhere, stuck with the club through some pretty dark and tough days, and has instilled hope in a supporter base for 20 years. Is it really that inappropriate that he be allowed to time his own exit from the game?

If he was limping around on one leg and clearly done like Drew then maybe I wouldn't hold the above opinion. But he's not, he is still performing to a very high level. If he wants to risk falling away and risking his legacy by bombing in 2017 then so be it, but I think he has earned the right to do that and it's not going to make or break the club, or be the difference between a flag or not. It's just an extra 12 months where an absolute icon got to leave on his own terms.

Don't try and sell me the spin JB.

Excellent post.

 

[TruRoos7]

Yep JB trots out the " give opportunities to young guys " when clearly we didn't play them when Nahas and Ray played, nor did we play them when drew, Waite had no form. The time to give younger guys a go was when players form was down, not when you axe players supposedly keeping them out..

 

[Boristown]

The handling of this has been an utter disgrace. We're officially a laughing stock.

 

[domiroo]

Maybe Boomers last game might be a victory . It has happend in all is milestone games

 

[TruRoos7]

LoL 360 opening with us cutting players and Pav calling time on his own career...

 

[Too_many_talls]

Complete disaster.

Are you f***ing kidding me Kingy.

You know what is a complete disaster, when blokes who played with heart support having the heart ripped out of a club as it's others attempt to shunt it somewhere else.

That's a complete disaster.

This is poorly timed and executed,but that happens, it's not exactly Chris Connelly coming down the stairs being told he's been axed by journos before being told be the club.

Wish I could double like this.

I don't support the Boomer decision, but if there is one thing the Gold Coast taught us is that the club is bigger than any one player - and this is not just a slogan or a cliche to be wheeled out. It actually means something.

So yes Kingy while it was not ideal let's keep things in perspective.

 

[Benno_900]

Maybe Boomers last game might be a victory . It has happend in all is milestone games

I'm sorry, but the only chance that will happen is if he gets injured or suspended.

Even the club has admitted that the flag is gone.

 

[Nofrills]

What do you do to win your 5th flag. Well for a start you dont dump one of your 4 best players, thats for sure. Especially when he is getting games off his own boot & theres no-one to replace him. ffs

Boomer has been a true North Melbourne great, however he won't be around for a fifth flag. Kayne Turner, Jed Anderson and Corey Wagner may - they wont have the output boomer would potentially have in 2017, but giving them games will accelerate their growth. The club is bigger than the individual. Im over being average. Time to start building a premiership team.

 

[R00StaR]

Anyone get the feeling that Scott has seen the writing on the wall after a disastrous second half of the season and is starting to feel the pinch so perhaps made the hard call on Harvey (I believe the others were due) as a way to kind of put his hand up and say "look at me, I can make the hard calls, I have the ability to be ruthless and I'm the guy to rebuild this list" and hope to secure his job?

Or he's simply doing whats best for the club.

And yes IMO he is the right guy for a rebuild - although i dont think that starts next season. One more tough call, recruit a quality young(ish) mid with the TRUCKloads of dollars we just free'd up and we'll have a bigger impact on top 8 teams than this year.

 

[Boristown]

We have just **** on Boomer's legacy. Deserved so much better.

 

[Deadeyeroo]

Ch 7 stated we now have 2 mil.

I know Dal was on 400k in his last year.

Firrito would be somewhere around 300k.

If it is indeed 2 mill been cleared that would mean Boomer and Dish would be around 600k each.

If they're on that sort of coin the club has been terrible in negotiating Boom/Dishes contracts especially at their age.