Supermercado
The straw that stirs the drink
I'm not going to burn Simon Goodwin in effigy on Brunton Avenue until we're kicking 4.8.32 every week next year because Hogan's injured, Pedersen's a 31-year-old journeyman who can't consistently deliver and Tom McSizzle has lost the element of surprise BUT what shits me about this whole debate is the way that people are happy to throw him in the bin just because he's never going to become a superstar of the comp.
Forget what happened years ago (except for how his pissweak teammates forget to punch on in his defence on debut), 150 games later it doesn't matter that we picked him #1 or #45 he filled a role, and every team needs role players. Richmond and the Bulldogs had about 15, and if you're confident that Oliver, Petracca, Hogan, Lever are heading for the stars then what's the point of getting through all the difficult years then folding the moment things start to turn in our favour?
I understand the case for trading him, and am determined to wait and see what happens with the pick and then with the forward line in general next year but gut feeling is that this is either a ****-up or something dodgy has gone on behind the scenes. I don't know if I'd be any happier if were for pick 20 or 25, even if it's effectively the same group of players to pick from, but there's a psychological barrier about the 30s that makes it feel like an extra ounce of piss has been extracted.
So he's not a Hell's Angel who would kill your grandmother to get to a hard ball, but he had enough positive attributes to outweigh cashing out for pick 31 and starting again with some random. Was a fair lead on the rare occasion where a midfielder would kick to the advantage of our forwards instead of panic roosting it to the square, and always a handy player to drop back into defence late in quarters where he could be relied on to take a mark AND not flub the kick. Who does that now? I'm probably McDonald Sr's biggest fan, but I don't particularly fancy him having to float back in the last minute of a tight game to take a mark and have to hit a target.
There is suggestion that salary cap pressure contributed but a) who's the dickhead who got us into that position after 11 years without finals and not one genuine, fully developed superstar on the list, and b) funny how that only came out after people had been cracking the shits for a few days, and after it had already been suggested that he could stay if he wanted to. So what would have happened if he had decided to stay? Pretty high risk signing Lever to big money without having a contracted player officially off the books.
I'm glum, but at the same time good luck to him for escaping and hope he does well.
Forget what happened years ago (except for how his pissweak teammates forget to punch on in his defence on debut), 150 games later it doesn't matter that we picked him #1 or #45 he filled a role, and every team needs role players. Richmond and the Bulldogs had about 15, and if you're confident that Oliver, Petracca, Hogan, Lever are heading for the stars then what's the point of getting through all the difficult years then folding the moment things start to turn in our favour?
I understand the case for trading him, and am determined to wait and see what happens with the pick and then with the forward line in general next year but gut feeling is that this is either a ****-up or something dodgy has gone on behind the scenes. I don't know if I'd be any happier if were for pick 20 or 25, even if it's effectively the same group of players to pick from, but there's a psychological barrier about the 30s that makes it feel like an extra ounce of piss has been extracted.
So he's not a Hell's Angel who would kill your grandmother to get to a hard ball, but he had enough positive attributes to outweigh cashing out for pick 31 and starting again with some random. Was a fair lead on the rare occasion where a midfielder would kick to the advantage of our forwards instead of panic roosting it to the square, and always a handy player to drop back into defence late in quarters where he could be relied on to take a mark AND not flub the kick. Who does that now? I'm probably McDonald Sr's biggest fan, but I don't particularly fancy him having to float back in the last minute of a tight game to take a mark and have to hit a target.
There is suggestion that salary cap pressure contributed but a) who's the dickhead who got us into that position after 11 years without finals and not one genuine, fully developed superstar on the list, and b) funny how that only came out after people had been cracking the shits for a few days, and after it had already been suggested that he could stay if he wanted to. So what would have happened if he had decided to stay? Pretty high risk signing Lever to big money without having a contracted player officially off the books.
I'm glum, but at the same time good luck to him for escaping and hope he does well.
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