Smith exits via Free Agency

[4THAWN]

Good luck to him, pretty interesting strategy by Geelong. They've taken it to the extreme with their list age profile.

Lets be honest we all love Smithy but he's not the same player he once was. Not even the best winger at Hawthorn the past 3 years.

 

[Roby]

Just remembered why I don't really look at Bigfooty that much anymore, footy fans are children. 3 flags and a ton of great finals performances, but fans here are like any old neutral that just remember a missed PF kick, gimme a break.

I guess if you've never won a flag and your club of ten years was offering you less money you can understand him leaving to our bitter rivals... Oh wait

 

[Dewwwww]

On one hand I wish he had of stayed to help with the development of the youngsters

On the other hand...I think this is the best outcome for the club. We were all complaining in the later rounds when we kept playing guys who were over 30 instead of kids. No this is a forced best 22 spot vacant for a winger which can be filled by Downie / Day / Scrimshaw / Moore

Thanks for your service Issac. Will always be a Hawthorn Premiership hero!

 

[Ugottabjokin]

Besides Buddy I wished all our other Champs who moved on good luck.
Isaac you have just put a sh*t stain on your reputation - go get F...cked!
Handbaggers you don't deserve sh*t except to run around on a postage stamp whilst watching Danger kick it over your head and Scott looking incredulously every time you don't get paid a free kick and the oldest side in the comp to drop down the ladder.
Enjoy your retirement in Sh*itsville- bloody w***er now.
Just ruined your legacy as far as I am concerned for a chance at supposed glory - see how that worked out for others such as Danger and Gablett and Buddy!!

 

[lethalselbow]

Unless he gets a flag, he'll regret the hell out of his decision. I'm sure it's sitting like off milk, in his belly, right now.

 

[Tony3163]

Assuming we don't trade for a replacement, which player on the list is most likely to benefit from this?

Moore

 

[lethalselbow]

 

[BlueWaterHawk]

There's a steep drop off coming Geelong's way, they have a lot of veterans now, especially if they grab Higgins.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[Realist]

If he went to Geelong for more success then it looks like he wasn't buying what Clarko was selling.

Clarko's adamant we can contend next year. He has never talked about rebuilding, just blamed the hub, the umpiring, opposition players and the AFL for Hawthorn's under performance this year. What about his coaching and poor recruiting over the past 5 years?

Smithy must think Clarko is delusional. He probably saw that they re-signed the likes of Hanrahan, Nash, Howe and Morrison plus recruit a 29 year old full back from the wooden spooners and jumped a sinking ship.

 

[TylerDurden]

One positive is that he and Stratts won't be piss farting around in the pre game huddle. Gee that used to grind my gears.

 

[Steven Tyler]

Are we matching, forcing a trade?

If the offer from Geelong is similar to ours, why not?

 

[Spitting_Cobra]

Are we matching, forcing a trade?

If the offer from Geelong is similar to ours, why not?

He is unrestricted and we offered more. He is gone.

 

[Cyril says]

Oh geez. 2020 is really not great.

I assume we offered and he picked Cats over us? Or did we not offer at all?

Mitchell, Birch, Hodge, Lewis and now Smith. It hurts seeing them in the wrong jumper!

Please remind me what the silver lining is here.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Are we matching, forcing a trade?

If the offer from Geelong is similar to ours, why not?

There is no ability to match, but if we send pick 59 to the Crows for Hartigan we can get some compo for Smith.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Please remind me what the silver lining is here.

Wait and see where the compo for his departure(after we throw a late pick to crows) ends up.

 

[Dewwwww]

There is no ability to match, but if we send pick 59 to the Crows for Hartigan we can get some compo for Smith.

Would Adelaide accept that though? Wouldn’t it be in their best interest to lose Hartigan as a FA as the net loss via FA would be greater for their compo?

 

[glenferry23]

Best of luck to him. Was pivotal in our 3 peat and have very fond memories of him.

Will forever remember his goal in the final quarter of the 2013 GF, a thumping set shot from outside 50. Had a fantastic view of it from sitting behind the goals. Similar as well to the 2012 GF when he put us in front (one of my rare memories of that game haha).

Anyway, gave us great service over the years and all the best for his next adventure.

 

[Ugottabjokin]

Oh geez. 2020 is really not great.

I assume we offered and he picked Cats over us? Or did we not offer at all?

Mitchell, Birch, Hodge, Lewis and now Smith. It hurts seeing them in the wrong jumper!

Please remind me what the silver lining is here.

Mitchell, Birch and Hodge left with our blessing and good luck with getting the final pay day we weren't willing to offer.
They got other roles such as coaching opportunities at their new clubs so don't begrudge them at all.
Lewis is still pissed at us for off loading him and we did treat him a little poorly but watching his 3 years at Dees we made the right call.
Smith is just a traitor - Back stabbing asshat - we offered him 2 years and more money from reports and told us to go and get effed to go to our hated rival.
Deserves sweet f*ck all.
No silver lining he has right royally screwed us - no compo - and sh*its in our face.

 

[MJA33]

One positive is that he and Stratts won't be piss farting around in the pre game huddle. Gee that used to grind my gears.

yup time for a total reset and new leaders to step up and lead the club into next period.

 

[jameses]

One positive is that he and Stratts won't be piss farting around in the pre game huddle. Gee that used to grind my gears.

Who cares? It's a huddle for the players, they can do whatever they want in it.

 

[Hot Diggity]

Viewed within an irrational fan context, this sucks.

Viewed within long term list and salary cap management context, it's a good outcome.

 

[George Zip]

Oh geez. 2020 is really not great.

I assume we offered and he picked Cats over us? Or did we not offer at all?

Mitchell, Birch, Hodge, Lewis and now Smith. It hurts seeing them in the wrong jumper!

Please remind me what the silver lining is here.

There is no silver lining; we are a club in free-fall, and we shouldn't be.

Yes, it's nice that we won three flags in the five years we were in contention, but the club has not been able to attract the sort of experienced talent required to keep us in contention whilst blooding new talent. While I thought we were the New England Patriots of the AFL, it's now clear that that's not the case, and is certainly not how we're perceived by the wider playing fraternity.

As much as it pains me to say, it's the Geelong Cats who are the New England Patriots of the AFL, and will continue to be for some time to come.

 

[VernonSpots]

Something stinks. He clealry was disenchanted with the Club. I dont believe this is flag chasing...Smith is not a superstar of the game and won't be defined / "legacy adding" by having a 4th. Will just be seen as a role player who got lucky with the 4th.

Instead of putting hates on the guy, question needs to be directed at our Club firstly. Good clubs don't lose long standing players for LESS money.

 

[hk89]

the coaches would generally have a better idea of players' roles on game day and how the perform their role, regardless of a supporter's perceived lack of influence or negative output

i have no problem with stratts being top 10 in the BnF last year if he was generally a solid performer in the roles that was asked of him, even if his basic skill level (which is what us fans noticed and deride) had declined.

Agreed, but that is my point. B&F results often reflect notions like "fulfilling your role well" which doesn't actually mean you are a good player. It means you can be a bit of a plodder and still make the top 10 if you nail your role. Stratton got captains points in 2019. If you had to rank him against other defenders in the league in the 2019 it would have been unflattering.

I agree it is hard to know how the club saw Smith's ability to perform the role he was asked, so as a fan we can only judge by what he did on the field. Basically, I'm just saying that I don't really rate B&F that highly as a measure of how players are going - the top 3 usually includes a club's best player for the year, but beyond that I don't think its a great way of seeing who the best players on your list are. Using another club's B&F, do you really think Short is a better player than Dusty? Short played his role diligently no doubt, but he's not a better player than Martin, and those type of decisions means you can't use B&F inclusions or exclusions to make concrete judgements on actual on ground performance and total game impact.

but if he isn't ranking top 10 in BnF it probably means that he isn't doing his role as well as he could be,

Sure, but when his role is receiving the ball from the inside mids and running with it, then playing that role well is less under his control than it would be for the inside mids (for example). Forwards have similar issues.

which i would guess is more important to our success than having a good personal game (though i'm not 100% sure on this). of course the coaches could also have gotten it wrong because i thought he was quite good in 19, but again i think there's a lot of intangibles and micro-defensive/offensive off-ball decision making that we simply can't notice

I think he was better in the second half (when surprise-surprise, worpel stood up, and wingard started to play some inside time, and both were doing well). I think if he put together a first half as good as the second (which might have happened if our inside midfield wasn't the worst in the competition for the first half of the year), I suppose he'd have finished more strongly in the B&F that year. The fact that he put together the season he did, despite our woeful inside midfield performance in the first half of the year, is a testament to how good he actually is.

Basically, Geelong have got a massive bargain. Smith has been putting in good numbers - largely as good as he ever as, with the main question mark this year being a drop in his ball usage. Smith was late into the system, so doesn't have the years of crash and bash on his body that some his age do, and his outside role means he's been even more protected from that. Very few soft tissue injuries, should be far less embarrassing at the end of his Geelong contract than Lewis was at Melbourne.

Media reports are that we were begging him to stay which also says our own coaching staff saw his ongoing value. Very disappointing we were not able to keep a player it sounds like we were very keen to retain on our list. Worries me a bit about what it says of our current culture actually. I was all for allowing the likes of Mitchell and Lewis to walk away from contracts with us, as I saw it as a way of rewarding them with a pay day at the end of their careers after taking unders with us for years. However I wonder if this constant letting go of players at the end of their career has had an overall negative culture effect. The rumours that Smith is going for roughly the same length and contract size is concerning. Perhaps the one extra potential flag is enough to make sense of it, but with 3 already, and going to a massive rival , a move for the same money and length seems odd. I realise players don't see rivalries the same way fans do, but the few times i've chatted to Hawthorn players about Geelong, I got the very strong sense that the Geelong vs Hawks thing wasn't just something that lived in fan's heads.

 

[hk89]

Lewis is still pissed at us for off loading him and we did treat him a little poorly but watching his 3 years at Dees we made the right call.

That is not my understanding of how the Lewis situation went down. I thought we wanted to keep him, but wouldn't guarantee him future contracts after the following year, and so he spat the dummy and went to Demons. Yes he was pissed off, but not because we "offloaded him". Pretty sure our preference was for him to play out his contract next year, after which we would have considered another based on his ongoing performances.