Past Travis Johnstone (2008-2010)

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Re: Travis Johnstone

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Johnstone breaks the cycle
8:38 AM Wed 17 October, 2007
By Simon White

FOUR DAYS after the Brisbane Lions' season-ending loss to Geelong, coach Leigh Matthews fronted the media and spoke of two issues facing his side.
One was the need to recruit more quality midfielders. The other was the challenge associated with trying to lure Victorian players north during the trade period.
"We forget about the trade period – if a number of clubs want a player, he's not coming to Brisbane and I don't think it's about our climate," Matthews said at the time.
On Tuesday, at the Gabba, Matthews faced the media again, this time flank by a player who will help the Lions address both issues.
By trading for former Melbourne player and 2005 club champion Travis Johnstone, the Lions add another high quality midfielder to a running brigade that already boasts All-Australians Simon Black, Luke Power and Nigel Lappin.
The cycle of Melbourne-based players ignoring trade overtures from Queensland is also now broken.
"You know should never hold me to anything I say," Matthews laughed, when reminded he'd virtually ruled the Lions out of trade week a little more than a month ago.
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I think we were able to get Johnstone because:

a) his Fitzroy heritage; and

b) most clubs have an obsession with rebuilding that there wasn't really much competition for his services. Sydney was the only other team mentioned as being interested, but they have salary cap problems, so that ruled them out too.
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

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Demons agonised over Johnstone trade: Bailey
3:17 PM Wed 17 October, 2007
By Matt Burgan
for melbournefc.com.au

NEW Melbourne coach Dean Bailey concedes the decision to part with long-serving Demon Travis Johnstone during last week's exchange period was not taken lightly.
Bailey, speaking exclusively to melbournefc.com.au, said the reason behind Johnstone's departure was simply to bolster Melbourne's first round draft selections in the November NAB AFL Draft.
"I spoke to a number of people – players and staff – and we went to enormous lengths in discussing Travis Johnstone. This was not an easy decision to make because he is a very good player," Bailey told melbournefc.com.au.
"At the end of the day, our priority was getting another first round pick and Travis was the person Brisbane saw as someone who they could get, if they gave up a first round pick.
"First round picks are very hard to get, so in that sense you've got to give up a good player to attract a first round pick.
"For the development of the Melbourne footy club, unfortunately Travis had to be that player. We've now got a first round pick and we've got to ensure that our first three picks in the draft are going to be players who represent the Melbourne footy club well.
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Trade week recap
3:38 PM Fri 12 October, 2007
for melbournefc.com.au

MELBOURNEfc was pleased to receive another first round selection for outgoing midfielder Travis Johnstone.
“It is always a tough decision to trade away a player like Travis, but in this instance we had to give up a quality player to receive a quality Draft Selection. We want to build our list concentrating on players 23 and under and with a new coach this gave us an opportunity to rejuvenate our list,” explained (Craig) Cameron.
“I think the move will be positive for Travis, he now moves interstate with a new club, new environment and new club structure. We would like to thank Travis for his services to the Melbourne Football Club over the past decade, and we wish him all the very best with his new opportunity at the Brisbane Lions.”
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Farewell to Travis
9:39 AM Fri 12 October, 2007 | Back
for melbournefc.com.au

While he is departing the Melbourne Football Club, heading north for Brisbane, Travis Johnstone will always be dear to the hearts of Melbourne, and has been part of enough memorable moments to last a lifetime of spectating at the MCG.
Aged just 17 when he was taken as Melbourne’s No. 1 draft pick at the 1997 National Draft, Johnstone came equipped with class and All Australian honours at junior levels. Hailed for being ‘clean at ground level….very good overhead…’, Johnstone’s natural talent was a delight and evident from the first time he played, against the Swans in New Zealand during the 1998 pre-season.
Ever elusive and agile, Johnstone overcame injury and steep learning curves to finish third in the Best and Fairest in 2002, and equal fourth in the Brownlow in the same season. But it was in 2005 that his potential really came to fruition with his Best and Fairest win, a runaway victory as he finished 54 votes ahead of his nearest rival and led the Club in overall disposals.
Now, having worn the No. 16 for 160 games and 111 goals, Johnstone is joining the Lions, but will always remain a treasured part of Melbourne. Having played for ten years, he qualifies for Life Membership, and will also be recognised and honoured by the Club during its 150th birthday in 2008.
We farewell him with our heartfelt best wishes.
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Re: Travis Johnstone

I reckon the sight of 3 premiership cups and the presence of Power, Black and Lappin would energise anyone still fair dinkum about achieving something with their footy career. Wait til he meets JB !
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

konstas_87 said:
pardon my ignorance, but does he have a broken wrist? (forearm brace in photos).
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Supposedly he chipped the bone in his arm during the year (meaning he played with the injury) and he should be 100% for the start of Pre-Season....it was in one of the articles i can't remember which one.
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

The injury report is in post #50.

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Drummond believes Melbourne discard Travis Johnstone will prove to be an astute buy for the Lions, bolstering an already star-studded midfield featuring Nigel Lappin, Luke Power and Simon Black. “I think it’s really exciting and a big pick-up for us,” he said.
“He’s really creative when he has the ball in his hands and if Browny (Jonathan Brown) and Dan Bradshaw can stay fit they’ll be licking their chops,” he said.
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Re: Travis Johnstone

Not sure if this has been said before. There is a lot of talk about how Johnstone will thrive in no longer being the #1 midfielder and therefore the primary target for opposition stoppers. While I don't think that he will be numero uno for the Lions, I still think that opposition sides will want to lock down on him.

IMO, the guy who should be thanking the club for engineering the trade is Luke Power. If I was an opposition coach against the Lions this year, I would have put the number 1 tagger onto Black and the number 2 tagger onto Lukey. Luke had a decent season this year but I thought he was not as damaging as he can be and I think he quite often copped a hard tag as our 2nd mid. While Luke is arguably a better player than Trapper, I think that coaches will be reluctant to leave Trappper untended. If anything, he is more damaging with his disposal and, like Aker was in the premiership years, might be a focus of the opposition due to the "hurt factor". As we know, you can't tag everyone and it may be that Luke will slide one place down the pecking order with Trapper's arrival.

Next season, perhaps we need to be mindful that Trapper's contribution may not always be 25 kicks and 10 inside 50s. It might be that the threat that he poses allows the other midfielders to run around with less attention.
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

POBT said:
Not sure if this has been said before. There is a lot of talk about how Johnstone will thrive in no longer being the #1 midfielder and therefore the primary target for opposition stoppers. While I don't think that he will be numero uno for the Lions, I still think that opposition sides will want to lock down on him.

IMO, the guy who should be thanking the club for engineering the trade is Luke Power. If I was an opposition coach against the Lions this year, I would have put the number 1 tagger onto Black and the number 2 tagger onto Lukey. Luke had a decent season this year but I thought he was not as damaging as he can be and I think he quite often copped a hard tag as our 2nd mid. While Luke is arguably a better player than Trapper, I think that coaches will be reluctant to leave Trappper untended. If anything, he is more damaging with his disposal and, like Aker was in the premiership years, might be a focus of the opposition due to the "hurt factor". As we know, you can't tag everyone and it may be that Luke will slide one place down the pecking order with Trapper's arrival.

Next season, perhaps we need to be mindful that Trapper's contribution may not always be 25 kicks and 10 inside 50s. It might be that the threat that he poses allows the other midfielders to run around with less attention.
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Couldn't agree more. Not that Luke hasn't got hurt factor, but he's less likely to shark a handball, step around two guys at halfback and kick a 60M grass cutter to Bradshaw before anyone's had time to even turn around. I'd be tagging Trapper before Luke.

It'll certainly loosen up attention on Lappin, Adcock, Rischa, etc.
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

You lucky lions. Very sad to see TJ go. You'll die when you take a close look at how good his skills are. The complaint was always that he was soft, but I could see him improving on that front in a new setting and really impressing for you guys.

Good luck to him. I'll be very surprised if pick 14 is better, even in the long run.
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

carrben12 said:
You lucky lions. Very sad to see TJ go. You'll die when you take a close look at how good his skills are. The complaint was always that he was soft, but I could see him improving on that front in a new setting and really impressing for you guys.

Good luck to him. I'll be very surprised if pick 14 is better, even in the long run.
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Feel for you mate - if there is one club that knows what it feels like to lose a wanted player is us - so completely understand where you are coming from - don't you worry, most of us Lion BF psoters are well aware of the sublime skills TJ has, all we ask is consistency - you never know pick 14 may be a 200 gamer - even now i am glad Aka is gone (believe me, a year ago i thought it would leave a massive hole), but now - would have trouble fitting him in to our best 22 with those dodgy hammies and with a bit of luck the pick we got for him Chris Schmidt hopefully turns into something - Anyway TJ already looks like being a favourite amongst us - especially those with old Fitzroy links - we lose Johnno - gain TJ:thumbsu:
 

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Re: Travis Johnstone

The Lions’ Trade Week coup Travis Johnstone from the Melbourne Demons, is set to take the number four made famous by Johnny Gastev and Craig McRae before Tom Logan’s and Ben Fixter’s tenure.
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Original Article at Lions.com.au
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

Browndog, is that a recent photo or are you just posting shirtless pictures of footballers on the internet for the hell of it?
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

Johnstone call just business
08 December 2007 Herald Sun
Mike Sheahan



IF DEAN Bailey decided to make an example of Travis Johnstone, as some of us suspect, he's not saying.

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Now a Lion: Travis Johnstone.
The coach says the decision to trade with the Brisbane Lions in the lead-up to the 2007 national draft simply was a prudent business deal.

Nothing more, nothing less. An exchange of an erratic if gifted 27-year-old midfielder for a first-round draft choice (No. 14).

Bailey, though, paused when asked if he had decided to announce a change of culture at Melbourne by releasing a player seen to be part of the furniture and popular with supporters.

New coaches have a history of making a statement on arrival. At Melbourne, the senior group has been subjected to fierce scrutiny, and Bailey seems to have decided something (someone) had to give.

Johnstone is a big scalp. He was the No. 1 draft choice of 1997 and the 2005 best-and-fairest winner, and finished his career with the Demons with 42 disposals in the Round 22 win over Carlton.

"The club decided we needed (another) first-round pick and Travis was the one I suppose we thought we could get a really good pick for," Bailey said.

"It was a consensus decision. I spoke to a number of people, all the stakeholders, and we went to enormous lengths in discussing Travis Johnstone.

"The consensus was that decision would be good for the future of our club.

"Obviously, if my opinion was against it, we wouldn't have done it.

"Fourteen for Travis was right on the edge of what we would have liked. He's a good player, we would have liked something earlier than that."

The problem was no club with a higher pick than Brisbane wanted to do business.

Bailey said the driving force was the desire for another early pick, with an element of change to the culture.

"Travis and I had some conversations and I basically said, 'This is how we're thinking: I think you've got some ability, but, for the betterment of the club, I think we need a first-round pick.

" 'If it's a good pick, we'll consider it seriously, but if it's not, you'll still be here. We discussed it as a group; 14 was about on the cusp."

Bailey and those around him know it is a decision that could come back to haunt them.

Yet what is beyond dispute is the fact Johnstone never managed to perform consistently at the heights he reached at various times in his 10 seasons at Melbourne.

It was as if he wanted to play AFL football on his terms. Just two top-three finishes in the best-and-fairest coupled with a cavalier attitude always made his future a popular topic of discussion.

All the Melbourne players are on notice that anything less than 100 per cent is less than enough for the new coach.

Source: http://heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,22888056%5E20322,00.html
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

The thing that I find strange about this trade is that in theory it should be happening the other way around. At the start of the year Melbourne president Paul Gardiner said 2007 and 2008 was their premiership window. Conversely the Brisbane Lions, who are going through a very distinct premiership cycle, are supposedly still recovering from their premiership success and not meant to be flag contenders just yet. So by that logic Brisbane should be trading for draft picks and Melbourne should be trading for experienced players.

Perceptions (or indeed self perceptions) of where both these teams are on the premiership cycle have changed quite a bit in the last 12 months, but my guess is that this trade occurred simply because the two clubs rate him differently, ie. he is rated higher by Brisbane than by Melbourne.
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

By the way, I don't know if this has been mentioned before but pick 14 ended up being Jack Grimes, so it will be interesting to compare their remaining careers.

And for an idea of the quality of players going at pick 14:

2006 - James Sellar (Adelaide)
2005 - Grant Birchall (Hawthorn)
2004 - Angus Monfries (Essendon)
2003 - Fergus Watts (Adelaide)
2002 - Daniel Bell (Melbourne)
2001 - Ashley Watson (Kangaroos)
2000 - Daniel Harris (Kangaroos)
1999 - Travis Gasper (West Coast)
1998 - Luke Penny (Western Bulldogs)
1997 - Shannon Watt (North Melbourne)
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

Grimreepah said:
By the way, I don't know if this has been mentioned before but pick 14 ended up being Jack Grimes, so it will be interesting to compare their remaining careers.

And for an idea of the quality of players going at pick 14:

2006 - James Sellar (Adelaide)
2005 - Grant Birchall (Hawthorn)
2004 - Angus Monfries (Essendon)
2003 - Fergus Watts (Adelaide)
2002 - Daniel Bell (Melbourne)
2001 - Ashley Watson (Kangaroos)
2000 - Daniel Harris (Kangaroos)
1999 - Travis Gasper (West Coast)
1998 - Luke Penny (Western Bulldogs)
1997 - Shannon Watt (North Melbourne)
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So glad we didn't keep that pick!
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

Grimes is rated pretty highly, and most Pie fans expected us to take him with 14 if we hadn't traded.

Grimreepah, I agree totally with your assessment. The Demons are stuck rebuilding again, while the Lions are now a genuine Top 4 threat in 2008 (which by definition makes them a premiership threat)
 
Re: Travis Johnstone

Grimreepah said:
By the way, I don't know if this has been mentioned before but pick 14 ended up being Jack Grimes, so it will be interesting to compare their remaining careers.

And for an idea of the quality of players going at pick 14:

2006 - James Sellar (Adelaide)
2005 - Grant Birchall (Hawthorn)
2004 - Angus Monfries (Essendon)
2003 - Fergus Watts (Adelaide)
2002 - Daniel Bell (Melbourne)
2001 - Ashley Watson (Kangaroos)
2000 - Daniel Harris (Kangaroos)
1999 - Travis Gasper (West Coast)
1998 - Luke Penny (Western Bulldogs)
1997 - Shannon Watt (North Melbourne)
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There are some good footballers there. Take out the Watt/s and Watson. I'd take Birchall, Monfries, Bell and Harris any day.
 

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