Club loyalty or driven by the Dollar?

[BulldogBelle]

Increasingly over the years club loyalty is diminishing rapidly heading to the point of extinction – gone are the days when players stayed for the love of the club. Instead the lure of the mighty dollar has taken them elsewhere.

We can also use this principle in our own lives moving jobs for a better career and more money, I know I have done that.

Just wondering how many of our player’s at various times have changed clubs for the almighty dollar and how many have remained loyal throughout their careers at the Dogs.

Here are a few, feel free to add others –

Loyalty Category

Chris Grant – We all know the story, how Pt Adelaide tried to lure him over there and the kid with the 20c coin. This man personifies loyalty at the grand end of the scale.

Brad Johnson – Offers from Collingwood and Essendon filtered in but stayed with the Dogs – always loyal to the Bulldogs, supported them as a youngster.

Rohan Smith – Also got a few offers Collingwood and Melbourne I think, had head he was considering Collingwood at one stage for a fleeting moment but thought the better of it and remained at the dogs.

Scott West – Another one that was flooded with offers during his career, Essendon the most recent one offering him a chance to move there but it was an embarrassment at what he was offered to go there and what we would receive in return. Still Westy remained loyal to the club and stayed.


Driven by the Dollar Category

Nathan Brown – Lured to Richmond for more money and property investments another contributing factor was him wanting to play infront of big crowds and premiership success. With Brown much as enjoyed watching him play there was always a niggle in the back of my mind that he would leave us well and truly before his career came to a close. Sometimes you just get that vibe about a player – I was not surprised when he left , I could sense the day was coming.

Jordan McMahon – The most recent to leave our midst, better contract offered by Richmond whilst we would only give a performance type contract.

[aker39]

Driven by the Dollar

Luke Penny

[LostDoggy]

IIRC wasnt Dacry offered a big contract by i think it was a SA club?

[G-Mo77]

Nathan Brown didn't leave for more money, he left for the bright lights and finals football at Punt Road. :D

[GVGjr]

Nathan Brown didn't leave for more money, he left for the bright lights and finals football at Punt Road. :D

Spot on but he had a long memory about the pay cuts as well.

Browny wasn't what I would call a true team player and whilst I understand that you can have a short career, an extra $20,000 or so won't change your life when you are highly paid anyway.

[Dry Rot]

Is it a two way street now ie how loyal are clubs to players these days?

IMO, there is far greater pressure on lists these days, increased with a range of rookies now available.

There is pressure to move on young players who perhaps need more time in the system and IMHO there will be increasing pressure to tap older players sooner.

If say Jon Brown suddenly (and inexplicably) wanted to be traded to us, we'd have to be disloyal to a couple of young guns and shunt them north.

[hujsh]

Driven by the Dollar Category
Jordan McMahon – The most recent to leave our midst, better contract offered by Richmond whilst we would only give a performance type contract.
Would you say that it was money or the fact that he wasn't happy with the club and the club needed to offload a couple of scrawny players and they would get something good for McMahon

[The Coon Dog]

Would you say that it was money or the fact that he wasn't happy with the club and the club needed to offload a couple of scrawny players and they would get something good for McMahon

At the end of the day Richmond offered SIGNIFICANTLY more money than we were prepared to.

[aker39]

Would you say that it was money or the fact that he wasn't happy with the club and the club needed to offload a couple of scrawny players and they would get something good for McMahon


Simple - he left for the MONEY

[Throughandthrough]

Simple - he left for the MONEY


No he didnt.

[BulldogBelle]

Would you say that it was money or the fact that he wasn't happy with the club and the club needed to offload a couple of scrawny players and they would get something good for McMahon

My mail is that it was primarily for the money but also a few other factors featured in the decision - he basically lost his mojo at the Dogs and gave up trying - so in the interests of the club and himself it was the right decision that he move on.

[hujsh]

My mail is that it was primarily for the money but also a few other factors featured in the decision - he basically lost his mojo at the Dogs and gave up trying - so in the interests of the club and himself it was the right decision that he move on.

Well I know that i am happy with Ward instead of McMahon

[Throughandthrough]

At the end of the day Richmond offered SIGNIFICANTLY more money than we were prepared to.



Jordan very very very very nearly chose the Power over going to Richmond.

[hujsh]

Jordan very very very very nearly chose the Power over going to Richmond.

What would people prefer D.White or Pick 19, we don't know that we will get Ward yet.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Jordan very very very very nearly chose the Power over going to Richmond.

Jordon very very very very nearly got disappointed.

Port wouldn't offer pick 16. The best they would offer was 34 or Damon White. White's ankle is worse than Jordy's, we weren't interested.

We didn't want to trade Jordy to Port because "they'd probably turn him into a decent player".

[aker39]

Jordan very very very very nearly chose the Power over going to Richmond.


Until Richmond gave him an offer he couldn't refuse.

[hujsh]

Jordan very very very very nearly chose the Power over going to Richmond.

Jordan would have had to go where we sent him or nowhere at all

[The Coon Dog]

Jordan would have had to go where we sent him or nowhere at all

He was coming off contract so he could have nominated for the PSD & ended up a Tiger with no compensation to us!

[hujsh]

He was coming off contract so he could have nominated for the PSD & ended up a Tiger with no compensation to us!

But if he wanted Port he would have been stuffed

[LostDoggy]

I think the club were happy to see him go aswell. Thats the vibe i get. And we got fair compensation in return.

[G-Mo77]

But if he wanted Port he would have been stuffed

I don't think so. Had he chose Port I'm sure a deal would have been made with them. I don't think it would have been as good as the one we got for him from Richmond but it would have been done regardless.

[Prince Imperial]

In the last 15 years our players as a whole have been much more loyal than in the period 1972 - 1986 where we lost so many of top players lured by the dollars and success of other clubs. The salary cap has played a big part in this and hopefully having far better facilities will aid player retention in the future.

I can't blame players for leaving us if they will get paid much more elsewhere but of course I want them to fail dismally if they do.

[Mofra]

Wasn't Matthew Croft offered $$$ to move and didn't?

Brown moved on because, after winning AA selection, we offered a contract which was lower than his existing one. If I had just increased my performance at work & was told to take a pay cut, I'd move too.

From the Bulldogs point of view, he didn't meet all his off field obligations and given widespread cost cutting, we basically made the decision that some players were a higher priority than others (eg. Murph).

Really win/win for all. Except we pissed those picks up the wall somewhat (although I didn't mind Alvey). And Brown either collected a wooden spoon or snapped his leg every year spent at the Tigers.

[GVGjr]

Kretiuk knocked back bigger $ from the Swans didn't he?

[BulldogBelle]

Kretiuk knocked back bigger $ from the Swans didn't he?

He sure did and also an offer from Essendon aswell.

[BulldogBelle]

Loyalty Factor

Nathan Eagleton was offered big $ by Richmond 3 years ago - Wallace wanted him there. Eagleton declined and said he loved the Bulldogs too much to leave.

[LostDoggy]

I just hope the younger boys will keep up the Bulldog loyalty shown by Johnno, Westy, Grant, and the boys of that era instead of being driven by the dollar. There are more things in life than money!

[hujsh]

I just hope the younger boys will keep up the Bulldog loyalty shown by Johnno, Westy, Grant, and the boys of that era instead of being driven by the dollar. There are more things in life than money!

How often do you see any players leave for money nowdays.

You barely see any trades as is yet alone trades involving good players

[LostDoggy]

How often do you see any players leave for money nowdays.

You barely see any trades as is yet alone trades involving good players

Except Aker stating he didn't want to go to any other club except the dogs. Hudson and Welsh both wanting to come to us when other clubs would have shown some interest.
Not bad for a team that constantly lost it's good players during the 80's and 90'.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Pretty much any player who's half decent is going to get offers from other clubs every second year.

Very few actually go and it's either for heaps more $$$ or there's another underlying reason.

[LostDoggy]

Brown moved on because, after winning AA selection, we offered a contract which was lower than his existing one. If I had just increased my performance at work & was told to take a pay cut, I'd move too.


I find that very hard to believe. I don't believe that version of the story.

Anyway if the place you love was in a crisis where money was an issue and everyone was taking pay cuts then its not unreasonable to be offered less money.
Increased work load? What go out and do schools circuit when you have nothing to do anyway.

[LostDoggy]

Loyalty Factor

Nathan Eagleton was offered big $ by Richmond 3 years ago - Wallace wanted him there. Eagleton declined and said he loved the Bulldogs too much to leave.

Now if that was the case we should have traded him there and then.
He is no where near as good as 3 years back.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Increased work load? What go out and do schools circuit when you have nothing to do anyway.

One of the issues we had with him was his refusal to do community work.

[GVGjr]

One of the issues we had with him was his refusal to do community work.

Yes he was regarded as being able to pick which events he showed up to. And even if he committed to an event he was able to no show without making any calls and still nothing got said.

[LostDoggy]

One of the reassuring things when a player wants to come to the Dogs, is that they clearly can't be in it for the money. Unfortunately that means we can't always keep the ones that want more, but we're better off without them anyway. I love hearing stories about the players that stuck around, it earns them respect instead of some extra money, but I guess some choose the latter.

[The Underdog]

One of the reassuring things when a player wants to come to the Dogs, is that they clearly can't be in it for the money. Unfortunately that means we can't always keep the ones that want more, but we're better off without them anyway. I love hearing stories about the players that stuck around, it earns them respect instead of some extra money, but I guess some choose the latter.

No we don't have the money to compete with some teams monetarily on a yearly contract basis, however what we did this year was offer players longer contracts than were available to them, so we were offering them more guaranteed money in the long run. I don't think Welsh would be with us if Adelaide had offered him 2 guaranteed years, although I could be wrong. Fortunately the salary cap is in place to stop the rich teams from plundering teams like ourselves and rendering us totally incapable of competing.
There will always be players who leave clubs for various reasons, often money, I'm not sure these players should be demonised, after all the clubs are often far more ruthless in who they trade/cut. The club is happy to do what's best for the club, so why shouldn't players do what's best for them? Don't get me wrong, I love players who buy into the team ethos & history and like Chris Grant are prepared to take less money for a place they love, but I think it's hypocritical to belt Nathan Brown for leaving then call Ben Hudson a top bloke for leaving Adelaide to come here. However if you want to belt Nathan because he's a knob of a human being then that's ok by me...

[Sockeye Salmon]

No we don't have the money to compete with some teams monetarily on a yearly contract basis, however what we did this year was offer players longer contracts than were available to them, so we were offering them more guaranteed money in the long run. I don't think Welsh would be with us if Adelaide had offered him 2 guaranteed years, although I could be wrong. Fortunately the salary cap is in place to stop the rich teams from plundering teams like ourselves and rendering us totally incapable of competing.
There will always be players who leave clubs for various reasons, often money, I'm not sure these players should be demonised, after all the clubs are often far more ruthless in who they trade/cut. The club is happy to do what's best for the club, so why shouldn't players do what's best for them? Don't get me wrong, I love players who buy into the team ethos & history and like Chris Grant are prepared to take less money for a place they love, but I think it's hypocritical to belt Nathan Brown for leaving then call Ben Hudson a top bloke for leaving Adelaide to come here. However if you want to belt Nathan because he's a knob of a human being then that's ok by me...

Hudson and Welsh both came for longer contracts but there was a bit more to both of their stories than just that.

Hudson was from Hoppers originally, so there was some go-home factor, but also from the abusive texts he got I'd say there was some issues with certain individuals as well.

With Welsh it was clear Adelaide intended to dump him at the end of 2008 as per their 30yo and off you go policy. He was saving his career. If he has two good years with us there would be no reason we wouldn't sign him for another 1-2 years. Would we have picked him up at the end of 2008 when he was a year older?

[mjp]

Yes he was regarded as being able to pick which events he showed up to. And even if he committed to an event he was able to no show without making any calls and still nothing got said.

More general problem...AFL Vic guys will tell you that when it comes to player appearances, the Bulldogs are one of the hardest to get to do anything, whereas the Bombers (right next door) are possibly the easiest...

[LostDoggy]

More general problem...AFL Vic guys will tell you that when it comes to player appearances, the Bulldogs are one of the hardest to get to do anything, whereas the Bombers (right next door) are possibly the easiest...

Interesting point. I know th Dogs toured some schools a couple of years back and a few of the yougsters switched to them but it has been followed through. Another golden opportunity missed.
We have lng been known as a club full of ideas but short on delivery when it comes time to roll up the sleeves.

[The Underdog]

Hudson and Welsh both came for longer contracts but there was a bit more to both of their stories than just that.

Hudson was from Hoppers originally, so there was some go-home factor, but also from the abusive texts he got I'd say there was some issues with certain individuals as well.

With Welsh it was clear Adelaide intended to dump him at the end of 2008 as per their 30yo and off you go policy. He was saving his career. If he has two good years with us there would be no reason we wouldn't sign him for another 1-2 years. Would we have picked him up at the end of 2008 when he was a year older?

I agree that there were mitigating factors rather than just money with both these guys, but the money and better opportunities with us definitely came into it, as they do with all players. It's rare that players swap clubs purely for monetary reasons, which again is due to the salary cap keeping it as a fairly level playing field.

[hujsh]

More general problem...AFL Vic guys will tell you that when it comes to player appearances, the Bulldogs are one of the hardest to get to do anything, whereas the Bombers (right next door) are possibly the easiest...

In the last 3 years we have had Dogs players at my school 3 times. The second time was only for the year nine's while the year eights (me) only got Bob Hawke. I wanted Acka

[westdog54]

Pretty much any player who's half decent is going to get offers from other clubs every second year.

Very few actually go and it's either for heaps more $$$ or there's another underlying reason.

I agree, although my thinking is that with the Salary cap and the 92% rule, I'm not sure that most of the trades that occur nowadays would involve massive discrepencies with money, and that there would be other reasons for the trade.

Somehow I doubt that money was a massive factor in the Judd trade.