Even if he nominates to leave and ends up staying, it is a massive indictment on our club that one of our best under 23 players, a model citizen and future leader, has allegedly decided he has no faith in the future direction of our club.
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A couple of comments.
The only reason Dunks would leave is for the money, not because he has cracked the shits over playing a couple of games relief ruck. He loves the club and his mates at the club and loves the coach.
Also, lets say we decide to trade with Essendon. Knowing Essendon the deal will be done on the eleventh hour and we won't have time to use the picks to on trade with another club for a Backman/Ruck, small forward. I can see that happening when Essendon is involved.
Overall, I hope Dunks comes out soon and says he is going nowhere, or the club says we are holding you to your contract - too bad sonny Jim. :)
Unless he publicly reaffirms his desire to stay at the club, this is just a horrible look for us. Other clubs will look at us as a team who cannot keep their fabric players all together. As GVGjr said, what about Naughts and Bailey Smith when they are next up for contract?
For mine it is not even important if the deal is done or not. What really matters is that it's an alleged decision by a young player, not even yet entering their prime and who is an impeccable citizen, that they don't believe in the future of the club.
Dynasty clubs hold their players together and take a collective pay cut to do so. Money is irrelevant if a player is truly happy, settled and believes in the future success of the club.
This is the reverse version of BTs Tom Boyd thread, can we bash the person who started it?
Yeah, I don't know what has happened in the past 6 months, but I do know he wrote the article posted in this thread not long ago, (not sure if you read it) and all the players call him the coaches pet. If he really wanted to go he would have come out and said so. What I can tell is he is mulling over the dollars.
I don't blame Essendon, I would do the same if I was them. they need an inside mid, we have plenty, so go for it. I do blame the AFL for not stopping this bullshit of breaking contracts.
As I said earlier what is to stop another team throwing big dollars at our other young players, or we doing the same. It is getting ridiculous.
You don't think the core playing groups of Brisbane 2001-2003, Geelong 2007-2011, Hawthorn 2013-2015 and Richmond 2017-2020 weren't offered ludicrous contracts from other clubs and decided to take a collective hair cut to stay together? Ablett and Buddy are the only 2 players who bucked this trend, and they weren't 22yo players still with a point to prove who have not yet entered their prime.
Let’s just see how this plays out with Dunks.
Quote:
On September 16th [2013], the Tigers had issued a statement acknowledging the 22-year-old Dustin Martin was to "pursue other opportunities."
The out-of-contract midfielder's management had been demanding a fresh deal of more than three years at $600,000 per season.
Sorry, I didn't see this one before I posted my reply to your earlier post.
I don't see us as a dynasty club, and possibly players see us (like me) as a rebuilding club. If we were right smack bang in the conversation for winning multiple flags perhaps it would be different with Dunkley and a reported doubling of wages wouldn't be so appealing to him. But we're not.
delete
Richmond built their dynasty after our premiership in 2016, and they did it with a game plan that was refined and improved on what we did in 2015-16. There is no reason whatsoever why we couldn't have built on 2016 to form our own dynasty. Clearly we didn't.
As a supporter, I'm as guilty as anyone for treating 2017 like a big holiday (probably moreso as I went on 3 overseas holidays that year). The truly great clubs get a taste and they get hungry for more. It's fair to say we didn't handle it from the top down, and now we have fabric players under 23 reportedly wanting to leave the club for another club that is frankly rubbish and has been for most of this century. It is just not a good look for us.
Geelong will improve again next year, ditto Richmond. Port definitely will, as will Brisbane. St Kilda are very proactive in improving their list after having a more successful season than us. How on earth are we going to jump ahead of all these clubs, let alone get ahead of teams around us (West Coast, Collingwood) and aggressive teams below us?
We dropped the ball, and last night was a very sobering reminder of just how much we failed to grasp our gilt-edged opportunity to develop a dynasty at the end of 2016.
Saying they've heard that Essendon think he wants out. The language matters. We know that there is an offer in front of him and there's no indication he's said no or yes to that. Everything else is rumour at this stage.
This is an easy play for Essendon. Target a player who'd suit your needs, offer him a massive contract tell them media, drip feed them that "yeah we think he's really interested... expect a trade request." If it works, great you have a new player and changed the narrative. If not you still changed the narrative and you can be applauded for doing your due diligence to improve the club.
I really hope there's some truth to Dunks being pissed off being bashed up in the ruck, whether he stays or he goes.
Would be a big wake up call for the coach and MC about our ridiculous ruck situation.
I'll say this much and forgive my French but if we're not already balls deep into Tippa, we'd better be now.
Hai Sam Power.
Have you spiced this up a bit? I've read a bit from the journos about him not liking being used so much in the ruck but "pissed off and bashed-up" is a bit stronger than I have read from the media reports.
If the speculation produces a review of our ruck set-up then great but I don't think Dunks is a whinger.
I reckon it would be more his old man, his family wouldn't have liked him playing ruck after breaking his backside off to come back from a serious ankle injury. He is a young kid his dad will have a significant influence on him and we all know money talks.
He has been well identified by Essendon, but we need to be firm the only way we trade him is because of a serious player coming back the other way. I'm not sure we have someone on our radar it looked like we were going to be bit part players going into trade period, it will be interesting what our club can come up with.
Question - is Baines in any way involved with trade and list management?
Just had it pointed out to me that last time he dealt with Dodo he gave up pick 5 for Carlise under a storm of drug clouds, so would rather he not be.