Rd 4: Post Game Pain: Carlton vs. Western Bulldogs

[JonHenry]

Ciaran Bryne looks hard at it, his disposal seems okay as well. I haven't seen much of him at Northern Blues level, but he does seem willing for the contest.

Couldn't believe his second head clash Sat night.
He didn't protect himself at all

[PassIt2Carrots]

Whitey was a gun, gees did we miss out on a quality small mid there.  Blasted foot injuries.

Mate was going to move into the midfield when Diesel and co retired and have a great career. Really rated the kid.

[laj]

Not to mention the last line of Rice, Silvagni, Christou.......Another couple of hard nuts with excellent foot skills would be the next step.  Not sure if it's Zach & one (or both) of the other two Irishmen, Sheehan has had a horrible injury run, I'd like to see what he can do as well.

Reckon Rice played half forward in 1995. Matty Hogg played in defence.

[ItsOurTime]

Just on this Thomas thing.

I had a revelation today and it made me angry with the club.

Why did we take Daisy as a FREE AGENT.
Why didn't we trade for him?

Reason being, we didn't get compensation for Eddie Betts leaving because we got Thomas is. Had we have traded for Thomas, we would've still got him AND got compensation for betts leaving.

If Collingwood were never going to match the offer, or couldn't match the offer, why not offer them a trade.
Lets say we traded away a 3rd (or even a 2nd) round pick for Daisy.

They get a 3rd round pick for a player they were going to lose for free anyway. They are happy.
We get Thomas via trade, and thus mean we are eligible for compensation for Betts leaving and possible get a 1st round pick as compensation.

The upshot of it all is, we get a 3rd round pick upgraded to a 1st round pick and still get Thomas.

Why the hell didn't the club do this?

Why would Collingwood trade him for a 3rd rounder when they knew the size of his contract and knew it would get them a first rounder as compo? They would trade for a 3rd rounder and lose a 1st - would be the biggest bork of all time.

[kruddler]

Why would Collingwood trade him for a 3rd rounder when they knew the size of his contract and knew it would get them a first rounder as compo? They would trade for a 3rd rounder and lose a 1st - would be the biggest bork of all time.

You should've kept reading the thread.

[crashlander]

It would have been very much to our benefit to trade for Thomas, seriously injured as he was. But Collingwood may well not have done it. They got a better pick for compensation than we were going to offer.

In those days we were not good at this sort of negotiating. Had Silvagni been in his role then, he would probably have got Thomas and picks for a 3rd rounder, or not taken him at all. But, alas, we cannot go back in time and correct our mistakes. We wanted Thomas badly and paid the price.

Hindsight is a wonderful tool. I am sure I, and others, have perfected the process. Others may or may not agree. But I thought at the time that we were stupid to allow Betts to go (no matter what he actually wanted) and that we were taking a risk we didn't need to take to get Thomas as we did.
Split milk, as they say. I would love to make the best of a disaster, but afraid time is going to be the only cure for this one. When Thomas retires we will have decent money to:
(a) make sure all of our good young kids remain Blues.
(b) maybe even attract a free agent (at a better deal than our last disaster) who might want to be part of a team on the up.
and or © make sure possible good picks are willing to sign up with us.
In the mean time we will simply have to hope that Thomas can get on the park more regularly than he has so far (not a difficult task) and that Betts does start to play any better than he already is (that one offers me less hope).