Former #1 Pig Hibberd

It's a negotiation. Of course their start point is going to be unrealistic.

Separately, no AFL club could possibly think that bringing in Lynden Dunn is a good idea.

My Melbourne supporting mate was trying to sell me Grimes or Dunn as a fair trade for Hibberd. I had a good laugh over that.

Dunn marked well today in vfl final but Fark off. Grimes and Trengove are also shot.

In completely unrelated news, kepler Bradley just became a premiership coach (claremont reserves)
WSPHU
In completely unrelated news, kepler Bradley just became a premiership coach (claremont reserves)

Bring. Him. In !

Expect to get flamed here.
Having talked all year about how the 12 would be supported if they wanted out, doesn’t that make us look a bit hypocritical if we decide to “bargain”? We basically said it was the player’s decision, collateral damage and all that, so be it. One out of 12 says he wants out (Pears retired which is different). I’d rather take the downgrade on one player, and thank Christ it wasn’t worse, than haggle, a third rounder could be a blessing in disguise anyway, give Dodoro a pick and let Pig get to his preferred destination. This IS different, it just IS.
PS If Melb cave, fine, if someone else bids and he says yes, fine, if he decides he wants to come back, fine (he’s a better player than Dea, who’s done a great job, but he just is), but if none of that happens…let him go for a third rounder. You can’t talk the talk and then start back tracking. Put the loss down to good will.
It could have been so much worse.

Expect to get flamed here. Having talked all year about how the 12 would be supported if they wanted out, doesn't that make us look a bit hypocritical if we decide to "bargain"? We basically said it was the player's decision, collateral damage and all that, so be it. One out of 12 says he wants out. I'd rather take the downgrade on one player, and thank Christ it wasn't worse, than haggle, third rounder could be a blessing in disguise anyway, give Dodoro a pick and let Pig get to his preferred destination. This IS different, it just IS. PS If Melb cave, fine, if someone else bids and he says yes, fine, if he decides to come back, fine (he's a better player than Dea, who's done a great job, but he just is), but if none of that happens...let him go for a third rounder. You can't talk the talk and then start back tracking. Put the loss down to good will. It could have been so much worse.

Sorry, short of Heppell dying, how could the past four years have been worse?

Expect to get flamed here. Having talked all year about how the 12 would be supported if they wanted out, doesn't that make us look a bit hypocritical if we decide to "bargain"? We basically said it was the player's decision, collateral damage and all that, so be it. One out of 12 says he wants out (Pears retired which is different). I'd rather take the downgrade on one player, and thank Christ it wasn't worse, than haggle, a third rounder could be a blessing in disguise anyway, give Dodoro a pick and let Pig get to his preferred destination. This IS different, it just IS. PS If Melb cave, fine, if someone else bids and he says yes, fine, if he decides he wants to come back, fine (he's a better player than Dea, who's done a great job, but he just is), but if none of that happens...let him go for a third rounder. You can't talk the talk and then start back tracking. Put the loss down to good will. It could have been so much worse.

Our only favour is letting him leave while he is contracted. We should get the best compensation we think we can achieve from Melbourne. Right now 26 is acceptable, not desirable. Anything less and Melb can gagf.

Reality is Goodwin has skin in this one and in the end will cave. He can’t be seen to screw up his first trade period.

It's a negotiation. Of course their start point is going to be unrealistic.

Separately, no AFL club could possibly think that bringing in Lynden Dunn is a good idea.

My Melbourne supporting mate was trying to sell me Grimes or Dunn as a fair trade for Hibberd. I had a good laugh over that.

Hope you guys are no longer friends after telling him to go F*ck himself.

Frankly, if you had told me at the start of the year that we’d retain all but one of the desired players, sorry Tayte, and we’d only have to accept a one round downgrade on the one loss, I’d have told you you were dreaming.
But others will disagree, as is their right.
PS Can I just reiterate that I consider this a special circumstance, something the club also said was a special situation.

WTF? They traded out their first rounder and now they wanna keep 26 because it’s their first pick in the draft?

You know how you can keep a hold of pick 26? Don’t fkn poach a player worth that pick!

That’s not how it works… “Hi GWS, we are in the market for your boy Jon Patton… you see… uuuhhhmmm… we just really like the idea of having pick 1 and Patton… sooooooooooooo…”

Yeah, we should let him go for a third rounder. No wait, fourth. What’s that now Melbourne? You want him for nothing? Well, we wouldn’t want to sound like hypocrites I guess…

Expect to get flamed here. Having talked all year about how the 12 would be supported if they wanted out, doesn't that make us look a bit hypocritical if we decide to "bargain"? We basically said it was the player's decision, collateral damage and all that, so be it. One out of 12 says he wants out (Pears retired which is different). I'd rather take the downgrade on one player, and thank Christ it wasn't worse, than haggle, a third rounder could be a blessing in disguise anyway, give Dodoro a pick and let Pig get to his preferred destination. This IS different, it just IS. PS If Melb cave, fine, if someone else bids and he says yes, fine, if he decides he wants to come back, fine (he's a better player than Dea, who's done a great job, but he just is), but if none of that happens...let him go for a third rounder. You can't talk the talk and then start back tracking. Put the loss down to good will. It could have been so much worse.

Looks like I’ve been pulled into line.

I’ll put this on the table now, I agree with you about Hibbo being welcome to stay should he choose to.

But seriously a third rounder? Liam Jones was a third rounder.

Melksham went for pick 25.

Pick 26 is a steal for Melbourne and they’re taking the p*ss if they’re claiming it isn’t.

Expect to get flamed here. Having talked all year about how the 12 would be supported if they wanted out, doesn't that make us look a bit hypocritical if we decide to "bargain"? We basically said it was the player's decision, collateral damage and all that, so be it. One out of 12 says he wants out (Pears retired which is different). I'd rather take the downgrade on one player, and thank Christ it wasn't worse, than haggle, a third rounder could be a blessing in disguise anyway, give Dodoro a pick and let Pig get to his preferred destination. This IS different, it just IS. PS If Melb cave, fine, if someone else bids and he says yes, fine, if he decides he wants to come back, fine (he's a better player than Dea, who's done a great job, but he just is), but if none of that happens...let him go for a third rounder. You can't talk the talk and then start back tracking. Put the loss down to good will. It could have been so much worse.

Not flaming, as I can completely understand what you’re saying.

But also you’d expect Melbourne to act in good faith. If we were keeping all bar Hurley, and Hurley said "I want to go to Hawthorn, and Hawthorn said “here’s pick 60” would you have the same opinion?

If Melbourne don’t want to part with 26 then come up with some options for them. Listen to what they have to offer. Maybe even consider 42 if we were to get some steak knives with it. Enquire about their 2nd round next year, or a swap of picks or something else. Exhaust every option, but make it clear that we believe he’s worth a pick from 18-22, we’ll negotiate in good faith, and if they can get 32 we’ll do the deal. But 42 is clearly them trying to milk the situation in a way that is inappropriate.

Fark’em
Fark’em all

I haven’t seen anywhere that dees want to trade there 3rd rounder for pig. Where did that come from?

I’d take Tyson and a 3rd rounder

Frankly, if you had told me at the start of the year that we'd retain all but one of the desired players, sorry Tayte, and we'd only have to accept a one round downgrade on the one loss, I'd have told you you were dreaming. But others will disagree, as is their right. PS Can I just reiterate that I consider this a special circumstance, something the club also said was a special situation.
We are keeping our word. Pig is contracted and declared his intention of wanting to leave. As expected we announced we would seek a trade for him. But the trade has to be fair! We never promised to bend over and give players away, just to support their decision. Connors himself said 26 is unders.

Yes, it could have been a lot worse with more players leaving. But it isn’t.

Pig saying he’d stay if a trade can’t be done acknowledges it has to be fair too.

I think EFC have handled and are handling the 12 players situation very well.

The Dees will want to try and be sneaky on this one, no first rounder this year, next years is not allowed to be traded. Next years second will be less. i can’t see anything but 26 being used.

Expect to get flamed here. Having talked all year about how the 12 would be supported if they wanted out, doesn't that make us look a bit hypocritical if we decide to "bargain"? We basically said it was the player's decision, collateral damage and all that, so be it. One out of 12 says he wants out (Pears retired which is different). I'd rather take the downgrade on one player, and thank Christ it wasn't worse, than haggle, a third rounder could be a blessing in disguise anyway, give Dodoro a pick and let Pig get to his preferred destination. This IS different, it just IS. PS If Melb cave, fine, if someone else bids and he says yes, fine, if he decides he wants to come back, fine (he's a better player than Dea, who's done a great job, but he just is), but if none of that happens...let him go for a third rounder. You can't talk the talk and then start back tracking. Put the loss down to good will. It could have been so much worse.
GRR ejects...

Expect to get flamed here. Having talked all year about how the 12 would be supported if they wanted out, doesn't that make us look a bit hypocritical if we decide to "bargain"? We basically said it was the player's decision, collateral damage and all that, so be it. One out of 12 says he wants out (Pears retired which is different). I'd rather take the downgrade on one player, and thank Christ it wasn't worse, than haggle, a third rounder could be a blessing in disguise anyway, give Dodoro a pick and let Pig get to his preferred destination. This IS different, it just IS. PS If Melb cave, fine, if someone else bids and he says yes, fine, if he decides he wants to come back, fine (he's a better player than Dea, who's done a great job, but he just is), but if none of that happens...let him go for a third rounder. You can't talk the talk and then start back tracking. Put the loss down to good will. It could have been so much worse.

Out of curiosity what if they had offered a 4th rounder? Would you be happy accepting that?

If they don’t want to be out of the draft that early, simply hand over their 2017 2nd rounder. If we want to use it this year then GWS or GCS would probably give good value for that as they have more 2016 picks than they need anyway.

Thanks Pig for saying you're staying if reasonable terms can't be reached.

That is a big improvement on the Houli scenario in 2010, where Richmond were offering us pick 46 that we didn’t think we’d even use and Houli was happy to be walked to the PSD. Hird would have kept Houli and Richmond got a player that has been best 22 for the past 6 years for free. They knew he was going to walk into their senior team but called us unreasonable for us wanting a better pick than we used to get him (42) and we had got him AFL ready for them.

Hibberd offering to stay is a better option than getting unders for him, so hopefully Melbourne either put the correct value on him or we keep him, and not lose him like Houli for free (ironically we lost Houli but got Pig in the same PSD - both Karma and humour there, we ended up taking Alex Browne at pick 48 and Luke Davis at pick 64, there were better players that we had the opportunity to take but weren’t on our radar - Puopolo is the standout at pick 66).

So not taking pick 48 on principle didn’t make any difference to our outcome, and given Richmond took Jake Batchelor and we took Ariel Steinberg with picks 30 and 31, we probably weren’t going to do too much better even if we got pick 30 off them unless we were looking at Luke Parker (pick 40) after Steinberg.


Houli wasn’t worth anything more than #48. We’d been a weak team for three years and he hadn’t been selected by us despite good form in the VFL, implying we didn’t rate him. If a 3rd round pick hasn’t done much in AFL asking for a higher pick is silly.

Anyway, the rumour is we did think their offer was fair, but given we weren’t planning on using that pick turned it down so that they would have to use their PSD pick on him, effectively moving up our PSD place by one. Then McPhee farked us and suddenly it would have been a good move to have done the deal.