Just out of curiosity, outside of teams who are in the top 4 or just left it, Collingwood, or beneficiary of a go home factor, which manager has pulled off any of these deals in recent years for an A grade midfielder? The only ones I can think of are Prestia, Goddard, Judd and Nick Stevens (kind of). Maybe Christenson and Griffen?
The interesting one is Collingwood. They do seem to manage it, although it was also definitely from targeting GWS.
But generally, Dodoro has done as well as any manager at a club without a go home factor and who isnât finishing regularly in the top 4.
It probably does for Geelong. But when Prestia or Judd wanted to come home, they had the choice of 9 clubs. When Beams needed to go to Queensland to be with his sick dad, he had the choice of two. Ditto Ebert, Polec, S. Thompson. Essendon does not have an advantage like the interstate teams do, so when considering which âA Grade midfieldersâ have moved clubs, ones like Beams/Ebert shouldnât be considered.
I reckon thereâs been a few trades where people thought they were getting a top notch player considering what they gave up (eg McLean, Johnstone, Thomas), but I agree that generally those kinds of players go for a reason or for a lot. My gut feel is that a lot of teams draft midfields and trade for talls, which would skew the data a bit. That might just be because weâve lost good talls, so it feels like thatâs whatâs on the move.
Brad Hardie mentioned on 6PR this morning that an influential Essendon group with legal backgrounds are exploring legal options for getting Dustyâs dad back to Australia hoping this will influence Dusty to join the Bombers next year.
So not content with dealing with Charters, Gatto and other dodgey farks aswell as importing all manner of drugs from China and Mexico we have now turned to using the legal system to allow a convicted Bikie back into the country. This will end well
Iâm all for getting Dusty but not by allowing crims back here
I remember a (allegedly) high class midfielder that wanted to come to Essendon but we couldnât get the job done because we didnât have the picks: Caddy. He didnât turn out so great in the end but he would have to be the closest we have come in terms of trying to get a midfielder to the club from a trade (in terms of supposed high quality).
Having met this group at a coterie function; if I was in trouble with the Law and needed a very good barrister/lawyer then I would sooner use the yellow pages.
