He was an Unrestricted Free Agent, not Restricted
If he had been RFA we can match whatever Brisbane offer, no matter how big or the length of the contract.
He can still choose to leave but it then becomes a trade for picks.
As it stands that didn’t happen and he left and we got compo.
Which, imo, was probably better than what the Lions would have offered in a trade, if it came to that. And I doubt there would have been a bidding war for his services.
Rucking places consistent high load on plantarflexion + jumping and the crash and bash of AFL combine that with an ACL and his performance & efficiently is going seriously impacted.
The Lions are taking a massive gamble on Draper imo. So I am content with our compo & have faith in Rosa to get a good selection in his place.
Im no Draper fan but this is ridiculous.
He was on track for a very good year before the injury.
The average pick 20 plays 75 games in their entire career.
Dont think Allen or Draper were worth top 10 picks but its completely farking bullshit that one gets it and the other doesnt, when by all accounts their contracts are very similar.
Agreed, but they can afford to, they are not looking at him being the lynch pin of their flag tilts, just another layer of the cake.
I am not sure he will fit as well as many think.
He could be a liability the way he often was with us during the early part of his career.
if he can get to 60% of his early 2025 form he is doing very well, but this will probably take another two years, at least that’s what the science says when you look at Achillies injuries in the NFL or NBA and to a lesser extent AFL.
The simple answer would be the contracts aren’t the same. None of us know the offers. Reporters don’t know the offers.
There’s every chance Drapers isn’t all guaranteed. They’d be more inclined to guarantee Allan’s given WC could “potentially” match (not that they will).
Also the age difference given cutoff is Oct 15th or whatever.
Any view on the Draper compo without considering the science of Achilles recovery is just dumb.
Agreed. We need to hit the draft hard, with all guns blazing this year. We should be bringing in half a dozen new players again this year. Reassess FAs next year, or the year after. With Tassie coming on and compromising the draft, there will be a higher turnover of FAs, as there will be more of them floating around, due to Tassie scooping up so many draft picks, and then them wanting to trade some.
Hit the draft.
It’s ‘Hit and miss’.
We’re a month away from Blitz is happy, and a year away from its Rosa’s fault by 20/20 hindsight self-confessed experts.
The mess this club is in and no decent player wants to come has got everything to do with Brad!!!
Our club is at its lowest ebb in my lifetime.
You’d assume the Red and Black Humour thread is about our comedy of errors over the past 20 years.
Very true…too many are jumping ship…is this what happened at north too?
I didn’t know that. I still maintain that gift to West Coast is the AFL’s way of circumventing their own rules on Free Agency. I’ll be shocked if Starcevich isn’t traded to West Coast for that pick.
What’s better…pick 20 (or probably 25ish on draft night) or Draper? We chose pick 25
2025: the season that just keeps on giving.
Next year has to be better ..doesn’t it?
I wouldn’t bet on it
If we had one first round pick this year, they would 100% of given us a first round pick straight after that pick. You can bet your arse the AFL did not want to deal with all the grumbling with us having four picks in a row, and basically three clubs having the first eight pics or something like that.
This is ■■■■■■.
Really ■■■■■■ about this
No opportunity to match because our contract work over the last 18 months pushed Draper (in a FA year) out of the top 10 most well paid players at the club. Given there was “drums beating” around Adelaide coming for him, that was an oversite.