I didn’t suggest you were - I am just focusing on the facts.
In other news, is us being hard to deal with something to do with us trying to be too clever with this whole process?
We are the club that asks draftees to count back from 500 by 7’s etc. We have the ‘hard to deal with’ reputation. This year is the perfect year for us to change all that and get deals done rather than try and get everything on the cheap.
To paraphrase Warren Buffett, “let’s get great players at fair prices than fair players at great prices”
I can tell you that people in the industry, not Blitz perspective, have said for a long time that we’ve been the hardest club to do deals with.
Read the Buckenara article. The guy I’m talking about has been in the game for a very long time. Aceman’s heard the same thing.
Our reputation is based on a long history, but it sounds like Dodoro’s trying to change the perception.
Well thought out, although I reckon Hibberd could have done with a pick in the teens and 68. While all Australian wasn’t predictable, he was a hugely important cog for us.
It also means we should be looking at about 40 for Francis unless someone wants to pay heaps for potential which nobody seems to do.
If you start a negotiation thinking one wins and one loses then you are going about it wrong.
But in afl you are negotiating with your direct opposition and it can be hard to put that thinking aside. on many past trades we have appeared to have stuck firm on a price and not moved (prismall and pick 35, carlisle and pick 5) which makes us look hard to trade with as we aren’t negotiating.
Nobody thought we were being hard to deal with regarding Carlisle, they all agreed it was the right price. THe Saints were the ones being dicks not us.
It all goes back to Sheedy years post Noel Judkins. Judkins did the negotiating in the 80’s and 90’s, the Lloyd and Lucas deal.
Sheedy was very unhappy with the compensation for Gavin Wanganeen (1996 Pick 2) . Judkins reply " You’ve got the leave something on the table". He then did the multi club Salmon for Barnard/Wellman Deal.
Given some of the chronic list-cloggers we’ve kept on over the last 10 years (hoping that one day they might just become something) I find it hard to dispute that notion…
The relevant passage is:
"Who are the worst clubs to deal with and why?
Essendon. You could never really get a straight answer out of the Bombers, particularly when Kevin Sheedy was coach. He was a great coach but he treated the trade period like a game – he’d talk in riddles and change his mind. A lot of clubs actually didn’t want to do deals with Essendon or get involved in any deals that they were involved in because they’d fall over at the last minute after Sheedy changed his mind or they changed their mind as a club.
That used to occur a fair bit a while back. I don’t think clubs appreciated that and while they’re better now, there was definitely a period where clubs avoided them and it affected the Bombers on the field because they couldn’t get involved in the trade period."
That doesn’t surprise me but yeah, to have purple and all the little kids (sam, tom, cornes etc) now breaking the trade news saying we’re hard to deal with is abit annoying. They were in diapers back in the days when we were like that.
Ryder was elite in 2014, very good in 2015 and is elite now, we got flogged in that deal.
Using the HPN player ranking system PAV, which I think is the current best in the business, Ryder was had PAV ratings of ~21 in those years, which puts him easily in the top 5% players in the game.
Interestingly Hibberd never crossed the elite barrier of the 20, until this year so I think we got reasonable value for him but Melbourne got a great deal as he is now elite.
Melksham has always hovered between above average to very good (13-16 PAV) which surprises me, he also had his second best year (his best being 2013) this year so Melbourne probably win that trade.
Crameri was average until he got the bulldogs in 2015 when he played his best year since his debut year (in which he was ranked in the top 25% of the players). Pretty neutral on this one.
In general, according to the HPN rating system, we got unders on those trades in general.
I think that because this is so widely parroted, other clubs brace themselves when dealing with us. So we never get to deal with another club who is prepared to take “an honourable loss”. Everyone is out to get one over us. We have already taken some “honourable losses” with Crameri, Ryder and Hibberd.
Maybe there was a time when we were tough to deal with but I think there are other teams that are worse than us. The way the Dogs and Port treated us over the sad saga and held us at gun point was incredibly disappointing yet we were being the ones that were “tough to deal with”? I also think it’s a negotiating tactic from other teams to portray us that way even if it’s not the case. Always makes our offers appear weaker than what they should be.
Very interesting and broadly consistent with my own gut feeling in relation to recent trades (I might not have all of them 100% right):
Ryder – GWS offered pick 4, we got pick 17 (and 37) from PA, unders given Ryder has gone on to win AA + PA’s B+F
Carlile – we got pick 5 (plus some swaps), probably a neutral trade given Carlile is playing well at StK (although some might say we were paid overs given 12-month ban and substance abuse issue)
Caddy – trade didn’t go thru (thank God) but we offered Hooker and pick 19, ie, WAY OVERS
Hibbo – we got pick 29, unders given Hibbo’s season and AA squad selection
Melksham – we got pick 25, maybe we got slight overs, although Melksham seems to be playing ok at Melb
Crameri – we got pick 26, probably unders given he was a required player at EFC (ie, a fwd), although some might say it was a neutral trade.
Monfies – we got pick 48, from memory Monfries was a FA and this trade was a win-win for both clubs, looks very reasonable from EFC.
Lovett - we got pick 16, in retrospect this was a win for EFC.
On balance, teams seem to win when trading with EFC!
You cannot look at what happens after the trade to view whether it was fair or not. The trades value is only relevant at the time of the deal. How it pans out after can be discussed, but not in terms of the fairness of the trade.