Essendon being hard to deal with is like Essendon crushing teams in finals.
They’re things of the past
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Perceived or assumed it is our reputation and has had a negative effect on the club justified or not.
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We have heard 2 reasons cited.
One, being Sheeds reneging on deals that are almost complete, no longer applies and has not for 10 years.
The other, being us overvaluing our players in negotiations is standard negotiation procedure practiced by many other clubs.
However, massive over valuing and stonewalling as a way of sabotaging a trade, well thats standard practice as well. I dont think we have done that in the last 5 years. Can anyone cite when /if we ever did that?
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Other clubs like to forget and the football media on on how we got bent over by port and footscray…
But now footscray wants pick 11?
Sheeds used to try to get in with the multi-club deals, and other clubs just thought it was too complicated and ended up sorting it out between themselves.
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Ok, I’ve done some internet trawling and the main criticisms of EFC seem to be:
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EFC is hopeless at trading in gun players. This is a common criticism and is covered in Cal Toomey’s article (see http://www.afl.com.au/news/2017-09-14/time-for-bombers-to-hit-the-trade-table). From 2004 to 2012 we only traded in three players – Richard Cole (2006), Brent Prismall (2009) and Mark Williams (2010). However, this fact alone doesn’t make us “hard to deal with”. It just means we prioritised drafting over trading, which is a legitimate strategy particularly if you’re near to bottom of the ladder (which we were for many of these years). Hurley, Zaka, Hep, JDan, Ryder and Carlile all came from high(ish) draft picks during this period (although so did Gumby, Myers and Melksham).
After 15 years, the infamous 2002 #faxfail continues to affect our rep in this area: “Alvey was the victim of possibly the most bizarre trade fail of all time 12 months earlier. He was meant to join the Bombers at the end of 2002 as part of a three-club deal for Blumfield, but Richmond only got involved in talks 20 minutes before the trade deadline and when the paperwork was finally ready at 1.58pm, the fax machine at AFL House was engaged. The Blumfield deal went through with 30 seconds left, but the Alvey paperwork missed the deadline. “It was madness,” then-Tigers footy boss Greg Miller said.” -
EFC tries to get the best outcome for the club rather than the player. Former list manager Chris Pelchen claims that “Adrian Dodoro’s steadfast nature of getting the best deal for the club has caused problems in recent times” (see https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/af...n/news-story/aded5e2364131472dce222fa5fc824ea). WTF! Isn’t that his job???
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EFC has been to mediation more than any other club. This is not quite correct. We’ve had two genuine disputes mediated – PA (Ryder) and GC (Caddy) (in both cases our position with totally justified – see above posts). We were also involved (along with Geelong) in the PA/Hawks mediation (Burgoyne), but this was really a PA/Hawks dispute. The Hawks, who are often held up as the master traders, have had three mediations – PA (Burgoyne), WB (Josh Hill) and GC (O’Meara). GC and PA have had at least two mediation each (Caddy + O’Meara and Ryder + Burgoyne). Having said that, given we don’t trade a lot, two mediations is quite a high hit rate.
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EFC consistently overvalues its own players, undervalues others. This was true during the Sheedy era. Two of the most famous examples were:
• Scott West (2004). Scott West had two years left on his contract at ~$450,000 a season. Presumably the Bulldogs were struggling for cash and EFC offered to take West “off their hands” for ~$250,000pa, with the Bulldogs paying the balance. EFC offered a 2nd round pick plus Darren Walsh, a 19-year-old two-gamer. West went on to win AA honours in 2005 and 2006 and finished 4th and 2nd in the Brownlow in these years. This was clearly an embarrassingly low-ball offer that was disrespectful to West and the Bulldogs. But the Bulldogs’ simply told us to ■■■■ off, which we did, so I’m not sure what the big deal is.
• Kepler Bradley (2007). EFC wanted the Kangaroos’ 2nd round selection (#32) or Fremantle’s 2nd round selection (#24). The Dockers were adamant they wanted to keep their 1st and 2nd round picks (#7 + #24). A trade was not done. Essendon delisted Bradley and Freo ended up picking him up in the national draft with pick #69.
In recent years EFC has placed a high value on some of its players, in particular, Ryder, Carlile, Hibbo and Crameri, but in each case subsequent form has totally justified EFC’s position. However, we’ve also put forward extremely generous offers, eg, Hooker and pick 19 for Caddy. The only slightly outrageous ask that I’m aware of was the 2013 proposal to swap Melbourne’s pick 2 (eventually used by GWS to take Josh Kelly) for Myers and Colyer.
However, sometimes there’s no harm in asking! After all, we did get Matty Lloyd and Scott Lucas by trading Tony Delaney and Todd Ridley to Freo. Still regarded by some as the greatest trade ever! (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/best-and-worst-trades-from-every-afl-club-under-the-microscope-in-superfootys-trade-week-lead-up/news-story/c1d921c4d0333901de2e7255ab5c6d2a)
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Let them eat cake
Bombers will shatter this perception by end of this trade period.
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If Secret Agent Johnny Utah was handling Essendon’s trades, we’d be known as fun to deal with.
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Honestly, I agree with the melksham assessment, but we were generous with all the others. Quite generous. And I am ok that we were, because these were players that hasd asked to leave, and made requests for a destination. We did everything we could tyo make sure taht our players’ requests were honoured, which is what any high quality, honourable club should do.
I think everyone in the industry agrees that we were totally shafted with the Ryder deal especially. That trade was so egregiously unfair that the AFL changed their rules to permit future picks to be traded as fast as they could after that trade period ended.
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The farking AFL always changes its rules either just before or just after they screw us, whichever affects us the worst.
Fark the AFL!
Its ironical. Bulldogs are the ones being hard to deal with.
A Sen caller suggested our bad reputation no longer applied. Frawley became quite irate and said every other clubs list management people still say we are difficult to deal with.
Fcs . Its like calling a 90 year old grandmother a ■■■■, because she slept around when she was a teenager.
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There is a reason they call him Spud isn’t there.
I think it is brilliant how all the offers we are making are public knowledge, and it is exposing the doggies as pushing for more than they can reasonably get, and us as nimbly juggling the competing demands of 3 clubs in our attempt to secure all 3 players.
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His response was “have you talked to all the other club’s recruiters, champ”. Very aggressive.
Then Denham said we deserved a whack for holding up trade weeek ten minutes before Smith deal.
Awesome radio
ANALYSIS
OCTOBER 12 2017 - 5:26PM
Bulldogs have to budge on Jake Stringer trade
Peter Ryan
Essendon used their biggest chip on Devon Smith when they sent pick No.11 to Greater Western Sydney early on Thursday morning.
Smith was a player in demand who could shift his attention elsewhere to St Kilda, Carlton or Collingwood if the Bombers dithered.
In limbo: The Bulldogs will have to seriously consider taking the Bombers’ second-round picks, 24 and 29, in exchange for Jake Stringer when the parties meet again. Photo: AAP
So the Bombers had to put a time limit on the Western Bulldogs accepting their offer of picks 11 and 46 in return for Jake Stringer and pick 24 or they risked losing the 24-year-old Giant.
That limit expired on Thursday morning and Smith became a Bomber.
It was a good strategic move from Essendon that, contrary to initial thinking, put the club in a better position to land its trio of targets.
The Smith trade shifts the pressure to the Bulldogs to revise their recent stance that handing over “The Package” would require a package that included pick No.11.
The club will have to seriously consider taking the Bombers’ second-round picks, 24 and 29, in exchange for Stringer when the parties meet again.
That will be difficult for the Bulldogs to contemplate because of the fear how such a decision would be interpreted.
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Not to mention the disappointment many at the club would feel at losing a player of his talent when they know that in the right environment he will get back to his best.
Such emotion is understandable as the club made an astute choice when it punted on him at pick five in the 2012 draft, landing a player that now looks well-suited to the modern game.
But no one beyond those holding the line that Stringer could return to Whitten Oval if a deal doesn’t go through thinks Stringer can, or should, stay at the Bulldogs.
When premiership coach Luke Beveridge publicly spoke so definitively about Stringer’s need to make a fresh start elsewhere that possibility virtually evaporated.
Despite him being contracted, a return to the Bulldogs would put untold pressure on the club as it looks to rebound from its disappointing premiership defence.
It’s also worth remembering the Bombers did not chase Stringer in the same way Melbourne went after Jake Lever.
When the Bulldogs made it clear he should look elsewhere, Stringer went hunting for spots and Essendon became the only club to accept his application so the Bombers are within their rights to want a deal that suits them.
So having fought the good fight to get a return commensurate with Stringer’s undeniable talent the Bulldogs would not lose any admirers if they accepted the next-best offer.
Their chances of getting pick 11 reduced when Smith nominated Essendon and it passed on Thursday.
The Bombers won’t be offering up their future first-round pick either.
It all leads to one conclusion: the only way to make a tough situation worse now would be to string the Stringer stand-off out further.
Pelchen was interviewed on SEN this morning, basically .gave the Bombers a big tick and Bulldogs a cross.
Pelchen’s Essendon’s analysis: “The Bombers did the right thing by pulling the trigger, because ultimately there were other clubs that would have circled for Devon Smith in the coming days, especially if they missed out on other trades. The Bombers could only hold for so long and I think by shoring up Devon, and then getting some second round picks in the process, I think they’ve down [sic] extremely well.”
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Always liked that Pelchen!
If there is one thing the media love, it’s news.
The fact we hit a road block with Footscray, and still got the Devon Smith deal done, and will get Adam Saad done soon, puts us in the ‘good to trade with’ category.
The media don’t care about what’s fair, they only care about news. Our club has an illustrious history of holding up deals, changing our minds, and deliberately f*cking clubs over by not getting paperwork in on time.
It’s not hard to understand that the media consider us ‘hard to deal with’. As we’re stopping them from doing their job.
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As of now, 40% of completed trades this trade period involve Essendon.
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Essendon didn’t stop being hard to deal with… we dragged down the rest of the comp to our standard.
Funny having non-Essendon fans in the office whinging this morning about how boring Trade Period has been.
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