You’re probably right. I think I saw a headline like “opens up about heart surgery” and conflated the two.
Quality ‘Journalism’
Pull out the cheque book and make Kelly a serious offer. Seduce him with a young high quality midfield all maturing together.
Kelly, Merrett, Mcgrath, Parish, Heppell, Langford , Begley and Laverde - hopefully Mutch and Clarke make it.
Fantasia and Tippa moving through there too
Keep Myers for now but make some tough decisions on Hocking, Stanton, Jobe and either Bord or Howlett.
Hopefully when North miss out on Dustin and Kelly they make Zaka a stupid offer that he can’t refuse and lands us an end of first round pick.
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So he leaves GWS to join EFC?!?!?
If only…
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He’s a good chance to leave so he’s got to go somewhere.
Surely we can sell a better story than the Saints and North - besides his family ties to North.
I think if you went back through, gws are far more pragmatic about trading than gc
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Erm. Yeah. Doesn’t have that at gws!
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Says who?
He’s put off signing till the end of the year. The contract in front him is as good as he’ll get from GWS so he’s not holding out for more money from them.
His last interview he said something like, 'for the moment my minds with GWS" - hardly convincing. Something like that anyway.
He may not have decided yet, but there’s clearly a good chance of him going.
So pretty much the same situation as Joe then.
Nothing like
Serious?
Realistically what do you think they would want for Hopper? I agree they have been far more practical in the way they have approached trading but I still think they would expect a hefty price for him & I’m not yet convinced he’s worth it.
I hope we use our 2018 first pick to either pull in a ready made midfielder or trade in another pick in the early part of the 2017 draft so we can get the gun mids we need.
If there is anything I have learned from the last 16 years on BB it is that the more people pump up the tyres of any player we could poach/trade/cajole, the less likely it is we will get him.
Most of the players we got, no-one had wanted enough to take about or they had actively scorned beforehand (e.g. all those Carlton rejects, the GWS cast-offs that did no good, Cooney, etc) while the best player we were able to get, few if any had predicted.
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I think they’d want a pick around 10 ish (or equivalent value). They might only be worried about points, for academy kids
Which would mean our first pick goes to them, and (depending where we end up) we get a later pick back with him.
At that sort of trade, I’d do it.
He lived in an area (the riverina region) that was part of the GWS draft (academy) zone. That area covers a part of NSW and Victoria. So even though he was living in the Victorian part of the Riverina, he still have to be apart of the GWS academy. Another flog strategy by the AFL on their cheating child club.
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That’s not accurate. GWS’ academy zone is entirely within NSW (hence they had Albury but not Wodonga). The reason they had access to Hopper is because his family lived in Leeton in NSW. Where he was going to school wasn’t relevant.
To @barnz’s question, GWS did very little (Hopper basically said it was nice to just know they were around when he got asked about it), which was part of the reason the AFL tweaked the rules a bit and decided Marshall wasn’t eligible. In fact I think the only thing GWS did of note was argue against him being allowed to play for Vic Country in the champs.
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There is also the small problem that his family have barracked for GWS since they were created.
How about chasing Patracca next year?
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He’s what we think Begley will become.
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