Season 2023 - GWS

That’s not just about loyalty though. One of the ways you make yourself as an assistant coach is getting a broad range of experience. Outside of 6 months with GWS, he’s never seen a club’s culture and approach other than Essendon’s.

I do understand the reasoning and the calculation involved. I’m just noting that loyalty as a commodity seems to have its value vary wildly from situation to situation.

Oh yeah, definitely. The number of angry Blitzers about Saad/JD/Raz who would then be happy to trade/push out other players is enormous.

It’s not usually about loyalty per se, its about when can loyalty be used as a trump card to improve my position.

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He doesn’t want one. He is going back to his business.

Dodged a bullet here. The test for hird and his commitment to coaching, was whether he would go back into club land and develop his coaching CV if he was not chaperoned into the Essendon gig again.

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Impressive considering the bullet was from our own gun?

Is it loyalty though, or a misguided messiah complex (not even necessarily of his own doing considering how many people would still bow down to his feet)

I don’t think anyones first thought when he went to GWS was, oh wow what a lack of loyalty to essendon he’s showing.

If anything I think the “go do an assistant role elsewhere” is a loyalty test of sorts to actually prove you’re legit about coaching in general, not just wanting to coach essendon.

but again a fair chunk of us know he isn’t actually interested in coaching in general, he just wants to coach essendon, without ever having to put in the same effort on coaching in general as others.

he doesn’t have loyalty to essendon, he has loyalty to his own ego, essendon FC is merely the tool by which he sees to affirm his greatness as a coach somehow.

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Wow

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Ive been looking at the giants this year living in Sydney. Thought grabbing a membership to get access to the members bar and enjoy some football other than the dons.

They just play bugger all football in Sydney.

First they share half their games with Canberra then they have the Sydney Easter show take out their home games for over a month.

Your lucky to be able to see them in Sydney once a month. You can’t build support for a side like that.

Think about a melbourne based team. Eg the dons, your seeing home and away games maybe 3 times nearly every single month.

I might get a giants membership to get amongst it, but only if they offer one of those dinky 3 game packs.

GWS are bound to fail unless they go either Sydney or Canberra fulltime with their home ground available for the whole season(imho)

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Completely agree with this and the idiots just signed a 10 year extension with Canberra, it’s madness. The AFL have made a lot of mistakes in setting up the giants.

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I feel like they’ve had an awful last 7 months since the conclusion of the 2022 home and away season.

After the Taranto and Hopper trades they had:

2022:

Pick 3 (traded out for Cadman)
Pick 12 (traded out for Cadman)
Pick 15 (wiped out matching early Sydney bid for Harry Rowston)

Pick 18 - Dead keen on Konstanty at 15 and then again at this pick but Swans take him one pick before. Take Darcy Jones instead. Just done his ACL.

Pick 19 - Max Gruzewski
Pick 31- Toby McMullin

Some of these picks ultimately got pushed back a few spots on the night due to father/son and academy bidding.

2023:

Their own 1st rounder
Richmond 1st rounder
Their own 2nd rounder (traded out for Cadman)

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I honestly feel like the 2 expansion clubs should have a sign on bonus, for attracting and retaining players. Sydney and Brisbane were the ones that stuffed this by cashing in on it, I dunno why they were included in on the scheme anyway.

It effectively put the expansion clubs back when COLA was taken from them, something that is stupid when you consider the 100s of millions of dollars being poured into those areas for other things. Things that make nowhere near the same splash that a winning/successful club in those markets would.

They had one. It was wildly generous and SHOULD have set both expansion clubs up for a decade of dominance. I’m pretty sure that’s the outcome the AFL intended.

Free agency (and the increasing worthlessness of contracts in the face of a player who wants out) cut the legs from under the whole strategy.

They had a sign on bonus? I didn’t know that, when did it start and end then? Or are you referring to COLA.

They had a massively increased salary cap for their first few years. Something in the order of an extra million per year when total salary caps were something like $5 or $6m? I think it gradually reduced and was phased out after year 5, so it’s long gone now.

Yeah i do remember that, i like the sign on bonus better though, it means their list managers can’t completely stuff the cap overpaying young guys. Pretty much like you see with gold coast recently, they aren;t smart enough to manage it themselves.

Yeah, but the reason they stuffed the cap overpaying young guys was that it was the only way that they could keep young guys at the club, in the new FA environment. There’s no point being able to attract new players if you can’t keep the ones you’ve already got. FA and the relative unattractiveness to players of the expansion clubs are the real issues. A signing bonus would just turn the expansion clubs into a halfway house. Players who wanted out of their existing club would sign there for a short contract on big sign on bonus bucks, then leave after a year or two. Convincing players to COME to the GC and GWS isn’t the real problem (the draft means many of them don’t have a choice, after all!) Convincing them to STAY has been the real long-term issue.

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And even then, I get the impression that the issue has been less for GWS in the first 5-8 years (pre-Cameron). That the issue was they had too much talent and kids couldn’t get gametime, and they had to decide who to keep and who to lose.

A big problem is they gave big contracts to senior players whose performance then dropped off.

Interesting watching the Replay and Kingsley is adopting the ole ‘fire and brimstone’ approach at the 3qtr time break.
Something that Nino would have approved of, and noted had he been here.

The Giants then responded with a listless, impotent last qtr performance.
Not sure the hot gospelling style works anymore.

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they copped the psychotic from cameron enough, just watch the amazon doco on it. legit psycho and cogs being a religious nut probably didn’t resonate. the list is doomed and need a huge turnover, no wonder the more normal people got out (shiel, treloar, adams, etc.

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