It gets mentioned that Dodoro/we didn’t/don’t have a good relationship with other clubs quite frequently but never really substantiated.
Someone did analysis a couple of years back that showed that we’d dealt with literally every club in the league in the preceding 10 years, except maybe WCE? I think it was 16/17. Of course that isn’t conclusive but it’s firmer evidence than vibe checks and Trade Radio reports.
Also pretty clear McCartney couldn’t stand Dodoro, but if you read McCartney’s petulant complaints to the media it was pretty clear who was at fault there. It mainly centred, as I recall, around McCartney not getting what he perceived to be fair value for Stringer, which was never going to happen after the Dogs frogmarched Stringer out of the club having announced he was done there, and then trying to get a trade sorted.
I know a couple of people in the player management industry aswell as a few from clubs and all have said in the past that he was by far the most difficult to deal with and sometimes they wouldn’t even take his phone calls or if they had deals in mind they would just go straight to the other options. For all the deals that gone there is dozens every year that don’t get done and the media only finds out about a few of them.
I recently did a negotiation theory course at work.
Until the mid-2000s, the approach was basically “do what’s best for your side and screw the other.” But over time, people realised relationships matter and that long-term success comes from getting deals done — and that the best outcomes are usually win-wins (like the recent Dees/Dons pick swaps).
Another insight was that people often make offers the other side would never accept, which just wastes time. You have to step into their shoes and ask, “What would I take if I were them?”
I feel Dodoro and Sheedy were stuck in that old-school “we are Essendon” mindset — focused on winning the deal rather than making one or offering trades for contracted players like Hill or Dunkley that may seem “fair” from our perspective, but wouldn’t be accepted by the other party
