Tippett!!

[liz]

Not dodgy, just astute. And I don't think that all clubs handle these things as well as the Swans do.

Maybe I am reading more into this thing than has been made public, but there is enough there to suggest that Swans wanted this outcome with Tippett and made it happen.

What is there to suggest that, other than your imagination?

And I'd be flabbergasted if every club wasn't completely all over the salary cap rules. Clubs strive for even the minutest competitive advantage. Why would any club handicap itself by not understanding the basics of the competition they operate within?

My feeling was that the club would have preferred a fit and firing tippo to be playing next few seasons not the retirement option

+2

[stevoswan]

I've often wondered why there's never been a 'Capper!!' thread. He's pretty good value, as seen at a Brisbane Bears reunion today....in a Swans jumper no less :

williams-capper.jpg

[Markwebbos]

None of that makes any sense to me.

While clubs may jealously guard the details of their salary cap from other clubs, every single club will be all over the rules of the cap, and the ways it can be "managed". Whatever relief is available to Sydney for a player forced to retire through injury is available to every other club in the same situation. You make it sound like the Swans are doing something dodgy, which I can't see how is possible.

I was shocked at the number of players with contracts for 2018 that decided not to play on and ?retired? instead. Travis Cloke is the one that really stands out. I seem to remember Luke Beveridge saying words to the effect ?we?ll see about that? when a journo reminded him that Cloke had a contract for 2018.

Others that spring to mind as dubious include Ty Vickery; Andrew Swallow; Shane Mumford (feel like they made sure medical advice was career ending once he lost form).

Then there are the contracted players told they had no future and traded by their clubs: Jack Watts and Jake Stringer.

I think it?s been an off season off total shenanigans contract wise.

[Ludwig]

What is there to suggest that, other than your imagination?

The outcome. Tippett retired. Swans get salary cap relief.

Tippett had the option to receive $600k a year for the next 3 years by just showing up and following the protocols for recovery. But a result more favourable to the Swans ensued. One can assume that it was all just circumstantial. I side with the ingenuity of the Swans' management.

Call it imagination if you wish. Hallucination is my usual state of mind, so that comes out looking almost normal.

[dimelb]

The outcome. Tippett retired. Swans get salary cap relief.

Tippett had the option to receive $600k a year for the next 3 years by just showing up and following the protocols for recovery. But a result more favourable to the Swans ensued. One can assume that it was all just circumstantial. I side with the ingenuity of the Swans' management.

Call it imagination if you wish. Hallucination is my usual state of mind, so that comes out looking almost normal.

I don't know that the Swans management was being ingenious. Tom Harley was obviously surprised at the way things happened:

?We were planning for Kurt to have a delayed start to the season, those plans were put in place immediately, but it now does force us to rethink a few things.?
Absence to create opportunities - sydneyswans.com.au

My impression is that at that point Tippo was in their future plans, however delayed he might be.

[goswannies]

The issue also with the ankle was two fold. Kurt said that firstly the recon was on his jumping leg so major problem as a ruckman and secondly his surgeon wanted to do a very slow rehab. At Xmas Kurt said he was way behind where he hoped to be

I personally don?t think it?s quite that clear cut. Ankle recons - depending on the severity, surgeon preference & complications - can recover in as quick as a few months to much more conservatively 6-12 months.

Let?s hypothesise that it?s a slow but good outcome. 12 months and he was good to play. He still had 2 years to run on his contract. When he extended his contract by the extra year, if it was to genuinely extend his playing career, thought those last two years after recovering from a conservative rehab should still be worthwhile.

Having said that, I have always been and will always be a Tippett fan. I was delighted when he signed, happy when he extended his contract, hopeful with every comeback and supportive on his decision to retire. He?ll always be a Swan to me. He may have played fewer games with us than the Crows, but he seemed happier here.

While the recon might have gone well technically, we have no idea about other post operative complications: infections (and there are no suggestions that there were), slower recovery of older (less elastic) soft tissue, joint articular degeneration (which if he played on an unstable ankle for more than half a year, is not unfeasable), the psychological barrier of yet another extended rehab period.

There was a game last year where Tip rolled his ankle early. He went off and it looked very grim. IIRC he cane back on after half time and played most of the 2nd half (albeit hampered) and I recall posting at the time that I thought it looked like an unstable ankle (that he would ?roll?, feel pain and anxiety that he?d injured it, but recovers quickly because it?s still structurally intact, albeit lax - it passes basic agility testing to return to play, but doesn?t hold up well with genuine play ... especially with a 200+cm player with a high centre of gravity). I think I posted at the time that it would benefit from a recon. Realistically, for Kurt?s long-term future, it still will; outside the physical rigours of elite AFL football, his ankle will hopefully be far less troublesome for his daily life now.

I don't know that the Swans management was being ingenious. Tom Harley was obviously surprised at the way things happened:

?We were planning for Kurt to have a delayed start to the season, those plans were put in place immediately, but it now does force us to rethink a few things.?
Absence to create opportunities - sydneyswans.com.au

My impression is that at that point Tippo was in their future plans, however delayed he might be.

I agree with this. It just didn?t come to fruition.

[707]

A few conspiracy theorists on here.

If Tippett was a normal run of the mill player and decided to retire based on medical prognostication then we'd just accept it. The fact that Tippetts salary has always been subject of debate is the thing that makes what is a "normal" event seem somehow suspicious to some people.

The club obviously hoped the ankle reco would be successful and that after 18 months of playing injured that it would get Tippett back to his very good early 2016 form. Medical advice has indicated that playing at AFL level again is unlikely although if he wanted to, maybe a lesser league purely as a FF?

What has occurred since this advice is no different than what happens at other clubs with contracted players, Mumford, Swallow and Cloke are this summer's most high profile retirements. There are rules governing what you can do regarding restructuring contracts and payouts with the players management, except when the player was obtained via Free Agency like Buddy or Ty Vickery as their previous club chose not to match the contract in $ and years that you tabled.

So seeing Tippett's retirement as any kind of contrived situation to give salary cap relief is just wrong. We had a plan for Kurt, that plan did not come to fruition due to the medicals, we negotiated a termination payout acceptable to Kurt and within the AFL rules. Nothing clever on our club's part, Western Bulldogs, North & GWS did identical things with their players and every club and the AFL knows what took place in all those situations.

All clubs in our situation will have created some cap space going forward by those retirements, how much in each case and for what years going forward is unknown to us plebs. That we will have a few spare $ is a given but in the overall scheme of things it won't be so significant as being enough to attract a player we would need. The club took the big hit by letting Mumford go when Buddy arrived. Once that was taken I'm sure we've had a fairly normal time managing our cap.

Whilst Buddy's contract looked list unbalancing at the time it was signed, most clubs now have players on similar or bigger contracts like Dusty, Fyfe, several at GWS! etc.

Sorry that's all a bit long winded but we don't need our own board suggesting this was a clever cap relief plan when the rest of the footy world is incorrectly saying that.

[CureTheSane]

Well you'd have to be pretty bold to go anywhere near draft tampering with Kurt.

My personal hope is that the Swans have orchestrated this using loopholes and cunning to screw the AFL.
Like a slow burn revenge for the draft ban.

And um, that's it I think.

[Markwebbos]

If there is no benefit to clubs then why were players like Cloke in particular forced to retire?

[goswannies]

Daily Telegraph has us in the hunt for a free agent next season on the back of Kurt?s departure, with Tippett?s final 3 yeas front-end-loaded & a settlement negotiated. Conjecture, I know.
Look forward to seeing how this plays out.
If we land a big enough player, perhaps Kurt could be considered for the Best Clubman Award at the B&F

[liz]

If there is no benefit to clubs then why were players like Cloke in particular forced to retire?

Was Cloke forced to retire?

[chammond]

Tippett said: "the reality is that my body isn?t going to stand up to the rigors of professional football. As I've found out in the past 18 months or so, it's impossible to play at the level you want without being fully fit".
The Club said: "the length of his recovery and doubts about being able to get back to his best, led to his decision to retire".
Harley said: "Retirement is never an easy decision and I know that Kurt?s decision was not made lightly".
Longmire said: "It takes courage to admit when your body isn?t up to playing at the level you want".
His manager said: "A lot of things he?s done along the journey at the Swans have been to help the club, and in some ways he?s doing that now by walking away from a lucrative contract".
Hard to see any conspiracy there?

The advantage to Tippett is that he gets a nice front-ended payout and as long as he wants to recover from the injury back home in Queensland.
The advantage to the Swans is that they don't have to pay out the full 3 year contract, and the consequent gap will become available in the salary cap.
If there was a conspiracy, surely they would have maximised the upside by doing all this last October?

The real downside is, of course, that we won't have Tippett available this season. Even without him, we've possibly got the best squad in the comp. With him fit and firing (especially in the 2nd half of the season), I think we would have been certainties for the Flag in 2018.

Ah well, I guess if we went through the season unbeaten, it would become too boring . . . .

[Dosser]

Someone at work was telling me that Eddie was using his radio stint this morning to air some conspiracy theories. I also heard last night on the radio that Tippett was on "1 mill" per year, etc and his salary should be applied over the original term of his contract so that we are not rorting, etc. It seems to me that the Melbourne public is confusing the Tippett deal with the Buddy deal. Oh well, the guys at work sure know how to get me to bite...

[AnnieH]

Someone at work was telling me that Eddie was using his radio stint this morning to air some conspiracy theories. I also heard last night on the radio that Tippett was on "1 mill" per year, etc and his salary should be applied over the original term of his contract so that we are not rorting, etc. It seems to me that the Melbourne public is confusing the Tippett deal with the Buddy deal. Oh well, the guys at work sure know how to get me to bite...

The "Buddy deal", i.e. we pay his contract out in full if he retires early, is a one-off deal that only applies to the Swans and Buddy.
The AFL didn't like the deal we made (remember "they" were banking on him going to GW$), so they attached the special conditions (i.e. the payout if he retires early) as a punishment for us going behind their backs to snare the Bud. If I remember correctly, the special conditions were attached AFTER the contract was signed because of the furore of Eddie Everywhere. I could be wrong, but that's the way I remember it.

[Markwebbos]

Was Cloke forced to retire?

I think he was made an offer he couldn?t refuse.

I reckon if the coach tells a player he doesn?t see them in the best 22 or won?t play them again, then that player has little choice other than to retire.