Lance Franklin to become a Swan

[ugg]

I can't see the COLA remaining in its current form, it may be scrapped altogether or altered so that it heavily favours players on lower salaries at the exclusion of the high earners. Whether you believe it's a justifiable allowance or not, the collective fury from the other clubs, presidents, journos and the footy public in general will pressure the AFL to take action and it may well mean that the Franklin coup may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.

[goswannies]

[from the AFL app news feed:
The Blues are evidently seething, with club president Stephen
"I'm not that happy tonight," Kernahan said.
"All this footy club has ever wanted forever is an equal playing field." ]


Waaah waaah waaah!

Funny how Carlton were pretty happy in the early 90s to vote to have the Swans kicked out of the comp, & have Carlton play all their home games at Princess Park & all their away games in Sydney. Collingwood vetoed the idea, rallying all the remaining clubs to have the AFL financially support the Swans (probably because the Magpies didn't come up with the idea themselves). Yup Carlton wanted the even playing field of 22 home games back then.

& the Blues were all too happy to pillage Rhys-Jones, Williams, & Evans ... bonafide stars from a club who were struggling to retain players. Pretty even competition.

[from the AFL app news feed:
"Collingwood, the richest club in the AFL, who would love to have another power forward, didn't even contemplate speaking to Lance Franklin because we can't get at these third-party deals because the AFL is all over us.]

Ummm like the power forwards you took of West Coast in Q Lynch and are working at with Jesse White? As I recall when Lockett wanted out from a struggling StKilda, Collingwood were courting him pretty strongly then too. Pity Sydney won that one too.

Does chins McGuire know what a thrd party deal is? It's what the Crows did with Tippett. Sydney don't have a third party paying either Kurt or Buddy.

[from the AFL app news feed:
"Should we just blow the competition up and just go stealing everyone's players and not have Melbourne and St Kilda and Western Bulldogs in the future?]

Think back Chins ... do any of these names sound familiar: Graham Teasdale. Greg Smith. Barry Mitchell. Anthony Rocca. Paul Licuria. Mark Orchard. Darren Jolly. Not much theft of some pretty handy players there.


[from the AFL app news feed:
"You'd have to ask yourself today is this the right result for the competition?," GWS chief executive David Matthews said.]

Oh, sorry Mr Matthews, you mean as opposed to giving on club a whole bunch of first round draft picks, extended playing lists, picks of uncontested players and massive financial allowances to recruit dud rugby players to promote the game in a unpopular region of Syndey?


[from the AFL app news feed:"The competition sets itself up with rules to try to equalise the distribution of talent and two years in a row you see a top club getting probably the highest-profile uncontracted free agent."]

Yup pretty equal when GW$ & the GC$s both hoarded the top young talent for 3 years. Lovely equal distribution of talent


Hypocrits.

[Mug Punter]

I can't see the COLA remaining in its current form, it may be scrapped altogether or altered so that it heavily favours players on lower salaries at the exclusion of the high earners. Whether you believe it's a justifiable allowance or not, the collective fury from the other clubs, presidents, journos and the footy public in general will pressure the AFL to take action and it may well mean that the Franklin coup may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.

Think it was always going to be amended somewhat but this will bring is forward a bit.

I actually agree with Eddie on this one. COLA is not designed for the likes of Buddy Franklin and Kurt Tippett. I'd like to see it amended, not scrapped , to be means-tested with a sliding scale up to about $200K where it cuts out completely. So, if it is worth $20,000 per player you may have 15-20 on your list get it which will be an approximate halving of what we currently get

[goswannies]

I can't see the COLA remaining in its current form, it may be scrapped altogether or altered so that it heavily favours players on lower salaries at the exclusion of the high earners. Whether you believe it's a justifiable allowance or not, the collective fury from the other clubs, presidents, journos and the footy public in general will pressure the AFL to take action and it may well mean that the Franklin coup may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.

Given that there was a good chance that the other clubs were trying to get rid of it anyway, perhaps this was Sydney trying to get one last advantage before they closed the "loophole"?

[Ludwig]

I can't see the COLA remaining in its current form, it may be scrapped altogether or altered so that it heavily favours players on lower salaries at the exclusion of the high earners. Whether you believe it's a justifiable allowance or not, the collective fury from the other clubs, presidents, journos and the footy public in general will pressure the AFL to take action and it may well mean that the Franklin coup may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.

This is what surprised me about the Franklin deal. You would think that RC and AI would have anticipated this reaction. They've been down this road so often. We just went through it with Tippett. It really is hard to figure.

[MightyBloods]

Given that there was a good chance that the other clubs were trying to get rid of it anyway, perhaps this was Sydney trying to get one last advantage before they closed the "loophole"?

Agree.

[Ludwig]

Think it was always going to be amended somewhat but this will bring is forward a bit.

I actually agree with Eddie on this one. COLA is not designed for the likes of Buddy Franklin and Kurt Tippett. I'd like to see it amended, not scrapped , to be means-tested with a sliding scale up to about $200K where it cuts out completely. So, if it is worth $20,000 per player you may have 15-20 on your list get it which will be an approximate halving of what we currently get

Or perhaps just make it a flat 20k for every player rather than a percentage, so it effectively gets disproportionately distributed to the lowest paid players and wouldn't have much appeal for attracting high end players.

[liz]

I can't see the COLA remaining in its current form, it may be scrapped altogether or altered so that it heavily favours players on lower salaries at the exclusion of the high earners. Whether you believe it's a justifiable allowance or not, the collective fury from the other clubs, presidents, journos and the footy public in general will pressure the AFL to take action and it may well mean that the Franklin coup may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.

Maybe. Or the Swans' hierarchy might have already decided it was doomed anyway. They would have to realise that if it wasn't already this will completely torpedo it. They are clearly smart operators.

Mind you, if it goes, it will go for the Giants too. They probably need an "attraction" allowance and will do for some while, even though they already have one and it doesn't seem to be working.

One of the comments made on the emergency AFL360 show tonight - by David King, I think - was that GWS have really fallen short here. Sure, if it is true that Buddy set his heart on the Swans a year ago, they may never have seriously been in the hunt. But there were no guarantees that the Swans would be able to put something together, and if the city of Sydney was at least part of the attraction, they might have won out. Yet the offer they put to him wasn't the 'godfather' (I think that was the term King used) deal that they needed to.

I have a whole raft of thoughts and emotions around this situation, many of the them contradictory. Earlier today I was quite distraught because it sounded just plain stupid. Having read many of the comments on here, and listed to AFL360 I am seeing a few different perspectives but I am still not entirely sure what I feel about it.

It is undoubtedly a very bold move by the club. Only time will tell if it is genius or folly. My main reservation is whether it will really make us that much better of a team. We were already a contender for 2014. Will this strengthen our chances? By enough to make it worth the risk of screwing up our salary cap payments in the future, especially if either Tippett or Buddy succumb to long term injuries.

My other reservation is around the kind of competition we have / want. To me this signals the end of the concept of an equal competition were all clubs can thrive, Maybe that concept was doomed anyway. And if it wasn't several years ago, arguably the players' push for free agency tipped it over the edge, and what we are seeing is just a manifestation of that change. Amongst all the ill-informed stuff Eddie was going on about this evening, he did touch upon this and it hit something of a nerve with me. However, the irony of it coming out of Eddie's mouth wasn't lost, given how selective he is in his interest in equalisation measures.

What this move by the Swans does say is that if there are to be powerhouses and also rans, they are determined that the Swans will be in the former group. This isn't just about ultimate onfield success (ie premierships) - it's also about memberships, packing out the revamped SCG on a regular basis, and trying to move AFL from its niche in the Sydney market to truly establish its place alongside NRL and soccer in NSW.

[albrotha]

Oh Eddie...the robin hood of the competition so long that it doesn't impact Collingwood.
Lets talk equalisation Eddie. How many home games at the MCG do you get a year? The revenue that you and the AFL get from these games helped fund your Westpac Centre. Do you give free lease to your Westpac facilities to the more down trodden Melb clubs? or donate towards the other clubs facilities?
How are those third party agreements going Eddie? You know, the ones where you had to distance yourself from Mcguire Media for some of your Pie players? You know, the Cloke one with the Footy Show, the Swan one with The Footy Show and MMM and also a guy called Dale Thomas who interestingly just recently has had his 3rd party arrangements put on hold.

As a side, I had great pleasure in watching the grand final on the weekend. At a BBQ I was aked who I thought would win. I secretly thought Freo but responded with "oh, of course the Hawks with their home final". The look of surprise by the other guys was priceless. They responded with "but its the Grand Final...no home final". My response was "well ok, you guys walk to the G from Fremantle and I'll walk there from Glenferrie Oval and we'll see who gets there first". My point being is that we will never have equalisation. The AFL will make decisions to maximise revenue and continue to make decisions to keep the more powerful happy. The development of the game into QLD and NSW has increased the AFL's coffers, and the clubs, but whats an Eddie to do?

Great post. Loving the rants and raves from Eddie and now Malthouse. Eddie must be so envious of the Red and the White. He needs to start concentrating on his own club and maybe start benchmarking at the awesome way the Swans are run. Let's get Collingwood away games every other week including travel up to Darwin and down to Tasmania. Lets get them to expand the code into other countries like the Swans and St. Kilda did last year. Perhaps they could stay over in Arizona and play for premiership points against a Geelong or Hawthorn side. That may get them a bit closer to the number of miles travelled by the interstate clubs. Having a West Australian club travel to Tasmania is totally unfair let's allow them to have more home games for equalisation.

[bloodsbigot]

Oh Eddie...the robin hood of the competition so long that it doesn't impact Collingwood.
Lets talk equalisation Eddie. How many home games at the MCG do you get a year? The revenue that you and the AFL get from these games helped fund your Westpac Centre. Do you give free lease to your Westpac facilities to the more down trodden Melb clubs? or donate towards the other clubs facilities?
How are those third party agreements going Eddie? You know, the ones where you had to distance yourself from Mcguire Media for some of your Pie players? You know, the Cloke one with the Footy Show, the Swan one with The Footy Show and MMM and also a guy called Dale Thomas who interestingly just recently has had his 3rd party arrangements put on hold.

As a side, I had great pleasure in watching the grand final on the weekend. At a BBQ I was aked who I thought would win. I secretly thought Freo but responded with "oh, of course the Hawks with their home final". The look of surprise by the other guys was priceless. They responded with "but its the Grand Final...no home final". My response was "well ok, you guys walk to the G from Fremantle and I'll walk there from Glenferrie Oval and we'll see who gets there first". My point being is that we will never have equalisation. The AFL will make decisions to maximise revenue and continue to make decisions to keep the more powerful happy. The development of the game into QLD and NSW has increased the AFL's coffers, and the clubs, but whats an Eddie to do?

Not to mention the fact that Collingwood can afford like 3 or 4 more assistant coaches than any other side in the competition.

Eddie McGuire is full of it. Collingwood are the most unequal of all the Victorian clubs. He only preaches about 'equalization' when it suits him.

Melbourne clubs fans are absolutely deluded.

- - - Updated - - -

You know what I find funny...

It's hilarious how every hawk supporter and his dog were saying the only reason the swans won in 2012 was because of the cap. Now that we've bought Tippett and Buddy, clearly now it shows that in 2012 we were paying well under our cap.

Now they just have another reason to have a whinge.

[albrotha]

Not to mention the fact that Collingwood can afford like 3 or 4 more assistant coaches than any other side in the competition.

Eddie McGuire is full of it. Collingwood are the most unequal of all the Victorian clubs. He only preaches about 'equalization' when it suits him.

Melbourne clubs fans are absolutely deluded.

- - - Updated - - -

You know what I find funny...

It's hilarious how every hawk supporter and his dog were saying the only reason the swans won in 2012 was because of the cap. Now that we've bought Tippett and Buddy, clearly now it shows that in 2012 we were paying well under our cap.

Now they just have another reason to have a whinge.

3 or more coaches but still the most undisciplined side in the competition. It was OK for Anthony Rocca to be swiped by Collingwood. Take the Swans premiership ruckman Jolly. .

[bloodsbigot]

Also hate it how everyone compares West Australian sides to the swans in that it's a high cost of living in Perth.

They have a very distinct advantage over the swans. They're a traditional footy state and they'll always have extremely good players to choose from who have the 'go home' factor.

[Legs Akimbo]

Maybe. Or the Swans' hierarchy might have already decided it was doomed anyway. They would have to realise that if it wasn't already this will completely torpedo it. They are clearly smart operators.

Mind you, if it goes, it will go for the Giants too. They probably need an "attraction" allowance and will do for some while, even though they already have one and it doesn't seem to be working.

One of the comments made on the emergency AFL360 show tonight - by David King, I think - was that GWS have really fallen short here. Sure, if it is true that Buddy set his heart on the Swans a year ago, they may never have seriously been in the hunt. But there were no guarantees that the Swans would be able to put something together, and if the city of Sydney was at least part of the attraction, they might have won out. Yet the offer they put to him wasn't the 'godfather' (I think that was the term King used) deal that they needed to.

I have a whole raft of thoughts and emotions around this situation, many of the them contradictory. Earlier today I was quite distraught because it sounded just plain stupid. Having read many of the comments on here, and listed to AFL360 I am seeing a few different perspectives but I am still not entirely sure what I feel about it.

It is undoubtedly a very bold move by the club. Only time will tell if it is genius or folly. My main reservation is whether it will really make us that much better of a team. We were already a contender for 2014. Will this strengthen our chances? By enough to make it worth the risk of screwing up our salary cap payments in the future, especially if either Tippett or Buddy succumb to long term injuries.

My other reservation is around the kind of competition we have / want. To me this signals the end of the concept of an equal competition were all clubs can thrive, Maybe that concept was doomed anyway. And if it wasn't several years ago, arguably the players' push for free agency tipped it over the edge, and what we are seeing is just a manifestation of that change. Amongst all the ill-informed stuff Eddie was going on about this evening, he did touch upon this and it hit something of a nerve with me. However, the irony of it coming out of Eddie's mouth wasn't lost, given how selective he is in his interest in equalisation measures.

What this move by the Swans does say is that if there are to be powerhouses and also rans, they are determined that the Swans will be in the former group. This isn't just about ultimate onfield success (ie premierships) - it's also about memberships, packing out the revamped SCG on a regular basis, and trying to move AFL from its niche in the Sydney market to truly establish its place alongside NRL and soccer in NSW.

This just about sums it up for me. I felt very comfortable with the swans being perennial over achievers. I liked how our strength was our midfielders acting as a team and a unit. Everyone had a soft spot for Sydney because after 1996, we did it the hard way.

Now there is so much negativity from others about my club and quite of a lot of it valid.

Why could we not stick to the formula, particularly given it was already delivering success? If we win the 2014 premiership, will it be somehow viewed as tainted?

On the field, the competition is becoming more about team plans and a big group of running midfielders with elite disposal. Neither Tippett nor Buddy Franklin will deliver that.

As a marketing strategy, it would be a huge win. But then I don't watch footy and support my team because they are a marketing vehicle. However, if we get another 10,000 members and the club books 3-4 years of strong financial results then that can only be a good thing.

In terms of list management, there is a lot of eggs in the Franklin and Tippett basket and I cannot see that being good for team harmony and certainly not a good strategy in terms of spreading risk, particularly given the reported 9 year contract. Will we see an exodus of players this year and in future years?

Getting a bit philosophical, but disparity between rich and poor is characteristic of dystopia. We've created such disparity within the club with two players on our list eating 20%(??) of the cap. We've also made manifest the disparity of clubs in the competition and clearly there will be ramifications.

On balance, I don't like this... but that could change when I see the big fella flying in the red and white

[Bloody Hell]

Looks like it has been a long time in the planning and organised with the Hawks. Shows what good trading relationships can do....wouldn't see this with Collingwood. Both teams will look good to their members.

I recall Buddy saying earlier in the year he didn't want to leave the Hawks with nothing....which is what they would have gotten if he went to GWS.

[Ludwig]

Looks like it has been a long time in the planning and organised with the Hawks. Shows what good trading relationships can do....wouldn't see this with Collingwood. Both teams will look good to their members.

I recall Buddy saying earlier in the year he didn't want to leave the Hawks with nothing....which is what they would have gotten if he went to GWS.

I made a few comments along these lines, with perhaps a prearrangement to get Mummy to Hawthorn. Now I am not too sure how this would fly. I wonder if such an arrangement would be construed as compromising the draft or free agency rules. It's so easy to run afoul of the AFL rule book. And with the kind of scrutiny this deal will come under, we probably have to very careful about any dealings with Hawthorn.

There is something to be said for the right of a player to play for his desired club, something which is forever being driven in favour of the player. I would imagine that the AFL Players Association would come down strongly on the side of the deal going through if the player is a free agent and chooses the club he wishes to play for, which is what free agency is all about.

I hope we don't end up shooting our self in the foot about this. Liz' comments about the writing on the wall with the COLA are probably correct, so why not go down with all guns blazing. We've put a lot of justified faith in our management over the years, so it's hard to be too critical.