I say no to the Cloke deal. We give up too much for him.

That's why we are in this pickle now.

We gave up too much for Judd
We gave up too much for McLean
We gave up too much for Warnock

The question that will be answered in the next couple of years is whether the list is good enough anyway regardless of whose coaching.

I tend to agree with Rhino a bit on Murphy
Like all our mids he doesnt work hard enough defensively

Have a look at the Swans midfield. They work hard both ways.


Thats the important argument now.
The inference in this thread is that we just lack one power forward to claim the 17th
or because of shit recruiting, coaching etc we have a list that actually isnt good enough and we need to rebuild

Personally even though I didnt rate ratten as a coach I feel we have some massively overated footballers on our list

That's the beauty of free agency we actually don't have to give up any players or draft picks to trade for Cloke - all we sacrifice is salary cap space, but all the same I don't think we should go after him.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

..[[cut out my quote purely to save space]]..

..in regards to Murphy, i believe you're mistaken.. ..he missed 6 games of footy, can add in half a game on top of that in which he was injured.. ..and yet he still managed to rack up the most contested possession for the season at our club..

[interesting side-note for Agro and others, Brock comes in at 4th and played a bit over half a season]

..Murphy is also the most infringed against [FF's for] at our club so he's not shirking the contest at all.. ..and he usually rates very highly in this regard, contrary to popular belief.. ..he does get crunched quite a lot, and has for pretty much his entire time with us.. ..missing as much footy as he did, he came in 2nd for center clearances, and ranks 13th for clangers so he's using it better than more 'elite skilled' types such as Gibbs and Yarran.. ..factor in he's equal 2nd for goal assists as well..

..and this is in a year that plenty of the team performed poorly in patches, and overall team-work of everyone was down, and he was rushed back in after the injury..

_________________
..if you can't be good, be good at it..

If we've accomplished anything - we've (and Freo) probably forced Collingwood's hand in giving Cloke another year. He'll sign with the Pies before too long and the Carlton Football Club will not have a player called 'Travis' represent it at senior level for the 149th year in a row.

..costs too much contract wise, think we can develop from within [hendo]..

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..if you can't be good, be good at it..

That's the thing, isn't it, we are somewhere in the middle; it's just that we need to work out where we sit and recruit so that a chance at a premiership doesn't hurt our future prospects and vise versa.

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Just because I'm offended, doesn't mean I'm wrong.

I'd attribute a lot of those stats to how our midfield sets up, in that it's very Murphy-centric. I assume it is a clear goal to have him getting the tap out, and more recently, Judd outside.

If anything, I'm concerned at how much Murphy plays for frees also. Yes - he does get scragged - like any decent player does these days - I reckon there's few players without the Selwood surname who are as protected a specie as he is though. The Sydney game last year was a good example of that, earning a ridiculous amount of off the ball frees, and for each one, only seemed to encourage him to spread his arms out even wider straight at the umpire for a free kick. Not a good look.

He did well to come back that early from such a serious injury, and to deal with the leadership in such an ordinary period of the year as well was a good credit to him. Just think there's better options.

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BLUES 2010: PAV AND JUDD = FLAGS. DOING IT FOR THE LOVE OF DICK PRATT.

HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR TALKINGCARLTON SUPERCOACH 2009 YET?

I think that any talk that somehow we could do better than Murph with some judicious trading and drafting is hopeful in the extreme.

How many better midfielders are there in the comp?

Ablett : Yep
Judd: Not any more.
Fyfe: is a bit different in that he plays tall and can do things others can't.
Cotchin: yeah maybe, but not yet.
Kerr: Only effective again since the WCE redeveloped their midfield.

Everyone else, including Selwood, Swan, Pendles, are all in the same class IMO or there is so little difference between them that small fluctuations in form make them basically the same value.

That's not many players from a lot of drafts who are elite midfielders.

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I hope Essendon* folds.

Interesting opinion re: Fyfe, and where you have Selwood/Swan/Pendlebury. (FWIW, I'd have all 3 comfortably ahead of Murph, and would only have Fyfe and Kerr as below him from that list)

We could discuss about 30-40 players who are comparable in some way to Murphy -

* - whether they may not be as damaging as Murphy with the ball in their hands, but make up for it in spades defensively (Sam Mitchell).
* - players who might not be quite as good as Murphy, but are on a lot less $$. (Rockliff, Kennedy, Thompson, Boak)
* - players who aren't there now but certainly have the upside to be at his level in years to come (Cotchin, Jack Steven, Trengove, Greene)

At the moment, I see two glaring issues with our list - that we're not great defensively / question marks over the defensive mindset over the majority of the playing list, the second is that we're probably not getting value for money out of the money we're spending on TPP. The question marks over the structure of the list don't stop at how many HBF's we have, but rather salary bandings and how we've positioned the list for both a tilt at the flag or a list rebuild. Both look unnecessarily difficult to achieve due to how many players we have on salarys that are above market average, with minimal trade value at best.

Murph's defensive deficiencies, his salary, and worth on the trade market make him an ideal candidate.

_________________
BLUES 2010: PAV AND JUDD = FLAGS. DOING IT FOR THE LOVE OF DICK PRATT.

HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR TALKINGCARLTON SUPERCOACH 2009 YET?

Defensive deficiencies are over stated and a throw back to past years, his salary is commensurate with a player of his abilities and his trade market value is only useful indicator if trading him is a good idea. It isn't.

.....and Fyfe will be better than all of them, maybe not Judd or Ablett in their prime, but the rest.

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I hope Essendon* folds.

..if our midfield set-ups were Murphy-centric, then i think it's safe to assume they believe it ought to have been built around him, ergo he's the primo onballer in their view.. ..so, why on earth consider trading him out, and for not enough of his worth on top of that..??..

..in regards to free's, he can have a bit of a habit of exaggerating sometimes but that was a bad habit earned during his early years when he kept on getting smashed in the contests [recall his 2nd season especially], but the thing is he's so fast laterally in his movements that if you don't hold onto him inside the contest you lose him, and if he gets outside with the ball see you later, he's gone.. ..he's most definitely a very attacking midfielder, and i suspect plenty of opposition teams view him as our most damaging mid and sometimes will overcompensate in their tactics.. ..i think for any dubious free he gets, there's two that go missing so i'm not hugely concerned..

..and there's a strong chance he could snag a 2nd B7F this season, and possibly be our next captain as early as next season.. ..i just can't see why he'd be considered one to offload.. ..especially since most will agree we could use more midfield class, and you think trading out our best moving fwd is the way to acquire it..??..

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..if you can't be good, be good at it..

How do you know those guys are on a lot less money than Murphy?

Boak just signed a two year deal making him the highest paid player at PA .... ''reported'' to be 700k a year.
I reckon you have no idea.

So what players fall into what bandings and what is the list of payments per player so I can judge who is payed over market value in my opinion?

_________________
Go BLues

And long may this streak continue.

Travis Johnstone, Travis Tuck, Travis Cloke. Something happens to your kid when you name him Travis, and it ain't good.

Travis Boak ???

_________________
If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

All those players mentioned above are A grade midfielders and no club in it's right mind gives up an A grader for two "potential" good players unless the player has chosen to leave and they have no choice (see Judd & Ablett).

Any suggestion that Murphy's not A grade is absurd considering he's won the coaches award last year and finished equal 9th in the Brownlow.

Out of interest can anyone remember the last time a club voluntarily off loaded an A grade midfielder for a couple of pics?

If there are still flaws in Murphy's game (which there are - like all players) then that's a coaching issue and hopefully we now have a coach who will look at those and do something about them.

The guy's just turned 25 so his next 3 years should be when his strength peaks.

Lots to look forward to.

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Before I respond - can I qualify that statement? Murphy's defensive deficiencies are over stated or defensive deficiencies in general are over stated?

His salary is just as much determined by internal pressures as they are external - in that sense we're fortunate that Judd's mostly covered by Visy rather than inside the TPP cap. Trade market value is always going to be linked to the idea that there's a sucker born every minute. Crazy Vossy and Fev come to mind. Imagine what the second best offer for Fev was? If any...

I reckon Fyfe will be a very good player - the Hird comparisons are probably apt. Importance to a team though I don't think you can tie to ability though.

_________________
BLUES 2010: PAV AND JUDD = FLAGS. DOING IT FOR THE LOVE OF DICK PRATT.

HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR TALKINGCARLTON SUPERCOACH 2009 YET?

He was stupid enough to want to stay at Port Adelaide, so he fits in nicely with the rest of the Travis's. (not really talking about footballing ability here)

Or they believed that it ought to not be built around Judd, for similar reasons to what Malthouse mentioned about his workload. Irrespective a moot point, as Ablett/Gold Coast aside, I think we're the only club that has had a midfield set up of relying on one player so much (first Judd, then Murphy) in the midfield. Just a silly idea.




If Ratten had stayed, you'd give him Black Caviar odds on being the next captain. Under Malthouse, I'm not as certain. Not to say that I think Malthouse will trade him/doesn't rate him, but I think, IF he has the final say ahead of McKay or Sticks, he'd go for Simpson or Carrots.

I think it is the best option available - I'm not touting this as sure-fire success, or something that I even think the club will do - I think it's bold, proactive, and a good way to keep us in the mix during the infancy of free agency - which is probably the most important thing we need to do well in to challenge for a flag in the next decade.

_________________
BLUES 2010: PAV AND JUDD = FLAGS. DOING IT FOR THE LOVE OF DICK PRATT.

HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR TALKINGCARLTON SUPERCOACH 2009 YET?

Boak's contract, signed under the circumstances of free agency is apples to Murphy's oranges. That's still an overall investment and commitment of 1.4 mill to Boak as opposed to 1.5 mill to Murphy.

Boak with unrestricted free agency at the end of that deal will probably go also, potentially leaving Port with nothing to show for their investment. Not to mention the extra money Port can afford to pay him with no-one else within cooee of being worth anything above 500k compared to similar amounts for Kreuzer, Gibbs, Waite, Judd, Betts and then potentially Yarran and Cloke as well.

Are you happy with the performance of that $1.5 million investment compared to other market alternatives?

_________________
BLUES 2010: PAV AND JUDD = FLAGS. DOING IT FOR THE LOVE OF DICK PRATT.

HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR TALKINGCARLTON SUPERCOACH 2009 YET?