We must retain T bird, he is the foundation of our defence and Fisher is a must too. Both young and vital.
Let's get some direction.

Ciao

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Go Blue Boys

It might be us (Hawthorn), actually.

You guys would be silly to let him go, not because he's a world beater, but because he's the kind of guy you should be building your side with. Losing him for no good reason would be madness.

Remember, we've got the #1 uncontracted draft... if worse comes to worse, we draft him back!

This certainly does reek of the Allison school of negotiating through the media though... unfortunately it gives the brown colour glasses brigade something to crow about it till it's resolved!

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If meat is murder then yoghurt must be burglary
GO YOU BIG RED FIRE ENGINE
Move aside Kouta, Lance etc - you're holding us back... from entering the under 18s

The 3 year offer will be from Hawthorn. They are in the market for a defender.

We should ask them for pick 6. They'll say no. We should then ask them for pick 24 and tell them to find another 1st rounder. They'll be selling spider to someone, so they might be able to shake pick 10-16 loose.

Picks, say, 1, 12, 17, 19, 24, 35 would be a fair hand at the draft table.

I'm not saying we should get rid of T-bird, but there is no harm in asking the questions because everyone is for sale at the right price. If we don't like the offer, we just re-sign him.

could be a straight trade for Zac Dawson then

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“Every single element of the Club has to be the best in the league, meticulously and methodically, and only by doing this will we be elite and challenge for number 17.”
Greg Lee

Not when we have the 1st pick in the PSD it won't.

Hopes Sticks enjoys reading The Age

I wish we had finished second last and avoided the dreaded wooden spoon so Thornton could walk out the door to Essendon* for free.

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"Davies could eventually become a player of Judd's ability" - Paganite03 Click here to see for yourself!

If he sticks a price on his head that you couldn't come to terms with in the first place, grabbing him in the PSD at that very same price strikes me as an exceedingly silly exercise. Hypothetically, of course.

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Father of the Tom Murphy Fan Club

Motown, Thorton is a required player, which means the club will come to terms with him (I don't think Fisher is though). Any club who want to pry him loose will have to pay over the odds for him because for once we're in a position of strength here. We have cap space, and we have the first pick in the PSD draft. Unlike most people on this site, I'd actually consider offers for Thorton, if the price was right.

That could be achieved with a discrete phone-call, couldn't it?

Manufacturing a negotiation breakdown, publicly entertaining trade offers, drawing a line in the sand then crossing it in the PSD would be all kinds of silly IMHO. Might have the desired result, but it's awfully.....messy.

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Father of the Tom Murphy Fan Club

Thornton deserves 300K a year and its ludicrous we re-sign Kouta for what seems more than Thornton has been offered.
Melbourne have always rated Thornton highly and you could see Essendon* wanting a replacement for either Fletcher or Solomon so i think he has a few suitors who would be willing to pay his price.
I also think Thornton had a very good season and has every right to ask for a fair deal...
Fisher on the other hand while still being a required player has less claim to any serious pay rise....needs to prove himself like Thornton has...
Once again a very poor effort by the clubs administration and when is all this going to end...

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

You may not have noticed, but our club is an awfully messy place at the moment. If the club had taken a stand with Kouta instead of putting up with his silly negotiating through the media, then perhaps other player managers would not think that this is the way to get things done at Carlton. You're right, it's not pretty, but that doesn't mean we're going to bend over for the Hawks the way the Roos have for the last two years.

If we don't resign Thornton (and not getting a good backman from wherever...) we will finish last next year which I guess will make a lot of people here happy.
Hopefully this is all bluff from the agent.
I can think of almost 20 other Carlton 1st up regulars who could be traded and not have as negative an impact as Thornton leaving.

Get a grip team. This is obviously positioning by the player's agent. We are such a rabble at the moment you'd think every manager will have a go, why wouldnt they. We've got the precedence of success with the Kouta contract. We have a weak and indecisive board, we have a coach who, to many is a dead man walking. We have a president who, every time it seems we have bottomed out, dons a massive rubber glove and plunges deep into the sphincter of mediocrity to invent new ways to sink even lower.

The Gardiner back flip of a week ago with the president publically nobbling the coach on the back of a few e-mails to the club would have to have been a green light to player managers. What is Smorgo going to do when he gets 300 e-mails demanding that Thornton be given $300k for 4 years??

Get set for the inevitable Kade Simpson circus. Anybody know who Kade's manager is?

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"Who discovered we could get milk from cows, and what did he think he was doing at the time?" Billy Connolly

Agreed 2nd. Going through the normal process. Player agent aims high, CFC aims low. Player Agent goes to the papers to get some mileage then CFC responds and normally a middle ground is reached. Add the fact that the CFC is weak and desperate and the player managers will feed on this.

Thornton - 2 years only @ $280,000
Fisher - 2 years only @ 230,000

The only player we have lost in our most recent history is Hammill. I say stick to your guns and the above terms. If impasse is reached then hold firm on getting excellent early picks.

Any player that negotiates their contract through the media is a @#$%&! parasite.

They don't give a stuff about the club, they don't give a stuff about the jumper, they don't give a stuff about their team-mates, they don't give a stuff about the supporters.

It's a @#$%&! cancer at this club. A cancer that allowed us to get over $1M above the salary cap only 5 years ago.

I thought the cancer had been cut out, but it grew again with Kouta and Dirty Dave a few weeks ago and now someone like Thornton who would be lucky to get a game at half the clubs in the competition is dragging the club through the mud.

Disgrace, it has to stop.

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Don't blame McConville here - if the story is going to go to press anyway - it's in his clients best interests that he make a comment on the situation which he did. It might just have the desired effect of hurrying up some of the process and doing what should be done - and that's to sign up Bret and Brad; although having said that I'm sure they'd be wondering just what they could get for them both - and the club would be silly if they didn't.

Simmo is pretty happy at the Blues...his development (under Pagan) has been pretty bloody good, so I'd suggest he's staying; will take over from Skinny Lappin as the senior guy the young fellas listen to.

I thought Kade was managed by Paul Connors (Marc Murphy, Chris Judd, Brendan Fevola to name a few) - but I might be wrong on that one.

What do you mean 'going to press anyway' Dr S, the only possible source for the story is the player manager. He's given the story, how else did it get to the papers, can't imagine Carlton would have got the press involved. I think Jarusa is going a bit hard but I get his drift. And we get hung up on the figure of $210k - that's his manager's figure - is that flat rate, is that what he gets if he plays every game or no games? etc. Whole thing is his manager flying a kite and if it takes us losing a few players to stop mngrs negotiating through the press so be it. Offer TBird a reasonable deal and tell him to tell his manager to shut up.

Are we paying 92.5% of the cap?

If not, $250k/2 is a bit tight for T-Bird... I think he's justified to ask for $280k/4... Four years might sound ridiculous, but he's only 22 and would be getting good cover by the 4th year from the likes of Bower & co.... He's definately not a Full Back, but is damaging when playing on the 2nd or 3rd target. I think 4 years is legitimate given our lack of depth AND more importantly, forseeable(sp) depth.

Fisher should be happy he's getting an offer. $200k/2 is fair enough when you can't kick.... I would be loading his contract with incentives - something like "he must kick (or have a direct hand in) a minimum of 50 goals as a key forward, with a minimum of 80% efficiency (goal:behind ratio)". Would need to be re-visited slightly depending on specialist coaching, and to safe-guard the player's earnings in case of injury... If he doesn't want to play for his $$, then we don't want him anyway. He has not earned anything yet.

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" - Winston Churchill.