You're right, it's one that we at WOOF got wrong. Unfortunately we all make mistakes, and given the club doesn't publicly disclose many details about contracts it is often difficult to get solid verification.
2 years rather than 3 is certainly a more prudent list management decision, however we still got dudded on the trade by giving up a 3rd round selection Geelong only used to elevate a rookie - we could have done with another, earlier selection. If Geelong were only elevating a rookie, any pick what have been sufficient.
I was told by someone who should know that he was signed for 3 years.
The story goes that it was in our best interests financially to sign him for 3 than 2 so we went that way... not sure if there was an option clause at the end of the 2nd year though.
Fair enough, if that's the case. I was confused about when final list lodgements had to be made, I suppose it makes sense that it would be prior to the national draft rather than the preseason draft, to ensure each delisted player gets equal chance to get back on a senior or rookie list.
The point of my post was to highlight that there might have been a reason for offering pick 58 for him, other than general incompetence from Fantasia. We clearly wanted him on our list, and considering many on this board have been proven incorrect when it came to his contracted tenure at the club I figured there might be a chance the same might apply to the circumstances around the compensation provided to Geelong for his services.
I liken this situation to Tim Callan, where we only gave up a pick downgrade (from 61 to 63 from memory) to get Callan to the club. We got a speculative player and we got to keep a sllightly worse pick. Geelong are very reasonable players during trade week (eg: Steven King, Charlie Gardiner, Tim Callan) so we should have easily been able to negotiate something similar for DJ and kept a slightly worse 3rd round pick, especally considering he was about to get delisted. DJ is very much a speculative trade and on the back of 3 games in 3 years at Geelong, giving up a 3rd round draft pick for him was well over the odds (especially considering he was about to get delisted) - it meant that our first 'live' pick in that draft was 70 odd.
Anyway good luck to DJ. I'm not sold yet but Sunday's effort was encouraging. He still fumbles far too many ground balls for my liking, an area that really should be a strength for someone as agile and low to the ground as he is.
Agree on his ball handling skills, and agree that he still has a long way to go with respect to earning an extension on his contract.
Your point about the Cats being reasonable traders is fair enough, though I still don't think it accounts for either the Bulldogs having to offer a pick that was better than that potentially offered to them to secure his services, or them requiring that pick to use in another trade.