Bulldogs' $50,000 Ward mistake - Herald Sun

[KT31]

Honestly losing Ward worked out better for us IMO. Big chance we miss out on Bont if we kept Ward as I think we easily win a game or 2 more in 2013 with Ward.

I will take this as the silver lining, for that matter anyone just use ' 3 degrees of separation with Bonts ' to any future negative Doggies articles printed in the future.

[bornadog]

Seriously? Ward is elite.

Macrae is underrated.

[comrade]

He wasn't the only problem. The coach dropped the ball big time as well.

I knew about Fantasia but wasn't aware of Eade's involvement. Given you know more, care to elaborate?

[Webby]

We're just lucky Dalrymple's shot the lights out since then. People also forget that it wasn't necessarily Macrae that we got with the Ward compo pick. When you have the 5th & 6th picks, it doesn't really matter who goes first. You pick the two you want and call them out in any old order.

When you look at it, had we only had pick 5, would we have gambled on Jake and his badly broken leg, or gone with the less spectacular, but safer Macrae?

We'll never know. Although Jake's last 2-3 months have been poor, he was an All Australian as a 21 year old last year. Let's not forget that. Yes, the club stuffed up with Ward, but we've fallen on our feet.

Incidentally, whilst we were losing Ward, we were picking up Dahlhaus on the Rookie List, JJ with a deep pick, then several gun Father/Sons, Caleb Daniel with a deep pick etc.

It's so quintessentially Doggies fan to keep beating yourselves up over the one that got away... And dare I say particularly negative and defeatist on the eve of a big final.

We've got nothing to lose tonight. We've rolled the dice and we may just shock the country. How about the media just let us focus on that? FFS!! We've got perhaps the best young list in the country and will be doing our damndest to hold onto them.

[bornadog]

We're just lucky Dalrymple's shot the lights out since then. People also forget that it wasn't necessarily Macrae that we got with the Ward compo pick. When you have the 5th & 6th picks, it doesn't really matter who goes first. You pick the two you want and call them out in any old order.

When you look at it, had we only had pick 5, would we have gambled on Jake and his badly broken leg, or gone with the less spectacular, but safer Macrae?

We'll never know. Although Jake's last 2-3 months have been poor, he was an All Australian as a 21 year old last year. Let's not forget that. Yes, the club stuffed up with Ward, but we've fallen on our feet.

Incidentally, whilst we were losing Ward, we were picking up Dahlhaus on the Rookie List, JJ with a deep pick, then several gun Father/Sons, Caleb Daniel with a deep pick etc.

It's so quintessentially Doggies fan to keep beating yourselves up over the one that got away... And dare I say particularly negative and defeatist on the eve of a big final.

We've got nothing to lose tonight. We've rolled the dice and we may just shock the country. How about the media just let us focus on that? FFS!! We've got perhaps the best young list in the country and will be doing our damndest to hold onto them.

JJ was a rookie.

[Sedat]

He wasn't the only problem. The coach dropped the ball big time as well.

Whoever was involved in list management and individual player contracts at the time - be it Fantasia/Rocket/Smorgon/Rose/the bootstudder - let the club down so horribly and so ineptly in this instance. Would be fair to say that Fantasia's role as head of football and list management, and the person directly responsible for player contract negotiations after Clayton left, would make him far and away the most culpable.

We've done exceptionally well to minimise the damage with our shrewd recruiting and drafting since then. But no supporter should ever be happy with a club botching such a situation in amateur hour circumstances. We're not talking about a plodder like Levi Greenwood holding his former club to ransom after one good year - Ward was at the time emerging competition elite, which has been well and truly verified by his GWS output, and his contractual expectations at the time were entirely commensurate with his output, let alone the expected (and delivered in spades) excellence of performance since then.

[bornadog]

Whoever was involved in list management and individual player contracts at the time - be it Fantasia/Rocket/Smorgon/Rose/the bootstudder - let the club down so horribly and so ineptly in this instance. Would be fair to say that Fantasia's role as head of football and list management, and the person directly responsible for player contract negotiations after Clayton left, would make him far and away the most culpable.

We've done exceptionally well to minimise the damage with our shrewd recruiting and drafting since then. But no supporter should ever be happy with a club botching such a situation in amateur hour circumstances. We're not talking about a plodder like Levi Greenwood holding his former club to ransom after one good year - Ward was at the time emerging competition elite, which has been well and truly verified by his GWS output, and his contractual expectations at the time were entirely commensurate with his output, let alone the expected (and delivered in spades) excellence of performance since then.

You can add letting Harbrow go in there as well.

[bulldogtragic]

You can add letting Harbrow go in there as well.

I'd almost kill to have both of them right now.

[comrade]

I'd almost kill to have both of them right now.

If it makes you feel better, we probably wouldn't have Bont if we had both of them.

Butterfly effect and all.

[Stefcep]

Well GWS have to suffer watching that hair style, so that's a win for us.

[Greystache]

I knew about Fantasia but wasn't aware of Eade's involvement. Given you know more, care to elaborate?

There's a couple of elements and I'll let GVG elaborate, but Ward didn't feel any great affection to the Bulldogs which might otherwise have tipped the scales towards staying. He didn't appreciate being constantly belittled by the senior coach and didn't feel overly valued as a developing senior player. He also didn't enjoy being screamed at incoherently every week because the coach couldn't keep control of himself on game day. Eade being moved on may have been enough to convince him to stay, but by the time it happened, he'd been signed up to GWS for months.

[comrade]

I'd almost kill to have both of them right now.

There's a couple of elements and I'll let GVG elaborate, but Ward didn't feel any great affection to the Bulldogs which might otherwise have tipped the scales towards staying. He didn't appreciate being constantly belittled by the senior coach and didn't feel overly valued as a developing senior player. He also didn't enjoy being screamed at incoherently every week because the coach couldn't keep control of himself on game day. Eade being moved on may have been enough to convince him to stay, but by the time it happened, he'd been signed up to GWS for months.

So he would've been happy to stay and get screamed at for an extra $50K or the money wasn't really the issue?

If that's the case, we've all been blaming Fantasia when it may actually be deeper than that.

[azabob]

I'd almost kill to have both of them right now.

Harbrow is no big loss at all.

[Greystache]

So he would've been happy to stay and get screamed at for an extra $50K or the money wasn't really the issue?

If that's the case, we've all been blaming Fantasia when it may actually be deeper than that.

He would've signed a decent offer up front because he could've stayed close to home and had a secure future in a familiar environment. He was more open to looking around at other offers than many other players would've been because of the way he was dealt with. Fantasia has always been the target for all blame but we weren't exactly dealing with a player who bled red white and blue for several reasons.

[comrade]

He would've signed a decent offer up front because he could've stayed close to home and had a secure future in a familiar environment. He was more open to looking around at other offers than many other players would've been because of the way he was dealt with. Fantasia has always been the target for all blame but we weren't exactly dealing with a player who bled red white and blue for several reasons.

Cheers, learnt something new.