Who leaves? - we cant keep them all

[bulldogtragic]

Say Hawthorn are only willing to do pick 4.

Do you do it in the end?

With 5 minutes to go. I’d love another F2 to try to get a F1, but Watson, McKercher/Sanders & Croft is a nice hit of talent. Plus the cash freed up goes to getting Marra signed. Smith was putrid for much of this year.

[1eyedog]

Hypothetical but looking more and more probable as the days go by.

We've signed Bont and Naughty to large long contracts, and very shortly (2024) the following all come up:

JUH
English
Smith

We cant possibly sign all 3 on the large contracts that they WILL be offered elsewhere, so out of the three which one goes?
Or is it a real possibility that we lose Two of the above?
Or is there a way the club can engineer keeping them?

Are we maybe better off taking the hit now?

Baz, Chilli, Marra in that order.

[bulldogtragic]

If Macrae can’t find form again, his large salary might mean we move him on with some salary paid.

I think we could keep them all, but we’d be knackered in trying to keep others or trade in others. We are going down the Collingwood route before they imploded if we sign them all to huge contracts. The consequence was most in power got sacked/quit.

[hujsh]

If Macrae can’t find form again, his large salary might mean we move him on with some salary paid.

I think we could keep them all, but we’d be knackered in trying to keep others or trade in others. We are going down the Collingwood route before they imploded if we sign them all to huge contracts. The consequence was most in power got sacked/quit.

He's maybe the guy that would be better off leaving. What that tells me more than anything is that we can't make Naughton our VC because it is actually a curse.

McNeil can stay on the list as long as he's VC

[jeemak]

Being VC worked out well for Easton and the team.

[Sedat]

Purely speculating, next contract English will command around the $1.2m a year mark, Marra about $1m a year (maybe a little higher) and Smith would be south of $1m.

Would we be competitive if any of them left? Of course. Nobody is indispensable.

Who replaces English? Well Lobb in the short term, we could also hold onto Sweet if we/he wanted and we have Darcy developing as a possible option in 3+ years time.

Who replaces Marra? Croft in 3+ years time and we can fashion a potent forward line in the meantime around Naughton as the big dog with English/Lobb as 2nd tall targets, and of course Darcy is a wildcard here as well. Not perfect but doable.

Who replaces Smith? As disappointing as he was this year, we don't really have adequate depth on the list with regard to elite running mids, especially under 25.

We don't want to lose any of them but we also don't want to push our cap situation into something untenable and unfixable either.

Are we a middling team at present because of personnel or because of system/game style? Until we answer that question honestly, it doesn't really matter who stays or goes.

[hujsh]

Being VC worked out well for Easton and the team.

I think since Bont became captain he's sucked all the good juice for himself so all that's left for the VC is poison. This is my scientific analysis

[jeemak]

How much does Gawn earn?

[hujsh]

How much does Gawn earn?

Google says 800-900k. Not sure what that equates to post CBA but probably around the million mark.

If English would take 950k I think I could live with that as he's not Gawn and I doubt he's ever quite at Gawn's level even if he is a very good player and manages bulk up his contested game a bit