Originally Posted by
Sedat
Lest I be accused of sounding like a broken record when talking about our head of football operations, but he has proven to be a complete failure in his key role of contract negotiator. Ward's management proactively asked for a contract extension in mid 2010 (when he was out injured) and what was offered to him was embarrassingly under par (no doubt in part due to us paying massive overs to hold onto Lake 6 months earlier) - is there any wonder that he chose to take the deal of a lifetime as a result? Similarly with Harbrow, there was little effort made to negotiate with his management, and an almost shrugged shoulders resignation that he would walk - well guess what, he did because there was bugger-all done to convince him to stay.
How do we all think the Boyd, Cross and Gia negotiations are going? Perhaps what has been offered was a pittance, and Ward saw a vision of himself 7 years from now being similarly shafted by his club? Didn't Melbourne recently shaft loyal servants like James McDonald? Guess what, Scully walks. Adelaide doesn't offer their senior players anything more than 12 months contract extensions? Goodbye Bock and Davis.
We have lost 2 starting 18 platers under 23 years of age, and both of them could have been retained had we had a savvy contract negotiator like a Scott Clayton still at the helm - no self-justifying soundbites from Garlick or Fantasia in the media will convince me otherwise. As a club we cannot shy away from this, and pointing the finger at the brown paper bags of GWS is a cop-out of the highest order as far as I'm concerned. Our club has performed appallingly in contract negotiations and it is high time we review this and fix the damn problem, because with free agency around the corner it is only going to become more critical to get this absoluitely right. I have no faith in the people charged with managing this area for our club, and it concerns me greatly that we will become a basket case in very quick time. The signs are ominous.