I take your jocular point: although I actually think GT was more muddled than evasive in the article.SainterK wrote:So really GT has been equally evasive MB
In what way do you think the club has been evasive and touchy?
In terms of the club: I think they want the AFL world to interpret what happened this way:
Ball was offered a reduced contract and didn't like it, so his manager found him a better one at Collingwood. In the end the club didn't think Ball was worth what the Pies were prepared to pay him, so we decided to try to trade him to the Pies. They wouldn't play nicely, so Ball and his manager than manipulated the draft system to ensure he got to Collingwood. So St Kilda behaved honourably at all times and are therefore the victims of greed and underhand tactics on the part of Ball, his manager and the Pies.
However, the club is only prepared to hint and insinuate that this was the story: culminating in Ross's Sir Humphy Appleby-like verbal convolutions about "relativities".
Why didn't we just come out and state that Collingwood offered Ball more money and then, to add insult to injury, colluded with Ball and his manager to ensure that St Kilda ended up without a trade for him? You'd think we'd whinge and complain a bit in the media, and have a go at our traditional rival club.
Why don't we complain publicly in this way, and choose instead simply to hint and obliquely insinuate about why Ball left?
Because the story didn't actually happen quite the way I've set it out above. There was a certain amount of pushing Ball out the door from our end, perhaps with some regrets once we realised that we weren't going to get anything for him, but with no serious attempts made to move an inch towards what he was asking for when there was still some chance of him wanting to stay.
It's not even clear that his contract at the Pies is actually worth much more than what he could have stayed for at the Saints (if it was still on the table during trade week, which I rather doubt because I have never heard anyone from the club state this unequivocally).
I'm over Ball, but I am concerned if the rather inept way he was handled is symptomatic of deeper problems at the club. I relieved to say that I don't think it is a symptom of anything: I think it was a one-off (we can perhaps say a "two-off" given the Lovett fiasco as well).
But it was definitely a stuff up by the club. That's becoming clearer every day that goes by.