8 minutes!

[InkerSaint]

What crawled up your arse?

[Con Gorozidis]

Regardless of the pros and cons of Luke Ball - there is no excuse for not taking pick 30 for him. None. The rumour of Goldsack plus 30 sounds like a fair deal.

No excuse whatsoever for getting nothing for him. Anyone who bought the club line of "drawing a line in the sand for future dealings" is seriously kidding themselves. Noone trades anyway, staff change from year to year and noone remembers, nor cares about what happened 12 months prior. You do the best at the time.

We should have taken 30 and just moved on with our lives. Crap strategy.

[InkerSaint]

Taken pick 30 and just moved on with our lives, you've got to be kidding me Con, do you actually think that would have happened after Ball became a premiership player?

It would have been all about how stupid the club was not to hold out for a better trade, and they'll never win a flag until they smarten up.

SaintSeptember said it best on BF, it's akin to people criticising a decision made by a poker player after the hand is known.

Sure, getting nothing for Ball was a crap outcome. But pick or no pick, the outcome wouldn't have had any tangible impact last year or this.

[SaintPav]

Regardless of the pros and cons of Luke Ball - there is no excuse for not taking pick 30 for him. None. The rumour of Goldsack plus 30 sounds like a fair deal.

No excuse whatsoever for getting nothing for him. Anyone who bought the club line of "drawing a line in the sand for future dealings" is seriously kidding themselves. Noone trades anyway, staff change from year to year and noone remembers, nor cares about what happened 12 months prior. You do the best at the time.

We should have taken 30 and just moved on with our lives. Crap strategy.

At that stage, the Saints did not know that he would walk out and try his luck in the draft and that they would not get anything for him. Enough on the matter, Luke Ball is gone and I don't want to get scolded.

[SaintPav]

Sure, getting nothing for Ball was a crap outcome. But pick or no pick, the outcome wouldn't have had any tangible impact last year or this.

I'm not sure I agree but we will never know.

[Con Gorozidis]

Regardless of the pros and cons of Luke Ball - there is no excuse for not taking pick 30 for him. None. The rumour of Goldsack plus 30 sounds like a fair deal.

No excuse whatsoever for getting nothing for him. Anyone who bought the club line of "drawing a line in the sand for future dealings" is seriously kidding themselves. Noone trades anyway, staff change from year to year and noone remembers, nor cares about what happened 12 months prior. You do the best at the time.

We should have taken 30 and just moved on with our lives. Crap strategy.

At that stage, the Saints did not know that he would walk out and try his luck in the draft and that they would not get anything for him. Enough on the matter, Luke Ball is gone and I don't want to get scolded.

Hang on you cant have your cake and eat it. The Misson book is pretty clear that we knew he was going. You cant say oh we thought he might stay on one hand and the on the other oh yeah he was no good anyway.
iI he was too slow and couldnt kick than 30 is a great offer for such a player. And if hes a good player and a loss well 30 is better than nothing. In either case 30 wins.
The card was in play and a good poker player would have extracted value. Anyone still arguing that somehow (for some intangible psychological reason) that nothing is a better outcome than 30 needs a short tuition in logic 101.

No - 30 wouldve have made no difference last year - but id like to have the 30th pick from last year who be 18 or 19 now doing a full pre-season right now. Unless Goldsack was in play - in which case he couldve made a difference last year.

[MCG-Unit]

It's tragic but LB was slow and not what we needed. Wellingham for Ball would have been a win win....and I would have cashed out in Nov 2007 and be sitting in the Coterie and holidaying in Portofino for 6 months of the year.

If they'd actually offered him, which they didn't....

That's exactly it - all the various Collingwood players mentioned as possible trades, Collingwood offered this, Saints wanted that - are all speculation, rumour and reporters opinions posted as fact

The only one I believe is when I heard Ross Lyon state after the ND that 25 & 62 were on the table - but it wouldn't get the deal done.

Doesn't take much to work out Coll never had 25, NM did. Coll must have offered something acceptable to NM for it to be on the table.

The rumour was, Wellingham + 30 to NM for 25. Shows what Coll thought of Wellingham and/or how keen they were to get the deal done

[SaintPav]

Regardless of the pros and cons of Luke Ball - there is no excuse for not taking pick 30 for him. None. The rumour of Goldsack plus 30 sounds like a fair deal.

No excuse whatsoever for getting nothing for him. Anyone who bought the club line of "drawing a line in the sand for future dealings" is seriously kidding themselves. Noone trades anyway, staff change from year to year and noone remembers, nor cares about what happened 12 months prior. You do the best at the time.

We should have taken 30 and just moved on with our lives. Crap strategy.

At that stage, the Saints did not know that he would walk out and try his luck in the draft and that they would not get anything for him. Enough on the matter, Luke Ball is gone and I don't want to get scolded.

Hang on you cant have your cake and eat it. The Misson book is pretty clear that we knew he was going. You cant say oh we thought he might stay on one hand and the on the other oh yeah he was no good anyway.
iI he was too slow and couldnt kick than 30 is a great offer for such a player. And if hes a good player and a loss well 30 is better than nothing. In either case 30 wins.
The card was in play and a good poker player would have extracted value. Anyone still arguing that somehow (for some intangible psychological reason) that nothing is a better outcome than 30 needs a short tuition in logic 101.

No - 30 wouldve have made no difference last year - but id like to have the 30th pick from last year who be 18 or 19 now doing a full pre-season right now. Unless Goldsack was in play - in which case he couldve made a difference last year.

I'm not and you're reading too much into it.

Did they know for certain that he was going? I don't think they did. I have read the bubble and I did not read that. The book was full of praise for Luke Ball. In hindsight, of course they should of taken pick 30. Dah Con.

[BigMart]

What the club did was correct.....they are are always right....'in Ross we trust'

Smith>>>>>x.clarke
Johnson>>>>>maguire
Lovett>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>cousins
No compensation is certainly better than a hopeless l.ball

Our recruiting cannot be queried...

[maverick]

What the club did was correct.....they are are always right....'in Ross we trust'

Smith>>>>>x.clarke MISSED BY 1 .5 QTRSJohnson>>>>>maguire AGREE
Lovett>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>cousins NEITHER IS WORTH ITNo compensation is certainly better than a hopeless l.ball AGREE
Our recruiting cannot be queried...

Pretty much agree with most of what you wrote, good post

[Saints43]

In any business dealing:

If you end up with less than you could have got you have lost.

We lost.

[SainterK]

In any business dealing:

If you end up with less than you could have got you have lost.

We lost.

Isn't this where someone points out he couldn't kick over a jam tin, so no great loss?

[tweedaletomanning]

In any business dealing:

If you end up with less than you could have got you have lost.

We lost.

In a sense, you are right, we gambled and lost...However when your opponent doesn't play by the rules (ie.Draft tampering "cough cough") it can make you look bad.

How does a club Best & Fairest, captain, and grand final player, get through to pick 30 without something being rigged? This in a level playing field, is inconceivable.

However, when you are dealing with the filth, they can do whatever they want. Rules do NOT apply to them....

Thats my rant...

[Saints43]

In any business dealing:

If you end up with less than you could have got you have lost.

We lost.

In a sense, you are right, we gambled and lost...However when your opponent doesn't play by the rules (ie.Draft tampering "cough cough") it can make you look bad.

How does a club Best & Fairest, captain, and grand final player, get through to pick 30 without something being rigged? This in a level playing field, is inconceivable.

However, when you are dealing with the filth, they can do whatever they want. Rules do NOT apply to them....

Thats my rant...

I understand that Ball made it virtually impossible for us to deal with any club other than c*w**d but we knew that he held all the cards. We had all seen the precedent of Port taking the high moral ground on Stevens. Cutting off their nose to spite their face. We should have been pragmatic imo.

[MCG-Unit]

In any business dealing:

If you end up with less than you could have got you have lost.

We lost.

Isn't this where someone points out he couldn't kick over a jam tin, so no great loss?

Yes, and he can only play 8 mins per Qtr, poor endurance, too slow, cannot 'run and spread' And the Saints already have enough in and under mid types (Hayes & Armitage + ???)

He also commanded a hefty salary. And according to Bluster on here, Ball also reacted negatively to criticism from the coaches