luke ball

[St Igmata]

I think people are upset Ball won a flag and Saints didnt.
Look, Ball as far as most people were concerned wasnt good enough, had lost his edge and was a bit player.
Malthouse picked him up , gave him a role and appreciated him.
The rest is history, we cant turn back the hands of history and we all thought Lovett would be a jet for us.
The salary cap was pretty full at the time and we needed specific player types.
s*** happens!

[Spinner]

My opinion is it was one of the biggest blunders our club has ever made, (and we've made a few) To let him go to a club that we were going to be competing with for a flag in the next couple of seasons was horendous and to let him get there for nothing was worse. Melbourne were very keen on him and we should have made sure he got there if he didn't want to stay.
I would have prefered to keep him as he is a quality person dedicated to being a professional sportsman.
Polo Patterson Gamble Lovett Dempster and all the other rejects we've picked up can't hold a candle to him.

See this is where people have absolutely no idea.

RL tried absolutely everything to stop him going to Collingwood if there wasnt going to be adequate compensation. Even risking nothing.

[plugger66]

My opinion is it was one of the biggest blunders our club has ever made, (and we've made a few) To let him go to a club that we were going to be competing with for a flag in the next couple of seasons was horendous and to let him get there for nothing was worse. Melbourne were very keen on him and we should have made sure he got there if he didn't want to stay.
I would have prefered to keep him as he is a quality person dedicated to being a professional sportsman.
Polo Patterson Gamble Lovett Dempster and all the other rejects we've picked up can't hold a candle to him.

See this is where people have absolutely no idea.

RL tried absolutely everything to stop him going to Collingwood if there wasnt going to be adequate compensation. Even risking nothing.

Well thats not quite true. Once we got RL we had no hope of keeping Ball as we had no money in the salary cap to pay him.

[SaintPav]

My opinion is it was one of the biggest blunders our club has ever made, (and we've made a few) To let him go to a club that we were going to be competing with for a flag in the next couple of seasons was horendous and to let him get there for nothing was worse. Melbourne were very keen on him and we should have made sure he got there if he didn't want to stay.
I would have prefered to keep him as he is a quality person dedicated to being a professional sportsman.
Polo Patterson Gamble Lovett Dempster and all the other rejects we've picked up can't hold a candle to him.

See this is where people have absolutely no idea.

RL tried absolutely everything to stop him going to Collingwood if there wasnt going to be adequate compensation. Even risking nothing.

Yep...He got to Colon wood via the draft. People don't even know the basic facts.

[meher baba]

My opinion is it was one of the biggest blunders our club has ever made, (and we've made a few) To let him go to a club that we were going to be competing with for a flag in the next couple of seasons was horendous and to let him get there for nothing was worse. Melbourne were very keen on him and we should have made sure he got there if he didn't want to stay.
I would have prefered to keep him as he is a quality person dedicated to being a professional sportsman.
Polo Patterson Gamble Lovett Dempster and all the other rejects we've picked up can't hold a candle to him.

See this is where people have absolutely no idea.

RL tried absolutely everything to stop him going to Collingwood if there wasnt going to be adequate compensation. Even risking nothing.

As I understand it, RL wasn't prepared to give Ball the one thing he was truly after: some sort of commitment about how Ball was going to be used.

Nor should he have: coaches can't put players ahead of club in that way. But it really shouldn't have ever gotten to that point. IMO at least.

[SaintPav]

My opinion is it was one of the biggest blunders our club has ever made, (and we've made a few) To let him go to a club that we were going to be competing with for a flag in the next couple of seasons was horendous and to let him get there for nothing was worse. Melbourne were very keen on him and we should have made sure he got there if he didn't want to stay.
I would have prefered to keep him as he is a quality person dedicated to being a professional sportsman.
Polo Patterson Gamble Lovett Dempster and all the other rejects we've picked up can't hold a candle to him.

See this is where people have absolutely no idea.

RL tried absolutely everything to stop him going to Collingwood if there wasnt going to be adequate compensation. Even risking nothing.

Well thats not quite true. Once we got RL we had no hope of keeping Ball as we had no money in the salary cap to pay him.

Ross Lyon was already at St Kilda...

[Cairnsman]

Nor should he have: coaches can't put players ahead of club in that way.

And this is why RL has been one of our most succesful coaches and should be given a very long term contract. Club before individual every day of week. Having said that it will be interesting viewing over the next couple of years. There are some players currently putting themselves above club and getting away with it.

[Spinner]

My opinion is it was one of the biggest blunders our club has ever made, (and we've made a few) To let him go to a club that we were going to be competing with for a flag in the next couple of seasons was horendous and to let him get there for nothing was worse. Melbourne were very keen on him and we should have made sure he got there if he didn't want to stay.
I would have prefered to keep him as he is a quality person dedicated to being a professional sportsman.
Polo Patterson Gamble Lovett Dempster and all the other rejects we've picked up can't hold a candle to him.

See this is where people have absolutely no idea.

RL tried absolutely everything to stop him going to Collingwood if there wasnt going to be adequate compensation. Even risking nothing.

Well thats not quite true. Once we got RL we had no hope of keeping Ball as we had no money in the salary cap to pay him.

Yeah. But he didnt gift wrap him to a potential top four competitor.

In 99/100 cases it would have have been, preseason draft straight to melb.

Make no mistake that going into the National was a gamble. Thats why it has rarely happened. You can end up anywhere.

[satchmo]

Once we got RL we had no hope of keeping Ball as we had no money in the salary cap to pay him.

That should read: Once we had no hope of keeping Ball we got RL .

[saintbrat]

Once we got RL we had no hope of keeping Ball as we had no money in the salary cap to pay him.

That should read: Once we had no hope of keeping Ball we got RL .

do you mean RL or AL?

[Dr Spaceman]

There are basically three views regarding the Luke Ball saga:

1. LB is a money hungry, disloyal bastard, who isn't that good a player, who signed with Collingwood while still a Saints listed player etc

2. LB was treated poorly at St Kilda and had no option other than to find a new home where he would be respected and well paid - and Collingwood became that club.

3. Don't have a strong opinion either way and simply regard it as old news.

The only certainty in this argument is that none of these groups will ever convince the other groups that they are correct.

[asiu]

One could be forgiven for suspecting that there was a 'plan' in place well before Trade Week for Mr Ball to become a Collingwood player Question

Which, if true, is fine.

can't wear the last bit.

forgive me then .... collingwood put the plan in place , executed the plan and grabbed both ends of our intellectual property

our job was not to give a leg (and a lift) up to another contender whilst denuttn ourselves.








even if it took lying and cheating. (with ball)
you want the bloody flag , or not ?

[Mr Magic]

One could be forgiven for suspecting that there was a 'plan' in place well before Trade Week for Mr Ball to become a Collingwood player Question

Which, if true, is fine.

can't wear the last bit.

forgive me then .... collingwood put the plan in place , executed the plan and grabbed both ends of our intellectual property

our job was not to give a leg (and a lift) up to another contender whilst denuttn ourselves.








even if it took lying and cheating. (with ball)
you want the bloody flag , or not ?

Short of giving in to all Players/Managers demands, how does a CLub ensure that it keeps all the players it wants to keep?

Whichever way you look at the saga (either a mercenary or an underutilized and abused player) Ball wanted what Lyon and St Kilda was not prepared to give him.

Once he'd decided to leave for Collingwood, how were we supposed to stop him getting there?
Collingwood, Ball and Connors 'conspired' to stop anybody else from taking him in the draft.

Our hands were tied.

[desertsaint]

we wanted to give ball less than he thought he deserved, and less than he wanted out of life.

wish the whole thing had never happened.
one of many a series of things i wish had never have happened...in hindsight.

[stinger]

Our hands were tied.

yes...but who tied them....guess we will never know really.....still sticking with my swallow story though mm....impeccable source...

[Mr Magic]

Our hands were tied.

yes...but who tied them....guess we will never know really.....still sticking with my swallow story though mm....impeccable source...

Stinger, I have no doubts about your source.
I just wonder if the story as told to them is 100% accurate?

My puzzlement is that if Ball was 'offered up' to NM then why wasn't he 'offered up' to any other CLubs. I have absolutely no doubt that had he been put on the trade table someone would ahve said something.
As it is, there would have been many CLubs with a midfielder we might have wanted so to think that we would only have offered him up to NM seems illogical to me.

IMHO, a more likely scenario is that we may have enquired of NM if Swallow would be avaialable?
That may have elicited a response whereby Ball's name may have been mentioned.
If that more accurately portrays the conversation that took place (and I have no knowledge on what conversations did take place - purely me hypothesizing) then it would be a totally different picture to the one both you and your source have been told.

But as I said, I don't know and your story may well be 100% accurate.

On the other hand, do you honestly believe that if the story was correct that Connors/Ball's Camp wouldn't have mentioned it somewhere along the way?
They accused Lyon/St Kilda of almost everything else, why wouldn't they accuse them of being disloyal if it was true?
SUrely that story (if true) would have been pure justification for them for asking for a trade to wherever he wanted to go.
Why go throiugh the 'charade' they did if they had a perfectly plausable and good reason?

It's just not logical to me which makes me think teh story,as it's been relayed to both your source adn yourself is not 100% correct.

[MCG-Unit]

My opinion is it was one of the biggest blunders our club has ever made, (and we've made a few) To let him go to a club that we were going to be competing with for a flag in the next couple of seasons was horendous and to let him get there for nothing was worse. Melbourne were very keen on him and we should have made sure he got there if he didn't want to stay.
I would have prefered to keep him as he is a quality person dedicated to being a professional sportsman.
Polo Patterson Gamble Lovett Dempster and all the other rejects we've picked up can't hold a candle to him.

See this is where people have absolutely no idea.

RL tried absolutely everything to stop him going to Collingwood if there wasnt going to be adequate compensation. Even risking nothing.

As I understand it, RL wasn't prepared to give Ball the one thing he was truly after: some sort of commitment about how Ball was going to be used.......

Yes certainly not one way traffic as some would have you believe. In early
2010 Lyon said:

"......expectations are often set and not met by club or player. Clearly along the line, there has been some expectations not met on both sides of the fence......during the year he got dropped, then he matched our expectations (and returned) and then obviously there was some expectations from Luke that we weren't meeting and he moved on......"

[samoht]

Armo has averaged the same number of possessions as Ball this year - which is just over 19 for each player.
The only stat where Ball leads is tackles - averaging 7 vs 5 per game from Armo.

Armo has finally been given the chance this year - which suggests they were indeed vying for the same spot,
The past is the past, we can't afford to lose Armo - hopefully he won't use that against us and become a mercenary too.

[matrix]

He didn't want to play at St Kilda.

It's a pointless argument/hypothesis.

exactly
and he didnt want to play for us for quite a while before he went

[stinger]

Our hands were tied.

yes...but who tied them....guess we will never know really.....still sticking with my swallow story though mm....impeccable source...

Stinger, I have no doubts about your source.
I just wonder if the story as told to them is 100% accurate?

My puzzlement is that if Ball was 'offered up' to NM then why wasn't he 'offered up' to any other CLubs. I have absolutely no doubt that had he been put on the trade table someone would ahve said something.
As it is, there would have been many CLubs with a midfielder we might have wanted so to think that we would only have offered him up to NM seems illogical to me.

IMHO, a more likely scenario is that we may have enquired of NM if Swallow would be avaialable?
That may have elicited a response whereby Ball's name may have been mentioned.
If that more accurately portrays the conversation that took place (and I have no knowledge on what conversations did take place - purely me hypothesizing) then it would be a totally different picture to the one both you and your source have been told.

But as I said, I don't know and your story may well be 100% accurate.

On the other hand, do you honestly believe that if the story was correct that Connors/Ball's Camp wouldn't have mentioned it somewhere along the way?
They accused Lyon/St Kilda of almost everything else, why wouldn't they accuse them of being disloyal if it was true?
SUrely that story (if true) would have been pure justification for them for asking for a trade to wherever he wanted to go.
Why go throiugh the 'charade' they did if they had a perfectly plausable and good reason?

It's just not logical to me which makes me think teh story,as it's been relayed to both your source adn yourself is not 100% correct.

one of swallow's close rellies good enough for you mate????...i believe it is 100% correct...

[rct63]

hate to dwell on it but the nonsense by our club in that whole exchange cost us a flag

Just another in the long list of stupidity that has undermined this club.

[stinger]

hate to dwell on it but the nonsense by our club in that whole exchange cost us a flag

Just another in the long list of stupidity that has undermined this club.

yep.....going right back to the days of ian stewart....swapped to the tigers for an over the hill billy barrett...who went on to play the grand total of two games for us whilst ian won another brownlow paying in black and yellow...


...and don't get me started on big carl, plugger, trott..or dozens of others


that 97 match on footy classics today where we gave a 9 goal thrashing to the years before flag winners just highlighted our stupidity to me.....shanahan and smith walked out in exchange for sfa at seasons end.....brown was delisted , lappin traded, and spider eventually given the old heave ho....along with barry hall from the grand final team.... some years later.....and we hurtled to the bottom of the ladder

[Johnny Member]

There are basically three views regarding the Luke Ball saga:

1. LB is a money hungry, disloyal bastard, who isn't that good a player, who signed with Collingwood while still a Saints listed player etc

2. LB was treated poorly at St Kilda and had no option other than to find a new home where he would be respected and well paid - and Collingwood became that club.

3. Don't have a strong opinion either way and simply regard it as old news.

The only certainty in this argument is that none of these groups will ever convince the other groups that they are correct.

Or.....


....those who hate him because he bled for us for years, then did everything in his power to take away the flag from the St Kilda Football Club.
But also understand that his days were numbered at the Saints. I wouldn't call it treated poorly - I'd call it treated the way hundreds of AFL players are treated every year. The coach didn't rate him, and I reckon would have rated him even less as time went on. Ball knew this, and where other players on the list who made a pact to stay together may have taken it on the chin and seen their days out in the VFL and be remembered as a wasted No. 2 pick - Ball didn't.
He left and, well, the rest is history.



In summary, there's another group that sees the whole situation as 'unfortunate'. We were wrong to not see the value that he adds to a footy club, and he was wrong to break a pact and do the double cross by stealing a flag from under the noses of the very people he made a pact with.




And of course, all of my assertions re us not rating him etc. are all just my views from the outer.




And I reckon Max Hudghton gets off lightly too. I loved that guy. But seeing him jubilant that 'his' team had just beaten the St Kilda Football Club in a Grand Final made me want to bark.

[Johnny Member]

hate to dwell on it but the nonsense by our club in that whole exchange cost us a flag

Just another in the long list of stupidity that has undermined this club.

yep.....going right back to the days of ian stewart....swapped to the tigers for an over the hill billy barrett...who went on to play the grand total of two games for us whilst ian won another brownlow paying in black and yellow...


...and don't get me started on big carl, plugger, trott..or dozens of others


that 97 match on footy classics today where we gave a 9 goal thrashing to the years before flag winners just highlighted our stupidity to me.....shanahan and smith walked out in exchange for sfa at seasons end.....brown was delisted , lappin traded, and spider eventually given the old heave ho....along with barry hall from the grand final team.... some years later.....and we hurtled to the bottom of the ladder

Lost Daryl Wakelin too.

Shane also of course, but I didn't rate him much when he was with us.

[stinger]

hate to dwell on it but the nonsense by our club in that whole exchange cost us a flag

Just another in the long list of stupidity that has undermined this club.

yep.....going right back to the days of ian stewart....swapped to the tigers for an over the hill billy barrett...who went on to play the grand total of two games for us whilst ian won another brownlow paying in black and yellow...


...and don't get me started on big carl, plugger, trott..or dozens of others


that 97 match on footy classics today where we gave a 9 goal thrashing to the years before flag winners just highlighted our stupidity to me.....shanahan and smith walked out in exchange for sfa at seasons end.....brown was delisted , lappin traded, and spider eventually given the old heave ho....along with barry hall from the grand final team.... some years later.....and we hurtled to the bottom of the ladder

Lost Daryl Wakelin too.

Shane also of course, but I didn't rate him much when he was with us.

yep...thanks for reminding me...you can blame that flower blight for losing the wakelins...

...didn't sziller go to the tigers as well....and of course healy went back to sth aussie where he starred for years alongside the gowan twins who were never given a go.....or the time of day by the then coaches........sad history the saints.....

...only difference is that this time, starting with the appointments of thomas and butterss...and carried through to the appointment of ross.......i thought it was going to be different...

...thought your post on ball above was well thought out.. still makes me wanna