Why did we not take Wellingham?

[Bernard Shakey]

Luke Ball went for the opportunity to play in the ones. Money had about 10% to do with it. I think it was obvious to him and many others that he was struggling to play as RL wanted him to. If it was money I dont think an extra 100K over 3 years would mean chucking loyalty away.

So why can he play like that now?

He was asked to be more offensive, in 2009 he only kicked 3 goals.

This year already he has kicked 8, so perhaps the dropping was justified, it just hurt his pride.

He wasn't asked to kick goals, he was asked to get to contests and he couldn't, even at Sandy. He just stood there, and still does now, but it suits their gameplan. He still wouldn't get a game at St Kilda.

[gringo]

I was told that he is payed as a media performer at channel nine something he is paid outside the cap for. It substantially boosts his income as a member of the exclusive team. It was at the end of the day an offer too good to refuse, and the Pies and Paul Connors manufactured the idea of trading but spent along time procrastinating until time just unfortunately ran out while his excessive front ended contract was used to stink him up and his threats to stand out of afl if not at the pies didn't endear him either.

[Armoooo]

As I said earlier, it's easy to say something is better than nothing but the Saints, unhappy with what was on offer, took a stand with an eye on the future. 

But why were we unhappy with the offer? Could we not envisage any of the prospective draftees becoming more than the incredibly pedestrian player Ball had become? Did we think that at the end of all those games he'd just come back and be happy like ROK?

With the stuff that came out later in Misson's book, it's a wonder we thought he was worth a second round pick at all. He couldn't run, he couldn't spread, he was a liability after six minutes on the field. He had no penetration in his kicking. All he could do was win hard balls and tackle in close. That's nice, but hardly rare to find.

Maybe we thought he could improve, but to what end? It's not like he's lived up to his early hype at the Pies. He's still a very limited player. A second round pick (and we would have ended up using the fourth) strikes me as very fair value for that sort of player. It's once you factor in emotion, the fact he was a former captain and all the other stuff that adds up to nothing that you feel he's worth more than that. Put it this way - if he decided to come back, I'd be hesitant to give up a second round pick.

Jolly's a gun ruckman. He's not Cox or Sandilands, but he's definately in the next best two or three. As far as in and under mids go, how many better ones are there going around than Ball? The list would go for quite a length.

Keep in mind though that he was an inside midfielder, at the time we only had one other in Lenny Hayes who was 30 years old and we needed to snare a flag soon. Pick 30 is all good and great 5 years down the track but it wouldn't have helped us in 2010.

Also it was pretty clear to see that with Jolly and Ball Collingwood would become a significant challenge, why should we help accommodate them? Ball wasn't leaving for better opportunities, he was leaving for money.

[meher baba]

A lot of speculation, and perhaps wishful thinking, in this thread. A lot of media have suggested that we were offered Wellingham and nobody seems to have come out and denied it, so it was probably true.

Wellingham was seem as an average player by everyone at the time. The media's cries of "why on earth didn't the Saints want him?" could just as easily be "why on earth did Collingwood think of trading him?". The answer to both questions is that he has really come on. That said, I don't think he has had the blow torch seriously applied to him by opposing coaches yet. How he responds to that challenge will show how classy he truly is.

Our club was in a silly place at the time re Ball, so no wonder we stuffed up the trade. We didn't know what we wanted to do with him. We dropped him for being the sort of player he was, he didn't change, but we brought him back to the firsts anyway. He was close to BOG in the GF and then we barely used him in the second half.

We went into the trade period mainly preoccupied with getting the cost of Ball's contract down and/or getting him off our books altogether. I think we were totally thrown to find that another top club really wanted him and were prepared to offer him the sort of contract he wanted (front-loaded,
perhaps with a bit more $$$, although I can't see that it was much more in total).

We were shocked. Maybe, all of a sudden, we weren't so relaxed about him going. So we got all tough at the trade table. We didn't rate him, he wanted to leave, but we wouldn't take what we were offered for him.

Not a strong negotiating position to be in, so no wonder really that we ended up with nothing. Not one of our finest moments IMO.

[Mr Magic]

A lot of speculation, and perhaps wishful thinking, in this thread. A lot of media have suggested that we were offered Wellingham and nobody seems to have come out and denied it, so it was probably true.

Our club was in a silly place at the time re Ball, so no wonder we stuffed up the trade. We didn't know what we wanted to do with him. We dropped him for being the sort of player he was, he didn't change, but we brought him back to the firsts anyway. He was close to BOG in the GF and then we barely used him in the second half.

We went into the trade period mainly preoccupied with getting the cost of Ball's contract down and/or getting him off our books altogether. I think we were totally thrown to find that another top club really wanted him and were prepared to offer him the sort of contract he wanted (front-loaded,
perhaps with a bit more $$$, although I can't see that it was much more in total).

We were shocked. Maybe, all of a sudden, we weren't so relaxed about him going. So we got all tough at the trade table. We didn't rate him, he wanted to leave, but we wouldn't take what we were offered for him.

Not a strong negotiating position to be in, so no wonder really that we ended up with nothing. Not one of our finest moments IMO.

There has been lots of media speculation over the past 12-18 months about all sorts of things regarding St Kilda and our players.
Unfortunately very little of it turned out to be true.

But under your logic it probably was?

As for a strong negotiating position - it's pretty hard to negotiate with someone who's already reached an agreement with your opposition.
You end up with only 3 options.
1. Bending over.
2. Trying to dissuade him from going.
3. Playing hardball.

You obviously feel we should have taken option 1

[meher baba]

Yep, MM. When you have a player out of contract who is no longer prepared to play for you, you either have to take what you are offered by the market or be prepared to lose them for nothing in the PSD.

There is always a chance that, after the PSD, they will end up at the club that previously made you an offer. But it doesn't really matter where they end up, you still get nothing for them.

Some on here tell me that it doesn't matter because we sent a strong signal by refusing to bend over. I don't understand what that means.

[Mr Magic]

Yep, MM. When you have a player out of contract who is no longer prepared to play for you, you either have to take what you are offered by the market or be prepared to lose them for nothing in the PSD.

There is always a chance that, after the PSD, they will end up at the club that previously made you an offer. But it doesn't really matter where they end up, you still get nothing for them.

Some on here tell me that it doesn't matter because we sent a strong signal by refusing to bend over. I don't understand what that means.

In an ideal world (ie in a vaccuum) you get exactly what you want.
Unfortunately we weren't dealing with Ball in a vaccuum.
We had a player that was offered more money that we were prepared to pay him (if you really thought he's playing for nothing in year 3 then I'd believe you were delusional - and I don't think you're delusional)
He may well have genuinely felt that he 'wasn't appreciated' atr St Kilda under Lyon's gameplan, but I don't believe that is the reason he left.
Would he have stayed if we'd kept him on the much higher back-ended salary that he played under in 2008? I believe so.

If you have any doubts as to the motivation and modus operandi that his manager Paul Connors works under you only have to look back to last week where he started negotiating through the media for a number of his clients.

St Kilda was always going to be 'screwed' in this deal as soon as Connors couldn't convince Hawthorn to take Jolly and Collingwood said they wanted him.

The pick (their first round) that Connors had earmarked for Ball went to Sydney.
They simply then had nothing to give St Kilda, and all involved knew it.
Yes they tried to maufacture a deal with NM to get one of their 2 picks in the early 20's (for Wellingham) so that we would get what we needed to trade to WB for Everitt.
Rightly or wrongly we had told Collingwood that we were prepared to let Ball go to them provided we could get Everitt, or a similar player (Nathan Brown).
Collingwood said no to Brown and then tried to do the deal with NM.
We obviously were not looking to use a pick in the 20-30 range on a young player - we were looking for someone who caould play immediately.

You may disagree with that philiosophy, but they obviously didn't.

At eny time they could have 'caved in' to the demands of Ball and Connors, but what would that have achieved?

They obviously valued him at the offer they made him.

To offer more would send signals to every other player on the list (and their managers) that if you negotiate hard enough St Kilda will 'cave' and you can get more.

I don't see this whole scenario in the simple black/white terms that many seem to have.
There were/are other ramifications which, IMO, obviously coloured the way things were seen and done.

Much like when GT 'sacked' Capuano in the manner he did.
Surely you don't believe that he just decided mid-season he was no good as a footballer?
Surely you don't believe that was the only reason that whole scenario took place?
Surely there was more involved that we don't know about.

[samoht]

The past is the past .. nothing we can do about it now - as long as we learn from it.

What we should learn is ..
We need the best recruiting team that money can buy - it's the players that bring team success . FULL STOP.

GT, RL they're all the same... and largely inconsequential.
I'd rather we paid a coach and his assistants $750,000 per year instead of $1.5 million a year.,, if it means we can put the $750,000 towards recruiting , medical team etc.. - i.e. more important areas.

A coach lives off the fat of the land .. we need to get as much fat on the land (good players) as possible.

Anyone can coach Collingwood to the next premiership.,, even a $100,000 a year coach... because they've recruited well.

[saintbrat]

Part 1
http://www.sen.com.au/audioplayer/Audio ... rt-1)/2487
part 2
http://www.sen.com.au/audioplayer/Audio ... rt-2)/2486
no direct answer but some interesting comments- commentators didn;t push for an answer.. when he had the chance

[Moccha]

The real question that should be asked is why didn't we win the premiership!

[samoht]

The real question that should be asked is why didn't we win the premiership!

The answer could be we've been happy to tread water the last couple of years, whereas other teams have been happily improving (through better recruiting that is now bearing fruit).

[saint tash]

The past is the past .. nothing we can do about it now - as long as we learn from it.

What we should learn is ..
We need the best recruiting team that money can buy - it's the players that bring team success . FULL STOP.

GT, RL they're all the same... and largely inconsequential.
I'd rather we paid a coach and his assistants $750,000 per year instead of $1.5 million a year.,, if it means we can put the $750,000 towards recruiting , medical team etc.. - i.e. more important areas.

A coach lives off the fat of the land .. we need to get as much fat on the land (good players) as possible.

Anyone can coach Collingwood to the next premiership.,, even a $100,000 a year coach... because they've recruited well.

Collingwood's football department spending was $75 million last year which was skies above the next, as I recall. That kind of has to help albeit it sucks big time.

Maybe make an offer to their sports science dude.....be a good place to start.

[meher baba]

Yep, MM. When you have a player out of contract who is no longer prepared to play for you, you either have to take what you are offered by the market or be prepared to lose them for nothing in the PSD.

There is always a chance that, after the PSD, they will end up at the club that previously made you an offer. But it doesn't really matter where they end up, you still get nothing for them.

Some on here tell me that it doesn't matter because we sent a strong signal by refusing to bend over. I don't understand what that means.

In an ideal world (ie in a vaccuum) you get exactly what you want.
Unfortunately we weren't dealing with Ball in a vaccuum.
We had a player that was offered more money that we were prepared to pay him (if you really thought he's playing for nothing in year 3 then I'd believe you were delusional - and I don't think you're delusional)
He may well have genuinely felt that he 'wasn't appreciated' atr St Kilda under Lyon's gameplan, but I don't believe that is the reason he left.
Would he have stayed if we'd kept him on the much higher back-ended salary that he played under in 2008? I believe so.

If you have any doubts as to the motivation and modus operandi that his manager Paul Connors works under you only have to look back to last week where he started negotiating through the media for a number of his clients.

St Kilda was always going to be 'screwed' in this deal as soon as Connors couldn't convince Hawthorn to take Jolly and Collingwood said they wanted him.

The pick (their first round) that Connors had earmarked for Ball went to Sydney.
They simply then had nothing to give St Kilda, and all involved knew it.
Yes they tried to maufacture a deal with NM to get one of their 2 picks in the early 20's (for Wellingham) so that we would get what we needed to trade to WB for Everitt.
Rightly or wrongly we had told Collingwood that we were prepared to let Ball go to them provided we could get Everitt, or a similar player (Nathan Brown).
Collingwood said no to Brown and then tried to do the deal with NM.
We obviously were not looking to use a pick in the 20-30 range on a young player - we were looking for someone who caould play immediately.

You may disagree with that philiosophy, but they obviously didn't.

At eny time they could have 'caved in' to the demands of Ball and Connors, but what would that have achieved?

They obviously valued him at the offer they made him.

To offer more would send signals to every other player on the list (and their managers) that if you negotiate hard enough St Kilda will 'cave' and you can get more.

I don't see this whole scenario in the simple black/white terms that many seem to have.
There were/are other ramifications which, IMO, obviously coloured the way things were seen and done.

Much like when GT 'sacked' Capuano in the manner he did.
Surely you don't believe that he just decided mid-season he was no good as a footballer?
Surely you don't believe that was the only reason that whole scenario took place?
Surely there was more involved that we don't know about.

So we were "screwed" as you put it in relation to Luke Ball because a player agent couldn't persuade the Hawks to recruit a ruckman from the Swans? Gee, that's a piece of bad luck, isn't it? Not much we could do about that turn of events, I suppose.

But it's funny, I thought that were paying CEOs and football managers and recruitment managers a whole lot of money to take care of this sort of stuff for us. But it seems as if we might as well have saved our $$$ and spent them on something else, because who we ended up on our playing list was all completely out of our control!

I still believe that where it all went wrong for us was when it turned out that someone at the Pies (Buckley is my mail) reckoned that Ball was way undervalued at the Saints and was therefore prepared to pay a little bit more for his services than we were (although it was possibly only $100k over three years, albeit with the big advantage - for a guy as injury prone as Ball - of it being front end loaded for the first two years).

I really don't believe we were expecting that. I think we expected that Ball would be made offers by lowly clubs who were maybe prepared to pay a bit more to him, but he would turn them down in favour of our less generous offer because he wanted to stay with a top club. We were happy about this prospect, because - although we didn't really rate him - we thought he'd provide useful backup while guys like Armo, Steven and Geary continued to develop.

Someone at the club totally misread the situation. Perhaps they had been fed a rumour that we were going to be offered a first round pick for Ball (a player who we'd demonstrated to the world we didn't rate FFS! Tell 'em they're dreaming!) So, when we were offered whatever it was we were offered by the Pies, we dug our toes in and wouldn't budge. Which would have been fine if there had been any chance that Ball would have been prepared to stay at the club, or if the Pies weren't prepared to offer more than other clubs for Ball's services. Why did we believe that either of these two scenarios was going to be possible?

And, I repeat, what did we end up proving by holding out for something better that never came?

[dragit]

why didn't we take judd?

[stinger]

sad sad really sad....we should never have lost a former captain to the filth...never......and i will be pissed off to the day he retires....

[SainterK]

Undervalued at the Saints though MB, wasn't he in the highest bracket of pay in the entire comp when he came out of contract?

As I understood it, Ball was very close to recommitting for another 12 months after no success was had at trade week, our football manager flew overseas to talk him round. St Kilda was not in a unique position as far as not being able to reach a succesful trade for a player, it's happened before. He could of made it work if he wanted to, even for another 12 months, but for mine this wasn't about untenable relationships, money, or believing the kids were going to pass him by.

Who would you rather be on a list beside when it comes to inside mids, Lenny Hayes or Shane O'Bree? Luke wanted to be THE engine room, not the guy who rotated off the bench when the engine room was tired. I still believe Luke Ball chose to find a club that fit him, rather than fitting into his club.

IMO.

[plugger66]

Undervalued at the Saints though MB, wasn't he in the highest bracket of pay in the entire comp when he came out of contract?

As I understood it, Ball was very close to recommitting for another 12 months after no success was had at trade week, our football manager flew overseas to talk him round. St Kilda was not in a unique position as far as not being able to reach a succesful trade for a player, it's happened before. He could of made it work if he wanted to, even for another 12 months, but for mine this wasn't about untenable relationships, money, or believing the kids were going to pass him by.

Who would you rather be on a list beside when it comes to inside mids, Lenny Hayes or Shane O'Bree? Luke wanted to be THE engine room, not the guy who rotated off the bench when the engine room was tired. I still believe Luke Ball chose to find a club that fit him, rather than fitting into his club.

IMO.

Ball was never going to sign after we got Lovett as he would have had to play for about 100K a year. Once we got LOvett he was gone. Bally couldnt play the way RL wanted. It was that simple. Are you actually saying he didnt try to train properly because than fanciful.

[SainterK]

Are you actually saying he didnt try to train properly because than fanciful.

How on earth did you come to that from what I said?

[plugger66]

Are you actually saying he didnt try to train properly because than fanciful.

How on earth did you come to that from what I said?

Well you said he didnt try to fit into our club. To me that means he wasnt fit enough because I am sure he was trying to play as RL wanted.

[Christian Moretti]

There were a few deals offered around to land Ball at Collingwood, I do remember that there was a rumoured offer to the Roos, to get their first pick to use. On the final day of trade week, there were rumours flying around the Pies were offering Wellingham to the Saints, as well as another player, or a draft pick. I forget which it was, the rumour was that Lyon wanted a player and a draft pick or something like that.

If I do recall correctly Wellingham wasn't interested in leaving the club, so it wasn't due to lack of the wanting of Wellingham at all, it was the lack of Wellingham wanted to move to another club. I do know the Kangaroos rejected the offer of Sharrod and their first pick I think it was.

But I do remember a rumour on the last day that Wellingham wasn't interested in going to any other club, which was why deals were falling over as far as Wellingham went. I do also recall another player being rumoured to have been passed around....again rumours no idea who it was, and trade rumours are that.

Wellingham is becoming a class player, if he wanted to go to another club I am sure any club would have been happy to oblige in taking him. He didn't, they didn't, and now he's still a Collingwood player. Sad fact remains that Wellingham was probably going to be offered, but told them he didn't want to go and it was dumped.

Where they get their info from I cannot say, my 'sources' are rumours I've heard during that trade week. No use crying over the past, if you do, you'd get pretty damn depressed.

[Mr Magic]

Yep, MM. When you have a player out of contract who is no longer prepared to play for you, you either have to take what you are offered by the market or be prepared to lose them for nothing in the PSD.

There is always a chance that, after the PSD, they will end up at the club that previously made you an offer. But it doesn't really matter where they end up, you still get nothing for them.

Some on here tell me that it doesn't matter because we sent a strong signal by refusing to bend over. I don't understand what that means.

In an ideal world (ie in a vaccuum) you get exactly what you want.
Unfortunately we weren't dealing with Ball in a vaccuum.
We had a player that was offered more money that we were prepared to pay him (if you really thought he's playing for nothing in year 3 then I'd believe you were delusional - and I don't think you're delusional)
He may well have genuinely felt that he 'wasn't appreciated' atr St Kilda under Lyon's gameplan, but I don't believe that is the reason he left.
Would he have stayed if we'd kept him on the much higher back-ended salary that he played under in 2008? I believe so.

If you have any doubts as to the motivation and modus operandi that his manager Paul Connors works under you only have to look back to last week where he started negotiating through the media for a number of his clients.

St Kilda was always going to be 'screwed' in this deal as soon as Connors couldn't convince Hawthorn to take Jolly and Collingwood said they wanted him.

The pick (their first round) that Connors had earmarked for Ball went to Sydney.
They simply then had nothing to give St Kilda, and all involved knew it.
Yes they tried to maufacture a deal with NM to get one of their 2 picks in the early 20's (for Wellingham) so that we would get what we needed to trade to WB for Everitt.
Rightly or wrongly we had told Collingwood that we were prepared to let Ball go to them provided we could get Everitt, or a similar player (Nathan Brown).
Collingwood said no to Brown and then tried to do the deal with NM.
We obviously were not looking to use a pick in the 20-30 range on a young player - we were looking for someone who caould play immediately.

You may disagree with that philiosophy, but they obviously didn't.

At eny time they could have 'caved in' to the demands of Ball and Connors, but what would that have achieved?

They obviously valued him at the offer they made him.

To offer more would send signals to every other player on the list (and their managers) that if you negotiate hard enough St Kilda will 'cave' and you can get more.

I don't see this whole scenario in the simple black/white terms that many seem to have.
There were/are other ramifications which, IMO, obviously coloured the way things were seen and done.

Much like when GT 'sacked' Capuano in the manner he did.
Surely you don't believe that he just decided mid-season he was no good as a footballer?
Surely you don't believe that was the only reason that whole scenario took place?
Surely there was more involved that we don't know about.

So we were "screwed" as you put it in relation to Luke Ball because a player agent couldn't persuade the Hawks to recruit a ruckman from the Swans? Gee, that's a piece of bad luck, isn't it? Not much we could do about that turn of events, I suppose.

But it's funny, I thought that were paying CEOs and football managers and recruitment managers a whole lot of money to take care of this sort of stuff for us. But it seems as if we might as well have saved our $$$ and spent them on something else, because who we ended up on our playing list was all completely out of our control!

I still believe that where it all went wrong for us was when it turned out that someone at the Pies (Buckley is my mail) reckoned that Ball was way undervalued at the Saints and was therefore prepared to pay a little bit more for his services than we were (although it was possibly only $100k over three years, albeit with the big advantage - for a guy as injury prone as Ball - of it being front end loaded for the first two years).

I really don't believe we were expecting that. I think we expected that Ball would be made offers by lowly clubs who were maybe prepared to pay a bit more to him, but he would turn them down in favour of our less generous offer because he wanted to stay with a top club. We were happy about this prospect, because - although we didn't really rate him - we thought he'd provide useful backup while guys like Armo, Steven and Geary continued to develop.

Someone at the club totally misread the situation. Perhaps they had been fed a rumour that we were going to be offered a first round pick for Ball (a player who we'd demonstrated to the world we didn't rate FFS! Tell 'em they're dreaming!) So, when we were offered whatever it was we were offered by the Pies, we dug our toes in and wouldn't budge. Which would have been fine if there had been any chance that Ball would have been prepared to stay at the club, or if the Pies weren't prepared to offer more than other clubs for Ball's services. Why did we believe that either of these two scenarios was going to be possible?

And, I repeat, what did we end up proving by holding out for something better that never came?

MB, I believe you have an 'axe to grind' which colours your view on certain events/scenarios.
This being just one of those.

I might be completely wrong but I don't think so.
I get the feeling you'd believe anything that was said/written as long as it somehow lent currency to your pov.

IMO, the only reasonable question you've raised in the context of this particular thread is why didn't we value Wellingham enough to ask for him?
Collingwood were obviously prepared to let him go for Pick 21/22 which I maintain means they valued Ball at higher than a pick 21/22 yet expected us to take pick 30 for him. So basicly they wanted us to accept less than his value.
Apparently that is all ignored as only we were the dumb ones who undervalued Wellingham (even if he wasn't offered to us) and overvalued Ball (because Collingwood and their media henchmen say so).

And of course getting nothing for him was not an ideal outcome.

As for the comment about Jolly and Hawthorn, the answer is quite simple if you could be bothered to look for it.
By the time Jolly became avaialable to Hawthorn they had already committed to taking Burgoyne and could no longer fit Jolly into their plans (despite them desparately needing a ruckman). I applaud them for sticking to their commitment to Burgoyne.

[MCG-Unit]

Well you said he didnt try to fit into our club. To me that means he wasnt fit enough because I am sure he was trying to play as RL wanted.

Off course he tried, did he look like he hadn't tried after that GF - otherwise the coach would not have said expectations on both sides was not met - players are allowed expectations as well..........it's not all one-way traffic.

'...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...' Ross Lyon 22 Jan '10

This has been written many times - guess we will all believe what we want to for ever.

[SainterK]

Are you actually saying he didnt try to train properly because than fanciful.

How on earth did you come to that from what I said?

Well you said he didnt try to fit into our club. To me that means he wasnt fit enough because I am sure he was trying to play as RL wanted.

I never said it was about fitness, I meant moulding himself to play whatever role the team need him to play. Lots of our guys probably don't get to play their ideal role often, but they play the role they are asked to for the sake of the team.

[Con Gorozidis]

The Saints took a stand with an eye on the future.

It's easy to say something is better than nothing.

But what if they now go after, say, Goddard. They now know that they have to get serious with the Saints or there'll be no deal.

And Goddard, unlike Ball, won't last in the Draft until the Pies get a pick.

I'm pretty sure wellingham was never offered.

I still get really wound up by this notion : "The Saints took a stand with an eye on the future. "

What stand was taken for what future gain? Other than hokus pokus can you please explain how this helps our future? Other clubs now juwt know we are thick. Where is the future gainn from getting nothing for Ball? What "stand" was taken? Under what cirucmstances will this stand benefit us? I cant believe people have bought the club PR on this. I dont particularly care anymoer and Im well over it - but that people buy whatever the clubs spin at the time was is so gullible.

They actually DID get Ball for nothing - how would that change their mind if they went for Goddard? Would they not think they could also get Goddard for nothing and play the same cards? Im not sure how the actual real life happening of getting Ball for nothing makes them think they have to be serious with the Saints or no deal? There was NO DEAL and Ball is running around in a Pies jumper.
( in real life this could not happen now because GWS or GC have the salary cap room to pick anyone up)

I dont see how them getting Ball somehow teaches them a lesson? As if we showed them? I still need someone to talk me through the logica on this? Only the most parochial one-eyed Saint with very twisted logic can claim we had a win out of the Ball "trade".

As I said I dont really care - you win some you lose some. But in this case we lost. I just cant see how people still take it as a win.

[saint_winston]

i'm also pretty sure wellingham was never formally offered. because we made it plainly clear to collingwood that we weren't interested in him. he was clearly available, as they tried to trade him to north to get the draft pick to satisfy us. there is no logic in acknowledging he was available to north in order to get a draft pick to then get luke ball, and then turning around and saying he was not avail to us directly to get the same deal done. our club made the call that wellingham was of no interest, and at the time fair enough. easy to say 18 months down the track that we were crazy given his form in that time. how were we to know that he would develop into what he has?

if we had gone to collingwood and said we'll take wellingham and a higher pick for ball it would have been deal done. no doubt. but we indicated we wanted nathan brown and they said no. and talks fell over. and the rest is history