Billings

[meher baba]

I tend not to believe any statements by any club at this stage of the trade period.

[SaintPav]

How strange.

[skeptic]

Am pretty unhappy with this.

Not that I rate Billings particularly highly but he was worth more to us as an overpaid depth player than a 4th round pick and ongoing payment of half his salary or whatever it is.

IMO that’s a very poor outcome. Especially with Gresh gone though yeah we have depth in this area.

IMO this is the first big blunder of the RTB V3.0 era. Especially given that by all accounts this is a weak draft.

We’ve essentially paid him to leave and underperforming or not, he’s better than that

[SaintWiki]

Reporting Melbourne are interested
Swap Billings, 21,40 for 11 and 42 ( makes billing worth pick 41)

Source?

[Scollop]

Am pretty unhappy with this.

Not that I rate Billings particularly highly but he was worth more to us as an overpaid depth player than a 4th round pick and ongoing payment of half his salary or whatever it is.

IMO that’s a very poor outcome. Especially with Gresh gone though yeah we have depth in this area.

IMO this is the first big blunder of the RTB V3.0 era. Especially given that by all accounts this is a weak draft.

We’ve essentially paid him to leave and underperforming or not, he’s better than that

Not a role model trainer?

Team harmony? Get rid of the recalcitrants?

Maybe he was a bad egg.

[magnifisaint]

Is it all wrapped up?

[skeptic]

Am pretty unhappy with this.

Not that I rate Billings particularly highly but he was worth more to us as an overpaid depth player than a 4th round pick and ongoing payment of half his salary or whatever it is.

IMO that’s a very poor outcome. Especially with Gresh gone though yeah we have depth in this area.

IMO this is the first big blunder of the RTB V3.0 era. Especially given that by all accounts this is a weak draft.

We’ve essentially paid him to leave and underperforming or not, he’s better than that

Not a role model trainer?

Team harmony? Get rid of the recalcitrants?

Maybe he was a bad egg.

All distinct possibilities.

I would say based on history/form, is that he’s crossed RTB’s biggest non-negotiable.

It’s not effort vs skill as many hypothesise
Nor age vs youth

The quality that RTB demands above all others is buy in. He does not want players that aren’t prepared to put in 100%, 100% of the time to his own vision. IMO RTB sees things like motivating and having to sell his message as a complete waste of time.

Gut feel is that either Billings’ much vaunted professionalism and work rate is a bit of a myth or that he’s simply less inclined to play the way RTB wants him to.

A GT and other coaches often focus on turning talented players like this around but my sense has always been that RTB feels the energy is better spent on someone that buys in.
On the one hand I get it… but with your talented core IMO you should push through the challenge. In this case, we’re ending up worse off as a result

[Vortex]

We could potentially find ourselves with fewer players who can fill the small forward role than we would ideally like.

Weren’t we overstocked, isn’t Higgo our number one small forward with Buttler as his backup?

I've never been totally sold on Higgins. Inspiring back story, endearing personality, good overhead for a small man, and quite a smart footballer. But, as a small forward who doesn't tackle or chase all that much, he's really got only one job: convert opportunities into goals. And, for mine, he's not an A grade player in that department.

Yeah not sure about the chase and tackle claim, it's why he's still in the team and Gresh and Billings aren't, I think you'll find he covers the ground up high as part of his two way game and the Lyon wall strategy, wouldn't have survived in a Lyon team if he didn't.

Gresh was constantly caught on the wrong side of stoppages and cheating out the back of packs with the incoming ball waiting to swoop on the cheepy.

[Vortex]

Higgins won the lottery when King and Membrey were out preseason. He became the number 1 marking and lead up target in our forward line and his figures for 2023 flatter the real value of the player

If you have a look at how many times we targetted him inside 50 and how many opportunities he had to kick goals (i.e his % accuracy) he is bog average imo

Hard to disagree, the depressing aspect of that realisation is he is now our number one small forward and so it's just another reminder of how far off our list is from rising up above the middle of the ladder.

[SAINT-LEE]

Sad Billings didnt work out, sucks he's going for basically nothing & we keep paying salary. But it's some cap space and we can use it adding on to new deals for young guns.

Flipping 3rd round trade and we still pay him to play. Stupid

[Waltzing St Kilda]

Billings making the Dunstan mistake of heading to a premiership contender and expecting senior games.

In reality he's probably earmarked as a fill-in for Melksham.

[Scollop]

Bloody beauty JB

Yeah nah

He's a ripper!

Signed...Cho

[Waltzing St Kilda]

Off to melbounre for a future third-rounder. Confirmed.

[1966]

RTB saw enough of him in a couple of games to see what everybody else saw for last 6 years.

[SaintWiki]

Off to melbounre for a future third-rounder. Confirmed.

Do we have to pay towards his contracted payment?

[Vortex]

Sad Billings didnt work out, sucks he's going for basically nothing & we keep paying salary. But it's some cap space and we can use it adding on to new deals for young guns.

In the past decade we have squandered picks 1, 3, 7, 8, 18, 21, 22, 25, 26, 24, 25

These have been our highest picks since the 2011 draft, hunter clarke is touch and go and I haven't included pick 4 for Max King 2018 and he's yet to set the world on fire for player who is meant to be a franchise power forward.

Gee I hope we nail our picks this year because we really have stunk it up on draft night for over 10 years now.

[Stian]

Off to melbounre for a future third-rounder. Confirmed.

Surely that's too cheap??? That is, in effect, giving him away for free just to dump some (hopefully all) of his salary.

Are you sure that rumour is true?

[meher baba]

A terrible deal on the face of it. But Billings presumably was desperate to go, and the club wanted to see the back of him. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him perform well at Melbourne.

As we know from his first stint at our club, if Lyon doesn't want someone in his team, he's unlikely to change his mind. So Billings has made the right move.

[ace]

Silvagni just on trade radio. Said he hasn't even spoken to Melbourne yet about Billings, so whoever posted that a deal had been finalised is wrong. Silvagni also said that Shiel will be at Essendon next yesr

Paul Connors is Billings agent, now who would be incentivised to suggest Billing to Melbourne.

Billings going to Melbourne for future 3rd round tied to Melbourne.
That probably falls in the high 50s but after all the queue jumping that takes place probably comes in to mid 50s

[Bowey Boy]

Byeeeee. Ross makes statement.

[Vortex]

Getting a future 3rd rounder is good deal, far better than him paying his salary to play at Sandy as Lyon wouldn't have played him.

[B.M]

Joke

Embarrassing list management

Worse than Luke Ball

And will end up benefiting Melbourne

Every comment on trade radio is how good a deal this is for Melbourne

Explain how it benefits StK

[Waltzing St Kilda]

Yes, paying part of his salary at Melbourne.

[cwrcyn]

Lucky to get that deal done for a 2024 third rounder. With the lack of interest in Billings it could easily have ended with us us dumping him for a useless junk pick

So next year we have a first round pick and three third rounders. It's worked out okay

[SaintPav]

Bloody beauty JB

Yeah nah

He's a ripper!

Signed...Cho

Nah yeah. Jack is gonna be a rule bewdy.

He he is. Hey Jack, come over here young lad and meet your new team mate, Steven May.