To be fair his agent is only doing his job and young Tom has probably been told by the club that he needs to earn a new contract if he wants it to be a decent offer, which he is no doubt doing.
All the noises in that article were pretty positive so you'd hope it would be nutted our fairly quickly as they start to get an idea of where the new cap will sit. Unlike last year where there was just a wall of silence re Jetta which made me very worried very early (and I'm glad we got Callum for him so it wall turned out). If he is still unsigned at the end of July consider him gone but I'd be hoping for something well before then.
Laidler is another one I'd like wrapped but he is fully replaceable (as much as I rate him) and I'd imagine we want to see a bit more of how Towers, Hewett and Lloyd go before tabling offers so they can wait until July to be wrapped up.
Excellent thread WA.
It think that we can expect Richards, McGlynn, Derickx and Johnson to either retire or be delisted. That should free up say, $900k. Nanker, Robinson and Marsh might also be on the chopping block. We need to bare in mind that our salary cap reduces at the end of the season by about $200k (from memory). So lets say we have an extra $700k to play with (excluding other delistings and recruiting). That's not a bad amount to have up your sleeve. I'd expect KJ to stay on something similar to what he is currently on, or maybe a little less.
I see our priorities as being, Mitchell, Heeney and Hewett. The later two having excellent skills which is what we need. Every man and his dog will be after Mitchell the ball magnet, but he did previously (twice I believe) select us over Carlton so hopefully he will be willing to take a pay cut to stay with us. As strange as it sounds I would be willing to lose KJ (it won't happen) if it means that we keep these three.
Papley (still early days), Lloyd, Cunningham, Towers and Melican would be great to retain and shouldn't effect our affordability.
Why are you so willing to release Robinson given how he's performed over the last two weeks and exceeded expectations?
Of Mitchell Hewett and Heeney its simple take Heeney and Mitchel. Hewett is well Craig bird but a little bit better Mitchell is a Gun Hewett may develop into a great player but that doesn't mean letting go of a player that is almost All Australian in Mitchell
If we lose our captain from NSW to a VIC SA or whatever club we will be ridiculed for years...With McVeigh nearing retirement possibly next year
I think we'll be OK re the cap.
Sure Buddy is on $1.2m in year 4 of his mega deal next year but I would pretty much guarantee that most sides will have a $1M plus player next year if the cap jumps to $15M as is being mooted. We took a calculated gamble on the salary cap movement when we built around Buddy and Tippett and it would appear to have been paid off.
Us running a reduced list and our pay structure that has, I believe, a relatively large number of minimum or lower wage earners (until the pay their dues) helps us compete in this environment.
No way would we be losing KJ but I suspect he has been on good money for a while now and would not demand the super deal. In general players go through four stages at the swans re their contracts (probably fairly generic across most clubs)
* Rookie contract (minimum wage)
* First proper deal (offered in year 1 or 2) - two to three years at about $150,000 - $250,000
* "Big Money Deal" (the one that sets the player up financially) - four to five years at $350,000 to $700,000
* Top up deal - if still playing, get a final contract to see them through their career but probably no higher than their last deal.
Obviously we fast-tracked Reid and Mitchell due to GWS but we really only have Mitchell in the big money field, the others will kick in in a few years time. I guess it shows how important list management is from a salary cap point of view as well as talent
This is why we are trying to develop and recruit players from Sydney (or NSW at least), They will, in most cases, lack historic ties to Victorian clubs and be free from speculation about moving south. Jack and Heeney will stay but generally I agree with SS Bleeder above. I think Richards may go another year but he'll sign a year to year contract at best anyway and isn't going anywhere else. I don't get the feeling that we have expensive reserves anymore as we did with Seaby et al, which should give us extra wriggle room.
Today's a draft of your epitaph
Correct, with COLA no more building a home grown list is vital on many levels. By my reckoning we're nudging a third of the list as NSW boys now (Rampe, Keiran, BJ, Jarrad, Mills, Robbo, Heeney, Harry, Davis, Hiscox, Naismith). It would be good to get to 20 players and a tick over 50% in the next five years.
And from what I can gather this should happen, I believe that this year (or maybe it is next) is the first year that the academy boys have been through the system since Under 11s and the quality is apparently a lot higher.
Tom on AFL 360, asked straight out by Robbo if he'd be at the Swans next year.
Must say he didn't fill me with huge confidence, not nearly as unequivocal as young Lynch from Adelaide.
I'll only feel comfortable about him re-signing once the ink is dry on the contract
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