Nick's Collingwood Bulletin Board

In fairness, none of us know all the facts surrounding Grundy's situation. What we do know is that Grundy wanted to remain a Pie, but our club wants him to go elsewhere so we can get his salary off our books. There may be other reasons for the club keen to trade him, but I'm sure they will remain confidential. Given that he is a Collingwood contracted player, my guess is that to find him a club elsewhere, we would have had to open the channels of communication with the Dees. The idea that we could pretend we wanted to retain him, while secretly wanting him gone seems totally unrealistic to me.

Seems we will get a pick in the low 20s and relieve us of around $700,000 pa of salary cap. We can all argue over whether it's a reasonable or unreasonable deal, but I think we just have to get used to it.

MAY-Z wrote:

swoop42 wrote:https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/i-know-the-process-of-winning-mcrae-challenges-pies-stars-to-drive-success-20210903-p58ogj.html

Article from 2021 when McRae was newly appointed.

McRae, who coached the two players and other stars when he was a development coach at the club, said he was keen to resume working with Grundy on how to better connect with the group and turn hitout dominance into clearances and midfield dominance

“I think the thing with Brodie, and I said it to him when I got here, there’s the team on one hand and then on the other hand is the glove. I think Brodie is his own unique self that I don’t think the glove is ever going to fit on the team for Brodie, he is different and we want to embrace his difference but at some stage you have got to put one of the fingers in the glove, maybe two to connect in.

“I think Brodie is at that stage of his footy career where we need him to be more than a good preparer [and] maybe good at hitouts. We need him to connect and if he is connecting in the group, hopefully we get more connection in the hitouts.”

If these comments weren't exactly a foreshadowing of the position we now find ourselves in 12 months later they could certainly be viewed as more significant than they were at the time of the interview.

While the size of his salary is certainly a factor in our decision making perhaps McRae simply doesn't feel Grundy ever made the connection he was hoping to see.

gee looking back on those comments , it really does suggest we are happy to get rid of him for a combination of 1) his salary, 2) his "unique individualness" and 3) his pure ability to hit the ball where he should in the ruck

My view of Grundy was he always played with blinkers on. I was shot down to suggest such a futile irrelative moronic voice. So nice to see humble pie being eaten by a few. But to be honest I couldn’t really care less about some posters love affairs with players and neither do the coaches we now have. Thank goodness our fate now relies upon a more clued up organisation.

simon tonna wrote:My view of Grundy was he always played with blinkers on. I was shot down to suggest such a futile irrelative moronic voice. So nice to see humble pie being eaten by a few. But to be honest I couldn’t really care less about some posters love affairs with players and neither do the coaches we now have. Thank goodness our fate now relies upon a more clued up organisation.

Humble pie? Nah - it's a ridiculous decision to move him on. But they've made it. Now, I would just like them not to mismanage the trading part of it - at the moment, it looks very much like they will need to borrow some vaseline.

Pies4shaw wrote:

simon tonna wrote:My view of Grundy was he always played with blinkers on. I was shot down to suggest such a futile irrelative moronic voice. So nice to see humble pie being eaten by a few. But to be honest I couldn’t really care less about some posters love affairs with players and neither do the coaches we now have. Thank goodness our fate now relies upon a more clued up organisation.

Humble pie? Nah - it's a ridiculous decision to move him on. But they've made it. Now, I would just like them not to mismanage the trading part of it - at the moment, it looks very much like they will need to borrow some vaseline.

The only ridiculous decision in regards to Grundy was giving in to his massive contractual demands.

Not sure about the mismanagement, we have offered him plus paying salary and only 1 team has been interested in taking this up. Surely that must tell you something about his perceived worth TODAY. You keep carrying on about things he did 3-4 years ago, that is irrelevant to todays market and performances

More to the point, what Fly said is that BG makes us better at the clearances and he was hoping BG would have been available during the finals. This isn't a fire sale. We clear Brodie from our books we have more to spend on the players we were critically short of this year - tall forwards and tall defenders. It's basically a balancing act. Every player at the club gets talked up as having to contribute more - Brodie included earlier in the year. This doesn't mean he's not wanted. If the trade to Melbourne falls through Brodie will be welcomed back with welcome arms to Collingwood. He's done nothing wrong. He and his manager maximized his earnings potential at Collingwood. He's an intelligent footballer who is examining his alternatives during the off season, aware that the ALF trade period is a meat market where clubs get what they want and the players do their best to get what they want.

MatthewBoydFanClub wrote:More to the point, what Fly said is that BG makes us better at the clearances and he was hoping BG would have been available during the finals. This isn't a fire sale. We clear Brodie from our books we have more to spend on the players we were critically short of this year - tall forwards and tall defenders. It's basically a balancing act. Every player at the club gets talked up as having to contribute more - Brodie included earlier in the year. This doesn't mean he's not wanted. If the trade to Melbourne falls through Brodie will be welcomed back with welcome arms to Collingwood. He's done nothing wrong. He and his manager maximized his earnings potential at Collingwood. He's an intelligent footballer who is examining his alternatives during the off season, aware that the ALF trade period is a meat market where clubs get what they want and the players do their best to get what they want.

Agree with all that, except that it's rather more than simply Brody "examining his alternatives during the off season". It is clear to everyone that our club has strongly encouraged him to seek a trade elsewhere. Wright wants Brody's salary off our books plain and simple. I just hope we get a reasonable return for Grundy, and I wish him the best for his continuing career at the Dees, except when they play us.

With all due respect to all those who have posted I think there is much more to it than a salary cap dump
While many won’t want to believe it I had it on good authority there was a issue in early April after a game when he was called out by a coach questioning his desire to adapt to new game style and his commitment to team values
He wasn’t only player challenged this way in the early days of instilling a new philosophy into the group but the reports are he wasn’t very happy being called out
Now Grundy is a different cat everyone acknowledges that and maybe the coach who did would have been better served doing it behind closed doors one on one
But when your the highest paid player at a club expectations are high you will be the example for younger players
No one has said the team isn’t better when Grundy is playing at his best that would be a stupid statement but his best as shown in 2018/19 is much different to what we’ve seen in 2020/21 and small sample size 2022
Now wright has publicly said our cap is out of whack in terms of % of cap paid to our ruck division
We could have cut Cameron and Cox and saved around $600k and looked to mid season draft or elsewhere for a back up ruck
We could have also looked at hard at our older players like Howe WHE Sidey to cut one and save some cap space as well (it would have been a risk given our game profile on the list)
But the club has chosen this path
I’m still not convinced we will be paying anywhere near the reported $300k and only get back a pick in the 20’s
Honestly I don’t see that being a fair trade
If we get a pick in the 20’s back then I would expect us to be paying no more than $100k of his salary
If we pay $300k there better be a decent 1st round pick coming back
That’s unless there is other reasons we are offloading him
I think the truth lays somewhere between we need to rest our cap some what and Grundy and his personality and how that fits in the team environment McRae wants to build

there are two scenarios here

1/. we trade Grundy, and have some salary cap available for someone else

2/. nobody wants Grundy, and we have to have available $1,000,000 in our salary cap

I assume the club has to be able to cover point 2. If so, they will have a spare $700,000 / $800,000 to then spend if Grundy leaves.

The more i look at it, expect nothing back for Grundy - be grateful if someone takes him

think positive wrote:i can never figure out if nice90 is a troll ala hiss, or, well, something else!

I thought Hiss arrived around the same time HAL became self aware and disappeared. Figured the old robot got drunk and introspective and BAM! Angry wino.

... with some very good ideas, I might add. There, I said it!

swoop42 wrote:https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/i-know-the-process-of-winning-mcrae-challenges-pies-stars-to-drive-success-20210903-p58ogj.html

Article from 2021 when McRae was newly appointed.

McRae, who coached the two players and other stars when he was a development coach at the club, said he was keen to resume working with Grundy on how to better connect with the group and turn hitout dominance into clearances and midfield dominance

“I think the thing with Brodie, and I said it to him when I got here, there’s the team on one hand and then on the other hand is the glove. I think Brodie is his own unique self that I don’t think the glove is ever going to fit on the team for Brodie, he is different and we want to embrace his difference but at some stage you have got to put one of the fingers in the glove, maybe two to connect in.

“I think Brodie is at that stage of his footy career where we need him to be more than a good preparer [and] maybe good at hitouts. We need him to connect and if he is connecting in the group, hopefully we get more connection in the hitouts.”

If these comments weren't exactly a foreshadowing of the position we now find ourselves in 12 months later they could certainly be viewed as more significant than they were at the time of the interview.

While the size of his salary is certainly a factor in our decision making perhaps McRae simply doesn't feel Grundy ever made the connection he was hoping to see.

Sounds a bit MAFSy to me. Those shows always go on about whether or not the other has made A Connection or not. Sounds weird to be coming from a footy club but perfect coming from a clique. Or a cult.

I'll make a mental note to check back in 6 or 7 years and see whether this connection (and 'love' for that matter) talk that's gotten big lately is just a passing phase in footy circles. Maybe it will get shown up like the leading teams style philosophy did a while back.

piffdog wrote: Fair criticisms - although I could make the other point that they wanted Grundy gone at all costs. Imagine waiting until the day after the grand final to start sounding people out for a +$700k player (ruckman no less) only to have them all say "gee we would have if we had known he was gettable, but have now spent all our cap".

So they have shopped him early to make sure he leaves - and in doing so risk getting not much back. So its not how badly they want him, its actually how badly we want him gone. Imagine playing coy and being stuck with him. Sometimes you can also be a bit cute in your big negotiations. Would it really ruin the club if we get pick #27 instead of two first rounders? If you believe what we're hearing, having Grundy STAY is more likely to have a lasting (negative) impact on the team's performance.

I dont know for sure that Collingwood leaks more than any other joint does it? How would we assess that?

Yuh. Part of the issue with the 2020 fire sale was that it all got done in a mad rush at the end of the season. These are big, unwieldy contracts getting thrown around and adding an extra 800k+ to the books and massaging whats already there takes time. Then there's the questions around what draft capital needs to be given up. Again, clubs will have strategies well in place by the time we get to October that need to be rethought in order to start gifting 1st rounders and the like.

The feelers had to go out early with Grundy and, I daresay deGoey and Moore.

RudeBoy wrote:

MatthewBoydFanClub wrote:More to the point, what Fly said is that BG makes us better at the clearances and he was hoping BG would have been available during the finals. This isn't a fire sale. We clear Brodie from our books we have more to spend on the players we were critically short of this year - tall forwards and tall defenders. It's basically a balancing act. Every player at the club gets talked up as having to contribute more - Brodie included earlier in the year. This doesn't mean he's not wanted. If the trade to Melbourne falls through Brodie will be welcomed back with welcome arms to Collingwood. He's done nothing wrong. He and his manager maximized his earnings potential at Collingwood. He's an intelligent footballer who is examining his alternatives during the off season, aware that the ALF trade period is a meat market where clubs get what they want and the players do their best to get what they want.

Agree with all that, except that it's rather more than simply Brody "examining his alternatives during the off season". It is clear to everyone that our club has strongly encouraged him to seek a trade elsewhere. Wright wants Brody's salary off our books plain and simple. I just hope we get a reasonable return for Grundy, and I wish him the best for his continuing career at the Dees, except when they play us.

totally agree, he just always seems like a really nice guy, probably too intelligent to be a footballer!