Nick's Collingwood Bulletin Board

Brian from Mulgrave wrote:Collingwood announced in the statement yestertday that contract discussions were being put on hold until years end so that speculation could in theory dissappear until then .

Sadly 3aw did not understand what was intended . Just heard the comment that if Collingwood do not sign Travis Cloke they will not win the premiership this year , next year or the year after .

The Travis Cloke saga will be discussed at huge levels in the press . This will stuff up our finals campaign .

SIMPLE ANSWER - Call a press conference announce that Cloke will not be played ever again and that any contract offers have been withdrawn .

completely disagree - this strategy has puts the pressure on DAVID CLOKE, his boy either performs for the rest of the season or his value drops, plainly and simply. Therefore its a win/win for the club.
He plays well and we increase our chances of challenging for the flag, or if not then he gets lower offers from other clubs and making our offer look acceptable.

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completely disagree - this strategy put the pressure on DAVID CLOKE his boy either performs for the rest of the season is a winwin for the club. I suppose that makes sense.

The only way this situation would have been fixed is if Trav signed. Putting it off to the end of the year is only going to compound the interest in this story.

I still do not think he will leave (although I am getting more unsure by the day) but it is certainly putting the cat amongst the pigeons.

My belief is that it was in fact the Collingwood leadership group who have told the club to call off contract discussions as they are sick to death of being asked about it. Nick Maxwell has driven this.

FWIW, I heard Cameron (of Richmond) being interviewed by Bartlett about an hour ago. I place absolutely no faith in Cameron's official position in that interview (to the effect that "we still think he'll stay at Collingwood") - it might be his genuine expectation, it might not. However, I did want to mention that (1) despite vigorous pressure from Bartlett to confirm to the Richmond faithful that his club would make a direct approach to Travis, Cameron expressed the view that they would speak with Cloke's management only, on the basis that Travis has a finals campaign to prepare for; and (2) he struck me as a more impressive and capable fellow than Swann ever did (including when Swann was at the 'Pies).

One can't ultimately alter whether players or coaching staff will stay or will go. But I was very disturbed last year about the way that, as soon as the finals started, failed clubs who were out of the finals started thieving finals' teams coaches. I thought that was unfortunate, at best - it gave something of an impression that the finals were a bit of a side-show to be engaged in only by the small minority of teams who didn't have long-term strategic issues to resolve. And this year, I've been very concerned about the extent to which other club administrations might be contacting our (many) out of contract players directly. At least in Richmond's case, it appears that may not be happening. I assume that would be because Cameron understands that what goes around, comes around. It will be interesting to see whether Melbourne does again that which it did last year - or leaves direct discussions with the player until the end of his (rather than their pathetic) season.

As for the speculation about the Blooz - if they were able to secure an out of contract Collingwood player within their salary cap, as things presently stand the AFL would never be able to satisfy me that the Blooz had not merely been able to do so because of the $250K salary-cap help they get with the Judd arrangement. In those circumstances, I think the Club and we should all be pushing vigorously (in our own respective ways) to make sure that the Blooz are forced to negotiate with any out of contract Collingwood players on the basis of precisely the same salary cap arrangements that Collingwood has to manage. That is, although I think the special exception for Judd is already objectionable, it would be a complete farce if, in the very year that free agency first applies, the Blooz were given another $250K of salary cap room not for the limited purpose of retaining their existing list but for the purpose of attracting an additional player to their list. The latter raises some interesting trade practices issues and I trust the Club has taken - or will take - advice about them.

Information and belief, or just belief?

I think if they do that we don't get Composted for Cloke walking

I don't fancy being composted DTM.

Pies4shaw wrote:Information and belief, or just belief?

It is second hand information from someone else so I will leave it there.

Dave The Man wrote:I think if they do that we don't get Composted for Cloke walking

Let's wait and see what they do.

Ahhh, once again we have become our own worst enemy. Once again the things we can control will ruin our flag chances. Carmen suspension, Hafey over-training, J. Cloke suspension, A. Rocca suspension, Shaw scandal, Malthouse saga, T. Cloke saga etc.... Why oh Why, always we do this to ourselves!

nulla wrote:We are talking about a father who has advised his son that there is 1.5 million more over five years on offer.

Would you as a father advise not to negotiate with Collingwood or state they will need to come close to the other offers or stitch up something long term post football.

Ablett, Judd and Scully all went for the money... ask them did they make a bad decision?

I am all for Cloke staying and think that he will.... but if my manager was pushing me into a corner and telling me that I should ignore an extra 1.5 million over five years I would sack him.

how can anyone begrudge someone for looking out for his kid? also, given that cloke is a professional footballer who has earned a golden ticket, how can anyone begrudge him from getting the most out of his situation?

i am not privvy to anything the club or the cloke party has said. i find it incredible and somewhat staggering how so many seem so informed and can happily put forward their views (character assassinations more often than not) in such a forthright manner.

i don't get it.

Composted.

I just love how someone repeats a rumour in this thread and an hour later its being recited as fact and vitriol heaped on the Clokes because of it.

Im starting to treat these Cloke to..... rumours a bit like those medieval saints where various pilgrimage sites all claimed to have bits of St Blogs, but if you ever totalled up the amounts of bones they had, there were in fact four St Blogs in total. Given the number of rumours that are being pedalled as true here, they can't be all right, given there is only one Travis. Given that its more prudent to treat them all as BS until officially proven otherwise. Its a good policy I think, it cuts down on the angst and actually allows a few posters to save what is left of their already tattered dignity.

Monco Matt wrote:Ahhh, once again we have become our own worst enemy. Once again the things we can control will ruin our flag chances. Carmen suspension, Hafey over-training, J. Cloke suspension, A. Rocca suspension, Shaw scandal, Malthouse saga, T. Cloke saga etc.... Why oh Why, always we do this to ourselves!

How could we control any of those other than the Hafey overtaining.

The rest are decisions made by players/coach that the Club could only be reactive to.

However:-

Don't forget Tuddingham knocking out McKenna just before half time in the 1970 Grand Final when we were miles ahead...

Or Wayne Harmes being out of bounds either...

Or the goal umpire giving Rocca's goal a point and Tazza not getting a free from White in the first Brisbane Grand Final either.