Expensive contracts will limit Tigers' 2010 culling (Herald-Sun)

[one-eyed]

Expensive contracts will limit Tigers' 2010 culling
Jon Ralph | August 21, 2009

RICHMOND'S new coach will start his tenure at Punt Rd saddled with nearly $1 million of contracts for players who normally would have their papers stamped.

Borderline Tigers Jordan McMahon, Adam Thomson, Jay Schulz and Jake King are all contracted for next season, limiting the club's options of a wide-scale cleanout.

McMahon is in the last season of a three-year deal worth $1 million in total, and already has been linked to a trade with St Kilda next year.

But if that deal was clinched, Richmond would likely have to pay a substantial slice of his wage at the Saints.

Even on conservative estimates - if Thomson, Schulz and King are on $180,000 a year each - the club will have to pay $850,000 of its $7.95 million salary cap on the quartet.

Richmond drafted Thomson as a hard-as-nails 22-year-old from Port Adelaide, giving up selection 42.

He will make his Richmond debut tomorrow night, but has rarely been in the selection mix for his new club.

Schulz played the most recent of his 71 games in Round 7 but the No. 12 draft pick can scarcely figure in the club's plans. Both Port Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs have showed interest in him in the past two seasons, but his market value has faded considerably.

King's position is more polarising, with caretaker coach Jade Rawlings using him successfully in run-with roles.

But King's future will depend on the opinion of the next coach, with skill errors likely to hamper his progress.

King won't have another chance to push his case after accepting a two-week suspension for striking Magpie Alan Didak last Saturday.

While the futures of the foursome are problematic, at least Richmond has plenty of space in its salary cap with veterans Kane Johnson and Joel Bowden both retiring.

Others who will feel nervous include Nathan Brown, Troy Simmonds, Adam Pattison, Cleve Hughes, Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls, Kayne Pettifer, Graham Polak and Mark Coughlan.

While more than a dozen players deserve to go, the Tigers cannot replace that many in one cycle.

And while rookies Robin Nahas and Andrew Browne should be upgraded to the primary list, most clubs have only three to five selections at each national draft.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25959617-19742,00.html

[Stripes]

This is a nothing article. The salary cap is the least of our problems with so many highly paid players retiring or being delisted. If we can off load McMahon and Schulz for 3rd or 4th round picks, regardless of whether we have to pay half their wages, it would be a big win for us considering the room we will have in the salary cap. Money is not a handicap as Ralph suggests.

Ralph also suggests we won't have the amount of picks we require to do a big clean out well lets speculate -

Possible Conservative Trades
Good chance at least 3 of these trades will eventuate

McMahon - Saints pick 3
Schulz - Dogs pick 4
Raines - ??? pick 3 or a swap of picks say our 3 for someones pick 2
Patto - pick 4

National, PSD, Rookie Draft Picks
We will go deeper into this draft this year compared to other years due to our need to replace players and the fact that the GC will have the first 5 choices in this years Rookie Draft. Will of course depend on the picks we have secured for our trades.

1st round, 2nd Round, 3rd Round, 3rd Round (McMahon trade), 3rd Round (Raines trade), 4th Round, 4th Round(Schulz trade),

PSD selection

Elevate - Nahas, Browne & Silvester

4 Rookie selections

Outgoing players that will/could be replaced (11 players - 3 elevated rookies = 8 choices in the National & PSD
So using my speculation as a predictor that would mean that we could replace -

Johnson, Bowden, Brown, Simmonds, JON, Petts, Cogs, Polak, McMahon, Schulz, Raines


Just playing around with possibilities but we seem to have latitude to remove a significant portion of our deadwood.

Stripes

[the_boy_jake]

This is a nothing article. The salary cap is the least of our problems with so many highly paid players retiring or being delisted. If we can off load McMahon and Schulz for 3rd or 4th round picks, regardless of whether we have to pay half their wages, it would be a big win for us considering the room we will have in the salary cap. Money is not a handicap as Ralph suggests.

Agreed.

We don't have to bring in players to pay them either. We could e.g. front load Deledio's contract to reach minimum payments.

[Smokey]

This is a nothing article. The salary cap is the least of our problems with so many highly paid players retiring or being delisted. If we can off load McMahon and Schulz for 3rd or 4th round picks, regardless of whether we have to pay half their wages, it would be a big win for us considering the room we will have in the salary cap. Money is not a handicap as Ralph suggests.

Agreed.

We don't have to bring in players to pay them either. We could e.g. front load Deledio's contract to reach minimum payments.

Absolutely.  Our issue is more likely to be the other way around - trying to find ways to spend the minimum if we have a cleanout and load up on kids.  What a stupid article.

[mightytiges]

Yep smokey our issue will be trying to reach the minimum of 92.5%.

No idea how much our retirees were being paid but as a guess a savings of around $1.5m
Johnson   $350k
Bowden   $175k (half his salary)
Simmo    $250k
Browny   $400k
Cogs      $300k