So in 5 years at the club Troy Simmonds has done more behind the doors than Kane Johnson, Darren Gasper, Andrew Kellaway, Rory Hilton and Matthew Richardson have done in their careers? Did Greg Tivendale even have a farewell match? I fact I think he might have, and rightly so.
I'm not against Troy being fare welled. Everyone deserves to say goodbye, its the way its been allowed. Unless you've played 150+ games for the club, with form struggling and the game beyond you, you can't put your hand up and ask for a charity goodbye game. IE Tyson Edwards, and even that doesn't look good.
If we lost against Port last week it wouldn't have been an issue. The 22 that won last week 100% deserve there spot unless a player warrants their selection back ie a Foley, Jackson even Post after his 4 goal haul. Not a player that's post 30, in horrible form and struggling with fitness that wants 1 last hurrah match.
Troy isn't in the best 22 as it stands, why are we moving away from our vision of uncompromisable competitiveness. Picking a player that is probably only just fits in our best 30 at the moment is counter-intuitive to our development which is what this year is all about.
Yes Greg Tivendale did get a farewell game.
any player deserves a farewell game no matter how long he served the club. It's to celebrate a players career.
Thats a great idea Monk.
With around a 7,200 players going around when 18 teams are in the competition. Lets eventually give all of them farewell games. That makes sense.
Tiver deserved it, was 1 season shy of 200 games, I'm glad he got one.
720 AFL players. There's only around 46 players per list .
Simmo has had a lengthy career and has been at Punt Rd longer than just 5 minutes. 6 years of which he'll seem like part of the furniture to most of our young list. Only Newy, Jacko, Tucky, Kel and Axel have been at Richmond longer and most of those only a year or so longer.
Lol 1 to many 0's.
I can understand the meaning of the game, have no problems with Troy having a farewell game, and our mistakes in the past with players being handled badly are hopefully behind us. This is evident of that. I just would have liked to have seen the farewell game happen when it suited the list most.
We've just had our first win and the whole group deserve to keep pushing to keep there spot and the players in the VFL performing well keep pushing for selection and take precedence. It is just 1 game but I would have rathered it in a week after an Essendon like performance where Troys inclusion would be warranted with some players dropping in form.
We say now that Polak will make way. What if he can't get back into the side? His career will be over at the expense of making way for a charity event. Where as if he stayed who knows how different his year would be. Someone like Post has been struggling for a long time lacking confidence and has a day out and rightly should be first picked to get back into the side. But now that wont be the case. Morton played well and would feel a bit cheated that he's performance now means nothing cause of Troys inclusion precedence.
My argument was that I find it hard for a 90 game player like Troy is taken precedence over our future albeit for one game. It would make sense to me if the guy had played 150+ games for the club.
Regardless hope we have a good game.
At the end of the day it's not a huge issue. It could have been done better that's all.