Tigers have the last laugh on Callan Ward Mark Stevens
From: Herald Sun
September 03, 2011 "CALLAN Ward signs with GWS ... Richmond advises the AFL to provide the Dogs with Jordan McMahon as compensation."That was the theme of several messages this week as battered, bedraggled and bitter Richmond fans quickly sprang into action on social media.
Finally, with the pain of another ninth-placed finish looming, there was morbid relief among some quarters of the Tiger Army that the McMahon-Ward link was about to be broken.
Ward will play his last game for the Western Bulldogs today. No doubt about it.
Whether he is jeered or cheered by the Dogs faithful on his way out of Etihad Stadium is uncertain, but Richmond fans might have a chuckle from afar.
Those Tigers supporters have copped it for three to four years with the tease: "You took Jordie McMahon and it cost you Callan Ward."
Richmond swapped pick No.19 in the 2007 trade period for McMahon, a hard running, but inconsistent back-flanker who had run out of credits at the Dogs.
Six weeks later the Dogs used the choice to pick up Ward.
McMahon is long gone. Ward has 10 years left at the top level and will be paid more than $4 million over the next five.
Now, in a sense, Ward is gone too. There are no winners now, just losers ... and the teasing can stop.
But as Ward prepares for a strange last day at the office, it is worth revisiting the trade/draft twists and turns in 2007.
Heading into the trade week with head of football Greg Miller leading the negotiations, Richmond had picks 18, 19 and 35 to play with.
Pick 35 was Mitch Morton from West Coast, which gave the club little wriggle room on McMahon. A deal was done with pick 19 for McMahon.
In retrospect, both Morton and McMahon were in the pick No.35 category.
But the Tigers retained their priority pick (No.18) and moved on to the national draft.
We now know they took Alex Rance with that pick. He is no Ward, but has become a solid defender this season, who now looks destined to be a long-term contributor at Punt Rd.
But if they had retained 19, and not swapped it for McMahon, would they have taken Ward?
Well, it doesn't help the story, but the answer is a resounding no.
It is an undisputed fact that Ward was not even on the Tigers' radar for that section of the draft.
They tossed up between Rance and Scott Selwood. If pick 19 had been available, it is odds-on Selwood's name would have been read out after Rance's.
The emerging West Coast star would now be at Punt Rd -- not Ward.
And how about the Dogs on draft day? How hot were they for Ward?
There is no doubt shrewd recruiter Scott Clayton loved the kid from Spotswood, but Ward could have easily been Robbie Tarrant or Rance himself.
The Herald Sun was given rare access to the Dogs' planning that day.
Clayton was always going to take forward Jarrad Grant with pick No.5, with Rance, Tarrant and Ward the contenders for pick No.19. The Dogs, who liked Rance, didn't expect him to slip much past the early teens and saw him as plan B for pick No.5.
Clayton was up all night watching tapes of Tarrant and Ward trying to make the final call, knowing Rance was likely to be gone.
North took that call out of his hands, taking Tarrant at No.15 ... but Rance amazingly was still alive as Richmond's turn came with pick 18.
The Tigers took Rance, leaving Clayton to take Ward with the very next pick.
Rance quietly signed a two-year deal a couple of weeks ago to stay at Punt Rd -- and good luck to him.
Ward is about to sign, too. Yet that will attract much more than a few paragraphs.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/tigers-have-the-last-laugh-on-callan-ward/story-fn7si05c-1226128410989
