Hurley needs to be our main focus. Pay what it takes!!
I agree with you and reckon they made an significant offer to his management.
but what will your reaction be if he simply says "no thanks" and turns down our offer(s). Will you whack (blame) the club or accept the Hurley decision. There is a chance we could offer him a million bucks a year and he still knocks us back to stay with Bombers.
It's hard not knowing what our offer to him has been but I would expect they keep raising it till he changes his mind.
If our offer is the same as the Bombers and any other club, why would he choose us. Our offer needs to blow away the other clubs offers. It's a business and it needs to be treated as a business deal. We cannot worry about what Cotch or Dusty are getting paid compared to our offer to Hurley. IMO we spend far to much time not wanting to hurt people's feelings as a club.
Offer him the captaincy, offer him a coaching roll after footy is finished, offer his sister a night with Dusty, but play dirty like the Collingwoods of this world do. Eddie is a lot of things but he makes things happen. We need to be ruthless!!
With hopefully Vickery and Griff being traded out we could pay Hurley a mil easy over the next 5 years. Forget about Prestia get Hurley signed first and then see what's what. The other reason we can afford to pay him overs is because he is free in terms of draft picks. That has got to be worth paying extra for.
Just think if we could get Hurley for nothing, keep our first pick (hopefully a top 5 pick), trade out an injured and aging Lids for another top 10 pick, trade out Griff and Vickery for picks in the late teens early 20's, swap Conca for Longer, and also trade BEllis, Houli and Grigg out and get in some quality kids we can turn this thing around pretty quickly.
So it looks something like this- Hurley, pick 5 (our pick), pick 7 (Lids), pick 18 (Griff), pick 23 (our pick), pick 25 (Vickery), Longer, pick 27 (BEllis) , pick 40 (Houli), pick 41 (our pick) and pick pick 50 (Grigg)
I'd even trade a few more for potential top 20 picks- Lennon and Edwards.
But to answer your question, yes I will blame the club. It has promised us all so much but delivered nothing, it's time for no more excuses and it's time to get it done NO MATTER WHAT!
