Tigers gave Judd deal their best shot
2:44 PM Mon 15 October, 2007
By Jason Phelan
for richmondfc.com.au
RICHMOND director of football, Greg Miller, has assured supporters that the Tigers left no stone unturned in their audacious last-ditch bid to secure Chris Judd during trade week.
Miller was confident on Tuesday of the exchange period that his offer of the second overall pick with two other selections, reported to be picks 18 and 19, would get the job done. But he was dismayed when the Eagles went for what he felt was a clearly inferior offer from the Blues.
While not entirely happy with the way the whole saga unfolded, Miller wasn’t about to call for an AFL investigation into the deal.
“I’m not suggesting that at all. I’m saying that it’s important that Richmond people know that we gave it our best shot,” Miller said from the club’s Punt Road headquarters on Monday.
“I just thought that Chris Judd was certainly worth choice one in the trade period; I think Carlton’s done a pretty handy job getting him for choice three, choice 20 and a player. As everyone knows, we were [offering] choice two and two other choices.
“I think the decision came from the top and that’s their prerogative. We were out of the loop then, we just put our position and Carlton put theirs and Josh Kennedy obviously made an impression when he went over there and made the difference.
“That was their prerogative but we saw it differently and I’m not sure that their footy department didn’t see it differently either.”
Richmond was not in Judd’s initial group of preferred clubs - Essendon, Collingwood, Melbourne and Carlton - but Miller was confident of turning around the superstar’s thinking on the issue if his bid had been successful.
“I’ve got no doubt that, if the deal had of gone through, Chris Judd would have been fine to play with the Richmond Football Club,” he said.
“His manager was talking the talk, as he needed to do to get his player to Carlton, but there wasn’t going to be an issue if the Eagles traded with us that wouldn’t have seen him be okay through the pre-season.”
Despite losing out to the Blues in the race for Judd’s signature, Miller said the busy exchange period, which saw the club snare ex-Bulldog Jordan McMahon and former Eagle Mitch Morton, had taken the steam out of the push for free agency.
“I think it’s important for the AFL that the trade period stands up,” he said.
“We all know there’s been a strong push from the players’ association to introduce free agency, but I’m not sure any of the clubs really want free agency. It’s important the trade period worked, I think it has, I think Chris Judd got to where he wanted to go.
“I think 20 players have moved around in the system so that defeats a lot of the players’ association arguments.”
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