Re: Carlton vs North Melbourne
Reply #153 –
I think you are making yourself feel better about the trade.
You will find plenty of posts here on the forum (Not just mine by the way) that rated Hampson a better ruckmen than you profess. In fact even last season there were plenty of us who watched the NBs who just couldn't not understand why he wasn't getting a game in the 1s ahead of Warnock. At times Warnock spent the majority of time in the NBs sitting on the bench while Hampson and Meese did the bulk of the ruck work. Prior to his late season injury Hampson was in far better ruck form than SpecialK, and was always far better around the ground than Warnock who is basically exceptionally good in a one dimensional center bounce role.
And here in lies the rub, we traded away a genuine first ruck option and kept a bunch of failing KPPs. For those carrying on about the $avings, not really, as I have had it explained to me Wood qualifies as a 9th year player so he isn't such a great saving as a rookie. The AFLPA do not discriminate between 8 years plus 1 later and 9 years continuous service. Despite being on the rookie list he is earning a very tidy sum, far more than an 18 year old which is in my opinion who we should have been recruiting! This is exactly the situation Collingwood tried on when they wanted to appoint Ben Hudson as a $300K playing(rookie) ruck coach.