The great Travis Cloke debate

[Pies4shaw]

[Bob Sugar]

I never doubted Reids ability, just after 3 years of constant soft tissue injuries i thought he should call it a day, reckon the thought may have crossed his mind as well, Cloke on the other hand is finished as a dominant consistant KF, if want to use today as evidence that i'm wrong i'll use the last year and a bit to prove i'm right.

Also, i was calling Frasers head since i joined Nicks, ditto Dawes <snip, lay off the personal abuse and name-calling - bbmods>

[Pies4shaw]

So you reckon Pendles is safe then? Should I stop hammering the nails in? He only had the 26 and he looked a bit slow.

[Bob Sugar]

Which of our players have i bagged again? You make it sound like i call for players heads every week.

Of our current list i'm not impressed with Degoey considering what we paid for him.

Cloke

Can you refresh my memory on the rest?

[Johnno75]

Massive currency spike today, sell, sell, sell!!! Nah only kidding, thought the big fella still had it in him.

[Woods]

Any performance Cloke puts in between now and the end of the year is just him building up his audition reel for the next club he will be selling himself to.

He’s already decided to leave. Long ago. This became apparent when he (under his management’s instruction) went public early this year in calling for Collingwood to begin contract extension negotiations during this current season (rather than wait until after it and into 2017).

Cloke knows Collingwood can’t and won’t keep him on his high $ contract he is on now. But other teams that have a need for a KPF are willing to pay big $ - bigger than what Collingwood is prepared to pay in light of other available forward options (eg. Moore, Cox, White etc.) and the dire need to find extra cash within the salary cap to retain other key players (or lose them).

The problem for Cloke (or rather his management, because Cloke is dumb as sh*t and wouldn’t know a crisis till it hit him in the face) is that if he simply leaves Collingwood his fate will be similar to that of Dollar Daisy and Greedy Beams. Didn’t that go well! Leaving the Pies for the money after milking the club for years while turning out some pretty shabby performances is the most heinous crime in Black & White. And Cloke simply does not have the strength of character to survive the assailing hordes of Collingwood faithful who will make his future playing career hell (anybody recall Daisy’s first reunion match with the Pies – how do you reckon the big oaf Cloke would cope?)

No, his exit needs to be managed in PR terms. So the PR plan devised by his management, in conjunction with certain journalists and some PR bods attached to prospective team(s), is to create the meme in the public mind that it is not Cloke who wants to leave Collingwood, but that ungrateful and cruel club Collingwood, and particularly its coach, that is trying to ditch its loyal servant Cloke. “They made me leave”, is the line Cloke was to run with.

That was how it was until a couple of weeks ago. The deal now in play is that Collingwood will give him every opportunity to play in the seniors if he puts in. And this will pay dividends for the contract Cloke will sign off at his new club. For Collingwood it gets a Cloke that is at least trying harder to play well, and the current truce has put to bed (for now) serious internal disharmony within the playing group and a main cause of the up and down performances Collingwood has put in this year.

Pity it started out on this path. The year may had carried more promise for us all.

[perthmagpie]

Really? Wow. I was at the game and sitting behind the goals. Those players who feel so much disharmony towards Cloke sure did some seriously good acting after he took each contested mark and goaled. At times six or seven players were hugging him. Just part of the PR exercise I guess.

[didick]

He'll be staying. And I personally will be pleased with that.

[thebaldfacts]

[Magpie Jack]

I'm a huge Cloke fan but I'm resigned to the fact that if Bucks is still coach next year Cloke will be leaving. He might end up in Brisbane on a million a year or he may take less money and win a flag with Hawthorn. I know he has his knockers but he's actually our 7th highest goal kicker of all time now.

[Cam]

I do not believe he will leave. I do not believe he will chase money. All this stuff has been said for two contracts now, and he has stayed, and stayed for far less than he could have got from another club.

His intensity was way way down and mentally he was shot given the offseason incidents. It has taken time to rehabilitate him. He will finish a one club player much to the chagrin of the masses clamoring for change to make news.

[Monco Matt]

Cloke is safe as houses as long as he does his job which is to lead up, take clunking marks, kick a few goals and just be a generally bad ass mofo. He was all of this yesterday.

[Pies4shaw]

[jackcass]

[Pies4shaw]

He'll be leaving. He's already gone to play for Essendon, Richmond, Melbourne, Carlton and Fremantle for their offers of $1M+ per season during previous contract negotiations, so why would he stay this time?