Happy ... Joel Selwood, Tom Hawkins, Joel Corey, Dawson Simpson and Mitch Duncan sing the song. Source: Quinn Rooney / Getty Images
BUDDY Franklin seems likely to leave, and in the end no one will condemn him.
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Last year Brendon Goddard left and, if he hadn't unwittingly landed in the hornets' nest of a supplement scandal, it would have been an unqualified success.
Arrival ... Josh Caddy has only improved Geelong's list. Source: Getty Images
Players are forced to leave all the time - forced out the door by football clubs who simply judge them surplus to requirements.
Yet in the new world of poaching, free agency, player transfers, six-week-long meat markets and doing what's best for number one, it isn't always that way.
Cast a glance at Geelong, and realise that there is a club where players stay for less, and administrators stay in their positions despite the opportunity for promotion and the dollars that come with it.
Geelong is the envy of the competition on and off the field, because it has elite administrators and coaches, and a team that, save for the 2006 annus horribilis, has played finals since 2004.
So you might ask why anyone would leave Geelong - of course, notable exception Ablett did for Gold Coast riches - but that is to under-estimate how hard rival clubs have come at Geelong.
First take their administrators and coaches.
Recruiter Stephen Wells is worth $1 million a year to a club such as Melbourne that has so consistently bungled its early picks.
That figure might sound preposterous, but some including Terry Wallace believe clubs should spend more on recruiting and list managing than coaches.
Wells' strike-rate and ability to unearth gems with late picks means every club on the look-out for a talent spotter invariably ends up knocking on his door.
But Wells just keeps knocking them back, happy with his Geelong lifestyle involving work, family and a spot of golf, content to belong to a club he loves.
Ditto Neil Balme, who could write his own cheque given four Victorian clubs are crying out for a head of football.
He isn't even contracted - just a member of staff - but believes in the Geelong mission and in playing his part in it.
One club on the lookout for a football manager tried to wrest team performance manager Steve Hocking away with long-term deals and big money.
HE COULD and maybe should be leading a football department at a major Melbourne club.
But he wouldn't consider the overtures of the club or talk dollars, let alone have that meeting and use the club as a stalking horse to drive up his price at Geelong like so many in business have before him.
The Victorian club CEO couldn't believe it, but had to admire Hocking for his decision.
Even when chief executive Brian Cook was virtually out the door he blinked and then relented, again recommiting to Geelong.
The same story is told over and again by rivals: it is almost impossible to get someone from Geelong because they love the place and just want to stay.
They get paid well, but certainly not crazy money.
They are just happy there.
As Harry Taylor said when he gave up as much as $300,000 a year at Fremantle to sign a new five-year deal: "Amazing people, amazing culture, amazing club."
The Cats have come a long way from the dramas and infighting of 2006, which will be considered a seminal moment in their history.
Of course Ablett left for the deal of a lifetime, but so many others have sacrificed to stay.
Imagine the price out-of-contract dynamo Steven Motlop could put on his head if he put himself into the pre-season draft. He will stay without much fuss.
Same goes for Mathew Stokes, whose contract pitch earlier this year was: "I am happy for the club to figure out what they want to do with me and then get to me when they can. I feel like this club has given me everything I could have dreamed of."
It is with good reason we discuss the potential departures and trade bait.
It is not to denigrate those who go, but to realise that loyalty and sacrifice still play a bigger part in football than we sometimes admit.
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