Did Essendon get the Brendon Goddard retirement call right?
RETIRING a champion of the game is the most difficult and sensitive decision any senior coach or list manager has to make — and we witnessed that with Essendon’s Brendon Goddard during the week.
RETIRING a champion of the game is the most difficult and sensitive decision any senior coach or list manager has to make — and we witnessed that with Essendon’s Brendon Goddard during the week.
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It must have been tough for coach John Worsfold and Adrian Dodoro to tell BJ that they would not be offering him a new contract when they knew of the passion and hunger he still has for the game and the belief he has to perform at AFL level.
The list manager is almost second to the chief executive as the most important person in a club.
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Dodoro, in consultation with Worsfold, would have looked at the development of Aaron Francis in recent weeks, the return of Martin Gleeson and Jordan Ridley next year, the improvement in Conor McKenna and the recruitment of Adam Saad and concluded that these guys needed to be given the opportunities.
Goddard would have taken games off the younger players on the rise had he stayed on the list.
It has been an emotional week at Essendon, such has been the impact of Goddard on the staff and players in his six years at Essendon.
But that emotion cannot get in the way of the key decision makers at each club.
This time last year, St Kilda’s Alan Richardson and his list management team believed that Nick Riewoldt needed to step away to allow for the growth of Paddy McCartin, Tim Membrey, Josh Bruce and Josh Battle.
Twelve months on, the Saints have admitted that they need to look at adding experience to the group for 2019, which would have Riewoldt and Leigh Montagna thinking, you had it but you let it go.
St Kilda misread where they were at. They believed they would make the finals and would be knocking on the door of the top four by 2018.
Instead, the loss of Riewoldt has highlighted the club’s lack of leadership on and off the field.
St Kilda may still believe they needed to part ways with Riewoldt to let others grow as he is such a commanding personality, but hindsight suggests the decision to move Riewoldt on was the wrong one.
Sydney were looking to exit Jarrad McVeigh at the end of last year and move him into a coaching role.
McVeigh finished the year so well and would have considered playing elsewhere had the Swans not relented to giving him another playing contract.
A year on, McVeigh is again playing brilliant football and should play on next year.
He makes the Swans a better side when he plays, and they looked inferior a month ago when they lost his poise and experience off half back for three weeks.
McVeigh is still the Swans’ best ball user in defence and the whole back six look more assured when he is in the team.
Essendon have made the right decision with Goddard. McVeigh is not holding anyone back and makes Sydney a better side.
Essendon have so many options to play in Goddard’s role, so I can understand how they came to that decision.
But these list management decisions are never easy.
Brad Scott made this point when he moved on Brent Harvey at North Melbourne.
“I know if he is on the list, I will continue to play him so to remove that temptation, I have made the tough decision to let him go,” Scott said.
Scott knew it would hurt the Kangaroos in the short term, but with the Roos starting a rebuild after making two preliminary finals and coming to the end of their run, he felt that he needed to start investing in others who would be part of the next tilt at a premiership.
Alastair Clarkson famously traded out Sam Mitchell, Luke Hodge and Jordan Lewis in the one off season, yet Shaun Burgoyne, who is playing great football at 35, has just signed a one-year contract for 2019.
There are so many factors that go into making decisions like that.
The Hawks wanted to free up salary cap space to land Tom Mitchell and Jaeger O’Meara, but that couldn’t happen without letting some players go.
No one at the time except Clarkson could have believed that Hodge, Mitchell and Lewis would be the ones to make way, but it just highlighted what a brutal industry we are in when that occurred.
Clarkson proved that the club will always be bigger than any individual and in his ruthless nature, he made decisions that he believed were in the best interests of Hawthorn in its quest for a 14th premiership.
Transparency, honesty and respect are three key words I would use, as to how any player should be treated when their time comes to an end.
For every player who retires on his own terms, there would be 100 others who leave their club in circumstances that they wish could be different.
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Originally published as Did Essendon get the Brendon Goddard retirement call right?
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