Adelaide must do all it can to try to lure All Australian ruckman Brodie Grundy home
With Sam Jacobs in the twilight of his career, the Crows must act fast and break the bank with a mega offer for Collingwood’s South Australian ruckman Brodie Grundy, says Mark Bickley.
Mark Bickley
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It’s time for the Crows to open up the cheque book.
Write the name Brodie Grundy on the top line and then leave it up to him to fill in the number.
Clearly you can’t do that, but you get the idea.
Everybody knew Sam Jacobs was entering the twilight of his career, but on Thursday night the preview of what life looks like for Adelaide in the short term post Jacobs, is still very much a work in progress.
To use both Jacobs and Grundy as examples, they took three seasons and around 40 games before they looked comfortable and performed consistently at AFL level.
What we saw with Reilly O’Brien was a three game player, and the question for Adelaide is how do you get 40 games into him with Jacobs still on the list and challenge for a premiership at the same time? The short answer is you can’t.
So if you were the Adelaide list manager you would be derelict in your duty if you weren’t doing everything possible to get the best ruckman in Australia back home.
Grundy is contracted until the end of next year, (2020), at which time he becomes a free agent.
A trend of trading a player the year before they become a free agent is starting to emerge. If a club thinks a player is leaving as a free agent, they may choose to maximise his value the year before, this way they get market value instead of a compensation pick, where depending on where you finish may fall well short of true value.
The most notable example was Buddy Franklin and the Hawks. Hawthorn received just one first round pick for Franklin, remembering of course the Hawks won the flag the previous year which meant Alistair Clarkson lost his best player and received pick 19 in return, well below market value.
This type of scenario may present Adelaide with the chance to secure Grundy, albeit at a premium price. Clearly the deal needed to tempt Collingwood would have to be spectacular. Could the transaction Adelaide did during live trading at last year’s draft, where they swapped their first round pick with Carlton, potentially giving them a pick as high as number one, be the main carrot to dangle in front of the Pies?
There are also two other pressing issues that have to be overcome.
The first being the major one. Convincing Grundy to leave Collingwood.
Just like Stephen Kernahan and John Platten of past generations, trying to lever great players out of successful power clubs in Melbourne has always proved difficult.
The guarantee of playing in front of enormous crowds at the MCG every other week is hard to match.
Hard but not impossible. The sales pitch will be critical and would have started years ago when it was clear he was going to be a serious player. Adelaide courted Bryce Gibbs for many seasons before finally getting him over the line.
Grundy spoke on the record last year about missing his family back home in Adelaide and this may be a key influence. But let’s not beat around the bush, the Crows best chance is to make him a financial offer that far outweighs Collingwood’s.
Make it so good it’s difficult for him to refuse.
Which leads to the second issue that needs to be overcome and that is the Adelaide Football Club’s unwritten law of not paying one player more than a million dollars a season.
If you seriously want Brodie Grundy then that ideal has to go.
Brodie Grundy is in the top handful of players in the league, why shouldn’t he be paid accordingly?
I can’t see any of the Adelaide players complaining about luring the All Australian ruckman to the club. Surely it’s all about winning premierships and with Grundy in the team it moves you significantly closer to that goal.
Grundy turns 25 next month, providing the Crows with plenty of scope to sign him to a five or six-year deal allowing it to be heavily back ended once players like Eddie Betts, Jacobs, Richard Douglas, Josh Jenkins and Bryce Gibbs retire.
The Crows will also be hoping that the likes of Jordan De Goey, Rising Star winner Jaidyn Stephenson and Darcy Moore continue to shine, placing pressure on Collingwood’s total player payments.
A list that also includes Scott Pendlebury, Steele Sidebottom, Adam Treloar, Dayne Beams and Jamie Elliott. Not to mention a number of unheralded players from last season who played them into a grand final and will now command improved remuneration.
I’m not sure who it was that said “don’t get the best person available, get the best person there is!”
Brodie Grundy is that person. Adelaide, over to you.
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