How Jaidyn Stephenson went from Rising Star winner to trade candidate
He’s been labled a one-trick pony, but is Jaidyn Stephenson’s contract the main reason he’s on the trade table? Jon Ralph digs deeper into the Rising Star’s fall.
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Jaidyn Stephenson is a victim of his own success in more ways than one.
As the football world surveys a stunning fall from grace that has resulted in him being put on the trade table two years after a Rising Star victory, Pies fans wonder about the forces at play.
The first is that inexplicable form slump that saw a 38-goal forward in his debut season become a reactive “one-trick pony”, as Mick McGuane labelled him.
The second is the fat contract and the bonuses he was able to receive as a result of that glorious year when the No. 6 draft pick was declared a player set to take the competition by storm.
Rival clubs inquiring into Stephenson’s availability have become aware he is owed as much as $500,000 a season at Collingwood in coming years.
He initially signed a two-year extension only weeks into a stellar rookie season that saw him kicking five goals four rounds into that 2018 year.
The Rising Star award would only have boosted that contract, which has him locked away at least until the end of 2022.
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So Collingwood isn’t judging Stephenson purely on his capacity to rebound from a torrid third season, they are doing it in the context of paying a player around a million bucks in the next two seasons.
And rivals will have to judge whether he has more strings to his bow than the one they saw this year averaging 9.4 possessions and one goal, with seven of those 14 goals coming in his first three games.
When he burst onto the football landscape he did so with plaudits from some of football’s greatest names that his role as a lead-up forward was only an entree to a sure-fire Michelin Star-worthy career.
Dermott Brereton had seen enough of his junior career to believe he would be an elite wingman saying, “when someone roadblocks you when you are running down the field, he has the ability to sidestep them and be forward of them in the blink of an eye, it’s a major weapon we haven’t even seen yet”.
Pies assistant Robert Harvey, who knows a thing or two about the midfield craft, saw him as a star of the future in that 2018 season.
“I think (midfield) is where he ends up down the track for sure with his running ability, to be able to play on that wing and as he builds strength in his body as well.”
Stephenson was clearly knocked around by his role in last year’s betting saga, then had a miserable pre-season with glandular fever that didn’t allow him to put on the weight which might allow him to stick tackles and break opposition ones.
McGuane, who labelled Stephenson “timid” mid-year, told the Herald Sun on Friday he isn’t sure if he will become the player he was feted to be.
“It might rest with him. In his first year he kicked 38 goals so where is that Jaidyn Stephenson compared to the one we witnessed this year?” he said.
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“It’s all about what he stands for. He’s a one-trick pony, a goal-square forward and when he does go up the ground he doesn’t look comfortable.
“He looks rushed and whether that’s a by-product of him thinking about contact with the bigger boys in that area?
“That 2018 form is a distant memory and Jaidyn didn’t live up to expectations this year as a footballer. Collingwood will know if there was a disclaimer or if hublife didn’t agree with him and whether they can reconnect and get the performance they want from him and the simple answer is if they don’t think that they will look for a trade.”
Originally published as How Jaidyn Stephenson went from Rising Star winner to trade candidate