360 View: Should rival clubs really be going after Magpie Jordan De Goey after indecent assault charge?
If we truly are serious about violence against women, instead of paying it lip service as a nice marketing slogan, rival clubs should not be chasing Collingwood star Jordan De Goey, writes Jon Ralph.
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For decades AFL clubs didn’t just turn a blind eye to the drug and alcohol-fuelled escapades of their players, they at times paid off the victims to make the problem go away.
That culture has slowly been eradicated because a football public expects more and the reality that the cover-up is often worse than the crime. Yet still we have reminders.
If AFL clubs aren’t prepared to win at any costs, some have shown they are prepared to sacrifice their cultural gains to chase success.
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Jordan De Goey is due to attend Melbourne Magistrates Court on October 30 on an indecent assault charge relating to an incident in Kew in 2015.
It is the day before the AFL free agency period kicks off, with the trade period getting underway the following Wednesday.
And yet while that serious charge hangs over his head - with a potential jail sentence - rival AFL clubs are still tossing up whether they have the money to bring him into their organisations.
It is one thing to do what Collingwood has done in supporting an individual already at its club while attempting to change a consistent pattern of behaviour regarding drink-driving and a broken hand over a bar-room fight.
But it is another thing for a rival club to seek out a player before that court case has been heard. A case, that in all likelihood, could drag through next year.
The Pies and the AFL chose not to stand down De Goey this year. But the league has conceded it has a gap in play after declaring it will consider a no-fault stand-down policy for charges of a serious nature.
It said after De Goey returned to the field that until the end of the season it had “decided – on balance – to leave the policy as is, given the presumption of innocence is also an important part of the justice system”.
The NRL introduced a ‘no-fault’ stand down for players who are charged with serious criminal offences, with a maximum jail term of 11 years or more.
But the NRL also has discretionary powers to stand players down, with league chief Peter V’landys stating an allegation against a player involving a woman or child would most likely see a player stood down except in exceptional circumstances.
So even in the NRL De Goey’s offence falls short of the no-fault stand-down policy but above the threshold of discretionary powers. If that is confusing, this should not be.
If we truly are serious about violence against women - whether as a result of a verbal assault or a physical - instead of paying it lip service as a nice marketing slogan, rival clubs should not be chasing Jordan De Goey.
Those close to De Goey consider the matter on the minor end of the scale, but in football the perception of pushing hard for a player with a charge of that gravity pending is just as important as the circumstances of the case.
None of the six clubs chasing Brad Crouch are scared off by his cocaine incident because they know he is far from Robinson Crusoe on that front across the league.
Heck, Fremantle traded for Jesse Hogan even after publicly announcing he had failed their “due diligence” test because they were desperate for a key forward.
Carlton met De Goey at one stage during the season, although it isn’t known whether that meeting was before or after he was charged with indecent assault.
The Blues are now non-players on De Goey, with Essendon also suggesting they will pass as well.
Carlton not only has its Carlton Respects policy in regard to violence against women as a key part of its platform, it devotes a round to the cause where players wear orange socks to highlight the effort in promoting respect and equality.
It’s one thing for AFL chief executives to sign up as Male Champions of Change, it is another to continue making decisions that promote that cause.
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Instead as the Pies ponder the way forward for Nathan Buckley and how close they are to a premiership, the club’s own evidence is that he is a million miles from that type of consistency.
On current form, De Goey is ‘over-rated’, especially if you compare him to the kind of seven-figure contract he might ideally want.
De Goey wants to stay at Collingwood but he and his father had also this week considered what a move to Carlton would look like.
The Blues have since cooled their interest in the enigmatic forward.
He was said to be excited by the possibilities of a Carlton deal of up to six years, even if his heart truly lies at Collingwood.
Buckley took great glee in reminding Matt Rendell of the club’s first-week finals win when the former recruiter said the club had a defence-only game plan.
Yet Buckley would be wise to dig deeper into the club’s offensive struggles, because the Pies won’t win a flag when their leading goalkicker amasses 25 goals for the season (Brody Mihocek) and no other player has more than 14 for the season.
The team that pulverised them on Saturday had Tom Hawkins with 46, Gary Rohan with 19, then Grian Myers (17), Patrick Dangerfield (16), Sam Menegola (14) and a much more balanced spread.
And herein lies Collingwood’s problem.
Both of his forwards in Brody Mihocek and Jordan De Goey want a pay rise, but on face value Mihocek is the one that should be paid more than de Goey.
Instead de Goey will want something approaching more than a million bucks, with Buckley’s references that “elements of people on his side would like to see him remunerated” clearly referring to his father.
Yet De Goey has become a football tease after 14 goals in 10 games this year, including one bag of five majors.
For all the magical cameos here is the statistic that speaks volumes: in all his time at Collingwood De Goey has never finished higher than eighth in the Copeland Trophy.
That year was a sensational 48-goal effort in the premiership season of 2018.
But he has never finished in the top 10 apart from that season.
His former manager Ben Niall got him a two-year deal on $800,000 a season and a fat endorsement deal but it’s hard to believe he’s anywhere near a $1 million player.
For Eddie McGuire, Mark Anderson and the Collingwood board, their biggest decision might be whether to extend Buckley over summer after nine seasons of development but no AFL premiership.
Surely by Round 1, he will have a contract extension past 2021, and yet the decisions he makes alongside his list management group and assistant coaches will have a major bearing on the ability to win that elusive flag.
Buckley was expansive and eloquent post-match after his players turned up their toes against Geelong, freely admitting some of his players had suffered in hub-life.
He spoke of the struggles of players like Brody Grundy to maintain their sense of self in a hub, hoping his star ruckman can regain his mojo as he starts a seven-season deal next year.
Grundy was by no means terrible — a 119-ranking-point average — and while he lacked the big-game moments Buckley can only write his hub struggles off as real and hope he returns invigorated.
Hublife for AFL clubs has been like 10 weeks in a Big Brother house, a distorted reality where fact is hard to sort from fiction.
Every single player to emerge from time in an AFL hub has spoken of it as a blessing and a curse, a strange world where some clubs have bonded and others have fractured.
Like staying in that reality TV house the best of you is put on show but very often the worst as well.
Player careers have been lost to it (Harley Bennell), coaches have been put under immense strain from it and only the truly resilient like Richmond have been able to respond from hub-life catastrophe.
The sheer intensity has amplified normal life, as personal issues normally sorted behind closed doors have been played out in front of entire football clubs.
Some players need six cheeky mid-week pots on a Sunday afternoon as part of their routine, some prefer a night at the opera, some just to decompress as far away from teammates as possible.
None of them have been possible, which has led to situations like Bennell’s explosion just 72 hours before he would have been guaranteed a contract for 2021.
For Nathan Buckley, Ben Rutten, the North Melbourne football club and many others, the decisions they make from months in hub-life will have to factor in how life on the road influenced their players.
As Fox Footy’s AFL360 segment asks, was what they saw real or an over-reaction?
North Melbourne judged senior assistant Jade Rawlings as too tough on the older players — who made their objections known — and moved him on for John Blakey.
Now that Rutten has decided stop being soft on the club’s veterans - as admitted by incoming president Paul Brasher - his single option is to continue changing the culture while simultaneously building stronger individual relationships.
Hublife for AFL clubs has been like 10 weeks in the Big Brother house, a distorted reality where fact is hard to sort from fiction.
Every player to emerge from an AFL hub has spoken of it as a blessing and a curse, a strange world where some clubs have bonded and others have fractured.
Like staying in that reality TV house the best of you is put on show but often the worst as well.
Player careers have been lost to it (Harley Bennell), coaches have been put under immense strain from it and only the truly resilient like Richmond has been able to respond from a hub-life catastrophe.
The intensity has amplified normal life, as personal issues normally sorted behind closed doors have been played out in front of entire football clubs.
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Originally published as 360 View: Should rival clubs really be going after Magpie Jordan De Goey after indecent assault charge?