Robbo: Why Pies star Jordan De Goey sacked his manager
It’s been a challenging summer for Collingwood’s Jordan De Goey. He had an up-hill battle to get fit and then he dumped his manager. Mark Robinson wonders if he’ll ever become a great player.
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Jordan de Goey turned up for pre-season in the same state he was the year before.
Overweight and unfit.
Collingwood wasn’t happy and neither was De Goey’s manager, Ben Niall.
Niall delivered some tough love to De Goey, and robust words were exchanged.
From there the relationship soured.
Meetings were postponed by De Goey, telephone calls weren’t immediately returned and it eventually culminated with an email by De Goey to Niall about three weeks ago, telling Niall he was sacked.
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After several years of managing, nurturing and mentoring De Goey, through multiple mishaps and misadventures, some of which we know and others we don’t, De Goey no longer had enough respect for Niall to tell him face-to-face their relationship was over.
“I’ve stood by him in the darkest moments, the best of Jordy is very good. I wish him the best and nothing but success going forward,” Niall told the AFL website.
Clearly, Niall was disappointed.
When you’ve had a problem such as De Goey — the fights, the lies and the drink driving — there comes with it certain emotional investment.
De Goey’s summer has hardly been ideal.
He’s been on a modified program and is cutting the skin-folds, and by Round 1, he’ll probably be ready to go.
He’s a curious commodity, De Goey.
What makes him a good player — and he’s not yet a great player — is he plays in the moment.
He’s a risk taker, impulsive, instinctive, and his final series of 2018 was spectacular.
Remember the night he taught Alex Rance a lesson? Just wow.
The problem is he’s impulsive and instinctive off the field — with a group of non-football mates.
So, instead of arriving at pre-season fit and firing and ready to get the best out of himself, he’s had to get fit so he could start to fully train.
One the eve of his sixth season, it could be seen as a slap in the face for everyone who has helped De Goey over his tumultuous journey, from coach Nathan Buckley, to head of football Geoff Walsh, to leadership mentor Nick Maxwell and to president Eddie McGuire, all of whom have stood in De Goey’s corner.
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His teammates would also be bemused.
Here they are being professional in the off-season and busting a gut in the pre-season and their matchwinning teammate has bad skinfolds and is being eased back into full-time training to avoid injury.
One source told the Herald Sun yesterday some behavioural issues have also been an eyebrow raiser.
Like, how De Goey told Jeremy Howe he couldn’t attend Howe’s buck’s party, believed to have been in December, because he had to attend a family gathering.
The story goes De Goey instead ended up at a nightclub.
Howe is said to be disappointed about how that one played out.
De Goey’s tale is a familiar one. He is an unbelievable player who, a source described, likes to be a 9-5 footballer and not a 24/7 footballer
At the club and in a structured environment surrounded by Howe, Scott Pendlebury and Steele Sidebottom and others, he’s invested.
In the off-season, surrounded by non-football mates, he’s a little unfettered.
One person close to him said yesterday the difference between De Goey’s good self and worst was “quite significant’’.
So, as he approaches his 24th birthday in March, where is De Goey the footballer?
He kicked 34 goals from 17 games last year — which are not superstar numbers.
Yes, he is a spectacular player, but that doesn’t make him a great player.
Former Bulldogs and Richmond player Nathan Brown, who also was a special talent, sees a lot of himself in De Goey.
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“I see a player with enormous ability and a player that one day it will click for him,’’ Brown said.
“It took me five years until I figured out how hard I had to work and then I trained hard and got myself cherry-ripe fitness-wise and played without doubt the best football of my career.
“You look back on your career and you think, ‘shit, did I get enough out of myself, should I have trained harder earlier, was I an idiot?’ Maybe, yes.
“I think at times he doesn’t look fit enough.
“But once he does get fit enough, he could quite easily be spoken of as a top-three player in the comp.’’
At the Bulldogs, Brown copped criticism from teammates for his effort and preparation.
“I got a dressing down about where I was heading as a footballer and I listened to them. They were Scotty West and Tony Liberatore.’’
Still, the penny hadn’t dropped by the time he had crossed to the Tigers.
“The problem was I would turn up to pre-season training underdone, and then spend the rest of the pre-season to get right for Round 1,’’ Brown said.
“I remember Plough (coach Terry Wallace) giving it to me once at pre-season.
“I said, ‘You worry when Round 1 comes around’. He lost the plot with that comment.
“Looking back now, I was OK to play Round 1 but how much fitter would I have been if I had done the work earlier.’’
De Goey bleached his hair white in the off-season, and Brown too loved a rinse.
“I don’t mind the hair. He’s one of those rare players, where the more pressure he puts on himself, the more ‘look-at-me type atmosphere’, I think he goes to another level,’’ Brown said.
This is a contract season for De Goey.
He knocked back a $5 million-plus offer from North Melbourne to sign with the Pies for two years, and will again have the Kangaroos in the hunt.
And this next deal will be a biggie.
But just how can Collingwood commit to De Goey a six or seven-year deal worth up to a $1 million-a-year when, at this stage, he’s not prepared to commit totally to get fit?
The prevailing view is football is important, but not vitally important.
For his sake, and Collingwood’s, let’s hope the penny fully drops.
Originally published as Robbo: Why Pies star Jordan De Goey sacked his manager