Joe Daniher refuses to speculate on his future at Essendon beyond 2020 season
Joe Daniher wanted to explain why he decided to leave Essendon and spoke with honesty as he was grilled by the media for more than 11 minutes. But there was one question he tried to deflect.
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Of 21 questions, there was only one that Joe Daniher couldn’t answer.
For more than 11 minutes at Bombers HQ, Essendon’s wantaway spearhead responded with honesty, candour and humility.
The Where, What, Where, When and Why were all covered, with Daniher himself keen to front the media to set the record straight at the start of a critically-important pre-season.
Standing right next to his coach, John Worsfold, Daniher even admitted that moving away from Essendon was “the best thing for me”.
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It was only when the question inevitably arrived about what he would do next year, that Daniher deflected.
A restricted free agent at the end of next season, will he request another trade to Sydney or will he – as unlikely as it seems at the moment – recommit to Essendon?
“The first port of call has been my body,” Daniher offered.
“The priority for now is getting my body to a position where I can train really hard and have that continuity. Following that will be playing and hopefully offering something on the field.
“They’ll be a lot of speculation and hypotheticals about what next year will look like, but the priority for me is getting out there and putting on a really good performance for this club.”
Recent history is littered with players who have had to face-up to returning to their clubs five minutes after trying to leave in the trade period.
But recent history is also littered with those same players following through on the same demand 12 months later.
Gary Ablett was made to stay another year at Gold Coast, but then left.
Bryce Gibbs was made to stay another year at Carlton, but then left.
Tim Kelly was made to stay another year at Geelong, but then left.
As long as he goes without re-signing at Essendon, Daniher is effectively signing up for innuendo and conjecture at the same time. But the laid-back forward is prepared for all that.
Mostly, Daniher shone a light into the corners of a trade request that had remained dark for months.
He denied his desire to leave Essendon for Sydney was due to any “fishbowl” view of Melbourne.
Instead, the two years of injury hell that have restricted him to 11 games since the end of 2017 were the driving factor – and that complex groin problem remains a work in progress.
“I’ve played AFL for what feels like a long time now,” Daniher said.
“I’ve grown up in Melbourne and I’m fully aware of what it takes to be a professional footballer and what you give up.
“It was more around the last couple of years have been really difficult from an injury point of view and I felt a new start might help that.”
When asked what Sydney could offer to solve that injury that Essendon couldn’t, he said: “The body and mind are pretty closely related and I thought putting those two things together along with a fresh start would help.
“Obviously the conversations we had right through, it wasn’t the be-all and end-all, but it was the best thing for me.”
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Yet, Daniher remains a while off playing for anyone at the moment.
He is confident he has finally got to the bottom of his complex groin problems, with an off-season trip to Ireland to visit a groin specialist the final validation.
“Round 1 seems like an eternity away,” Daniher said.
“Running during the off-season I found that once I got up to a really high intensity I wasn’t coping with that load so I pulled it back to work on some key strength markers and hopefully I’ll be back running in 10 days.
“I feel like I’ve got all the tools now and a lot of it is about being diligent and patient.
“A couple of times I’ve been quite impatient and pushed it and pushed it and that might have cost me 2-3 weeks at times.
“For me, I just want to get out and train – and train hard – and provide some real leadership.
“I obviously requested a trade to Sydney, but it wasn’t to be, so here we are and I’m ready and committed to get back into it.”
Originally published as Joe Daniher refuses to speculate on his future at Essendon beyond 2020 season