Patrick Dangerfield reveals how breaking up with Adelaide was difficult

PATRICK Dangerfield had just made the tough decision to leave Adelaide and wanted to come clean, but realised that wouldn’t have been the right thing to do.

Dangerfield back home in Moggs Creek in December last year. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

I WANTED to tell Adelaide midway through last year that I was leaving.

Enough was enough.

After going back and forth a hundred times about what I was going to do, once the final decision was made I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to cleanse the soul, tell the world so we all could move on.

The constant speculation was wearing everyone down and I thought the best way to make it all go away was to tell the truth and in my head I figured all parties would be better off.

Thankfully, my manager Paul Connors disagreed.

“Hang on, cool your jets and let’s have a think about this,” were his sage words of advice.

I thought we were all mature enough to handle a player coming out and stating his intention to move on, but the reality is the AFL industry isn’t ready for it.

In a way I now realise I was selfishly looking to shed the burden that I’d been carrying around for a long time.

But the bigger picture of how it would impact on the club, the management, the coaching staff, my teammates and the supporters had to be taken into account and that’s what Paul calmly explained.

The AFL needs to brace itself because I have no doubt in the near future a player will announce mid-season his intentions to move elsewhere.

It simply wouldn’t have been in the best interests of the football club for me to come clean as we had a finals campaign on the horizon and everyone’s energies needed to be focused on that.

Should it be this way?

For years the NRL has had players signing with opposition clubs, sometimes up to 12 months ahead, and then having no issues in playing out the season at their current clubs.

I’m with AFL boss Gillon McLachlan on this one — I don’t like it as I think it’s a bad look for the game.

Patrick Dangerfield starred in his first game for Geelong against Hawthorn in Round 1. Picture: Colleen Petch

But in saying that, the AFL needs to brace itself because I have no doubt in the near future a player will announce mid-season his intentions to move elsewhere.

It will take a really headstrong, courageous person to do it, and he’d need to have a strong football club behind him, but I can see it happening.

My teammate Lachie Henderson was a trailblazer in a sense last year and gave us a snapshot into the future with his departure from Carlton.

He unfairly copped it for being upfront about his future a couple of weeks out from the end of the season.

It was a messy situation which confirmed as a competition we’re not ready for it yet.

Would I change anything about how my own situation went down? Of course, there are things I’d change.

You never want to mislead people, but the reality is you’re forced to not always reveal what you’re intending to do.

The hardest thing is dealing with your teammates because you want to be really honest with them, but I was so lucky that they gave me my space.

A lot of them had been through what I was experiencing and had an appreciation of the issues I was dealing with.

They knew that my love for the Adelaide Football Club could never be questioned, but there was more to it than that. Everyone has a family so they understood the situation.

Dangerfield back home in Moggs Creek in December last year. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

As much as you say that it doesn’t become a burden, it does — big time.

In interviews you’d trot out the line that you weren’t thinking about it and were focused on your footy, but the reality is it’s always in the back of your mind because it’s such an enormous decision.

Every player who was out-of-contract and left a club last season will say the same thing because now there is this huge amount of mental space which is free and you can fill it with fun stuff ... like surfing for example.

You never want to mislead people, but the reality is you’re forced to not always reveal what you’re intending to do.

The big question for some is does the burden impact on your performance?

I think for some players it would and I totally understand that, but I got used to it and didn’t feel that it impacted on my actions on the field.

What I did find amusing was the amount of people who were declaring that I was gone, some trying to claim it 18 months out.

In the situation that I found myself in there are so many decisions that get made, get unmade and then remade.

What people don’t get is that the amount of times your mind can change throughout a year.

The temptation to say, ‘That’s it, I’m done’, is constantly there but in actual fact your mind swings back and forth constantly — more times than people would imagine.

Patrick Dangerfield takes a screamer against the Hawks. Picture: George Salpigtidis

The moment I told Adelaide that I wanted to move to Geelong wasn’t planned.

I enjoyed a great relationship with football boss David Noble and it was just over one of our regular coffee catch-ups near the end of the season that it came out.

“C’mon, what’s going on?” he asked.

I told him where the situation was at and we discussed everything there and then.

At the end of it he said: “All right, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying to convince you to stay.”

We were open and honest with each other and it speaks volumes about the people at Adelaide and Geelong given how smoothly everything was worked out.

Telling my teammates was tough, some harder than others, some were done face-to-face, others over the phone.

They were bloody hard conversations to have and the toughest was with Nathan Van Berlo.

I have never been so nervous because I idolised him. You wouldn’t meet a nicer person who was universally admired at that football club.

We caught up for a coffee and I hated that conversation. Funnily enough a few years earlier it had been VB and I sitting down with Kurt Tippett trying to convince him to stay.

At the time I was in my early 20s and you think this is an easy decision, just stay here with your mates and keep playing footy.

It’s not until you get older that you understand there is so much more to life.

The other tough conversation was with Rory Sloane.

Dangerfield has formed a lethal combination with Joel Selwood in the Cats midfield. Picture: Tom Huntley

I went down to his house by the beach, it was a beautiful day so we went for a dip in the water and it was actually quite idyllic, sitting there on the beach in the sun.

We’d come through together at the same time, played alongside each other and had a great rapport on and off the field.

I explained everything to him and he’d actually gone through a similar thing before signing his new contract so he understood where I was coming from.

Next Friday night is going to be weird when I line-up beside them in opposition colours for the first time.

It’s been bizarre watching the Crows because you pick up little football things that you’ve spoken about in team meetings like exiting the stoppage a particular way or the movement of the ball.

I thought I would be more negative towards them and find it hard to enjoy their success, but I’ve actually liked watching them play this season.

You like to see them succeed for the people involved but obviously I don’t want to see them in a Grand Final ... I think the Cats need to do that first.

While there will be a lot of hype leading up to Friday night, knowing the Adelaide group they will be more focused on winning the game than worrying about me.

As former Adelaide coach Neil Craig liked to say: “You are now the enemy and you will be treated as such.”

I expect to be treated as such.

Originally published as Patrick Dangerfield reveals how breaking up with Adelaide was difficult