Shane Martin book on why Dusty re-signed with Richmond

A new book written by Dustin Martin’s exiled bikie father offers new insights into Richmond’s attempt to lock up the AFL superstar.

It was Sunday, August 27, 2017. At the MCG, Dustin Martin was putting the finishing touches on his Brownlow Medal-winning season with a three vote performance against St Kilda.

Unbeknown to all but a few key Richmond people, Tigers football boss Neil Balme was on a secret mission in New Zealand hoping to meet with his star onballer’s father Shane.

Balme was desperate to retain his club’s best player and hoped a face-to-face meeting with his father might help Richmond’s cause despite North Melbourne offering more money.

And Shane Martin? “I was on the piss,” he writes, in a new book called A Rebel in Exile that tells the story of his battle to return to Australia after being deported, but also includes his perspective on all the major moments of his son’s football career.

“This is going to sound like I was choosing getting on the booze over this huge decision, but it wasn’t like that at all,” Martin adds. “Like millions of people around the world I had settled in to enjoy the boxing (Floyd Mayweather’s fight against Conor McGregor).

“Given more notice, I would have had Neil around home in a heartbeat, but I wasn’t going to a meeting like that half-cut. That would be crazy.”

So Balme was forced to return to Melbourne without securing a sit-down and left hoping loyalty would be enough.

Dustin Martin with his father Shane Martin in Auckland NZ. for Christmas

Dustin Martin made the same trip soon after, after admitting to his father “this contract stuff is doing my head in”. Dustin, Shane, and Dustin’s manager Ralph Carr met at the Sebel in Auckland and broke down the competing offers on a whiteboard.

“At the end of the day, North Melbourne were offering $12 million over seven years and Richmond were offering just under $10 million, which itself was a long way up from the $800,000 a year for four years they had originally offered,” Shane reveals.

“We were going back and forth to each club. North Melbourne pretty much had a blank cheque but Richmond couldn’t move. They simply didn’t have the money. We knew that and we appreciated that it didn’t mean they weren’t desperately keen to keep him.

“People have asked me what side I was on and my answer is always the same: I was on Dusty’s side … in the end, Dusty couldn’t leave Richmond, and he turned his back on the richest contract offer in AFL history. I was proud of his decision.”

A Rebel In Exile, by Shane Martin and Jarrod Gilbert.

A Rebel in Exile, Shane Martin’s story of his battle to return to his home and family, is available for $29.99.

Originally published as Shane Martin book on why Dusty re-signed with Richmond