AFL Trades 2022: How Port Adelaide was able to entice homesick North Melbourne star Jason Horne-Francis to Alberton
Jason Horne-Francis enjoyed a brilliant junior career on the field – but he wasn’t always perfect off it. So is North to blame for how it handled him? Here’s an inside account.
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People who have known Jason Horne-Francis for a while say there two sides to him as a footballer.
That the midfielder/half-forward is super competitive during a game and you will get everything out of him once he crosses the white line.
But the little things between matches, such as having ice baths, booking physio appointments and filling in forms, have been described as his “achilles heel”.
In August, North Melbourne dropped Horne-Francis, the club’s top pick last year, ahead of a match in Adelaide against the Crows because he did not do an ice bath recovery properly.
Kangaroos great Brent Harvey said it was about making the club’s culture No.1 but he conceded there was a risk in axing the South Australian.
On Sunday night, a homesick Horne-Francis requested a trade, hoping to join Port Adelaide.
A source close to the 19-year-old said the young gun would get better with his preparation “but that was always going to be a struggle for him”.
“Anyone would’ve known (before drafting him) that Jason’s attention to detail was his achilles heel,” he told News Corp.
“He’ll get better with his preparation and attention to detail … that’ll come with maturity and experience.
“But what priority do you place on those things?
“Do you tip a guy out because he misses an ice bath or do you tip a guy out because he doesn’t put his head over the ball?
“Jason just wants to win and he’s really close to his family.
“North Melbourne are trying to set standards but they should’ve known that following up with physio or filling out forms wasn’t a strength and he was always going to need assistance.
“They let those things get out.”
The source said it was difficult to know how much some of the club’s criticism of his preparation had to do with his decision to leave, but it could not have helped.
“They didn’t really protect him during the course of the year,” they said.
“He’s still 18 but they put him out as the franchise player.
“He just needed support through that.”
The source said he understood why North Melbourne, which finished bottom both last year and this past season, needed to put a flag in the ground to improve its culture.
“But when you can’t carry that level of performance on the field, it’s hard to tell an 18, 19-year-old kid what he should be doing,” they said.
“What happens siren to siren is the critical part.
“It’s far easier for leadership groups to call blokes out for missing an ice bath than their effort on game day.”
It was understood Horne-Francis lived with Kangaroos forward/ruckman Callum Coleman-Jones, in what some considered an odd pairing.
Horne-Francis had a southern suburbs upbringing, while Coleman-Jones went to one of Adelaide’s elite private schools, Scotch College.
Coleman-Jones also was four years older and a young player still making his way in the league.
“They’re just two totally different personalities,” the source said.
The source said Horne-Francis would be a terrific recruit for the Power.
“I think if North had have hit the ground running, he was a chance to stay,” they said.
“But they never really gave themselves a chance because they couldn’t get their act together on-field.”
Former Carlton and Adelaide star Bryce Gibbs, who mentored Horne-Francis at South Adelaide last year, told SEN he was a little surprised the trade request came now, rather than seeing out another year.
“The first 12 months is the hardest moving from interstate, especially from more of a quieter city like Adelaide to the big smoke in Melbourne or Sydney,”
said Gibbs, who himself was drafted from SA at No. 1 in 2006.
“It was always going to take him a little bit of time to adjust to that lifestyle and being away from family.
“But I thought once he spent a little bit of time there he would’ve come round to it and enjoyed it a bit more.
“Every circumstance is different, everyone goes through it differently.”
Sliding doors moment that made Horne-Francis trade a reality
The portent for Jason Horne-Francis’s rocky time at North Melbourne came during last year’s national draft.
Just before what was supposed to be a shining moment of the night, the Kangaroos calling his name with the No. 1 pick, the TV feed cut out at the Cathedral Hotel in North Adelaide, where Horne-Francis was watching with family and friends.
It left the room in silence for nearly a minute, Horne-Francis looking at his watch and his manager Ben Williams needing to use his phone to get a stream of the broadcast to get confirmation of the young star’s selection.
If you were a North Melbourne person and believed in signs, this was a bad one.
Eleven months later, Horne-Francis wants to leave the Kangaroos and come back to SA with a year remaining on his contract.
He requested a trade on Sunday night, hoping to get to the Power, where his stepdad, Fabian Francis, played 86 games and was part of its inaugural team.
Horne-Francis’s trade request is a significant coup for Port Adelaide.
Only a few days ago, the Power looked like it might have a modest recruiting period, headlined by small forwards Junior Rioli and Francis Evans, despite vowing to be aggressive.
But it has been working in the background to pull off one of the biggest moves of the year.
The sliding-doors moment came when its pursuit of Josh Dunkley ended with the Western Bulldogs star opting to head to Brisbane.
That made it much easier to bring Horne-Francis in.
Port Adelaide would not have been able to land both him and Dunkley this year – or at least not without trading away star players – because of the draft capital required.
Horne-Francis emerged as a realistic possibility last week while South Australian-raised Richmond midfielder Jack Graham was weighing up a switch to the Power.
For that reason, Port Adelaide could not prioritise recruiting Graham until it knew of Horne-Francis’s intentions.
That led to Graham deciding to stay at the Tigers.
Power officials met with Horne-Francis last Wednesday – the same day it caught up with Graham at Alberton – and things ramped up over the past 72 hours.
Unlike Graham and Junior Rioli, Horne-Francis did not need to get past reporters at Adelaide Airport because he was already in town.
Rumours of the South Adelaide product wanting to leave the Kangaroos have been circulating since mid-season.
Having put off talks to re-sign, Horne-Francis liked a hypothetical swap posed by Channel 7 in June under the title “Fake Trade Friday” that featured him heading to the Power.
A month later, his potential homecoming was a hot topic in the stands at national under-16 championship games on the Gold Coast.
It was speculated at that stage that Adelaide was willing to offer two first-round picks for him, having had its pitch of three early selections knocked back ahead of last year’s draft.
The Crows were understood to be asking questions about Horne-Francis during the season, including to the Panthers.
But they ultimately focused on another SA top-five pick, Gold Coast small forward Izak Rankine, who was coming out of contract.
Port Adelaide was never in the race for Rankine because the 22-year-old had his heart set on going to the Crows.
It seems to be the reverse with Horne-Francis.
While Adelaide list manager Justin Reid said on Monday that the Crows had been in contact with Williams, Horne-Francis was intent on joining the Power, which always thought it was a better chance than its rivals to get him.
Although he grew up as a Fremantle supporter, Horne-Francis had a Port Adelaide connection through Fabian.
Fabian played in two SANFL premierships for the club, then for the Power from 1997-2001, before leaving due to a contract dispute.
Twenty-one years later, former teammates Shaun Burgoyne, Josh Carr and Chad Cornes are on its coaching staff.
With Rankine heading cross-town and Port Adelaide coming off an 11th-placed finish, you felt the Power needed to land a big fish this off-season.
Horne-Francis would be exactly that – an uber competitive midfielder/forward and potential superstar in the Patrick Dangerfield mould.
Port Adelaide will be hoping Horne-Francis’s arrival is the start of a two-season list reboot for life without Robbie Gray and, eventually, Travis Boak.
Next year, the Power will no doubt be eyeing Melbourne goalsneak Kysaiah Pickett and St Kilda wingman Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera.
Pickett is the nephew of Power Norm Smith Medallist Byron Pickett, while Wanganeen-Milera’s uncle is Port Adelaide champion Gavin Wanganeen.
Wanganeen-Milera is close friends with Jase Burgoyne and is managed by Williams.
The silky Saint also happened to be in the room with Horne-Francis when the Cathedral Hotel TV feed dropped out that night.
Originally published as AFL Trades 2022: How Port Adelaide was able to entice homesick North Melbourne star Jason Horne-Francis to Alberton
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