Mark Robinson: Essendon needs to aim high and extract Oscar Allen from West Coast
Essendon have plenty of cap space and a war chest they can take to the trade table. Mark Robinson identifies what they need and the player they should open the cheque book for.
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It’s time Essendon aimed high and opened up the cheque book.
It needs a key forward – which is different from a tall forward – and it needs to be ballsy to be brilliant.
Oscar Allen is contracted until the end of 2025 with West Coast, but that shouldn’t stop the Bombers making him an offer he can’t refuse.
There’s hurdles, like, would the Eagles even contemplate trading away its emerging star, and whether Allen would request a trade?
But Essendon needs to try – if it hasn’t already.
List boss Adrian Dodoro should offer Allen $1 million a season.
If Allen, who is one the most exciting and genuine key forwards in the game, says no, Dodoro should offer him $1.1 million.
If he still says no, make it $1.2 million a season.
If it’s a no again, make it $1.3 million.
Make it an eight or nine-year deal worth in the vicinity of $11 million. It’s Lance Franklin-type money.
Let’s not get cold feet about terms and length.
If the likes of Jake Soligo, Josh Rachele, Daniel McStay, Luke McDonald, Harry McKay, Tim Taranto, Jacob Hopper, Shai Bolton and Charlie Curnow, for example, can sign long-term contracts for as much as seven years, then eight or nine years for a player such as Allen is not a stretch.
The Bombers have the money. They plan to launch at the end of this year or next year for a key forward, which will include inquiries to Gold Coast’s Ben King, but if there was a choice, it’s Allen who you’re chips- in for.
They have a small advantage. Essendon chief executive Craig Vozzo is understood to have written up Allen’s contract, so he knows intimate details. He also knows Allen.
In July, the Herald Sun rich list, which named the sports 100 highest earners, estimated Allen was earning between $700,000 and $800,00 a season.
The Bombers could add up to $600,000-$700,000 to that contract.
They have an estimated $2 million in salary cap space, so why not attempt to make Allen the highest paid player in the game?
Be ballsy. The Swans hit up Franklin. Gold Coast ripped Gar Ablett Jr out of Geelong. The Cats squirrelled Jeremy Cameron out of western Sydney. The Lions heaved Lachie Neale out of Fremantle.
Clubs can be busy being average or get busy being premiership contenders.
The Bombers need him, or someone like him, and the problem in the evolution of modern football, as premiership great Dermott Brereton highlighted in the Herald Sun this week, is that there’s a scarcity of win-your-own-ball key forwards.
Essendon’s last great forwards were Matthew Lloyd and Scott Lucas, who both retired at the end of the 2009 season.
In trading in players since 2012 – which was a difficult assignment because the drugs saga hardly made Essendon a destination club – they have secured James Stewart (2106), Jake Stringer (2017), Peter Wright (2020) and Sam Weideman (2022).
Stewart’s body hasn’t stood up as either a forward or defender, Stringer is now 29 who gets plaudits for tackling and applying pressure more than he does winning games, Peter Wright is ideally a No. 2 forward and relief ruckman who strives for consistency and Weideman tries his best but his best isn’t good enough at present.
The other young forward is Harry Jones whose body is not withstanding the rigours.
Essendon isn’t winning big finals with that forward firepower.
So, what’s the price to be a contender?
The Bombers had Joe Daniher, of course, but he cut and ran.
But this is a different Essendon now. Coach Brad Scott has hold of the football program and, yes, a winning final could be imminent.
That’s another possible attraction for Allen.
The 24-year-old may want to be a one-club player, but he is being confronted with an estimated five-year rebuild at the Eagles. That would take him to 29.
The Bomber are youngish, they are on the verge of re-signing midfielder Darcy Parish and defender Mason Redman, and a couple of recent first-rounders – Nik Cox, Zach Reid and Elijah Tsatas – are close to being elevated to the senior team. Cox this weekend for sure and maybe Tsatas the week after.
Port Adelaide legend Warren Tredrea said as late as Thursday that Adelaide is growing more confident that Redman will request a trade. But Bomber people disagree.
The Crows offer, it is said, is six years at about $725,000. It is good money for a running defender.
But Redman is a popular, culturally-strong clubman and, anyway, Scott has said he won’t be begging his defender to stay. He doesn’t have to because Redman knows he has helped rebuild the Bombers, and what’s on the horizon.
Allen would be the lobster on a surf and turf for Essendon.
Firstly, they have to convince him to want to move and then sway the Eagles with an offer.
The Eagles need draft selections.
The Bombers could offer two-first round selections and a player (Hind or Kelly, for example).
And if the Eagles on-traded the rights to draft hot shot Harley Reid for, say, two first-round picks and a second-round pick, they could, in the period of 12 months, have four first-round picks, plus their own two-first round picks, and a series of second-round picks via other trade-out scenarios.
It could look like this for the Eagles — In: Six first-rounders. Out: Allen and Reid.
It might make the Eagles blink.
Though, Essendon has to make Allen blink first.
It would have to start with an offer that he would find difficult to refuse. It’s called a Buddy offer.
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