Analysis: Why North’s big move out west will be hard to stomach for Alastair Clarkson
Fair play to the Kangaroos for trying to secure a $2 million windfall each year by playing home games in Perth, but it’s hard to see how it will help them climb the ladder, writes Jon Ralph.
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Fremantle didn’t quite end up covered in s--- after their last visit to Tasmania but they weren’t far short after that horrific cross-country trip.
The Dockers lost to Hawthorn by 13 points then were forced into a disastrous flight home as a plane malfunction saw cabin crew scooping human excrement from toilets as some passengers had to urinate directly into basins.
For a Dockers side already forced into a marathon flight across the country, it summed up their hatred of playing any games in Tasmania.
Fremantle have a 2-12 record in Launceston and lost their only clash in Hobart (to St Kilda).
Consider Justin Longmuir’s mood this week when he learned the club’s only clash against the Roos for the next three years is likely to be played in his own backyard.
Then consider the demeanour of Alastair Clarkson, who will spend the last three seasons of his five-year Roos deal wondering what the hell he is doing playing home games across the other side of the country.
As revealed by the Herald Sun, the Roos are set to sell two home games a year to West Australia to play back-to-back weeks at Optus Stadium and Bunbury as they ease their way out of their Tasmania deal.
The Roos have been painted into a corner but how did the AFL think this was the only solution in an era of equalisation, forcing Victoria’s worst side into a deal that looks an on-field disaster?
The Roos need the cash ($2 million a year) and the AFL would like to lessen the WA teams’ travel burden.
But surely the better option for the Roos was to spend the final three years trying to find neutral venues to replace that cash before Tasmania enters the league in 2028.
The only upside is this – it will replace some of the roughly $3.5 million the Roos receive to play four games in Tasmania with Spirit of Tasmania branding, in a contract that expires next year.
The Roos will continue to play seven home games in Melbourne and ideally will bring one or two of those games back to Victoria from 2026 onwards because of the financial scope of this deal.
Ideally selling a game to a Victorian regional venue – similar to the Western Bulldogs deal in Ballarat – would have worked but the state government was broke and didn’t have a dollar to spare to throw at the Roos.
And yet if it makes sense financially, selling a game to any other stadium other than the one where the ‘away’ team already plays 12 home games a year would have been preferable.
How does Clarkson pitch the move to Luke Davies-Uniacke, open to signing a free agency contract extension but suddenly spending an extra fortnight in Perth every season and with finals further than ever away?
Or George Wardlaw, who like his great buddy Harry Sheezel some chance to sign a mega-extension past 2026 but not prepared to do so until he sees signs the Roos are getting their act together?
Or the free agent they will try to sign next year, with even more cap space with Jaidyn Stephenson’s retirement and contracts to Aidan Corr and Callum Coleman-Jones also expire?
Clarkson has been kept up to date on the move and football boss Todd Viney has visited the Bunbury site, aware this move will allow the club to pay a full salary cap and soft cap in years to come.
But only months ago he made clear a side that hadn’t climbed out of the bottom two in the past five years needed to get a wriggle on.
The fans are pragmatic enough to know this club needs radical moves to survive.
But say what you want about the Roos playing well at Optus Stadium (they have won four of nine games there), it is preposterous to suggest they have a better chance of winning against Fremantle or West Coast in WA than playing in Melbourne, Tasmania or even a neutral venue.
St Kilda abandoned its Cairns home games last year after its 2022 season turned on its head after a loss to Port Adelaide in wet slippery conditions, with a previously 5-1 St Kilda outfit losing its way and missing finals.
The club’s year-end review recommended the club “sharpen our focus on football” and minimise distractions, which saw the club having “decided not to sell a home game in 2023”.
Richmond’s three games in Cairns were similarly disastrous, featuring a nine-point win over a bunch of Gold Coast babies, that infamous loss with Karmichael Hunt’s matchwinner and then another loss to the Suns the next year.
The Roos will play a Dockers side that should be stacked in those next three years, and a West Coast side it will simply have to beat if it wants to make a finals charge.
The two sides have played their last seven games with the margin either way not more than 15 points.
And while the Roos have beaten the Eagles twice at Perth Stadium in that time … well everyone beat the Eagles at Perth Stadium and they should be vastly improved from here on in.
So while the Roos keep their financial bottom line out of the red, and the AFL gets a solution to the travel burden for WA clubs, this time it is Clarkson who is getting the proverbial shizen sandwich.
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