Jaeger O’Meara requests trade from Gold Coast

A FURIOUS Gold Coast had declared loyalty dead and says only an elite player will compensate for the loss of Jaeger O’Meara. VOTE: WHAT IS O’MEARA WORTH?

Gold Coast midfielder Jaeger O'Meara has requested a trade. Picture: David Clark

A FURIOUS Gold Coast says only an elite player will compensate it for the loss of Jaeger O’Meara after the midfielder revealed he was quitting the club.

Suns chairman Tony Cochrane told the Herald Sun his club was “gutted” and “devastated” by O’Meara’s decision to leave and accused the 22-year-old of disloyalty.

Cochrane insisted Gold Coast would have no hesitation throwing O’Meara at the mercy of the draft if a trade couldn’t be struck, declaring the young gun’s exit the Suns’ line-in-the-sand moment their battle to retain interstate talent.

“If you want to go and have a look at my track record in thousands of articles on the internet, the one thing I don’t do is bluff,” Cochrane said.

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O’Meara informed club officials of his decision on Wednesday night and broke the news to teammates on Thursday, ending a five-year stint — the last two ruined by serious knee injuries.

We want a fair-dinkum player and we want a player of O'Meara's calibre.

- Tony Cochrane

It’s understood he wants to play for a Victorian club and be closer to his Melbourne-based girlfriend.

His bombshell comes after Dion Prestia also told the Suns he wanted out, with his sights set on a rumoured $3.5 million five-year deal at Richmond.

“Call me old-fashioned, but we thought loyalty was still alive and well,” Cochrane said of O’Meara.

“We have stuck to this kid through thick and thin to the point where when he got the first knee injury, it was such an unusual injury that our medical team searched out the very best care for him and we flew him to London to have that surgery.

“We regarded him as a really important part of our future. Our whole junior program is known as Jaeger’s Juniors ... we thought he had the right credentials, the right style and the right culture we wanted to build here.

“Foolishly as it turned out — so mug me — we felt he would do the right thing.”

Cochrane described as “stunning” the two-year offer the Suns put to O’Meara.

He said draft picks would do nothing to satisfy the Suns, who already have six selections inside the top 35 in this year’s national draft.

Call me old-fashioned, but we thought loyalty was still alive and well. We have stuck to this kid through thick and thin.

- Tony Cochrane

If the Tigers part with their first-round pick for Prestia it will be seven.

“We want a fair-dinkum player and we want a player of that calibre. I stand to be corrected, but I’ll be quite shocked if a club can come with a player of that standard,” he said.

“If we can’t be compensated then Jaeger can ride his luck and enter the draft. We are trying to build the Gold Coast Football Club in a very difficult, NRL-dominated, environment.

“We’re trying to have a fair-dinkum go, not make up the numbers, and we can’t afford to be losing blokes who just want to return to Melbourne and the big lights every year.

Jaeger O'Meara hasn’t played senior footy in the past two years. Picture: Adam Head

“Compared to a Carlton or a Collingwood we are a dot and not a very big dot, so it is a very hard task in a non-AFL environment to get players and retain players and build the right culture up here.

“Having said that, we’re not backing away one iota from that task and that’s why we’re drawing a line in the sand here.

“We just can’t accept being picked off every year while we develop a training camp for Victorian clubs.”

Thursday’s announcement will spark a bidding war among Victorian clubs for O’Meara, who won the 2013 Rising Star award and played 44 of a possible 44 games in his first two years at the top level.

But there remain doubts over the West Australian’s knees, which have derailed his career in the past two seasons. O’Meara hasn’t played an AFL game since Round 23, 2014.

The midfielder had surgery on a ruptured patella tendon that year, but upon his return in July could only manage three NEAFL matches before requiring surgery again.

O’Meara arrived at the Suns via the Greater Western Sydney 17-year-old mini-draft at the end of 2011.

He continuously put off contract talks with the Suns this season, saying he was focused on his rehabilitation.