AFL 2022: Mick Malthouse says free agency continues to help the powerful clubs get even stronger
Master coach Mick Malthouse runs the rule over this year’s likely trade moves, with a warning for clubs hoping to emulate the success of Luke Hodge’s move to Brisbane.
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There are three reasons a free agent or uncontracted player will trade clubs — a move home, a chance to play finals, or for more money.
The socialist draft system is supposed to help the bottom clubs, but because it’s flawed it doesn’t work. Free agency, which is modelled on other sporting codes around the world, was created to ease restraint of trade. The player has the power to force change.
But unless we adopt a system whereby every free agent is put into an annual pool where clubs from the bottom up get a pick, then free agency will continue to help the stronger clubs get stronger and the perennial bottom dwellers remain weak.
The AFL encourages player movement, but as much as we would like to think that we are all one family, the buzzards will circle any wounded animal. And vultures don’t have a conscience, so the likes of Jason Horne-Francis, Cameron Zurhaar (who appears close to a new deal at North Melbourne), the gifted Tarryn Thomas, even an ageing Todd Goldstein, will all be heavily targeted when they come out of contract.
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It will take more than an Alastair Clarkson to persuade players that North Melbourne is the place to be unless they start playing finals quick smart.
Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney are ravaged every year. Already, Izak Rankine has nominated a move home to Adelaide, and new Giants coach Adam Kingsley must try to retain Jacob Hopper and Tim Taranto who are being courted by several clubs.
Of course, some players are shown the door in their twilight years and moved on involuntarily, like Luke Hodge, Jordan Lewis, Sam Mitchell, and Grant Birchall. Some give good value at their new clubs, and some don’t, that’s just the nature of it.
So, who’s on the move this year?
It’s very evident talking to anyone in Western Australia that Perth-born Demon Luke Jackson will end up with one of the WA teams — most likely, Fremantle. Hence the chess moves begin, with Melbourne working diligently to get Magpie Brodie Grundy across the line to keep its status quo of two ruckmen.
Grundy has already indicated he won’t go back to his home state of South Australia so the Victorian clubs are circling, unless he’s prepared to take a hit to the pocket to stay a Magpie. Geelong has been trying for a couple of years to lure a first-class ruckman to replace Rhys Stanley and Jonathon Ceglar.
Grundy would only strengthen Melbourne or Geelong. And in turn, Jackson would strengthen Fremantle.
There is a lot of interest in Jordan De Goey. He’s 26, enthusiastic, and an exceptional footballer. Collingwood has had to deal with some major misdemeanours on his behalf, so the contract he could demand and the contract he’ll be offered by the Pies will be poles apart and most likely contain conditions. He has suitors, despite his indiscretions, so it will be interesting to see if he is willing to take a pay cut to stay.
I don’t think he is a bad person. He has certainly made mistakes, but he appears to be working on himself off-field.
He has a fundamental love of his teammates and his club so I think it would be out of character to see him move. The club is going places, why wouldn’t he want to stay?
The Pies have their claws in Brisbane’s Daniel McStay, with a five-year, substantial dollar contract on offer.
The home club can rarely match the incoming offers, so you’d expect Melbourne-born McStay to go, leaving a club that has been in the finals for several seasons for a club that has announced itself.
Josh Dunkley was wrestled from Essendon’s grip only a couple of years ago and is considering a move again. He seemed to have a cultural problem with the Dogs then, which was smoothed out for him to play some very good football. The club made the finals again this season and has a strong enough list to improve next year.
Port Adelaide is offering Dunkley a longer contract than the Western Bulldogs and more money, but my feeling is it’s not for the dollars, perhaps more for his girlfriend who is from South Australia. Brisbane is also an option as his sister lives there.
Dyson Heppell is probably as interesting as anyone this trade period. Club captain of a very disappointing team, now without a coach. He is 30, has never been blessed with pace, but is a heck of a lad and a very good footballer. His output has dropped off from his best football in recent seasons, so I don’t suspect a top club will chase him, but there is interest from Gold Coast and maybe an emerging club.
These clubs must be careful they don’t get a player who may well be past his best unless they believe he will add value to an up-and-coming side, because the Luke Hodge syndrome (getting an older player in to captain a line of a younger team) won’t always work.
Two of the biggest names in the competition — albeit that I think Grundy and De Goey have more in front of them than Dustin Martin and Lance Franklin these days — are seemingly up for grabs.
I have said before that I believe Franklin owes Sydney. Players and most managers don’t think like that, however, and he may well be influenced by his support crew.
He would be more than welcomed by either the Brisbane Lions or Gold Coast as he is a wonderful player, still, and kicked a bag of goals this season, so he would add value.
But as much as a I don’t like talking age, he is 36 in January, so I find it strange he would want to move at this point of his career. Perhaps the interest now is more in his name than performance.
Martin is a massive name in football. At 31 he is just starting to pick up the niggles of a medium-sized player who goes in hard and is targeted by the opposition. Of course, the Richmond romantics would love a player of his stature to finish his career at the Tigers, but he doesn’t like the limelight and perhaps feels the need to escape the attention.
He appears to be very close to his teammates and I don’t think it’s a money issue, so it must be more about escapism. The Tigers have reinvented themselves and appear to be on the cusp of another resurgence, but they need him, so expect a fight.
Once again, if we want the bottom, poorer, and less-supported clubs to rise and be competitive, the trade and free-agency system needs to change. But until then, we wait for the next chess moves.
Malthouse: Hird brought you to your knees, Dons
Triple AFL premiership coach Mick Malthouse has warned Essendon against considering James Hird for its vacant coaching position.
As the Bombers begin work on finding a replacement for Ben Rutten, Malthouse said the fact Hird had been the coach during the club’s disastrous sports supplement saga a decade ago – and hadn’t been a senior coach since 2015 – must count against him.
Hird is yet to confirm if he will be a candidate, but he is believed to have some support from both inside and outside the club.
“He (Hird) and his team brought the game into disrepute, brought Essendon to its knees and brought the AFL to a position where they had to change a lot of things,” Malthouse said of the 2012 supplements saga.
“The amount of things (in football) that had to change because of the Essendon debacle was quite extraordinary.”
Hird was banned from coaching for 12 months and the Bombers were kicked out of the 2013 finals – which elevated Malthouse’s Blues – in the aftermath of the game’s biggest crisis.
Asked at the Herald Sun Footy Finals Launch this week about Hird’s potential return, Malthouse stressed it would be the wrong thing for the battling Bombers to consider.
He told the Herald Sun when contacted on Friday: “The question was asked (at the launch) about who should coach Essendon and someone said to me, ‘What about Hird?’
“I said: ‘No, I don’t think he should’.
“The question (then) was ‘Why not’ and I said ‘I think we have all got short memories’.”
Malthouse stressed he had nothing personal against Hird, but believed the Bombers should look elsewhere instead of returning to the man who led them in 85 games across four seasons (2011-13 and 2015).
“I have nothing personal against (James) Hird,” he said. “But it (the supplements saga) had an adverse effect on the AFL and its supporters and it had a massive impact on some of the players as well.
“I don’t think he should be coaching Essendon.”
Malthouse, the AFL games coaching record holder, said another factor was that Hird had been out of the game for too long, other than half a season this year as an assistant coach at GWS.
“People are going to say it (coaching) is like riding a bike … well, it is not quite,” he said. “I don’t know whether you can actually just jump back into the game (after seven years).”
He urged the Bombers coaching selection panel to widen their vision and not be locked into only chasing a tried AFL senior coach.
“They have backed themselves into a corner by saying they want an experienced coach,” he said. “If Essendon has narrowed it to only a senior coach who has done the job before, it is a pretty narrow field.”
“Take a look at Friday night’s game with Simon Goodwin and John Longmire … they had no previous senior coaching experience and they have both won premierships.
“Then, there’s Chris Scott, who had a background of assistant coaching and who won a premiership in his first year (2011), and Craig McRae, who did his apprenticeship and who has taken Collingwood from 17th to fourth.”
He also pointed out how first-time AFL coaches had won the bulk of the premierships on offer this century,as well as the fact that in the past 17 years only Luke Beveridge (2016), John Worsfold (2006) and Paul Roos (2005) have won flags as a coach with clubs they played for.
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