Gold Coast Suns: Levi Casboult on why vax-hesitant Liam Jones is worth another shot at AFL level
New Gold Coast forward Levi Casboult opens up on his own mental anguish with the Covid vaccination and a belief that Liam Jones is worth another shot if mandates are relaxed further.
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New Gold Coast forward Levi Casboult says close friend Liam Jones is keen to re-start his career next season as the former Carlton forward lobbies Suns recruiters to consider the star full back.
Carlton full back Jones decided to retire instead of take a Covid vaccine, walking away from up to $500,000 in salary to stand on his principles.
Casboult has joined Gold Coast after initially baulking at taking a vaccination, telling the Herald Sun he did not want to disclose his vaccination status as part of privacy over his medical records.
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The Herald Sun has previously reported it was a Gold Coast condition of him signing that he met the AFL’s vaccination mandates, which he eventually ticked off in the week of the rookie draft.
But with the real possibility sporting codes could drop those vaccine mandates next season, new Palm Beach Currumbin Lions signing Jones would be a star signing for an AFL club.
Casboult said he was proud of Jones for following through on his principles despite the financial cost.
“He has got a very good partner who supports him very well and he was always very sure of his stance and what he wanted to do,” Casboult told the Herald Sun.
“There were obviously some dark days and he’s much the same as me, he loves playing footy, he’s still keeping fit and playing down at ‘Palmy’.
“If things change he would love to keep playing footy and his football in the last couple of years says he is still capable of doing that.
“I think he is definitely good enough. In his own words he’s probably in the best nick he’s been and I know he’s had conversations with people around that and he is definitely ready to go.
“I know I have been in the ears of the guys here (Gold Coast) if things change.”
Jones only turned 31 in February and having resigned rather than being put on the Carlton inactive list could play at any club he wanted if those vaccine mandates were dropped.
Jones brilliant closing speed and aerial strength would make a perfect addition to any side in contention, just as Richmond secured North Melbourne’s Robbie Tarrant and the Dogs lured Tim O’Brien from Hawthorn.
In South Australia last week vaccine mandates were dropped for police, with that relaxation likely to spread across other industries and sports if governments can keep Covid and its variants in check in the next 12 months.
‘I love playing’: New Suns deal keeps Casboult in the game
Throughout 12 seasons of glorious highs and occasional flat spots, Levi Casboult’s love of the game sustained him and kept his career on track.
He never grew weary of the grind or injury toll or tribulations the game threw at him.
In turn, that child-like appreciation of all of footy’s highs and lows resulted in a series of well-paid contracts to keep doing what he loved.
Yet this past off-season life got complicated like never before.
After Casboult finally tracked down Carlton coach David Teague for a straight answer on his future — he would depart just nine days before Teague — it was time for the toughest decisions of his footballing life.
Gold Coast was interested in 31-year-old Casboult as a ruck-key forward back-up but only on a modest one-season deal that would require him to uproot wife Hayley and three kids Lonnie, Arlo and Goldie.
And as part of the AFL’s vaccination mandate they would require proof of his double-jab status before they picked him in the rookie draft.
Good mate Liam Jones had only just walked away from a $500,000-per-year contract for the same reasons, so passing up a one-year rookie deal to start life after football was a much more modest sacrifice.
Yet as Casboult tells the Herald Sun from a quiet corner of Gold Coast’s kitchen and dining facility, turning off your love of the game just isn’t that simple.
Did he ever think of just walking away given the vaccine mandate?
“I guess it‘s hard. I love playing footy so that was always the driver behind everything. The driver behind picking up three kids and my wife and moving up north and so that was always the driving force. I guess it was just we had some things to work through to get to where we are,” he said.
“I came up here full of optimism that I could have a role to play in developing Kingy (Ben King) and Luko (Jack Lukosius) so I was excited by the opportunity for whatever that would be.
“I had the whole conversation with my wife because after 12 years in professional sport she was probably more ready to move on than I was but I just love playing footy.
“And even when Gold Coast wasn’t a guarantee I was speaking to some country clubs and I still just love it.
“It is definitely a pay cut but I am 31, so one year, three or four years, just make the most of it while you can. I think something my wife and I have tried to live by is money is not everything. It’s more the way you live your life and we will make it work.
“I guess through games I had missed through injury and development as a young guy I felt like I still had more to give. No, I was always pretty keen to keep going.”
That role has suddenly become so much more prominent given King’s ACL tear, an injury set-back that makes list boss Craig Cameron’s acquisition of Casboult a canny piece of business.
In the Herald Sun’s day at the club Casboult tallies seven votes — an equal high with the brilliant Touk Miller — in the club’s Sherpa award recognising one-percenters and selfless efforts.
Amid much hooting and whistling from teammates, his five-possession, two-mark game relentlessly crashing packs for the Suns crumbers is judged of equal value to Touk Miller’s 32-possession, two-goal, nine-tackle virtuoso performance.
Casboult, 32 on Tuesday, is adamant he will not disclose his vaccination status.
It might be a moot point given the publicity around him actually being vaccinated but for Casboult retaining that right is part of the important debate about privacy of medical records.
Of that rocky time when it seemed he might walk away he says: “It is just the decisions we make as a family and what we believe in”.
“The big one for me is just the privacy around it too. I guess with private medical records, I felt it didn’t need to be published but it was something we had to work through and get to a resolution.
“We were armed with all the information and I guess we satisfied the needs to be able to play AFL football.
“I guess I have been around footy long enough to know that’s the media’s job. They find things. My issue is there is a fine line between what should be reported and what people need to know and don’t need to know. Regardless of vaccination or injuries, like Cripper’s (Patrick Cripps) back last year. A lot of people didn’t know about that. You can keep someone’s debilitating back injury secret.”
West Coast’s Jack Darling has since relented on taking a vaccine but speaking the day before that news breaks, Casboult says everyone is entitled to their own decision.
“Everyone has got their own beliefs and nobody has to agree with what anybody else has to do. Good on him for standing up for what he believes in, the same as Liam Jones.
“I am pretty close with him. He is up here now playing footy and I catch up with him a fair bit as well.
“So good on them for standing up for what they believe in. Obviously to walk away is a big decision for them, for some others it might not be so big. I think there are some pretty big contracts they are walking away from.”
Casboult bears no ill will towards Carlton, aware his own decision to play with a grumbling knee injury in Round 1 meant he could never hit his stride in his final year.
“I have been around footy long enough to know clubs want to go in different directions. They are blessed with some talented talls they want to blood games into it,” he says.
“I loved my time there and no bitterness towards the ending but I guess it was just time.
“I have got a pretty good relationship with Teaguey. We weren’t getting some straight answers, so just went to Teaguey. We have got a good relationship and he has always been honest with me and we went from there.”
The Casboult family have quickly fallen in love with their new home.
If it is only a one-year experiment, there will be no regrets for a player determined not to walk away then think what might have been,” he says.
“We are loving it. The oldest one was the hardest one to get over the line, with his school and schoolmates but since being up here, in the ocean all the time.
They are all loving it now. It was more of a difficult transition for us, it was hard to get a house, then no furniture for a week but it’s all an adventure, it’s all part of life.”
Brownlow medallist slams money-hungry mercenary tag
Lachie Neale was trying desperately to drown his sorrows after a 2021 season gone badly wrong when he realised his off-season was about to head in same the direction.
A season that included a broken back and a syndesmosis tear had only just finished — a horror one-point finals defeat at home against the Western Bulldogs.
His 46 possessions in a qualifying final against Melbourne and 28 against the Dogs weren’t enough, and now 24 hours after the last game it was time to consider his future away from prying eyes and media attention.
Good luck with that, Lachie.
As all hell broke loose with reports Neale would request a trade back to Fremantle.
The Brownlow medallist was three sheets to the wind and suddenly realising his week was about to become much more complicated.
“It was crazy, I was out with a few of the boys, we had just been bundled out of the finals and Eric Hipwood came up to me and showed me (the report on his phone),” Neale told the Herald Sun on Wednesday, happy to set the record straight on his own terms.
“I think I said, ‘I will just turn the phone off and deal with it tomorrow’. Which I did.”
So began four insane days during which Neale eventually decided to stay at Brisbane for the final two seasons of his contract.
But not before the 28-year-old midfielder was labelled a money-hungry mercenary, his wife Jules was abused on social media and his father was forced to come out to fiercely defend his honour.
Speaking for the first time about that period he admits being traded home was a thought bubble rather than a concrete idea, but one that he had barely even explored before the news broke.
“It was a weird period with my career,” he said.
“I felt that I was put under a little bit of pressure to make a decision on things really quickly.
“I felt like I wasn’t in a position to do that at that point but got rushed into it.
“It wasn’t all that serious at that point from my point of view, but I am not going to lie. I had had discussions with my wife and my family and people close to me about what the future looked like. If WA was going to open up this year?
“It’s been a really tough couple of years for my wife and her family. Knowing we had the baby on the way. 2020 and 2021 were really hard to get into WA.
“She went back at the end of 2020 at Christmas for a week and we spent Christmas apart, I went to SA, which wasn’t ideal
“So we had discussions. If we wanted to get back? Was it an option or not? And then it got out of hand really quickly.”
When Neale did turn his phone back on, he and the club got to work on solutions.
How the Lions could support him and Jules when the baby — a happy and healthy daughter Piper — did arrive.
Chief executive Greg Swann and football boss Danny Daly worked on a resolution, Neale praising Daly’s determination to check in on him and Jules daily without pestering him for an answer.
What Neale now says is that he only needed a week to work through those issues and would have honoured his contract anyway.
“In a way it was probably a good thing. We were able to sit down and within 48 hours get the people we needed to talk to together and came up with a decision that Brisbane is the best place for us and we wanted to stay,” he said.
“In a way it was a non story. It definitely would have run out that way if it had run its course but I had to make a decision quicker than anticipated.
“I feel like I hadn’t had time to digest the game, let alone what next year was going to look like.
“Over the next seven days I would have thrashed it out with Jules and my family and come up with a plan of attack. I feel like upon reflection I would have stayed anyway.”
Neale will not forget attacks from the Melbourne media including the AFL.com.au report that labelled him a manipulator who then relented because he was “spooked by the public element” of the story.
“The most disappointing part from my end was I felt like my personality and probably my wife as well got questioned, our personality and motives,” he said with a flash of anger as he looked out over the Gabba.
“I will never apologise for trying to do what is best by my family and my little baby now. I will never apologise for that.
“Could I have handled it better? Maybe? I could have come to the club a bit sooner but I didn’t really feel like it was a story that needed to be talked about because we hadn’t decided what we wanted to do and in the end we decided to stay
“I have been called a master manipulator, someone called me. They questioned my motives about money.
“That definitely wasn’t true. People mentioned my contract was front-ended but if I am honest it’s pretty similar money to my first year and 2020 was slashed with Covid (as a heavily loaded year of his contract) which is fine.
“So my money hasn’t changed much and if I was to leave I would have been taking a pay cut.
“It was all about family and I will never apologise for that. There were also really understanding people in the media so they were great as well.”
Neale spent the weeks after the season with twin goals: basking in the glow of Piper’s birth while also smashing himself physically to ensure there will be no repeat of his 2021 season.
Ask him if he is proud of the way he played in finals despite that fractured transverse process in his back and ankle injury and he speaks only of disappointment.
Teammate Jarryd Lyons says everything that has happened has fuelled Neale.
“I haven’t seen him in this good nick. Even in 2020 when he won the Brownlow,” Lyons said.
“Having a child keeps you grounded but he’s trained really hard in the off-season.
“It’s not like he has a point to prove because he already won the Brownlow, but he might have a little chip on his shoulder.
“I think everyone was hurting after what happened in the last couple of years with finals footy. So look out. Look out.”
Piper has given Neale new perspective on life, even if those disgraceful keyboard warriors didn’t miss the love of his life.
“It was probably the worst part. I don’t read Instagram messages but I know Jules is pretty active on there and some of the girls open messages from randoms about clothes and makeup and it’s a bit of a community,” he said.
“But during that period she still read those messages and some of them were pretty vile and it upset her, which upset me, so the way she handled herself was first class
“I am really proud of her. She had done an amazing job the last five and a half months with the bub and now that we have had her, it’s given her perspective that all of that stuff doesn’t matter either.”
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