Jordan De Goey rated as a top-five player in the AFL
Has Jordan De Goey turned the corner after another summer wake-up call? His huge start to the season has him on the same trajectory as Christian Petracca last year.
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Jordan De Goey is back in his sweet spot.
One hundred and fifty one days since his boozy New York arrest, the man whose career seemed at the crossroads in the off-season has firmed as a top-five player in the competition over the first two rounds.
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Respected analysts David King and Leigh Montagna have both put him in that elite bracket and in the AFL Coaches votes he sits on 15 votes behind only Patrick Cripps (Car), Christian Petracca (Mel) and Andrew Brayshaw (Fre).
If there was a clear pre-season narrative that De Goey should seek a fresh start elsewhere at the end of the season after another off-field indiscretion, he has since given Magpies’ chiefs considerable reason to thwart any rival poaching bids, and extend his contract.
While it remains only early in the new season, De Goey has clearly become Craig McRae’s most potent midfield weapon.
Remarkably, it’s only a few months after De Goey rocked up to Leopold where he trained alongside suburban footballers in Geelong to help keep in shape during his club suspension.
That’s where Garry Hocking, an ex-Collingwood assistant, urged De Goey to be the best person he could be off the field, in a bid to enhance his powers on it.
His football would take care of itself if he got everything else right, Hocking said over a counter meal at the local footy club.
And two weeks into the new season, the No.5 2014 draft pick is fourth in the competition for centre clearances, has launched six shots on goal in two games and has averaged 24 disposals in the wins over St Kilda and Adelaide.
His midfield time has gone from 38 per cent (onball) in 2021 under Nathan Buckley, to 75 per cent since Round 16 last year.
Statistically, De Goey is most certainly on a Petracca trajectory, which is why North Melbourne offered the Collingwood game breaker a whopping $1 million a season way back in 2018.
And King predicted the queue for his services to be much longer this year despite the New York fracas which saw him fined $10,000.
“His worth is evident in the games that he wins you. Games that are in the balance he finds a way to win a centre bounce clearance in his own bullish manner or kick a goal,” King said on the Herald Sun’s Pure Footy show.
“They’re hard to find these players.
“Every club in the competition would be going after Jordan De Goey. Collingwood may not want to pay him that ($900,000) but other clubs will, and they will give him a long term deal.”
While De Goey turned it on in the third quarter against the Crows, the predicted price tag will face its biggest test when Collingwood take on Geelong at the MCG on Saturday night.
In the game of the round, De Goey will lock horns with Geelong superstar Patrick Dangerfield in a blue-chip battle between two of the game’s most powerful and dynamic midfielders.
The Cats held Nathan Buckley’s teams on a short leash over the past five years, restricting the Magpies to 65 points or less in their seven encounters since 2017.
But Collingwood has busted out of its scoring slump this year, posting back-to-back 100 point games with a new handball-happy game style which has replaced its short-kick-and-mark brand.
Under McRae, chaos has replaced control, and De Goey is the senior coach’s No. 1 wrecking ball inside the engine room.
As part of the Pies’ sweeping tactical change, Collingwood has the lowest kick to handball ratio in the competition (meaning they handball more than any team per kick) and have gone from 14th to sixth best in the pressure stakes, according to Champion Data.
Now, there is more free-play at Collingwood, where the ball spends more time in dispute, and in the contest.
If he was stationed more as a forward under Buckley, it is clear De Goey is enjoying his football life more up the ground in the thick of it under McRae.
It’s a combination which could help keep him in black and white beyond this year, if the price (and his professionalism) are right.
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