AFL great Nick Riewoldt says Darcy Moore is more important to Collingwood than Jordan De Goey
Collingwood has two potential superstars who are out of contract. Both are about to hit their primes and could carry the club to success for years to come. But how do you fit them into only $1.5m in cap space?
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Collingwood’s list manager has around $1.5 million to spend.
He also has two out of contract stars. Jordan De Goey and Darcy Moore are both 24.
How do they split it? Down the middle? Based on previous performance? Or their potential to keep improving?
Collingwood is publicly confident of keeping both but would be privately hopeful.
Ultimately, they may be forced to choose between the two and it will likely be a 10 years before we have a clear understanding of which was the better investment.
Right now, I’d side with Moore.
It’s not an easy decision and there is much to consider.
Let’s start with De Goey. He’s a match winner. He was the difference on Thursday night in a brilliant performance booting five of the team’s eight goals.
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He got it done on the lead, in the contest and at ground level.
It was a complete performance.
But “recency bias” is dangerous when assessing a player’s true worth.
How many games has he actually won off his own boot?
Prior to Thursday’s commanding display, he’d kicked two goals in five games for the year and it was only the fourth time he’s kicked five-plus in a match.
He has all the weapons – speed, power, skill and a desire to compete and when all of those assets are synchronised, he is impossible to stop.
But it does not happen often enough.
The word potential still hangs over De Goey.
At 24, and with almost 100 games’ experience, a massive payday requires a greater level of consistency. Which would be even harder to find now with a finger injury potentially sidelining him for a number of weeks.
Maybe if he’s settled as a permanent forward like we saw this week, he will find it?
It worked for Moore.
Since forsaking the experiment of Darcy Moore the forward, he has found tremendous consistency as a key defender.
As a defensive practitioner in the modern game, he isn’t the prototype. He is the dream.
His toolbox is jam-packed.
He has everything you need to stop the opposition’s best forwards. Speed to combat them on the lead. Strength in the contest. Courage in the air and agility at ground level.
In a game that is so heavily skewed towards defensive actions, where Moore
truly excels, is his ability to turn those into offence.
He intercepts and then rebounds.
He has an instinct to attack and the footy smarts and confidence to pull the trigger on his kicks.
Only the best defenders in recent times play with that level of assertiveness.
And he does it reliably. He doesn’t go weeks without influencing games.
Think Alex Rance and Jeremy McGovern.
It is little surprise their respective teams have combined for two of the last three flags. And no surprise again that they got paid well for their talents.
In Moore, the Pies have their key defensive pillar locked away for the next decade.
The argument for De Goey over Moore, can and will be made.
Many will see what the Dees have done investing so heavily in Steven May and Jake Lever while seemingly neglecting their ability to score and apply the same logic.
De Goey’s skill set is so rare and potent that if that dirty word “potential” is replaced by “reliable” when he returns from injury, I could be forced to reassess by the end of the year.
In that event, Collingwood’s only current deficiency – its ability to score consistently – will have been remedied by De Goey, and the Magpies will be holding the cup aloft.
But for now, give me the guy that gets it done every week.
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