AFL TV Wrap: Sam Darcy the first ‘unicorn’, Harley Reid worth a 10-year commitment

There could be another decade-long deal arriving in the AFL, plus what makes Sam Darcy such a complete ‘nightmare’. Here’s everything you missed on TV.

Another 10-year deal on the horizon?

How about the unicorn that is back and taking the AFL by storm again?

There was plenty of discussion points across Tuesday night’s TV watching - here’s the best bits of what you missed.

SAM DARCY TO ‘CHANGE THE GAME’

Western Bulldogs forward Sam Darcy will “change the game” of Australian Rules Football, according to Carlton skipper Patrick Cripps.

Darcy made his return from a knee injury against St Kilda at the weekend and picked up where he left off when he went down, booting 3.2 from 19 disposals.

But despite the obvious physical attributes of Darcy, who is clean below his knees despite standing at 208cm tall, Cripps said his mentality separated him from other stars of the competition.

“What I think is underrated with him is how aggressive he is,” he said on AFL 360.

“Sometimes you can get these tall guys that have all the attributes but what’s underrated is the aggression.

“He’s got some serious craft, as you get older you love seeing these guys come in.

“He’ll change the game and he’s going to be special.”

Sam Darcy the unicorn? Jesse Hogan thinks so. Picture: Michael Willson

Fellow key forward Jesse Hogan said no player had come before the Bulldog that was ever the complete package - but he might be the first one to be in the conversation.

“He is an absolute unicorn, an alien of a player.”

“The way he moves and how good his hands are, I don’t think there’s a player you can compare him to at the moment.

“His ceiling is higher than any player in the competition.

“He’s going to be a nightmare for key backs over the next 10-15 years.

“I don’t know how you stop him.

“No player has ever had what he’s had, so it’s a pretty scary proposition.”

HARLEY REID CONTRACT

Caroline Wilson says rival clubs looking to poach Harley Reid should not “bother having the conversation” if they’re not coming to the table with a mammoth $15 million deal.

Wilson revealed on Agenda Setters she had spoken with two rival clubs about the young West Coast star, with a reported price tag of $1.5million per season if he was to leave the Eagles.

“This is just extraordinary to me,” she said.

“Two different clubs confirmed to me that they’ve been told unless you’re talking 10 years at around $1.5 million at an absolute minimum, don’t even bother having the conversation.”

Harley Reid is worth a $15m deal, according to Caroline Wilson. Picture: Daniel Carson

Wilson compared Reid to Gold Coast’s Matt Rowell; both former No.1 picks reportedly interested in a move back to Victoria.

She said clubs would feel more comfortable offering Rowell a long-term deal as he is a more-known commodity.

“No one quite knows yet what he’s (Reid) capable of,” she said.

“Obviously there are massive numbers being talked about with Matt Rowell ... but we sort of know a bit more about what Matt Rowell is capable of in a way of justifying (the money).

The discussion comes off the back of Kysaiah Pickett’s contract extension at Melbourne, with the electric midfielder-forward signing until the end of 2034.

Wilson said the AFL was worried about the growing lengths of contract extensions.

“This is a crazy deal the more you think about it, particularly when you look at what Melbourne went through with Angus Brayshaw,” she said.

“I don’t want to deathride anyone, I hope Kozzie Pickett remains the champion he is today, but the AFL is very worried about this.”

DON’T PLAY JUST THE KIDS, ST KILDA

Gerard Whately has urged Ross Lyon to continue playing the veterans as St Kilda’s finals hopes slip away.

And he fears it could cost the Saints Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, and cause them to miss out on Tom De Koning, if they blindly blood the kids.

St Kilda has lost four of its last five games and has fallen to 14th on the ladder, just percentage out of the bottom four.

Whateley said on AFL 360 that Lyon needed to continue to reward form, or it could cost the side the chance to sign some of the AFL’s biggest fish.

“It’s impossible to say how and when they might be contending for a top four with what they have,” he said on AFL 360.

“Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera is inside the environment, he knows intimately, he knows what the ambition and the dream is, is he going to stay?

“And then Tom De Koning on the outside... he’s taking meetings around what it might look like to stay at Carlton where for weeks it had been assumed that he was going to take the money.

“You can’t toss all of these players out, we’ve seen what that looks like and it’s ghastly.

“They don’t have the luxury of going 0-10 in the back half of the season, getting by 60-70 points.

“I like what Ross said about the integrity of selection, if these players’ form demands to play then they must play so that they can then integrate the young players.

“When is the right time to play them, that it won’t stifle them, that it will educate them, and they will come into a system that has some semblance of order about it?

“Rather than just being tossed in to play games. We’ve seen what that looks like, we’ve seen it at Melbourne, it set them back drastically, we saw it with the expansion teams.

“Don’t be too young and ruin what you’re doing now.

Will Tom De Koning end up at St Kilda? Picture: Daniel Carson

“They’ve got to come up with some sort of identifiable brand over the back-end of the season so that prospects look and go ‘I can see myself in it, and I can see where it will end up’.”

Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks has refused to be drawn into commentary about his club’s chase for St Kilda’s Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera.

The dashing Saint is out of contract and is contemplating a move to South Australia at the end of the season, with both the Power and Crows interested in his signature.

It’s a deal that could easily make him a million-dollar player, with Channel 9 reporter Tom Morris saying the decision is coming down to the prospect of success at St Kilda.

Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera is in the sights of SA clubs. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images.

But Nicks said on Footy Classified the club was focused on bringing in quality people.

“He’s an outstanding young footballer,“ he said on Footy Classified.

“We’ve always gone down the path of we don’t talk about players from other footy clubs.

“We’re really strong in our belief in what we’re doing at the moment.

“We’re going through something very deliberate, and part of that is the culture we’re building, we’re bringing in a lot of good people and we’re making ground.”

COLEMAN MEDALIST PROVIDES JUH ADVICE

Reigning Coleman Medalist Jesse Hogan has offered Jamarra Ugle-Hagan some advice after the Bulldog returned to training this week.

Hogan has endured his own personal struggles during his glittering AFL career that saw him move from Melbourne to Fremantle before finding a home in Western Sydney.

He said on AFL 360 that Ugle-Hagan needed to find his “passion for the game”.

“The biggest thing for me when I was going through a rough patch was I just lost passion for the game, I didn’t enjoy the grind,” he said.

“It became really tough and that’s when my mind kind of wandered.

“I didn’t really enjoy going to work, I didn’t enjoy getting to the club, I wasn’t enjoying the small things that when you were 16 or 17 you did enjoy.

“Until you figure out the smaller things and you can really strip it all back and start to enjoy those things and put really good people around you... it can get really hard.

“He can make it work, absolutely he can.”

INJURY LIST: L.HODGE (FACE)

Even Hall of Famers aren’t immune from a rogue elbow during social basketball competitions.

Luke Hodge made an appearance on the Agenda Setters program on Tuesday night, sporting a large cut just above his right eyebrow.

The Hawthorn legend explained how he received the blow, having copped contact during a Monday night scrimmage.

“It’s old man basketball,” he said.

A torn hamstring and now stitches in the forehead... Hodgey's social basketball career ain't it. pic.twitter.com/dGZ1KbFJl3

— 7AFL (@7AFL) June 17, 2025

“I went up for a layup... it’s a little bit of a gash, got a nice little elbow right in the forehead and spent the night in emergency.

“(I’m) just passionate... the first thing (my wife said) was ‘do you reckon you should give up on sport?’”

It’s not the first time Hodge has copped a rogue basketball injury, suffering a hamstring strain earlier this year.

Originally published as AFL TV Wrap: Sam Darcy the first ‘unicorn’, Harley Reid worth a 10-year commitment