Tim Kelly with ‘no regrets’ over trade from Geelong to West Coast despite three torrid seasons
Tim Kelly says he wishes things had panned out differently from his trade home to Perth on the results front, but tells MARK DUFFIELD he has no regrets about the switch.
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Tim Kelly says he would be lying if he didn’t sometimes think about what might have happened in his career had he not returned to Perth after two stellar seasons at Geelong.
But don’t confuse thoughts with regrets.
He knows he made the right call for the right reasons. And he still strongly believes he will play long enough to see finals football again with the Eagles.
It is one of the more momentous trade decisions of recent seasons. Kelly, a surprise star at Geelong in his debut year of 2018 after being taken as a mature age draft pick, then an All-Australian in 2019 when he finished fifth in the Brownlow Medal – returned to Perth on a long term deal with the Eagles for family reasons.
Geelong lost a grand final in 2020, then won one in 2022. The Eagles played finals in 2020, then missed them in 2021 and have won just eight games in almost three seasons since.
“I would be lying if I said I hadn’t ever thought of it, but with my young family with the situation we were in and are still in it’s hard to see how I would have been able to stay in Geelong,” Kelly said.
“Yes, I have at times thought about it but at the same time I struggle to see how I could have stayed there. I have got no regrets about coming home.”
“I would have liked for things to have panned out a little differently to how they have (from a team perspective) but I am excited for the journey the club is now on.”
Kelly has played strongly – been a regular at the top end of the club’s best and fairest and won it last year. But the midfield he was meant to complete got old, injured or both and collapsed around him.
This season, after a stellar 2023, he has battled a knee injury for much of the year and missed five weeks either side of the club’s bye to manage the injury.
Now, his injury is getting better and he feels like the club’s list is doing the same. What was once old, is now young and improving.
And his own form is improving with his knee.
“I generally don’t go into games feeling sore – not like the symptoms I was feeling in the first half of the year. I am able to train during the week and from a preparation point of view that is chalk and cheese from what it was earlier in the season. It sets me up pretty well for what is to come on the weekends. I am pulling up well and I am not really experiencing any aches or soreness.”
Kelly has some cartilage damage, bone stress and inflammation on the knee and a decision will be made later in the year if he needs some surgery. In the meantime he is pressing on, fresh from 32 disposals in the western derby and says there is much to play for over the last month.
“We have only won three games so far this year. It would be very easy for us to say let’s just wait for next year but that is not the mindset of me or Schoey or other senior players around the club,” he said.
“We want to get a lot out of the next four weeks. It might not be wins but there is a game style and an identity that we are really going after. If we can start to get on top of this style now it is going to pay us back when we are in position to contend for a flag.”
“We were able to test Brizzie a few weeks ago, then a disappointing game against the Saints, then we gave Freo a bit of a scare there. We want to challenge ourselves against those teams because they are playing for a bit.”
Kelly has welcomed Jarrad Schofield as the club’s interim coach. He is more familiar with him than most, having played at South Fremantle in a WAFL era dominated by the Schofield coached Subiaco.
“I feel like I have known him for a while now. It is pretty crazy that now he is running things here. It is a great opportunity for him to further his coaching experience,” he said.
Asked if he would be happy for Schofield to go through the coach selection process, Kelly stressed it was above his pay grade but said: “One hundred per cent. It is not for me to decide – that is up to the club. The club will sort all that out. In the meantime the boys are all behind Schoey.”
Kelly believes the Eagles list is better than many believe and points to the younger talent starting to come through.
“When I first got here we were one of the oldest lists, now we are one of the youngest and we are starting to field one of the youngest teams each round”.
“I think we have got really good leaders. We have got a lot of young talent coming through.”
“We are confident if we get things right it will set us up for when we contend.”
And he is confident enough to suggest that will be sooner than many think.
“I would like to think so. I would like to think that it can change pretty quickly,” Kelly, who turned 30 last week, said.
“I want to be around and help this club get back to playing finals footy.”
He said the past year had been an exercise in learning what does and doesn’t work.
“You look at the ladder and might say we have won the same amount of games as last year. But I feel like we are so far ahead of where we were 12 months ago. We are clear about what we are going after. Now there is enough evidence to say when we get certain things right we look pretty good regardless of who we play. And the flip side is when you don’t sustain that …. if you are not elite in team defence – then you get sliced.”
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