Jordan De Goey opens up on his decision to stay at Collingwood, New York, Bali and his ‘quiet’ off-season
Jordan De Goey was a free agent and rival clubs were circling. Why did he stay at Collingwood? He opens up about the big decision.
Jordan De Goey knew he needed to change.
The explosive Collingwood forward-midfielder didn’t particularly like the person he was becoming and importantly didn’t like the fact that his actions off the field were starting to have an adverse effect on those closest to him.
He was coming off two headline-grabbing overseas incidents that for a time put his position with the Magpies and his AFL career into jeopardy.
It was time to do something about it.
The changes De Goey has made since his light-bulb moment are varied, but the crux of them all revolve around one thing – ensuring he doesn’t put himself into situations which could lead to bad decision-making.
Just days out from the start of his ninth AFL season and having turned 27 on Wednesday, De Goey is happier and healthier than at any other stage of his AFL career.
He’s also stayed out of the headlines all summer – and he’s loving it!
But he doesn’t want this to turn into a redemption story. By his own admission, he is “a work in progress … I’m not the finished product.”
In an exclusive interview ahead of Friday night’s round 1 blockbuster against Geelong, De Goey told the Herald Sun: “I have made mistakes and I will probably make mistakes in the future.”
“That’s the reality of it. For me, it is all about trying to be the best version of myself on and off the field. It was my own wrongdoing. A lot of it was to do with me as a person. I didn’t truly understand myself.
“I didn’t like the person I was being. But you get to that point where you have got to start making some changes and start putting your best foot forward.
“Now I am at a point in my life where I’m just happy to be the bloke who is not on the front page of the paper, not on the back page of the paper, but who is happy doing his job.”
De Goey now understands he twice put himself in situations he shouldn’t have – in the most serious instance in a New York nightclub in October 2021, and again in Bali during the Magpies’ 2022 mid-season break.
Both had serious consequences.
The first resulted in him being arrested and spending a night in a Manhattan jail, with serious charges hanging over his head, before the assault charge was ultimately downgraded to second-degree harassment.
The second threatened to drive a wedge between him and the club, to the point where the original contract offer was dragged off the table before being reinstated and upgraded months later, albeit with behavioural clauses he initially baulked at.
In between both incidents, he was diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), something he doesn’t blame for his past indiscretions. Instead the diagnosis gave him greater clarity around his behaviours as well as a guide to the processes he could put into place to ensure he doesn’t make the same mistakes again.
Candidly, he can’t promise he won’t, but he is working hard to ensure that he doesn’t.
“My whole career has been a bit of a whirlwind, to be honest,” he said. “It was probably just not understanding myself as a person and then being put in the spotlight and not being able to deal with it for a long time.
“I always wanted to push back. I was never a kid who liked being told what to do, and obviously in this industry there are boundaries you need to live by.
“That’s not just me. It’s every player. There are expectations and standards, and it obviously took me a fair while to understand and grapple with all that.”
De Goey said the overseas incidents were “a pretty s – situation to put yourself in, and obviously your family and friends are the ones that go through it with you.”
“I’ve been really lucky. I’ve had some good support networks … My parents and my close friends truly understand what I am like and the sort of person that I am.
“My parents have been my heroes. I’ve put Ryan (his manager Ryan Vague) through a lot.
“Then, there’s ‘Fly’ (Collingwood coach Craig McRae) and my teammates, and Jacqui Louder. They have all been such a great support for me.”
De Goey admitted he briefly feared for his AFL career when he and a friend were caught up in a drunken incident in a New York nightclub in October 2021, even if he disputed some of the details that were reported.
“The biggest one was the New York one,” he said this week. “That was when my career was right on the edge.
“It looked like it could have gone either way at times. The situation was a lot different to the way it was portrayed (in the media) but at the end of the day, it didn’t really matter because something happened and it wasn’t what anyone wanted to see.
“That was probably the moment where it was like ‘OK, let’s start parameters in place, let’s start getting the right people guiding and supporting you’.
“It is no hidden secret that the club wasn’t happy at the time, nor was my side of the party as well. But we worked it out. The club has changed an incredible amount, to the point where the way they handle situations and stuff is now really incredible.”
He described the Bali incident from June last year – where he was captured on video making crude gestures in a nightclub – as “an unfortunate situation … I just needed to know my surroundings (better).”
That moment – which resulted in a $25,000 suspended fine from Collingwood for “disrespectful conduct” – saw his contract talks put on hold.
De Goey was in the final year of his contract, and while he was in the best form of his career to date, he was exploring his free agency options.
St Kilda made a massive pitch for the player considered one of the most damaging burst footballers in the competition. Collingwood, in contrast, wanted to add some behavioural clauses in the first two years of what ended up being a five-year deal in order to protect their interests.
Asked about the behavioural clauses, De Goey said: “For sure, that was a stumbling block for a while.”
“But it is one of those situations where you have to give up something to gain something back. The club ended up being really good. We worked through it and got there.”
A white board think-tank session with his manager followed the end of the season with the pros and cons of staying with Collingwood or moving to St Kilda.
“It came down to literally putting it all on a whiteboard, all the pros and cons,” he said. “And (the decision) comes back to everything … the coaching staff, the players, the volunteers, the fans and future success.
“I do get a lot of supporters getting around me, which is nice.
“It is not just about money. At the end of the day, money doesn’t buy you success. Everyone wants to be a part of a premiership at Collingwood, the biggest club in the land.”
Since signing the deal six months ago, De Goey hasn’t looked back.
“It is funny what a quiet pre-season can do for you. I haven’t had too many of them across my career,” he said.
“I have stayed out of the papers and I have been injury free (other than minor shoulder surgery in December).
“I have put in all the hard work over the pre-season, so there will be no excuses from me.”
The delicate irony is that part of that hard pre-season work was done on his own, in Bali, of all places.
He spent a month there and worked with a sprint coach based in Melbourne, who sent him a program that saw him running between 10 to 15 kilometres on some days.
“I am in a really good mental zone right now,” he added. “I am happy and healthy and that can definitely correlate to your performance on the field and a good club environment also helps.”
So has he got a mid-season trip to Bali scheduled for Collingwood’s mid-season break?
“I wouldn’t have thought so, not this year,” he said. “I think I will stay home and lock myself inside.”
‘EXTRAORDINARY’ COACH CONNECTION HELPED DE GOEY SHUN SAINTS
Jordan De Goey has revealed his faith in Collingwood’s ability to win a 16th VFL-AFL premiership in the coming years and his extraordinary close connection to coach Craig McRae and his teammates were the reasons why he rejected a free agency push from St Kilda to remain a Magpie for the next five years.
And De Goey has detailed how McRae has given him a licence – “within reason” – to inject himself into the midfield whenever the situation arises – which will happen with more frequency in 2023.
In an exclusive interview, the 27-year-old also said the Magpies’ recruitment of Tom Mitchell, Dan McStay, Bobby Hill and Billy Frampton has further strengthened the club’s list, while he backed Darcy Cameron to further flourish in the ruck with the departure of Brodie Grundy.
“Everyone wants to be a part of a premiership at Collingwood, the biggest club in the land,” De Goey said.
“Being able to bring a cup home like that, to 100,000 members, there are not too many people who have been able to do that.
“To me, that was a big driving factor (in deciding to stay) as well as the (strength) of the list we have and the coaching staff we have there.
“With the game plan, the coaching staff and the players we have all the things we need for success. Now it is about fine tuning it and making sure the whole machine works.”
De Goey will almost certainly spend more time in the midfield this season off the back of a strong pre-season campaign, splitting his time spent forward.
“Fly (McRae) and I have a pretty good relationship with that,” he said. “He puts his trust in me. If I am feeling something (about going into the midfield), he is more than happy for me to do it, within reason of course. He does give me that freedom.
“I think the game plan suits the role that I am playing now. With some teams, their midfielders might run a lot more, but the way we want to play and the direction of the ball use and stuff like that, I can definitely play that midfield role.
“I don’t really see it as a split anymore. It is about being able to be good in both positions.
“It is just about trying to be damaging in both positions. It will obviously change … some games I might be better up forward than the midfield, so I will set myself up forward.”
He said his connection to McRae was something he did not take for granted.
“I think I was craving someone like Fly in my life, to be honest,” he said.
“He makes sure you are happy as a person and he understands the correlation between that and your football ability.”
De Goey said the Magpies were still adjusting to life without Grundy, but said Cameron had been “a standout for me this pre-season”.
“It is going to be interesting without Brodie, as he was such a dominant ruckman,” he said. “He was almost more of a midfielder than a ruckman.
“But I’ve been working well with (Cameron) and the mids are enjoying it as well.”
He said Mitchell had a welcome inclusion to the midfield, having been traded to the Magpies from Hawthorn.
“We have some silky ball users, so I think we needed that in and under player,” he said.
“Tom fills that role really well. He pretty much dives on anything and his hands are as good as anybody’s. I have never seen someone go harder for a ball than Tom does.”
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