The Price of Being the Paradigm

Geelong the football side is recognised as being an on-field leader the last 3 years. As they should, their success is unparalleled in an era with Priority Draft Picks , Salary Cap Concessions, and Special Draft Zones for interstate clubs. Bar the one loss they would perhaps be recognised as one of the greatest teams of all time and they have time yet to grab that mantle. What is far less commonly applauded is the way they have handled that success, and in fact the way the club itself has become a leader in the AFL. What made me think of this was the example of the way StKilda has handled the Luke Ball issue and compared it to handling of ex Captain , S.King.

King was one very unhappy man when he left Catland , I suppose that’s natural to a degree. King had been a loyal servant of the club, he probably had played thru pain, with injury and with little support a lot of his career. He had captained the club in a era of poor results and with teams focused on rebuilding. He won B&Fs for us and played with all he had to give. Now that the club had finally built a list capable of delivering flag’s he was being moved on. On the surface it’s enough to make most a tad bitter. But beneath the surface was it handled in a manor worthy of League leader?

In the 2007 GF selection , Geelong had made a tough professional decision , there was no time for sentiment. Blake had rucked well for the majority of the year but looked a little out of form or perhaps out of his depth in the Preliminary Final. It was time to bring in a mature ruckman who was ready and waiting in the wings. As it turned out it may have made little difference to the result but King played a part in that drought breaking day and was rewarded for all those year of toil in the hoops with a Premiership.

Then after the Grand Final success , it was again time for a tough professional decision. It was time to go with youth, time to turn over the ruck duties to the younger man much like they had done several years earlier with King himself getting a gig at the cost of Barnes . For King this left him in limbo , he felt he still had footy to play, he’d finally got his body right and wanted to continue. So what was Geelong to do?

Well we could have gone the StKilda/Ball path. We could have said he was a premiership ruckman , a club captain , a B&F winner etc. and demanded a good draft pick or sent him to the AFL version of “Purgatory”, the Pre Season Draft. They could have also made sure they traded him to a club unlikely to present any future threat to them. Instead they traded him & fellow Cat, Gardiner, to St Kilda , a club with a strong but underperforming list. They traded them for a pick they didn’t even use , perhaps they gained some SC relief but in the end the gained no obvious benefit. They traded him for nothing and were criticised for it by some.

Yes they were tough, professional outfit but they also endeavoured to ensure that they acted in a responsible manor. Going back to when Coblert left Geelong and they received what I certainly thought was a pittance they generally have made the call that when someone wants to go then lets try to find an outcome that we can live with rather than lets be the obvious winner. Club is more important than a individual but every individual deserves to be treated with respect rather than just as a valued commodity.

To do otherwise is just dumb. Not only do you risk receiving absolutely nothing for a player who is on your list, you risk alienating the player from the club and upsetting the mindset of the players still on your list. In the bigger scheme of things , each case like Ball slowly pushes us towards Free Agency so one could say its questionable if they were acting the best interest of the competition as a whole.

I know its not easy losing players that you value for what one might think is little and its certainly not easy to conform to the restriction of the SC. Certainly if the Cats lose Ablett to GC we will be royally kyboshed but could one really complain if Ablett chose to go. The dollars on offer are huge and to secure his future after playing 190 games for a club helping in the deliverance of multiple flags an era dominance, who could really complain. Although the addition new clubs is unusual situation, in general I think club has a duty of care to their players that exceed injury maintenance, to treat them with respect even when they are no longer going to play for them.

I think Ball deserved better than where he now finds himself. Ball , just like King, has played his heart for his club. He played hard like Selwood but fair. He seemed to often play on with injury which risked diminishing his reputation , he played in a manor that all football supporters could admire. The StKilda coach said post GF that if you wanted to be moved on then let me know but obviously he was only talking about the non-talented players. He has certainly done Ball no favours. When the deal wasn’t done they espoused that deal wasn’t good enough , perhaps if they had their time over again a pick around 25 might not seem so bad. Perhaps if they had been less worried about coming out the winner and more concerned with player welfare , then they would now have a pick and Ball would be at the club of his choice , something a player of his length service is due in my opinion.

Congrats Geelong on being a class act. It’s a fact of modern footy that player’s come and go but at least players at Geelong should know that when the time comes to go it will be treated more a member of the family than just a piece of stock picked up in an IPO. Its about respect. Some times it hurts to do it but it’s the price of being the paradigm , it’s the cost of being a leader in the greatest sporting comp. in the country. Well done Geelong , it certainly will not be due to you if the full scourge of Free Agency comes to AFL.