Suma article.Fremantle have taken a significantly unnecessary risk in signing big ruckman Sean Darcy to a seven-year multi-million-dollar contract.
If the injury-prone Darcy wants to be a Docker for life, as he has openly stated, then a three-year deal with relevant trigger clauses for any extensions would have been sufficient.
This new agreement jumps Darcy into just under $1 million a season through to the end of 2030. That’s a healthy increase from around $720,000 he was apparently on this year.
That’s also a weighty commitment to a club’s now back-up ruckman with the highly encouraging debut season from 21-year-old athletic big man Luke Jackson.
Jackson should lead Fremantle’s ruck and on-ball division for the next decade, leaving severe uncertainty on just where Darcy fits into a Dockers best starting line-up
Darcy, 25, will need to regularly rack up around his career average personal numbers at about 31 hit-outs, a dozen or so disposals and three or four clearances a week to justify a $1 million per year deal in similar earning region as Jackson.
But there’s no way Darcy will get anywhere near the amount of ground and on-ball time to rattle up figures of his previous standing as Fremantle’s number one ruck starter.
Jackson finished an imposing fourth in Doig Medal voting with around 15 disposals a week and seven clearances a game as well as bagging critical goals with his 22 from 23 outings in his initial Fremantle season this year.
Granted, Darcy at his best in 2021 was good enough to earn a club fairest and best and All-Australian selection.
But his entire career has been constantly flawed with lurking leg injury woes. Such a secure seven-year deal for Darcy with lingering doubts on his sustainability in an ever-quickening AFL playing style opens the way for another eventual scenario with Dockers great Nat Fyfe.
Fyfe, at 32, suffered multiple injury setbacks over the last four seasons of his whopping seven-year deal making it into just 45 of a possible 86 games while completing his estimated $1.2 million-a-season agreement.
The Dockers superstar is now estimated to be on $400,000 a season for each of the next two years to see out his decorated career.
The new AFL players collective bargaining agreement, Fyfe’s substantial pay cut and possibly even the controversial departure of popular feisty forward Lachie Schultz in all likelihood freed up sufficient salary cap scope to extend Darcy out for such a long commitment and become almost a $7 million player.
