Show me the money?

It’s always tempting to assume the most obvious reason is the right answer, but some further consideration can often reveal other, more likely, possibilities. The Goddard free agency move is a current issue on which to test the theorem.

Conventional wisdom, and the most obvious conclusion, would suggest that Goddard is chasing more money in his move to Essendon. And it may be that it is that simple, but AussieRulesBlog — already on the record as a Goddard-sceptic — has been thinking about how other factors may have influenced the decision.

There’s no question that Goddard was well paid at St Kilda. The three-year deal offered by the Saints would have been substantial. The Bombers, keen to secure Goddard, offered more money and a four-year contract. Barring injury, it’s hard to imagine that St Kilda wouldn’t have done a further deal with Goddard, so the extra year on the contract would seem to be an unlikely deal-clincher.

The reported values of the three and four-year deals differed by around $100–150k per year: around $600k with St Kilda and low to mid $700k with the Bombers. Again, on face value, it looks like around a 25% increase, but after fees and tax, the numbers look less attractive.

For someone whose preference, apparently, was to stay with the Saints, it hasn't taken that much to break him loose. That, and the Saints’ fairly muted reaction — not to mention their unwillingness to meet the Bombers’ offer — suggests that the relationship with the Saints wasn’t all that it could have been.

Scott Watters and his leadership group may be not overly upset to lose a possibly disruptive influence, or one that maybe didn't put the team first in their eyes. For his part, Goddard may feel quite stale, may not be infatuated with Watters' methods — or may simply need some new golf partners!

Before free agency, a player moderately unhappy in his circumstances had little option but to suck it up and make the best of his situation. A player of Goddard's stature would have been an unlikely trade. It's hard to see the Bombers giving up Michael Hurley or Jobe Watson to secure Goddard, and you can be sure the Saints would have driven a bargain of that kind had the Bombers or Goddard broached the exchange.

Whatever the reason, the next Bombers–Saints game will have a little spice.

Essendon will be hoping for a result of similar benefit to the famed trade that saw Paul Salmon depart Windy Hill for Hawthorn, Darren Jarman exit the Hawks’ nest for Adelaide and Sean Wellman, the Bombers’ current defensive coach, leave the City of Churches and set up camp at centre-halfback for the Dons.

Of the other deals done in the first few days of the [sponsor name] free-agency trade period — seriously, what next? The Sorbent Toilet Break? How soon before an almost completed trade becomes "a close shave"? — the move of Quinten Lynch to the Barcodes is the one we're scratching our head over. Lynch has two genuine claims to football fame: he has a kick like a mule that isn’t as accurate or as reliable as he'd like it to be; and he makes some horrific blunders. Clearly he offers a more experienced backup to Jolly than Dawes, but he has hardly made the key forward post his own at the Eagles. A Dawes on-song offers far more upside, in our view, than Lynch. Still, anything that weakens the Barcodes is good for football!