- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Opinion
Hopefully, this doesn’t come across as a ‘killing Bambi’s mother’-type article, but it’s time to paint a realistic picture of the future of Harley Reid.
The intention is not to bring down a talented young player, or to search for and nit-pick every negative even where one doesn’t exist – but it is also far too early in his hopefully long and glittering career to post him in the same discussion as players worth $2 million a season.
Yes, numbers-wise, the 19-year old Reid has had a strong start to his career at West Coast, with 109 disposals from his six games at an average of 18.2 per game.
He even had 27 disposals in the 39-point win against Richmond as his side posted their first victory of the season.
Add to that five goals in those six games – three in the Derby against Fremantle alone – and his career statistics after two months look quite impressive.
According to the AFL’s website, all of his stat categories, apart from two, have him in the ‘Above Average’ category (handballs and total clearances) when compared to the rest of the competition.
He has established himself as a near-unbackable favourite for the Rising Star award, perhaps not just for his statistics and reputation, but also his on-ground highlights that make him look like a genuine footballer.
In the hammering against the Western Bulldogs, he stood up physically to shove Adam Treloar over the boundary, and then soared for a pair of great marks against Freo, showing that beyond the numbers lies a teenager playing with plenty of confidence against the big stars of the game.
Some are already saying he’s the heart and soul of the Eagles team, who had a mini-form reversal in recent weeks.
But how much of the change is down to Reid, and how much is it Adam Simpson’s game plan, or even his teammates firing up after four straight losses and many fans and commentators condemning them to the bottom for years to come?
These are obviously hypotheticals, and honestly, we’d really be throwing darts at a board to land on an answer. But one thing that is clear is that one man does not make a team.
Understandably all those months and seasons at the bottom would take a toll. Whether they keep this form up and have turned a corner, or is it only a temporary sugar hit, only time will tell.
But if West Coast are going to rely on Reid keeping their momentum rolling, they will need to find a more rounded team gameplan. One star player can’t do it all alone, even when and if their rising star becomes the player we all think he will be.
Support your AFL team in style – check out The Oodie! They’ve got Adult Oodies for all 18 teams as well as Kids Oodies and even Dog Oodies available in selected teams. Made from the softest, premium fabrics they are the comfiest memorabilia you’ll ever wear! #GetYourOodieOn
If the Eagles do manage to get back in the finals mix in the short term, they can’t have him sitting on the pine or being a slow motor on the field when every other contender is starting to rev their Ferraris.
All this to say, it’s a lot to expect of one player, especially so young. And it’s worth noting that a number one pick, even a superstar, hasn’t always correlated with major success – in fact, quite the opposite.
Here is the list of top picks going back to 2000:
Some of these players, especially those at the top from 2000-2006, did have quite some success – they featured in hundreds of games, got their teams into finals and played like superstars.
But there were also a lot of stories of missed potential and wasted opportunities too. And here’s the clincher – only two of them, Hodge and Boyd, were involved in premiership success.
Some were down to mismanagement by the club and others were forced into ‘early’ retirement due to injuries; Watts, Scully, Patton and Boyd to name a few.
Scully might be the best example here: he enjoyed a similarly bright start to AFL life as Reid, if less spectacularly so, winning 39 disposals and three Brownlow votes in his seventh game and being dubbed Melbourne’s great white hope.
Yet it didn’t work out, and Scully was only ever a decent contributor after jumping ship for GWS on the kind of monster money currently being floated at Reid.
There may have been too much pressure from both inside clubs and the outside footy world to get the most out of these players, but more than likely, it’s just the nature of life and the AFL Draft.
We are pretty much just guessing how a player will perform and how long his body will hold up through his career at the age of 18.
The system also requires top picks to go to lower-performing clubs, so they have to work extremely hard from the moment they arrive at a club, rather than just gliding into premiership-winning structures.
It raises the question, what is the pass mark for a number one pick? The draft only gets them to a club; once they are in the AFL, they need to keep performing to keep earning contracts.
With only Hodge and Boyd from the above list winning a premiership, is playing 200 to 300 games a fair average milestone to reach, is it playing finals, is it winning club best and fairests, or being at the top of Brownlow counts?
There are still some from that list who are early in their careers and still carving a name for themselves, and success could very well be on the horizon, but for the majority of No.1s things didn’t quite go to plan.
West Coast needs to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen to Reid – but more importantly, the management needs to keep a level head.
The likes of Andrew Gaff, Jack Darling, Jeremy McGovern, Jamie Cripps, Elliot Yeo, Tim Kelly, Dom Sheed, Tom Barrass and Liam Duggan are set to come off contract before Reid’s next signature is due.
It would be irresponsible for the Eagles to throw the kitchen sink at keeping Reid at the expense of building a solid, well-rounded team around him.
After all, Geelong, Hawthorn, Melbourne and Richmond’s success in recent years has not been surrounding one player.
The Cats and Hawks even lost their greatest champions, Gary Ablett and Lance Franklin, to cashed-up rivals, yet won premierships the very next year. No player is worth breaking the bank for.
After years at the bottom, the last thing the Eagles need is a dud investment.
Reid should be kept on incentive-based deals for now, because as good as a start Reid has had, he still needs to prove his long-haul value to be worth a multi-million dollar contract so early in his career.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.