It takes quite a bit to baffle former Kangaroo hardman Glenn Archer. The only things that seem to baffle the hardest man to ever play the game are being able to hold an opinion on something other than North Melbourne when on Footy Classified and understanding why most people put locks on the toilet doors in their homes.
In fact, if that last conundrum hadn’t puzzled Archer, Wayne Carey would still be captain and Anthony Stevens’ access to his kids would be greater than every second weekend.
Another topic which has baffled Archer, as well as most of the general football public, is Kangaroos coach Dean Laidley’s proclamation that star young ruckman Hamish McIntosh was a potential trade option this week.
Adopting the “giving too much information away” trading strategy usually implemented by Fremantle, resulting in trades like Chris Groom for Andrew McLeod, Laidley accidentally read the part of his media brief with the heading NOT FOR THE MEDIA aloud to the media and mentioned the club were looking to dispose of McIntosh, forward Corey Jones and centreman Daniel Harris.
While stunned at the news, Archer doesn’t believe any deal involving McIntosh will go through.
“I can’t see them going through with it, if they do it would be pretty illogical, but you never know,” he said with a comment that rightly doesn’t rule anything stupid out when past trading and drafting history for North Melbourne shows acquisitions such as Ricky Olarenshaw (2000), Ben Davies (2008), Brad Plain (1996), Julian Kirzner (1997), David Bourke (2003), Jade Rawlings (2006), Joe McLaren (2001), David Calthorpe (2000), Lance Picioane (2005), Ben Robbins (2002) and the late Gary Dhurrkay (1999).
Given the state of North’s stuck-in-the-middle list, whereby they’re not good enough to win a premiership but not bad enough to bottom out for early draft picks, it is somewhat understandable that the club may want to cleanout some dead wood. Jones and Harris we could see.
The former is a flakey, soft, inconsistent forward who parlayed his way into a fat contract on the back of one good season, while the latter is a slightly worse version of Shane O’Bree, which makes him a slightly better version of Adam Bentick.
But trading a 203 cm stud with All-Australian potential seems ludicrous when the club doing the trading has so few valuable assets, whether on-field or off, that McIntosh comes in at number two on a list of most important Kangaroo resources behind that mini-bus Archer bought for the club a few years ago.
Upon hearing the news, McIntosh, as well as most Roos supporters, had that same feeling of disbelief and shock that punters at the annual Archer family barbecue had in 2002 when they opened up the toilet door. In both instances a faulty knob was to blame; although calling Laidley a knob may be an insult to knobs everywhere.
The worst aspect from a Kangaroos perspective, besides pissing off their best young player, is the fact that said best young player was re-signed to a three-year contract earlier this year after making the All-Australian final 40 list with a stellar 2007 season, meaning if a trade can’t be reached, they now have an unhappy player on their list for the next three years.
So, at the end of this debacle, here’s what we have:
A club with a dearth of talented youngsters wants to trade their most talented youngster, a man who wants to stay at the club, and who was re-signed on a fat new contract a matter of weeks ago.
Why would North want to trade this same player away?
Archer’s right, it is totally “illogical,” which makes Best Clubman wonder if there’s some sort of non-footballing issue at play.
Can anyone account for the whereabouts of Adam Simpson’s wife Nicky and McIntosh in the early hours of the morning after the Brownlow?
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