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How different would the floundering Greater Western Sydney Giants look with Gary Ablett in their side?
Granted, Ablett is comfortably the best player in the AFL and would dramatically improve any team. But GWS must be ruing their decision to spend a similar amount of money to secure the misfiring Tom Scully as their marquee.
The AFL’s newest club have invested an extraordinary $6 million over six years to pay a man who was meant to be a match winner but now has been reduced to playing the role of a tagger.
GWS obviously had no chance to secure Ablett given he was already signed up to Gold Coast. But with every 35-possession haul racked up by the prolific and dynamic midfielder, GWS surely curse their inability to secure a marquee even close to being as effective as Ablett.
GWS’ selection of Scully as their major signing was always questionable. He was an unproven, albeit tremendously gifted rookie. Many similar players have gone on to have mediocre careers which did not befit their talent.
In other words, he was a speculative investment by a club which desperately needed to nail its recruitment, particularly of those players on big money. They plumped for the 2009 number one draft pick Scully, with then chief executive Dale Holmes describing him as “the best young player available”.
Admittedly, Scully had made a very impressive start to his AFL career at Melbourne, averaging 22 touches a game in his two seasons with the Demons. But he has been a flop at GWS, never managing to equal that same level of statistical output despite entering his prime years.
Scully was meant to be the kind of midfielder who shaped games by winning the ball both on the inside and the outside and maiming the opposition with incisive ball use. He was meant to be a player that opponents formulated plans around.
In his 50 matches for the Giants, only twice has he registered more than 30 touches. He has also had minimal impact on the scoreboard, averaging just 0.38 goals per game. Neither his tackles nor clearances per game have been better at GWS than they were in his novice years at Melbourne.
Because Scully is tucked away up in Sydney playing for the competition’s lowest-profile side, he has flown under the radar to a large degree. Remarkably, his former Melbourne teammate and fellow number one draft pick Jack Watts is subjected to far greater scrutiny and criticism despite being on a comparatively minuscule wage at the Demons.
Once rugby league convert Karmichael Hunt expectedly ends his strange stint in Australian rules football at the end of this season, Scully will become comfortably the most overpaid player in the AFL.
It is an awful title to own and one that will haunt both the player and his labouring club.