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Fremantle have delisted Ryan Crowley, a month after the tagger completed a one-year doping ban.
But his long-time teammate and Dockers games record holder Matthew Pavlich insists he has yet to decide on his AFL future.
The controversial Crowley played 188 games for the Dockers, the last of which came late in the 2014 season.
A backdated one-year suspension for a banned substance ended midway through this year’s finals campaign, although coach Ross Lyon resisted the temptation to call on the 31-year-old for the preliminary final against Hawthorn – a match the Dockers lost by 27 points.
Also on Friday, utility Paul Duffield announced his retirement, ending a 171-match career.
Fremantle’s general manager of football operations Chris Bond said Crowley and Duffield had both made great contributions to the club over long careers.
“Paul is a life member and has spent his entire career at Fremantle,” Bond said in a statement.
“He has been a strong part of our recent on-field success and helped develop our younger players by sharing his valuable knowledge of the game.
“Ryan became the competition’s premier tagger and has been a popular player around the club and with fans.
“He left nothing out on the ground during his 188 games for Fremantle.”
Crowley won the Dockers’ best and fairest award in 2012.
The Dockers also delisted Josh Deluca and Max Duffy but committed to redrafting the teenaged Deluca as a rookie in November.
The focus will now shift to Pavlich, who is set to call time on his decorated 335-game career some time in the next few days.
Speaking at his book launch in Perth on Thursday, Pavlich said he still had a couple of weeks to make up his mind, despite his young daughter’s enthusiasm that he play on for one more year.
“I turned to her at one point and said ‘what should daddy do next year?’ and she looked at me and said ‘daddy play footy’,” he said, attracting a loud cheer from the audience.
Pavlich, who turns 34 in December, has played in a club record 335 games for the Dockers.
His likely successor as Dockers captain is Brownlow medallist Nat Fyfe, although Pavlich noted there were several other contenders to be the next skipper.
Born in Adelaide, Pavlich was selected by the Dockers with pick four in the 1999 national draft.
He is a six-time All-Australian and has also won half a dozen club best and fairest awards.
Despite being widely revered in the AFL, Pavlich never won a premiership, with Fremantle losing the 2013 grand final to the Hawks.
Pavlich said he felt like he let people down because he never claimed the cup, but had always tried to be the best leader he could for the club.
Speaking about his autobiography, Pavlich joked that he had a relatively “vanilla” life compared to some other footballers in WA, but still had some tales to tell.
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