Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge says his door is open to Jason Johannisen should he want to re-start contract talks through the AFL season.
The reigning Norm Smith medallist has put off negotiations until the end of the season, with the two parties reportedly a long way apart on contract terms.
Beveridge admitted he was concerned about the delay.
“Yeah, (it worries me) a little bit,” Beveridge said on Thursday.
“It’s a first time for me. JJ’s situation is quite unique.
“I think the simple way to look at it is JJ has backed himself to have a great year and leverage a contract for the future.”
Beveridge said he had spoken to the speedster this week and warned him of the risk of doing that.
“He’s aware of that and he’s made a fully informed decision to put the contract talks off,” Beveridge said.
“Although he probably takes on a little bit of risk in doing that, all that I can do and we can do is just support him.
“If JJ establishes himself as that player that can demand what he’s after, then full credit to him.”
But the coach also offered Johannisen an out.
“I said to him that if at any stage through the year that he feels he wants to get something done earlier, than let’s go there because that’s obviously what we want and there’s no reason why he can’t change his mind,” Beveridge said.
Beveridge said he didn’t believe Johannisen wanted to leave the AFL champions and that the pull of his home state, Western Australia, is a factor..
“He wants to be a Bulldogs player and that’s encouraging so I will take him at his word,” Beveridge said.
mattyb
Guest
I'm not sure the players worry that much about Boyds pay,it's more the fans. Tall forwards at most clubs are overpaid. Players just look at their own market value. The dogs will either lose fringe players who are offered a little bit more that we can't afford or a star who's thrown a huge contract we wouldn't be able to afford anyway,Boyd or no Boyd. With Boyd though,apart from two good finals,a game against Hawthorn in Tassie and a practise game against Collingwood,he is very average indeed. Still plenty of time but I'm certainly not a gatekeeper type who's going to suggest Boyd isn't overpaid at this point. We did pay close to market value though as I can think of a couple of clubs who would have paid the same. I would think at this point there would also be a couple of clubs who are glad they didn't.
berrlins
Roar Pro
There is the go home factor with a few dogs players being west Australian including JJ, but I think if the dogs gave him what he wanted he'd stay in a heartbeat. The Boyd contract was made with the new bargaining agreement in mind. They did it thinking that the salary cap increase would give them plenty of room to move. It remains to be seen whether that will come back to bite them. But there's also the point that there might be several dogs players who think they deserve as much as Boyd and in some cases probably rightly so.
mattyb
Guest
I'm pretty sure Boyds contract is heavily front ended. The issue money wise will more be all the players are around the same age and very young so they will all want pay rises at the same time. It's a very unique situation that deserves considered discussion rather than the obvious blame Boyd type stuff.
Cat
Roar Guru
Everyone wants to stay ... until they don't. It will probably get done, unless Tom Boyd's monster contract is eating up too much cap space and making list management difficult now.
berrlins
Roar Pro
It's not such a big concern, by all reports he wants to stay at the dogs he just wants more money. With the bargaining agreement hopefully finalised before the end of the season he may be able to get it, and it gives him this year to justify why he deserves more.
mattyb
Guest
The dogs need to offer JJ what he's worth and get this deal done. He's versatile,has electrifying road runner speed,apart from the gf is a pretty good ball user,he's a Norm Smith medalist and would be AA if not for injury. We need to pay him $600-700k a year I'd guess. I'm going out on a limb and saying JJ is in the top 3 most important dogs players. He also seems pretty marketable. Dalrymple has done a good job recruiting,if Jason McCartney can't get this deal done so early in our era of dominance,he will need to be moved on and someone capable of doing the job installed in that position.The dogs will also lose Murphy,Boyd and Morris shortly,and with Hamling already lost we can't afford to just happily lose another defender. I love the dogs but I'm not blind and I think something is up here. If it's as simple as someone lowballing JJ we just need to show that person the door and move forward in our destiny as one of the greatest sides of any era. I'm happy with the way the clubs going obviously,but if some backroom boy is mucking things up we need to deal with it pronto.