Here's where Tom Lynch will play in 2019

At some point between now and October, if he hasn’t done so already, Tom J Lynch, co-captain of the Gold Coast Suns, will make what is likely to be the biggest decision of his career, maybe even of his life.

The choice can be stated simply if you wish to do so. Stay with Gold Coast, where he will have spent eight years of his career by the end of this season, or move elsewhere – probably Victoria.

But to state it simply belies the significant complexities both in terms of what decision Lynch makes, and how it works out in practice.

I’m going to talk through all of those complexities, but don’t worry, this won’t be all waffle for no reward. I’ll let you know at the end what my very, very, very early tip for Tom Lynch’s guernsey colours in 2019 is.

The money

Show me the money! Look, if we’re all willing to shelve the romantics for a little while, we can agree that the vast majority of players who elect to move from one club to another do so because money is a factor, often the major factor.

That’s what makes Tom Lynch’s case unique in a lot of ways though because most likely if he does decide to don new colours in 2018, he’ll be doing it for less cash than he could have earned by remaining with the Suns.

We’ll talk more about where the Suns are at a little later on, but suffice to say for now that given their lack of mature players, they probably have as much salary cap room available for 2019 and beyond as any club in the league, if not more.

They would also be well aware of just how important retaining Lynch is to the longterm future of their club. Yes, they’ve got a decent amount of young talent on the books, but that alone is not enough to become a top team. Mature, talented leaders like Lynch are badly needed at the Suns.

In additional to that, remember that the AFL has license to offer Lynch extra money outside the salary cap in order to stay in Queensland and promote the game there. What’s more, they’ve already publicly raised it as an option.

“If he re-signed with the Suns and he’s the right guy to be an ambassador on the Gold Coast and Queensland, we’d do that. And he’s the type of guy who would,” said Gillon McLachlan last year.

Gold Coast are reportedly already paying Lynch close to a million this year and you’d imagine that, for the sole reason of the welfare of their club, they’d be happy to pay that much or even more annually on a longterm deal.

Chip in an extra mil a year from Gill’s wallet and if Lynch keeps up the poker face long enough he could be rewarded with something like $15 million over seven or eight years.

Sure it sounds extreme, but the AFL is no stranger to throwing away good money after bad on the Gold Coast.

It’s just not possible that any of the seventeen other clubs in the league is going to be able to make Lynch an offer that’s even comparable to that, and if this one purely comes down to a question of blank cheques, then Lynch will be in red and gold for a long time to come.

What kind of offers will float around for him though? At the moment in the wacky and wild time that is pre-season, I’ve seen some big numbers floated by those who like to float numbers, and the most common of them has been around the $1.5 million mark.

I’m a bit of sceptic there however, for two reasons. The first of them is – and Ryan Buckland will explode from joy at the end of this sentence – smallball.

Now let’s get one thing straight, I am by no means looking to baptise myself in Ryan’s Ben Brown-hating Church of Smallball just yet, quite the opposite in fact. To begin with, it occurs to me that but for the result of one game last year (admittedly the most important one) we could all be praising Adelaide’s land of the giants forward line and hailing that as the archetype to follow in the modern era.

However, I do believe we’ve hit a patch in the AFL – and who knows how long it will last – where simply being tall is no longer a reason why you can get a game or a spot on a list.

The past few years have seen a number of truly bog average talls exit the game, and I suspect in 2018 we’re going to see less and less examples of AFL clubs playing tall players for ‘structural’ reasons unless those talls are actually serious talents.

That’s not really the sort of thing that would hurt a player of Lynch’s quality. But, I may be wrong, and the changes that happen over the next 12 months may be more radical than that. If so, clubs may seriously reconsider just how badly they need a player of his type, and just how much of their salary cap they are willing to allocate to one.

Secondly is this: Tom Lynch kicked 44 goals last year.

That’s by no means a poor return and yes he did kick 66 goals the year before, but 44 goals is not worth $1.5 million and clubs aren’t buying 2016 Tom Lynch, they’re buying 2019 Tom Lynch.

What kind of year does he have this year? All kinds of factors could influence that, but the big ones will be how he handles speculation over his contract, and whether or not the Gold Coast midfield – built largely of chewing gum, prayer, and Jarryd Lyons – can provide him with good service.

If Lynch kicks another mid-40s total of goals this year, are you happy for your club to spend $1.5 million a year on him for a term of six, seven, eight years? It’d be a roll of the dice to say the very least.

Personally, I’m tipping that if Lynch does move clubs, it’ll be for a deal in the range of $900,000 to $1.2 million per year. As we’ve said, that’s so much less than he could earn at the Suns, so, why’s it a chance to happen?

(AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy)

The Suns

Maybe this is a controversial thing for a North Melbourne fan to say, but the Gold Coast Suns are the worst positioned team in the AFL, and it’s not even close.

It would be easy to point out the number of high picks the Suns have taken in in recent years – four top tenners in the 2016 draft alone – but I don’t think there are any AFL fans out their naive enough to believe that guarantees or even makes likely success.

From observation outside the four walls of AFL clubs it seems that a crucial part of developing young players is having mature, talented leaders who they can learn off, and Gold Coast simply do not have this.

Their mature talent is comprised of guys like Michael Barlow, Pearce Hanley, and Matt Rosa – players who joined the Suns because, let’s face it, they just didn’t really have a whole lot in the way of other reasonable options.

Really the Suns’ best quality players are names like David Swallow, Steven May and of course Lynch – the small few who were drafted there early and haven’t opted to leave just yet, but have spent most of their careers playing out of tin sheds and lacking the kind of mentorship they’re now being asked to provide to a new generation.

It’s a problem that doesn’t appear to have any kind of easy fix because quality players just do not want to come to the club. The Suns tried every avenue possible to get a mature player from Hawthorn or Geelong in the past two years in trades from O’Meara and Ablett, for no bites.

It led to them doing something desperate – coughing up $800,000 a year and pick No.2 in the draft for Lachie Weller, a player who is talented certainly but was clearly overpaid and overvalued in order to get some kind, any kind of mature talent on the list.

Their list manager was sacked shortly after, but not before managing to spend the Suns’ earliest 2017 draft pick on a skinny winger no one had really heard of.

The short version? Gold Coast are a long way away from winning a premiership, and if Tom Lynch would like to win one in his career, he’s got some serious thinking to do about whether or not he’s in the right place to do it.

The AFL has thrown up enough surprises lately that I’m not going to say Gold Coast can’t win a flag in the next seven or eight years. This game moves fast and I’d say any of the AFL’s eighteen clubs could pinch one in that length of time if the make the right calls and get a few lucky breaks.

Still, on balance of probability, you’d have to say it’s unlikely. People look at the Suns and say they’re starting from scratch – but the reality is it’s worse than that. It’s one thing to build a new house from the raw materials, quite another to do it when the materials have been left out in the elements to rot for so many years before you start.

Lynch’s camp has already indicated that whether or not the Suns look like they’re making progress will factor heavily into his decision.

“Without putting a time frame on it, I’m sure by midway through next year, if they’re 0-11 but they’re competing, that might be OK. But if they’re 0-11 and getting smashed then we’ll wait and see,” said Lynch’s manager in October last year.

If it’s midway through the year, that bodes especially poorly for the Suns, who due to the Commonwealth Games don’t play a single match at their home ground of Metricon Stadium before the bye.

If Lynch is looking for an excuse to put his name on the market, I’d suspect he’ll have dozens to pick from by the midway mark of 2018.

(Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)

The suitors

So let’s say Tom Lynch does decide he wants to leave the Gold Coast Suns. Where’s he going to end up?

Victoria seems the most likely result. For starters, he’s a Victorian boy to begin with, so that carries with it obvious appeal.

Secondly, there just doesn’t seem to be a good fit among the interstate clubs. He’s likely not needed at Adelaide, GWS or West Coast, probably too expensive for the likes of Sydney or Port Adelaide, and maybe a bit older than Brisbane or Fremantle are targetting right now.

Fremantle would probably be the most likely of the bunch to have a real dig at him, but it’s hard to see what they could do to make their offer more appealing than that of a club in his home state.

So – Victoria then. And it’s already been reported just recently that Collingwood, Richmond and Hawthorn are the three clubs most seriously in the mix at this very early stage.

That’s the clubs who come in at numbers one two and three for most members last year, and they’ve all won at least one premiership in the last eight years. Hooray for equalisation, am I right?

At Richmond, Lynch would shape as a temporary partner for and eventual successor to Jack Riewoldt – something that’d be very handy, given they’ve lost Tyrone Vickery and Ben Griffiths in the past two years, and otherwise have nothing resembling a mature key forward prospect to take up Riewoldt’s mantle.

The big question is whether or not they can fit him in. North Melbourne may not have gotten Dustin Martin last year, but they succeeded in making Richmond pay big. Even in these days of a larger salary cap, can a club really afford to have two players on deals of $1 million or more for six-plus years?

Hawthorn are also in need of a longterm key forward – Jarryd Roughead is in the twilight of his career and Jack Gunston is quality, but he’s not the main man. But the big question for the Hawks is whether or not they’re willing to break the bank for him – it’s a strategy they’ve stayed away from.

As for Collingwood, well, there arguably isn’t a team in the league more desperately crying out for an A-grade tall player, and if Lynch would like to open up the paper and see his name in it a lot then there’s no better club to go to.

But are Collingwood really that much closer to succcess than Gold Coast? Yes, definitely, but they’re still a long way behind the eight-ball, and I reckon it’s more than fair to be sceptical that yet another high-profile signing is the way to magically fix that.

Are there any other Victorian clubs who could take a shot? North Melbourne and St Kilda have money to burn, but a big key forward isn’t necessarily the most logical player type for either to pursue.

Geelong would do just about anything to get him, but the state of their salary cap is a big question mark. That said, they had enough to make offers to Jake Stringer and Jack Watts last year.

Carlton could afford him, but he probably doesn’t fit into the team they’re building. Essendon, Melbourne and the Bulldogs have already made enough of an investment in key forwards.

Of course, there’s one last crucial aspect to all of this that we haven’t touched on yet.

(Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)

To match or not to match?

Given Lynch is a restricted free agent this year, Gold Coast will have the right to match a rival bid for him if he decides to leave, and in doing so force a trade with the club he intends to join. As we’ve already talked about, they should almost certainly be able to afford to do this if they want to.

It’s one thing to pay Lynch $1 millon or more a year, but it’s quite another to consider trading two first-round selections for him, which would likely be Gold Coast’s asking price.

To pay that price a club is going to need to be 100 per cent sold that Tom Lynch is the answer to all their problems, and while he’s a damned good player, it’s too early to tell if there are going to be any suitors that are quite so smitten.

However, there’s also a strong possibility that Gold Coast, even if they can afford to, could choose not to match.

I’m tipping them to finish this year with their second wooden spoon in hand, and if they were to then let Lynch go for a compensation pick, that would mean having the first two picks in a draft that’s we’ve been hearing hype about for months now.

Of course, more high draft picks aren’t the answer to Gold Coast’s problems – but if Lynch decides he wants out, then it is what they’re going to get, and they may well decide that having the first two picks (or at least two very early picks) is better than whatever they could extract in a trade.

My tip

Well, here it is, my very, very, very early prediction: in Round 1 2019, you’ll see Tom Lynch run out onto the MCG in brown and gold representing the Hawthorn Football Club.

Maybe it’s a cynical kind of fatalism, but I am quite simply of the opinion that if Hawthorn want Tom Lynch, no other club is going to be able to make a more appealing offer.

And he makes perfect sense for them – they added mature talent to their midfield in 2016 with Tom Mitchell and Jaeger O’Meara, a big key forward is the logical next step on the checklist.

Lynch, after all, is only slightly older than Mitchell and O’Meara, and the Hawks clearly recruited them with the goal of building a future core around that age bracket.

I was quite surprised this year when the Hawks were so quiet in October. They didn’t have much in the way of draft picks to spend so fair enough, but I was surprised to see them spurn the free agency market.

That kind of move would make perfect sense though if they had already set guns on going hard at Lynch this year. They’re always thinking two moves ahead and that’s why they just keep landing players.

Can Hawthorn offer Tom Lynch the success he craves? Look, I’ll admit to being a bit unsure about what the immediate future holds for them in terms of playing finals and contending for premierships.

Years of trading away draft picks has left them with a dearth of rising young talent on the list and if it were any other club in the land I’d say they were set for at least a few years wandering in the desert.

They aren’t any other club in the land though – they’re Hawthorn. Contending for premierships is what they do. They’re the most successful team in the modern era by a margin that is distinctly not funny.

Even if the odds are stacked against them, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to see them up at the pointy end of the ladder again before too much more time has passed. I reckon Tom Lynch would feel about the same.

It’d be fair to point out that the Hawks aren’t the type to make gargantuan offers and well, you’re right – and I’m not sure that policy is about to change.

But we’ve already established that, if he leaves, Lynch is taking a pay cut – and if he has to take a little bit less than he could get elsewhere to be at a club where he believes he can win a flag, that doesn’t seem like a particularly big hurdle to me.

The chief concern in my book is whether or not the Hawks would be willing to put draft picks on the line in the event that Gold Coast matches a bid.

Hawthorn have been happy to deal early picks before and they might be happy to do so again – but if they’re not in great form in 2018, or even if they are, they might feel retaining those picks is a higher priority.

It’s all speculation for now, of course – we’ll find out somewhere between now and October.

One last little teaser though. There is a club in the AFL, one that I’ve just quickly glossed over during the course of this article, who I think could set themselves up for nearly a decade of domination by making what would be a very bold, outside-the-box play for Tom Lynch.

But… more on that another time.