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Dashing defender Nick Blakey has signed a monster new seven-year contract with Sydney, becoming the latest AFL star to pen a long-term deal.
The 23-year-old was not due to come out of contract until the end of next season but has reaffirmed his commitment to the Swans after 89 games with the club.
The new contract ties cult hero Blakey to Sydney until the end of 2031 – the longest player deal in the competition.
Melbourne midfield gun Clayton Oliver and Carlton key forward Harry McKay are signed to their respective clubs until 2030.
“I grew up supporting this club, so to be here for a while longer is very nice and I’m very excited for the future,” Blakey said.
“I can’t see myself playing football anywhere else, so to be here for another eight years, with next year as well, is exciting.
“I’m very humbled that the club is signing me on for that long.”
Blakey is the son of Fitzroy and North Melbourne champion John Blakey, who was an assistant coach with Sydney until 2020.
The former No.10 draft pick and Swans academy graduate feels at home under long-time senior coach John Longmire.
“Our team is all so close,” Blakey said.
“We’re really good mates and we’re building something special, so hopefully this group sticks together and we can do some exciting things in the future.”
Sydney football manager Charlie Gardiner was thrilled to secure Blakey on a long-term deal.
“Nick is a great young man and a very important part of our young group, so we are delighted that he has chosen to extend his career with the Swans long-term,” Gardiner said.
“He has some unique talents on field and has worked incredibly hard to overcome injuries over the past couple of years to turn himself into a high-quality defender and provide enormous flexibility to the team.”
Nick Blakey pointing to where the muscles should go. (Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Collingwood icon Nathan Buckley has come to Jordan De Goey’s defence, after the Magpies star was savaged by outspoken media presenter Kane Cornes for a high bump on West Coast youngster Elijah Hewett.
Cornes labelled the hit a ‘weak act’ on Channel 9’s Sunday Footy Show, which Buckley took umbrage with in a heated exchange between the pair on SEN radio.
“He definitely deserves to be up at Tribunal and he’ll get the weeks that he deserves,” Buckley said of De Goey.
“For mine it’s a three, but I think the reaction post this incident has been over the top. I thought it was a football action, it was an instinctive football action. It’s one not accepted in the game now. There was no raised elbows or real jumping off the ground.”
Buckley wasn’t impressed with Cornes’ ‘weak’ comment; nor his reference to De Goey’s litany of off-field controversies, saying the two issues are ‘separate’.
“You made a comment about you thought it was ‘weak.’ I don’t agree with you at all,” Buckley said.
“There was stuff you tried to wrap in about his off-field misdemeanours… you’re judging that every player needs to have a certain level of professionalism and understanding of what it takes to be an AFL footballer.
“But all of that is separate to what happened on the field with Jordy De Goey. That was a knee jerk, instant and blink of an eye outcome.
“I don’t reckon five metres before that he was thinking he was going to iron the kid out, I’m thinking he was thinking he was going to go in and tackle him.”
However, Cornes disagreed, saying Buckley was being ‘extremely lenient’ in ruling the contact accidental.
“This guy is a skilful player who can turn on a dime, pick the ball up and snap it over his shoulder,” Cornes said of De Goey.
“In the moment, he’s got options – he can tackle and he can corral a defenceless player who’s gotten rid of the ball, and he jumps off the ground and smashes his shoulder into his head.”
“He’s not a defenceless player, he’s a footballer on an AFL field,” Buckley answered.
He’s an 18-year old kid who got rid of the footy and wasn’t expecting to be bumped in the head in that moment,” was Cornes’ response – which Buckley again took issue with.
“You tried to wrap up the fact that Jordy shouldn’t have had that contest against that opposition because they’re lowly ranked,” he said.
“It’s not going to be part of the calculation. As a coach, I want my players to go out and play on edge all the time – a guy like Jordy De Goey, who’s a physical beast… does play on the edge and with aggression.
“The way you played and what you think is weak, would be different to what he thinks was weak.
“[West Coast’s] dom Sheed saying: ‘I’ve now seen the vision and maybe we should have stood up for him.’ None of the players stood up because it wasn’t seen as anything outside of a football act – otherwise, his teammates would have got over and remonstrated.”
Cornes wasn’t the only party to cop Buckley’s ire – the former Magpies captain and coach was also unimpressed by West Coast’s response to the incident, who posted news of De Goey being sent to the Tribunal for the bump to their social media platforms. The posts have since been deleted.
“What are West Coast tweeting about Jordy De Goey? It’s none of their business,” Buckley said.
The Eagles have also been slammed for commenting on the length of De Goey’s suspension, with star Dom Sheed saying he deserved ‘a month or two on the sidelines’ for the hit.
Speaking on the Eddie and Jimmy Podcast, former great Jimmy Bartel was scathing.
“OK Dom, you’re taking the piss there,” Bartel said.
“I get that was a nice little joke and I hope that’s a joke. Your teammate Andrew Gaff got eight weeks for king hitting someone – that’s two months, mate. It’s a bump.
“If you come out and say two months, it’s just ill-informed and it’s uneducated regarding what the actual system is.
“Dominic, tell me how it gets to eight matches? He intentionally got him in the head? No, he didn’t.
“If you felt so bad about it Dom, maybe go and stick up for your teammate?”
De Goey is expected to receive a three-match suspension when he appears at the Tribunal on Tuesday night.
Jordan De Goey of the Magpies bumps Elijah Hewett of the Eagles. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
Adelaide have lost key defender Tom Doedee for the rest of the AFL season with an ACL rupture in his right knee.
It is a significant blow to the finals hopes of the Crows, who are coming off an upset loss to Gold Coast that dropped them out of the top eight.
Doedee suffered the injury in the first term of Saturday night’s loss to the Suns.
Scans on Sunday in Adelaide confirmed the rupture, and Doedee will need surgery.
“Unfortunately it’s not the news we were hoping for and scans have confirmed that Tom has ruptured his ACL,” Crows high performance manager Darren Burgess said in a club statement.
“He was clearly in some discomfort after coming from the ground on Saturday night and now we have confirmation of the injury which will sideline him for the rest of the season.
“We all share Tom’s disappointment and we are supporting him as best we can as he prepares for surgery and then rehabilitation.
“What we know of Tom is he is of high character and the utmost professional, and having been through this process once before, knows what it takes to get back to playing at the highest level.”
Doedee also suffered an ACL rupture in his left knee during round one of the 2019 season, sidelining him for the rest of the year.
Adelaide are counting the cost of the disappointing loss to the Gold Coast, with Crows coach Matthew Nicks suggesting analysis of their performance will find some “quite glaring” holes.
Not only did they lose Doedee, they threw away a 35-point lead to the Suns’ nine straight goals to lose by 25 points in Darwin.
Nicks lamented the huge swing in the second and third quarters, when the Suns took complete control at the contest and lifted their intensity across the field to surge into a match-winning position.
“That was probably the most disappointing thing sitting in the rooms post-game, that run they went on,” he said.
“We got a lot of things wrong during that period … some of our contest wasn’t at the level and that put us under so much pressure.
“For us to then bring it back and still find the front again, is something we will take away from this game, but we’re going to have to really look at this one and find out where we could have done better, and I think it will be quite glaring.”
Adelaide sit ninth on the ladder and still have a 6-6 record, although their 1-4 record away from home is clearly setting off alarm bells throughout the club.
“We need to do better, we know that,” Nicks said.
“It’s something that is front of mind for us.
“We’ll go back and have another look at it but we understand we’ve just got to be better.”
(AAP)
Tom Doedee of the Crows. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
One incident in Carlton’s loss to Melbourne on Friday night has summed up the team’s malaise in 2023, according to former player and AFL analyst David King.
King was shocked to see a major defensive error by wingman Lochie O’Brien, who allowed direct opponent Alex Neal-Bullen far too much space to crumb a pack and kick an early goal, receive a ‘staggering’ lack of reaction from his Blues teammates.
“This is not about system, this is not about strategy. This is about attitude, application and setting standards, or not allowing poor standards to be part of your football club,” King said on Fox Footy’s First Crack.
“Not one discussion about what broke down. Not one bit of feedback or challenge to the guy who’s just let you down.
“Not one point to Lochie O’Brien saying ‘Hey mate, we need better than that’… not one person said anything in the breakdown of that goal.
“I find that staggering. I’m almost angry; I’m not even a Carlton fan. For a Carlton fan to see that you’d say, how invested are you, that every goal that we concede doesn’t hurt? I think the fans sometimes hurt more than the players.”
King compared the lack of response to how he expected Melbourne to react to a similar incident, saying Steven May would have acted ‘like a soccer goalkeeper’ had it been a Demon making a mistake of that magnitude.
“You see Melbourne conceding goals, Steven May, he’s like a soccer goalkeeper for two minutes. He goes into a frenzy to sort it out so it doesn’t happen again.
“And so if you let that play out, the same play happens the next two to three minutes. They sit you down during the week and say ‘Hey mate, we can’t live with this’. Does that happen at Carlton?
“Not only is it not happening – they’ve got no idea. No idea. That is awful.”
Having dropped to 14th on the ladder with five consecutive losses, the Blues face old rivals Essendon next on Sunday night, in what looms as a final chance to revive their spluttering season.
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