Gold Coast Suns coach Rodney Eade says that the defections of Jaeger O’Meara and Dion Prestia didn’t feel like a slap in the face.
The two highly touted youngsters left the Suns for Hawthorn and Richmond respectively in last year’s AFL Trade Period, leaving Eade’s side without two of its best midfielders heading into 2017.
However the 358-game coach allayed fears that their departure is a sign that Gold Coast are struggling to keep their prized talent, branding the situation as ‘not a big deal’.
“I certainly think people are making too big a deal of it,” he said on SEN Breakfast’s The Wednesday Crunch.
“There has been a lot of rhetoric around ‘can’t keep players’. There’s probably only four players, including those two (O’Meara and Prestia), who we have tried to keep…it’s not a big deal.
“We’ve got six at the end of the year who are out of contract. Three have already signed and the other three will sign within the next month, so I think internally there is a bit of a different attitude to it than what people see externally.”
The former Sydney Swans and Western Bulldogs coach revealed that while the Suns wanted to keep O’Meara at the club, he personally held doubts for the midfielder’s longevity after his battles with multiple knee injuries.
“I certainly would have loved him to stay. He is a jet, he is a great kid, he has got a great attitude but he hadn’t played for two years,” said Eade.
“Whoever we were going to get – you can say Jarryd Lyons from Adelaide - we’ve been able to get a player that we know is going to play 22 games.
“I suppose putting my experienced hat on, not playing for two years, was there going to be other issues? The history of what he has had with his body, there has got to be some question marks. He can’t say 100 per cent that he is going to be able to play.”
Eade also revealed that Gold Coast did not even ponder matching Richmond’s offer to lure Prestia to Punt Road.
“The offer he got was way too big for us to even consider matching,” he said.
Click here to view Jaeger O'Meara's SEN Inside Football AFL Player Ratings.
Click here to view Dion Prestia's SEN Inside Football AFL Player Ratings.