Tim Kelly’s manager Anthony van der Wielen says his client always knew being traded from Geelong this year was a “long shot”.
The 24-year-old requested to be traded to West Coast in order to get back home to Perth, but the Cats and Eagles failed to break a stalemate over Kelly’s worth yesterday.
Despite not getting his desired result, Kelly’s manager says his client will be ready to go and focused on the task at hand with Geelong next year.
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“He didn’t get the result he ideally wanted last night but he knew it was always going to be a bit of a long shot to leave after one year,” van der Wielen told SEN Mornings.
“He is a professional, he will bounce back, he will be at Geelong next year and I’m sure he will play just as good a footy as he played this season and we will deal with it all again next year.
“He is fine with it. He knew it was going to be hard to leave Geelong this year but we went to Geelong and said, he has a bit of currency, we know the other clubs are going to come and ask and put his name on the table.
“If you can facilitate a deal now and get something out of it, we would love to go home, if you can't, we understand and we will be back next year.
“He had to get his head around that beforehand.”
Kelly is likely to once again seek a move home when he is out of contract at the end of 2019, and van der Wielen says he thought the Cats would potentially receive a greater return if they moved him on at yesterday’s deadline.
“We just thought Geelong would probably see an opportunity to get a little bit more in return for him if he were to move while he was in contract, rather than at the end of his contract,” he said.
Listen to Anthony van der Wielen’s chat with Brett Phillips on SEN Mornings in the player below