North Melbourne has confirmed four players on their list are untouchable as they enter their rebuild – Ben Brown and Jared Polec are not among them.
Speaking to the Herald Sun, Head of Football Brady Rawlings listed Ben Cunnington, Todd Goldstein, Shaun Higgins and Jack Ziebell as the four players who would not be put up for trade.
On top of that, the Roos won’t be entertaining trades for their top draft picks either. They currently hold pick two as well as Melbourne’s first round selection.
North Melbourne has 23 players out of contract and Rawlings stated there are “big decisions to be made”.
Brown headlines that group of 23 that includes Jasper Pittard, Majak Daw, Mason Wood, Ben Jacobs, Jamie Macmillan, Paul Ahern, Ed Vickers-Willis, Taylor Garner, Sam Durdin and Marley Williams.
Polec also seems to be on the outer and can’t find his way back into a depleted North Melbourne team.
Garry Lyon explains why the outside midfielder has been forced out of the side.
“I got a little heads up about that and it is just an issue with his ability to carry out instruction, that’s where that one sits,” Lyon told SEN Breakfast.
Tim Watson expects Polec to return to the team before the end of the season to improve his trade value, but wonders how a fourth team would approach him.
“That becomes an issue in the recruitment of him,” Watson said.
“You can sit down with a player and they can say all the right things and they can blame everyone else and you can leave that meeting thinking, ‘okay let me at this bloke, give me a chance with him, I think we can turn him around. We know he’s an AFL player with AFL talent who can do all the things we’re looking for in a player’.
“But then when he gets there, then you don’t know if he’s going to do all the things he said he’s going to do and then you can look like you have been left with egg on his face because the signs were there.”