Port Adelaide great Kane Cornes thinks Jordan De Goey should count his lucky stars that Collingwood got over the line against Gold Coast on Saturday night given his poor individual performance.
Returning for the clash after taking a week off for personal reasons in the fallout of his highly-publicised Bali trip, De Goey had just 11 disposals, 3 uncontested possessions and zero marks in an individual outing to forget.
Given he didn’t train at the club during his week off ahead of Round 15, Cornes believes that De Goey’s performance was a by-product of the Magpie taking shortcuts in his preparation.
“You ask whether Collingwood can win the flag, well they can’t if they get a performance out of Jordan De Goey like they got last night,” Cornes said on Nine’s Sunday Footy Show.
“It was one of the worst games of his career and I think he’ll be quickly finding out that there are no shortcuts in this game.
“You just cannot shortcut yourself through a pre-season, you can’t go overseas, you can’t miss a week of training.
“You can’t not be preparing yourself like the other elite players in the competition.
“Compare his performance to players like he should be having similar an impact on games like (Christian) Petracca, they’re a similar type of player, that’s the impact Jordan De Goey should be doing.
“There are no shortcuts and hopefully he’s starting to wake up to that fact.
“Last night he almost cost them the win and he’s lucky that he’s waking up on the winning side.
“If they had lost that, a fair portion of blame would be laid on Jordan De Goey.”
With De Goey out of contract at the end of 2022, Essendon great Matthew Lloyd asked Cornes whether the midfielder should be paid more than a number of his teammates that are currently in better form than the 26-year-old,
“That’s sort of the dilemma for them,” Cornes responded.
“His performance doesn’t warrant being paid in the top five at Collingwood, he’s finished in the top five of the B&F once.
“(Jack) Crisp absolutely should be paid more money, I mean (Darcy) Cameron just signed a new contract and what he’s delivering compared to what Jordan De Goey is more influential on the contest
“I think he probably leaves at the end of the year, that’s the gut feel that you get but you certainly wouldn’t want to be overpaying Jordan De Goey.”
De Goey will get his chance to respond when the Magpies host the Kangaroos at the MCG next Saturday.