Port Adelaide handed star recruit Jason Horne-Francis a six-year deal upon joining the club and some have wondered – what does Kane Cornes think about that?
The Power great has expressed his dislike of long-term contracts on many occasions, including deals for the likes of Rory Sloane, Charlie Curnow and Clayton Oliver.
Horne-Francis, at 19, requested a trade out of North Melbourne, with his professionalism called into question across the year including being dropped once for behavioural reasons by the Roos.
Fremantle great Paul Hasleby slammed the contract, labelling it “absolutely ridiculous”.
Cornes however backs the six-year deal, saying the midfielder will only be 25 when the contract is up.
“I detest long term contracts and I think rarely if ever do they work out in favour of the club,” he told AFL Trade Radio's The Early Trade
“There’s a couple of exceptions. You might say Dustin Martin, Lance Franklin probably gets the tick. Other than that, I’m yet to see many examples of them working.
“I can see why Port Adelaide has done this and you might say that’s the Port Adelaide bias – one of those six years is a standard second-year player contract. $120,000 plus match payments. Well under the AFL average.
“It’s essentially a five-year deal. The guy is 19. At the end of this deal, he is going to be 25. It’s not like Jacob Hopper who is 27 and going to be Trent Cotchin’s age by the time he’s finished at Richmond.
“In terms of the money, I don’t know, I imagine it would be a significant contract in the range of $600,000 and $700,000 with some incentives and benchmarks.
“I don’t love it on the surface, but I’m not dead against it considering the guy is going to be 25.
“What number one draft pick in the history of the game has been out of the system at 24. I don’t reckon any. I don’t think it’s a big risk.
“If Nick Daicos signed a six-year deal, I would go ‘okay I can understand that’. People were saying Horne-Francis was going to be better than Daicos.
“It’s not a seven-eight-year Clayton Oliver deal that’s going to take you to your mid-30s. That’s how I would justify it.
“In an ideal world you give him a four-year deal, but he’s going to be 24 and you back yourself in. It’s a massive investment getting him in and you clearly rate him and I think there would be some protection in the deal. On the surface, I don’t hate it like some other deals.
“Like Rory Sloane getting five years at 28 when he’s had significant injuries is a bit different to Horne-Francis getting a five-year deal at 18.”
Port Adelaide also gained West Coast’s Willie Rioli in what shapes as a huge trade period for the club.