Adelaide Crows great Mark Bickley believes Fischer McAsey was thrown into the deep end too early in his career and may have never properly recovered, leading to the 21-year-old’s announcement on Monday morning.
McAsey announced he was stepping away from the AFL via a statement, saying he’d lost a lot of the enjoyment in footy. The key position former Crow played 10 games for Adelaide, all of which came in his first season after being drafted with pick six in the 2019 National Draft.
The news came more than a month after announcing he was taking personal leave for the club as pre-season got underway for the Crows.
Reacting to the news on SEN’s The Run Home, Bickley noted it wasn’t a major surprise.
“It has been bubbling away a little bit. Late last year he requested to go back to Melbourne and spend some time with his family, just wanted to step away from the club for personal reasons,” the two-time premiership captain said.
“That was a red flag that things weren’t going perfectly, and he’s just had such an interrupted journey with his footy career.
“He was pick six, really highly rated, he actually won the MVP at the National Championships (in his draft year). Blokes like Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson (picks one and two), he was the MVP ahead of those guys.
“Highly touted… but then came over and pretty much as soon as he got over, COVID hit. He was isolated… a lot of the young players, they do take some time to acclimatise and (adjust to) moving interstate.
“When you’re isolated like that in a city where you don’t know many people, that was clearly difficult.”
McAsey featured in 10 of the first 12 rounds in 2020 as a key defender but did not feature at senior level again.
The 197cm prospect then failed to make an impact for much of his SANFL career throughout 2021 and 2022 when being tried at both ends of the ground.
McAsey continues a questionable strike rate for the Crows in the first round of the draft. The club has a lack of star youngsters coming through, despite eight first round draft picks in the last five years.
But with the development of Jordan Butts over the past 24 months, Bickley doesn’t believe McAsey’s decision will hurt the Crows as much as it could have.
“He was pretty much thrown into the deep end as well. Adelaide was really battling at that stage (after he was drafted), he played 10 games in his first year probably before he was ready and at different stages got exposed, and I think that really rocked his confidence,” Bickley stated.
“He didn’t play any (AFL) footy after that, to be quite frank he’s been battling at the SANFL level over here, hasn’t really been a dominant player at that lower level.
“It’s hard for Adelaide as well. Their record with some of their first round picks hasn’t been great, any bust in the top 10 potentially can hurt you so they’ll be a little bit flat with that.
“I’m not sure it's going to be a real disaster for them because they’ve been able to minimise that through some shrewd picking late in the draft (Butts).”
Bickley and respected media presenter Jarrod Walsh will link up as the fresh SEN SA Breakfast team, with the show to commence on February 14.