You don’t think the club would have that conversation before we sign him?
Seems like common sense to me.
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Does a happy Connor for 21 rounds with a 2 round break in the middle for a visit home help the team? You’d know it’s coming, you could plan around it.
All the talk about him traveling home was around lack of commitment. There was no discussion of player welfare or mental health.
Some of the snippets of what he was going through mentally were scary bad. This wasn’t a case of ego or entitlement, he was going through an extremely rough patch and the media were horrific. Comments from team mates were largely around them wanting him to be ok and happy, they could clearly see what he was going through.
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It’s interesting how Francis wanting to head home and see his family is a positive.
But McKenna doing it, is being ‘uncommitted’.
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i imagine if francis runs around in the sanfl, with a team linked to say port adelaide, I hazard a guess he’d be questioned about his commitment also.
or maybe if he flew home for a wedding/party and missed a game.
Maybe going to his brother’s wedding was a critical part of managing serious homesickness. What he described last year was basically serious depression. I can’t think of anything worse than struggling with that and then missing your brother’s wedding on top of it all.
We are talking human beings here.
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Great that he might be interested but we just got rid of 3 half bought in snakes and our culture hasn’t looked as good as it currently does for a long time, why bother with this half in half out ■■■■
just saw the post above thats basically exactly the same as mine
And that’s a decision the club will need to make. Can we manage Conor to get the most out of him without damaging what we are building?
Many clubs wrote Dustin Martin off as being too much trouble. If you can harness talent and overcome challenges like that, you get success.
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pretty sure his brothers wedding was 2019, so he didn’t miss it ontop of having serious depression of last year.
and it obviously didn’t work that well with managing said homesickness, cos he ultimately went back home.
what about playing gaelic footy while on leave from the club, was that to manage homesickness as well ? or mental health issues or what.
you people are fkn nuts. he’s never coming back
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I’d be very surprised if Dodoro isn’t regularly in conversations with him.
I’m not saying we should just get him.
But we should constantly be in dialogue, regarding his headspace, and if he’d be willing to buy in to the new standards that have been set.
It’s a free hit at a (near) elite player, that would cost us nothing…… it’s pure stupidity to rule that out.
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We should be focussing more on what we have than what we had. Seems to be working for the team atm.
McKenna talk is a lot of ifs and buts. I don’t think he will be back, nor do I think the club should seek it.
but we’ve already been on the ‘managing Conor’ merry-go-round, whats to say anything would be different this time?
I’d rather be getting games into local youngsters that aren’t likely to go anywhere as opposed to someone who could decide one week he’s leaving and never coming back (again)
edit: FWIW I love Conor and I think we’re worse off on field without him but better off culturally if that makes sense, it’s also just another issue / thing to manage and to distract the club and players
We have a list manager and recruiting team for a reason…… to improve our list.
The players and coaching staff aren’t thinking about McKenna.
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I debate whether seeking to bring back McKenna, given the passage of time and current global circumstances would improve us in any way.
I think homesickness was something we were managing with him over the whole journey. I 100% support that trip home for the wedding. We don’t care when players take games off for a birth. This ain’t that different. Family comes first, especially when you are overseas. Covid made that distance feel far worse.
As for the Gaelic. Meh. He’s an elite athlete who had a chance to play the sport he loves and misses. He didn’t snort half a kilo of coke on video or crash into a row of parked cars.
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I’d have him back in a flash if he wanted to return.
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Have you seen our depth?
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And playing with his mates
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I have. I think the risk would just be way to great, even though it has been described as a free hit.
We have zero certainty about AFL seasons this year and going forward, the idea of bringing in a player from Ireland that has shown a history of homesickness is, imo, not a great idea.
The thing with Conor coming back is it would be with eyes wide open from both parties. You’d have those hard conversations before it got locked in. Conor could set conditions on a visit home. The club could set standards they want met. They can really push Conor about his ability to commit.
Conor knows now what it’s like to live in Aus. He’s got life experience, not a young kid anymore. If he doesn’t believe he can do it, I really doubt he’d make that commitment again.
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