A superstar told us he was leaving our club. I wish he hadn’t

When Izak Rankine told us at Gold Coast, with three games remaining in the 2022 season, that he was leaving at season’s end, everything changed. The hint of a chance that he would stay evaporated, and it was difficult to look at the situation in the same light as I did the day before.

Football is tribal, maybe less so than it once was, but there’s still a fair degree of, “You’re either with us or you against us.”

Once informed of the decision, we insured that it was kept tight, with only a few key people knowing.

We were playing Hawthorn in Tasmania that week and on the flight there, Izak wore a non-Gold Coast hat. He had probably done this before, but my perception, or perhaps the reality, of the situation had changed.

He kicked goals from the pocket at the captain’s run at Launceston Oval, away from his teammates. I’m sure he had done that previously … but again, this was in my head, not his.

We lost that game badly and then were beaten by Geelong at home the week after, a game in which Izak injured his shoulder. The decision was made that he would go immediately in for surgery.

This is only a personal view, but I was glad that we didn’t have to think about his selection again. You shouldn’t have favourites in roles like general manager of football. Izak was my favourite. I loved him and his story. And boy, he could play. But now that he was “out”, it was easier that he was “out”.

Which has me thinking, do clubs really want to know if their player is going to leave them? Do Port Adelaide really want to know definitively if Zak Butters is leaving at season’s end? Do Gold Coast want Ben King to tell them before season’s end if he is going? That is, of course, if they are.

My experience with Izak tells me that the answer to this question is that you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t.

It intrigues me when people say we are not mature enough like the NRL to deal with players announcing they are leaving ahead of time. Is it maturity, or something else?

One definition of maturity is “acting responsibly, handling feelings and knowing that life has hard times and accepting them without complaining”. While that sounds reasonable, I like the fact that we don’t do it.

Is it integrity, or loyalty maybe with a reasonable dose of irrationality, that we have, rather than less maturity? When I see it happen in the NRL it feels transactional, whereas in our game it feels like there is a stronger emotional attachment. If that’s true, I would like that maintained.

Every scenario is different but as a starting point in a club you don’t want one of your best players considering leaving.

In 2019 at the Giants, Stephen Coniglio was considering offers from multiple clubs. The more it dragged on, the more I felt it would make less sense for him to stay than to go. Not because we didn’t want him to stay – far from it – but the thought was, if he were going to stay why wouldn’t he have done it earlier?

It takes energy to continually be asked the question, by media, by board members, by just about anyone. There is also a planning element that if key players are considering leaving, you need to have several contingencies up your sleeve in case it eventuates.

If those key players sign early, you can be more proactive in your list-management decisions. It’s not that it can’t be done, it just makes the job simpler.

Winning AFL games is also hard enough without having to deal with self-inflicted distractions.

When Stephen announced (in fact it was Heath Shaw who did the announcing) that he was staying at a pre-finals dinner, it gave the whole club a lift. We had limped into the finals, but on the back of that news and a first final against bitter rivals the Western Bulldogs, we rode a wave of emotion into the club’s first grand final.

Two years before that, Dustin Martin was enjoying potentially the best season ever played by an individual against a backdrop of whether he would be at another club the following year.

He re-signed in the break before the finals and went on to create history by playing the best finals series ever played, with the Tigers winning their first premiership for 37 years.

No situation illustrates that every scenario is different more than Jarome Luai in the NRL.

Before the 2024 season, Luai informed the Penrith Panthers that he was leaving at season’s end to join the West Tigers. The Panthers are, along with the Melbourne Storm, the best club in the league. They went on to win the flag that year.

This year, with his Tigers sitting in third position after round eight, Luai told the Tigers he was leaving to join the new PNG franchise. They have won one game since and sit 14th on the table.

The Arctic Monkeys ask, “Do I wanna know, if this feeling flows both ways”.