Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Melbourne star Clayton Oliver is frustrated with the club over his reduced playing time which, in part, led to his decision not to play in Saturday night’s win over West Coast.
The four-time best and fairest winner trained fully last week and his omission from the team to play West Coast came as a shock to his teammates, who have been pleasantly surprised by his turn around in professionalism in recent months.
Clayton Oliver remains a disenchanted Demon.Credit: AFL Photos
This masthead has spoken to three club sources and two sources close to Oliver, none of whom wished to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the circumstances.
They cited three main reasons for Oliver’s most recent frustrations.
First, his reduced game time. According to Champion Data, Oliver has averaged 78.5% time on ground. Four seasons ago, when Melbourne won a premiership and Oliver was one of the most damaging players in the competition, that number was 88.9%.
Second, his form. At the end of last year, Oliver acknowledged that his off-field behaviour and professionalism was not up to the standard of an elite footballer, and has acted accordingly. Two teammates told this masthead they had “never seen him in a better place” in terms of his preparation and physical conditioning. And yet that hasn’t resulted in him returning to be a superstar in the competition.
Third, and perhaps most significantly, Oliver remains deeply frustrated that he was not traded to Geelong, as per his wishes in the build up to last year’s trade period.
Oliver met with several key figures at Geelong, including CEO Steve Hocking and football boss Andrew Mackie and even drove to Rhys Stanley’s farm where he was given a pitch by Stanley and fellow Cats star Tom Stewart.
Stand-in president and former Demons star Brad Green was not prepared to trade Oliver.
If Oliver were to seek a trade again during this year’s trade period, it remains unclear if Melbourne would be any more receptive than they were 12 months earlier.
Geelong were contacted for comment.
Demons players were given an extra day off on Monday, with the team now set to train on Tuesday and Thursday before a captain’s run on Friday. They play Hawthorn at the MCG on Saturday.
Oliver, according to the club, is expected to train on Tuesday and the club hopes he can play against the Hawks.
The club said missing the trip to Perth “was the best thing for Clayton’s health”, in a statement last week.
Captain and close friend Max Gawn refused to buy into any speculation that Oliver would again seek a trade at the end of the season.
“He’s an elite player who’s on a good pay packet, and those guys are always going to have stories written about them. He made a very mature decision to spend the week off this week. It’s been a big first eight weeks for him. He came to the club, and they’ve organised a good situation,” he said on Triple M.
“He felt a bit overwhelmed and wanted a week off from the club. He’ll be in tomorrow and I applaud the mature decision from the club and from Clayton.”
“For his future, I could not care (what he decides to do next year). I am literally week-to-week with the footy club and with Clayton, so all I care about is him getting up for Hawthorn with a smile on his face. Whatever happens at the end of the year happens.”
