I don't think we could have kept Mitchell unless we were prepared to pay well over the odds to match the Hawks. They saw his as their salvation and he followed the money and good luck to him. I hope Clarko thinks a Brownlow justifies the cost, and the indignity of going out in straight sets. Should we have paid Tom more that Josh or Luke, for example? Only time will tell.
Well done Tom.
Appreciated Tom’s (albeit promoted by Bruce) reflection on fond times at the Swans.
Congrats Tom.
Tom has that same relentless unwavering determination that we saw with Goodesy. No wonder he's so good.
I didn’t hear this interview but this is Brownlow medallist Tom Mitchell’s explanation for why he left the Swans. Is anyone prepared to look at his TOG% stats to see if he’s telling the truth?
Lack of opportunity forced Tom Mitchell to leave Sydney
Hawthorn ball-magnet Tom Mitchell says a lack of opportunity, and the desire to return to Victoria, were the factors behind his decision to leave Sydney.
“It was during the 2016 season and I obviously loved my time at the Swans and we had a pretty strong campaign that year, just losing the Grand Final to the Western Bulldogs,” Mitchell told SEN Breakfast.
“I remember throughout the year I was very invested with the club and some of my mates are there and still are there, so I really wanted to win that premiership.
“I just had a funny feeling during the year that I lacked opportunity... I was either playing in the reserves, and the games I was in the seniors I’d come off the bench every quarter or play low game time.
“I had a little bit more to offer - fortunately enough an offer came from Hawthorn to come and play a role in the midfield.
“I’d always wanted to come back to Melbourne eventually anyway so it felt like the right fit at the time.”
I think this is ridiculous. He played every game in the seniors in 2016, not the reserves, so I don't know what he's talking about. I don't know what the game times were, but he managed to rack up the third most disposals at the club.
He may have spent less time on ball than he wanted to, but that was reasonable given the Swans' midfield talent (JPK, Parker, Hanners, Jack). There was a legitimate question of how we would shuffle on ball assignments by taking out some of our AA midfielders in favour of Tom.
There's probably something to this nonetheless. At the Swans, Tom was one of many good midfielders. At Hawthorn, he became the main man. More money. Number one midfielder. It's a better fit for Tom. It's a shame that we lost such a good player, but it illustrates that we had too many of his type of player at the club and a rebalance was necessay, but it did come with the loss of a very good player.
According to afltables, Mitchell played every game of the 2016 season and average 80% TOG. In comparison, Parker averaged 88%, JPK and Hanners averaged 85%, and Jack averaged 79%.
When I was listening to SEN some time after the interview, the consensus from Tim Watson, Garry Lyon, and Sam Edmund was that it was likely clubs were making these sorts of moves 1 and 2 years in advance and that Hawthorn were likely to have approached Tom before the 2016 season. They didn't seem to think that the numbers matched the lack of opportunity dialogue from Tom.
This does seem to make sense to me. List managers are forward planning one and two years in advance. We are hopefully doing that with either Gaff this year or someone next year.
He gave the diplomatic answer which is fine, he could hardly come out and say that he moved for $$$ without looking like a douche
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