Menzel plays it smart as he weighs up his options
DANIEL Menzel’s contractual situation is a genuine case of watch this space.
There are three factors in play: What is he worth on the open market as an unrestricted free agent? How far is Geelong prepared and able to go to accommodate him? How strong is the lure of home?
Menzel appears highly unlikely to leave Geelong at season’s end, but one could not help but detect a hint of never-say-never when he was quizzed on Adelaide radio about his future.
“I’d be lying if I said you never think about it,” Menzel said on FiveAA when asked if he’d entertain a return home to South Australia.
“It’s a business and my family’s all back there, but at the same time the club (Geelong) has been so good to me as well over here.
“We haven’t had contract talks at the moment and I’ll leave that to my manager. He’ll come tap me on the shoulder soon enough no doubt and say ‘this is what the go is’.
“I do love getting back home, I really do, and I enjoy catching up with mates and family back there, but I think I have a pretty good balance too. I’ll sort of see how it plays out. I think I’m happy with how things are at the moment.”
Smart positioning from Menzel.
Having justifiably accepted modest one-year contract extensions in recent years, Menzel now has greater bargaining power after two clear years without a knee setback, coupled with the fact his form stacks up with the best mid-sized forwards in the game. Tellingly, it has been more than four years since he suffered his fourth and most recent anterior cruciate ligament injury, so any questions about his durability have been answered as best as they can.
Menzel’s management, led by Adam Ramanauskas, will surely push Geelong for a twoyear deal and a handsome pay rise. Those talks are expected to come soon. Geelong’s beancounters will have their hands full, too, with almost half the list, mainly rookies and younger players, coming out of contract. The club’s salary cap position is tight.
Then there’s the issue of finding the $400,000 a year for Gary Ablett, whose return to Geelong next year appears more and more likely and will only fall over if the Suns do not ease their militant stance surrounding the final year of the champion’s contract.
The Cats have banked a lot of credits with Menzel for the remarkable loyalty and support they provided him when he could easily have been discarded to the scrapheap. After all, no player in AFL history — to the best of our knowledge — has made such a return from four knee reconstructions.
But Menzel, the savvy entrepreneurial businessman who has ventured into fashion and media, would be silly not to keep his options open. Likewise, the Cats would hate to lose him after such an investment.
The South Australian market may, in fact, be a tough one to crack into given Adelaide’s forward line has a nice balance of talls, smalls and creative types.
But if he remains an unsigned man late in the season, there would surely be rival clubs prepared to talk about a two-year deal.