Why Hardwick and the Suns should just leave Dustin Martin aloneJake Niall
Chief football writer, The Age
April 21, 2024 “I never said I want to be alone. I only said ‘I want to be left alone.’ There is all the difference.”
- Reclusive movie star Greta Garbo, 1955.
Dustin Martin’s desire to be left alone, in the manner of Greta Garbo, has been as defining a feature of his career as the fend-off, which is a well-worn, but fitting metaphor for Dusty’s aversion to the crowd.
Martin’s extreme shyness and dislike of the spotlight – bar his glowing presence on game day – is one of the reasons why there’s been a view in clubland that he could be prised out of Richmond.
Martin’s seven-year mega contract expires this year. Richmond have not put a contract on the table, in large part because Dusty hasn’t made any decisions about his future.
Martin has three immediate options: 1) Re-sign with the Tigers for 2025 and play on; 2) cross to another club, almost certainly in the northern states; 3) retire, after reaching 300 games and be remembered as a one-club great of the code.
Since 2022, if not earlier, Gold Coast have been mooted as the logical destination for Dusty if he decided he wanted out of town.
Note that there’s never been any hint that Dusty had any issue with the Richmond Football Club. Rather, it’s whether he’s had enough of living in the footy fishbowl in Melbourne.
The argument for Dusty exploring a move to the Suns has centred on the fact that they’re a getaway club, where AFL isn’t obsessively followed and even a high-vis superstar can find sanctuary, like Garbo.
The Suns also have significant ex-Richmond people at the helm, headed by former coach Damien Hardwick, with football bosses Wayne Campbell (performance) and Craig Cameron (list/recruitment) also knowing Martin well from their days at Tigerland.
That Martin has had contact with Gold Coast officials is hardly surprising, given the longstanding relationships.
But what is often lost in this discussion and speculation is whether, in fact, the Suns really need Dustin Martin.
They don’t.
For a number of reasons, the Suns should not pursue Dusty, should he decide he wants to leave Victoria. He’s not the right fit. To stick with the movie star motif, it would be like casting Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hamlet.
Martin would be turning 34 next year and while he would certainly improve the Suns’ forward line for a year – assuming he is relatively fit and motivated – it would represent an extremely short-term move for Hardwick and company.
Gold Coast have one of the best lists of under 24-year-olds in the competition. But their peak contention period is still at least two years away (probably longer, considering the demography of recent premiers).
Dusty is unlikely to come cheap, either. He’s been paid well over $1 million since 2018 and even if he came for, say, $700,000, that money would be better utilised in the crucial task of retaining Matt Rowell, Ben King, Noah Anderson and others.
Hardwick aside, Martin would be the biggest figure to arrive at Gold Coast since Gary Ablett. Unlike Ablett, Dusty would not be willing to front the media or sell the club.
His sheer presence, however, would bring additional media to the Suns, which the AFL wouldn’t mind.
The Suns, though, have just brought in four teenage locals via their academy – headed by the enormously talented talls Jed Walter and Ethan Read. Once those kids mature, they can be the shopfront – Gold Coast’s answer to Errol Gulden and Isaac Heeney – in a non-footy market that has struggled to support elite sporting clubs.
While Martin would engender excitement among young Suns teammates, and he is capable of mentoring, he does not represent the kind of on-field general and leader that four-time Hawthorn premiership great Luke Hodge was at the Brisbane Lions.
As it stands today, the Suns are unsure of whether to make a bid for Dusty, who has struggled with his body at times this year, missing games and some training sessions. Is he there in spirit? It’s a reasonable question.
There is no question that the death of his father Shane in 2022, who had been exiled from his son in New Zealand, was an enormous blow to the reticent champion.
He would suit the Swans or Giants more than Gold Coast, in terms of age and premiership profile and positional needs (he could take Heeney’s old forward role at Sydney), but one doubts that the Giants would have the cap space, and it is unclear whether the Swans would want such a short-term investment.
Martin’s shunning of the bright lights, paradoxically, has rendered him a mystery that merely heightened the public’s fascination with him – a conundrum that Greta Garbo endured. Almost every autograph seeker at Punt Rd wants Dusty’s scribble on their gear.
Richmond will offer him a decent deal, if he decides to play on with the club he helped transform and which is attempting a new frontier under Adem Yze and facing the expected exit of CEO Brendon Gale to the Tasmania Devils.
Like most football followers, this column would prefer that he bows out as a Tiger, rivalling Kevin Bartlett and Royce Hart for the mantle of Richmond’s greatest since World War Two.
Garbo’s wish sums up Martin’s relationship with the game. That he wants to be left alone does not mean that he is alone. Richmond have been another family.
Martin’s future is up to Martin. The Suns should just leave him alone.
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/it-s-the-biggest-decision-in-footy-will-dustin-martin-join-gold-coast-20240420-p5flcm.html
