Oscar Allen gets his wings clipped as inept AFL allows money to talk louder than morals

“It’s hard to get caught in a lie,” Rachel Menken says to Don Draper in one of the early episodes of Mad Men. “It wasn’t a lie,” Don replies. “It was ineptitude with insufficient cover.” Oscar Allen’s press conference during the week said a lot about the football landscape – the money, the media, the managers, the mangled English.

As he spoke, West Coast Eagles Head of Football John Worsfold stood smirking within spoiling distance – part affable pharmacist, part hired hitman. Allen was “incredibly remorseful”. He was “quite embarrassed and ashamed”. He “owned this”. Perhaps most worryingly, Allen said it had been “a great learning for me.”

It was performative. It was brand management. It was bullshit.

Player movement is officially a game within the game now. It’s now analysed more seriously than the football itself. As a journalist, all you need to do is strike the right tone - something akin to reporting from Gaza - and have six of the leading player managers on speed dial and you’ll never be out of work.

But there are unwritten rules at play, a kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and more specifically, “don’t get caught”. That’s where Allen and his management erred. The real reason the Eagles hauled him in front of the cameras was that he was busted. He’d tarnished the brand.

View image in fullscreen Dejected Eagles players after the 81-point defeat against the GWS Giants at ENGIE Stadium. Photograph: Mark Metcalfe/AFL Photos/via Getty Images

This week, Allen has been called “selfish”, “a sell out,” “a leader in name alone” “utterly disgusting” and perhaps most absurdly, “letting down the captaincy brethren.” There’s several things at play here. One is an underlying resentment from former players in the media, many of whom were club captains, at the amount of money being splashed around in the modern game.

It’s something you see in the commentary of the Big Bash and T20 cricket generally – former champions who missed the era of big easy bucks coming down hard on hoikers and second-raters making squillions for a bit of hit and giggle. In Allen’s case, they see a less-than-durable player who had four touches in the Derby and who’s poised to make more money than they ever could have dreamed of. And they go the tonk.

Then there’s the managers, who play the media and the clubs like zithers. Many of the leading ones, including Allen’s manager Andrew McDougall, were profiled in a documentary, Show Me The Money, a few years ago. Most of them presented as trumped-up real estate agents. When they weren’t on the golf course, they were on the driving range. They’re a study of how many intonations of the word “mate” you can squeeze into a single sentence. To their credit, they generally have their players’ – sorry, their clients’ – best interests at heart. But in this instance, they did Allen a considerable disservice.

Coaches, former players, heartbroken tweeters, and the punditariat all talk the language of selflessness, of loyalty. That’s easy. But the truth is, the way this competition’s been set up, it’s every man for himself out there. That’s the way the AFL wanted it. As Geelong coach Chris Scott said this week, there’s not one coach or list manager who wouldn’t have spoken about Allen, and most would be keen to meet him.

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I get why Eagles fans are angry. The fact that it was Sam Mitchell swanning into town - so cold, so calculating, so good at what he does - just rubbed it in. The Hawks’ coach and his club are a textbook study in how to build a list. The Eagles have completely botched theirs. They were trounced by GWS yesterday. They had no answers for Jesse Hogan. Allen had a crack, but couldn’t have any real impact. If you were him right now, and you had the choice between this Eagles team (on significantly less money) and a crack Hawthorn team with some best kicks in the competition hitting you lace out each week, what would you choose?

I’m not sure there’s an easy answer to any of this. Blame the system, a system that encourages subterfuge. Blame the club, which has been poorly run for years now. Blame the manager who set this up. Hell, blame Sam Mitchell if you’re really desperate. But don’t blame the player. Don’t make him grovel. If that’s where the industry is at, if that’s what we expect from players, and if that’s how low clubs are prepared to stoop, then something is fundamentally broken.

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