Two Tigers May Leave AFL
By Lou Sborlget for spittle.com.au
The AFL may have gained a high-profile recruit with the announcement last week that NRL star Karmichael Hunt will switch codes, but the southern game is set to take a hit with the possible defection of one of its own stars.
Sources close to Jordan McMahon reveal that the Richmond matchwinner is considering leaving the AFL when his contract expires at the end of 2010.
“Jordan’s considering new challenges at this time in his sporting career,” said his mother, Mrs Muffie McMahon. “For some time I’ve been trying to convince him to play a sport that suits his abilities best. Specifically non-contact sports.”
Mrs McMahon said that her son had shown elite ability as a junior playing lawn bowls. “He was always good at bowling way out wide of the contest and then coming to rest a comfortable distance behind the jack,” she said. “He’s brought that ability to AFL.”
However, she said that her son needed to improve some aspects of his bowling game. “He only chases his bowls down the green one way,” she said. “This makes it difficult for him every second change of ends.”
Mrs McMahon said that Jordan would fit in well on the lucrative lawn bowls circuit. “He won’t look out of place,” she said. “He still has the Roger David suits.”
Meanwhile, former Richmond coach Terry Wallace says he is considering a coaching role in the NRL. “Rugby and AFL have a lot in common,” Wallace said. “With both you need to get numbers behind the ball and then run and carry. I think I’d be good at introducing terms like ‘run and carry’ to rugby.”
Wallace scoffed at suggestions that he had little idea about how to play rugby. “Look at the way I coached Richmond,” he said. “We only ever moved the ball backwards and from side to side.”
Wallace said that his experience as an AFL coach could revolutionise the way rugby is played. “The way rugby is set up is similar to flooding in AFL,” he said. “But AFL has become faster and faster to beat the flood, so the first thing I’d do would be to replace rugby’s big key position dinosaurs with lots of leaner, faster runners on the flanks.
“I think any side coached by me could score 16 goals per game.”