Duffield: The complicating factors that will decide Barrass’ Eagles future

For years opposition teams facing the Eagles have known that if you put the ball in the air taking it inside your attacking fifty, you run the risk of having it picked off and intercepted by Barrass and fellow master interceptor Jeremy McGovern.

At times the pair have been so dominant that opponents have opted to take the ball into attack at ground level.

In 2019 – in what became known as the “dirty ball game”, Port Adelaide sent the ball in low and scrambled and challenged the Eagles to fetch it off the ground. It worked a treat and Port upset the Eagles by 42 points.

Right now, “balls in the air” also describes Tom Barrass’s situation at the Eagles as speculation mounts he will seek an exit from the last three years of his current playing contract to pursue interest from a rival club like the Western Bulldogs or Hawthorn, who he is said to have met with this week.

Barrass was also linked to Sydney at the end of last season and while he has publicly scoffed at the notion that he instigated the interest, there is a hell of a lot of smoke in Barrass’s vicinity at the moment for there not to be some fire.

Normally, a player in Barrass’s position and the club he is contracted to have a couple of reasonably simple decisions to make.

He decides he either wants to go or he doesn’t. Then the club decides how much it is going to cost another club to agree to shift him. And they always retain the right to say no.

There are complicating factors in the Barrass case, not least of which is the fact that West Coast holds the three remaining years of his current deal to completely control the trade.

There are other things which may cast doubt on any deal. The first question a player will ask himself before deciding where he wants to play is who the coach is going to be. At West Coast, the answer to that one is still some time off.

The Eagles announced their coach selection panel on Wednesday.

It will include CEO Don Pyke, football manager Gavin Bell, the club board’s football director Rowan Jones, Director Jan Cooper and the club’s leadership consultant and former Geelong champion Harry Taylor.

It is fair to say a decision on Adam Simpson’s successor is unlikely to come before finals unless interim coach Jarrad Schofield knocks the selection panel’s socks off and gets the job.

And for the Eagles, the presence of young defender Harry Edwards, a 23 year old just starting to find his feet as a tall defender, is a massive complicating factor.

Edwards is coming out of contract. And if McGovern and Barrass are both staying, he probably has to consider his own options.

Edwards is over 200cm tall. He can’t exactly play the hybrid defender role. And while McGovern and Barrass both sit ahead of him at selection now. McGovern is 32 and has recent injury history, Barrass is 28.

It is understood that Melbourne has significant interest in Edwards.

The next two defenders down the pecking order from Edwards are Rhett Bazzo who is 21 and has played just two WAFL games this year after a series of groin injuries, and Archer Reid, a 203cm forward/defender who was drafted from Gippsland Power at pick 30 – the Eagles second pick in the 2023 draft overall after Harley Reid.

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West Coast have a high opinion of Archer Reid but he is probably a minimum of two summers in the gym away from holding down a key defenders post and has been playing as a forward in the WAFL.

The right compensation is also a “ball in the air”. When Steven May shifted from Gold Coast to Melbourne the key pick in the trade was pick six. May was 26, Barrass is two years older.

If Hawthorn is the frontrunner for Barrass now their first pick currently sits at pick 10. That pick could help West Coast satisfy Richmond if Liam Baker decides to leave Richmond and choose the club he grew up barracking for over cross town rival Fremantle.