Phil Gould

So the opportunity was either take the punt and buy him then or miss out altogether.

Originally, we weren't going to go down that road because it was too far down the track.

And by that time, we probably couldn't afford it.

We had other players we wanted to retain.

So it was something we did, what we thought was in the best long-term interest of the club.

Once he was in the club, he was treated like everybody else, as all the other players were in the team.

And the coaches trained them, they coached them, and then they picked their teams on their merits.

It does have...

I know it sounds coincidental.

I know you're trying to marry up what happened in the second half of the year as against the first half of the year, but it had very little to do with that.

I mean, these sorts of things with Marnie and Sexton were in the pipeline for some months before Galvin even became available.

The Galvin thing had nothing to instigate the Marnie and the Sexton's decisions.

I can tell you that emphatically.

What?

No.

Reid Marnie was still playing with us until the end of the season.

The discussion with Reid Marnie was months earlier around the future and what his future might look like beyond.

We couldn't afford Reid Marnie in 2027.

To sign Reid Marnie again to extend his current contract in 2027 would have meant really difficult to retain other players that we've got in our club coming off contract at that time.

That was virtually a salary cap discussion between me and his manager early last year about what the future would look like.