Gold Coast football manager Wayne Campbell has revealed what happened to allow North Melbourne to sign Hugh Greenwood as a delisted free agent on Monday afternoon.
Channel Seven’s Mitch Cleary broke the news that Greenwood had accepted an offer from North Melbourne after being delisted by the Suns last week.
However, he was cut from Gold Coast’s list with the promise to be re-drafted to help the club's list strategy, Greenwood himself clarifying that he would be at the club next year and on the same contract via Twitter late last week.
Still On The Primary List
— Hugh Greenwood (@HGreenwood3) November 11, 2021
Still On The Same Contract
Still Been Medically Cleared To Train/Play For Over A Month
Still At The Suns
Still See Everyone Round 1
Was happy to cop the odd clickbait article & social nuff if it meant assisting the club’s overall list strategy. :call_me_hand::skin-tone-3:
Rory Thompson and Jez Mclennan were also delisted by the club with the same intentions, and Campbell joined SEN Drive on Monday evening to discuss how the situation had unfolded.
“We were aware that there was the potential for this to happen, but we thought we chose the players that other clubs would potentially pass on, given circumstances,” Campbell said.
“Hugh was one of those, being a 30-year-old and having a year to go on his contract here.
“When it came through yesterday (Sunday) that North Melbourne had made him a very good offer, we got in touch with Hugh and we’ve had a chat with him over the last 24 hours and he goes with our blessing.
“It wasn’t what we planned it to be, we wanted Hugh to play next year and potentially the year after and help develop our young midfield.
“But on the flip side, we feel that we have a young talented midfield that’s ready to go at the same time.
“While we didn’t plan for this to happen by any stretch, Hugh goes with our absolute best wishes, and we feel like we’ve got a pretty good midfield that can stand up in 2022.”
While Campbell did not disclose the details of North Melbourne’s offer – other than to confirm it was a three-year deal – he said the Suns would have struggled to offer a similar deal.
“I think it would have been really difficult for us to match,” he said.
“We certainly chatted to him this morning and we’ve had some great conversations with Hugh.
“He’s been wonderful the couple of years he’s been here, he’s highly respected.
“We spoke to our leadership group and they were keen to keep him and we were keen to keep him, so we spoke to him this morning over whether we could find a compromise, but I think given the offer Hugh had been given over the weekend and he’d had 48 hours to think about it, I think he’d made up his mind.
“There was a deadline of 5 pm today (Monday) ... which put a bit of time pressure on it.”
Gold Coast wanted to maintain their age profile and not get any younger, which is why they hoped to recruit Greenwood and the other delisted players through one of the drafts.
While that wasn’t to be with Greenwood, his decision to leave the club is respected by the Suns, who say they hold “no animosity” towards the midfielder.
“The way our list is set up, the fact we have to have three selections in the draft and with our age profile, the reason behind it is we wanted to maintain our age profile, or not get any younger,” Campbell confirmed.
“I don’t want to say it’s a business, but it is. We build great relationships with players and that’s how you get the best results and how you want it to be, and Hugh is/was a valued member of our club and will always be welcomed back.
“If you look at it in the cold light of day and you look at the offer that was put to him, there’s no animosity from anyone at the football club towards Hugh.”
“Hugh had a year to go here, and I think he’s been offered three years at North Melbourne as a 30-year-old.
“Players just want to play … to get three years guaranteed, again, I find it hard to hold against someone who wants to secure the future for their family.
“We wish he was here no doubt, but that’s not to be.”
However, in hindsight, the Suns’ footy boss ultimately says they would have done it differently, had they had their time again.
“I think so (that we’d do it differently),” Campbell continued.
“We needed to do this to get to the three selections in the National Draft.
“You’ll ask me who that is (that we could have picked differently) and I don’t know, if there had of been a better option, we would have done that at the time.”
Greenwood has established himself as a reliable hard-nosed midfielder during his time up north, averaging 17 disposals, six clearances and nine tackles a game in 2021.