Robbo: Why Tim English isn?t worth $1 million to the Western Bulldogs



Tim English is coming off an All-Australian season, but is he really worth $1 million a year? MARK ROBINSON says he isn?t to the Western Bulldogs.

Tim English might be worth $1 million-a-season at West Coast, but he isn?t at the Western Bulldogs.

It makes for an intriguing next few months, as both English and the Bulldogs decide if his future beyond 2024 is at the kennel.

The Bulldogs can either pay him what he wants or take a stand, knowing that if it?s the latter, the real possibility is they could lose him through free agency.

Would that be so catastrophic?

They want him to stay, but it has to be at their price and not his.

A Bulldogs package of $750,000 base with incentives could bunk him up, but for a bloke who finished seventh in the 2023 best and fairest, an unconditional $1 million salary to stay is difficult to rationalise.

Put it this way, when the whips were cracking in the second half of last season, and the Bulldogs were striving to play finals, English polled coaches? votes in just one of the final nine games.

Coaches? votes generally have a spread of between six and eight players in each game and, according to the men who know who was a threat, English only once was a significant contributor in that period.

A million-dollar player can?t just be a solid contributor, he has to be a game-changer.

Too often English is not. It?s why the million-dollar price tag doesn?t equate to performance.

In the wacky world of player salaries, Kieren Briggs from the GWS Giants will earn about $350,000 this year.

The bustling Briggs doesn?t have the ruckman?s finesse, which English possesses at centre bounces, but their performances comparatively suggest Briggs is vastly underpaid ? or English will be overpaid.

Briggs doubled English in the average clearance count last year, won more contested possessions and marginally trailed in score involvements, although English did kick 16 goals to Briggs? four.

Rowan Marshall?s stats at St Kilda stack up even better against English, and Marshall is an estimated $750,000 player.

The Bulldogs say they are comfortable with discussions with English?s management.

?There is definite confidence that Tim will remain at the Bulldogs,? chief executive Ameet Bains told afl.com.au this week.

?Sam Power continues to have ongoing and current discussions with Tim?s manager, Andrew McDougall. We haven?t received any indication other than Tim being happy at the club.??

In other words, Bains doesn?t know if English is staying or going.

A restricted free agent at the end of the season, popular opinion has West Coast coming for the 26-year-old. If that happens, the Bulldogs can match the Eagles? offer (they won?t), which then means a trade ensues.

If the Eagles finish bottom, the Dogs will ask for the No.1 pick in return.

The Bulldogs need midfielders. The game seems to have zoomed past Jack Macrae; Bailey Smith might leave; and Tom Liberatore, back in the Dogs? leadership group, is 31 years old.

English for the best midfielder on the draft boards is not a loss, and with Sam Darcy a possible English replacement, or at least working in tandem with Rory Lobb, the Dogs aren?t without ruck options.

Another gun onballer ? to join this year?s first-round draftee Ryley Sanders ? would also replenish the middle of the ground.

The Dogs have hand, but they also have issues.

Marcus Bontempelli is on $1 million-plus and deservedly so. Aaron Naughton is in for eight years on gold coin and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan is the next cab off the rank, meaning those three players alone will take close to $3 million of the $17.7 million salary cap in 2025.

That leaves English and Bailey Smith. Can the Dogs afford to keep both of them?

Not if they have to pay English his asking price.

English is a good player, the All-Australian ruckman last year, but to think he is likely to be paid more than Melbourne captain Max Gawn, the competitions? best ruckman of the past decade, is a little mind-boggling, notwithstanding the largesses of free agency.

Especially so when you peruse recent premiership teams and who they had as their No.1 ruckmen.

Are ruckmen really worth $1 million a year?