Herald Sun journalist Jon Ralph has labelled Adelaide coach Don Pyke a hypocrite for comments surrounding Charlie Cameron’s future.
As speculation mounts Cameron, who has a year to run on his contract, will join Brisbane next season, Pyke rebuked Lions’ coach Chris Fagan for declaring the club’s interest in the livewire forward.
“Very disappointing…he’s under contract, so he’s going nowhere,” Pyke said.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate you talk about players at other clubs who are under contract.”
But Ralph said Pyke must have an extremely short memory given the club made a bold bid to snare contracted Carlton star Bryce Gibbs.
“Even if they hadn’t tried to secure Bryce Gibbs last year, who was in the middle of a five-year contract, his comments would have been ridiculous,” he told SEN's Hungry for Sport.
“I understand he was just trying to stick up for the club and minimise the distractions before a big game but it was utter rot and hypocritical.
“We are in a new world order where people are going to get plucked while they are in contract.
“Surely the media manager said to Pyke, ‘hey just remember what happened last year.”
Clearly not. In October last year Crows’ list manager Justin Reid got on the front foot in relation to the club’s chase to acquire Gibbs.
“Bryce and his management have spoken to the Adelaide Football Club,” he said.
“He has a strong desire to come home.
“We’ll have discussions behind the scenes and work through it.”
In the end the Crows and Blues could not broker a deal and Gibbs remained at Carlton.
This time around it’s unlikely a similar fate will befall Cameron who has strong ties to Brisbane.