Gold Coast captain Touk Miller has doubled down on his comments after admitting he was “hurt” by Izak Rankine’s decision to request a trade to Adelaide.
The forward officially confirmed his request earlier in the week, opting to return home to South Australia on a big-money deal.
Speaking during the All-Australian awards, Miller said the decision was disappointing.
“We sat him down, we had a chat to him, our leadership group,” Miller told Fox Footy.
“We literally just gave him our honest opinion and how we felt and what we felt with where his spot was in our club and how important he was to us succeeding and how much of a loss it is if he doesn’t play for us.
“I’ll be honest, it is disappointing. I feel like for us, we felt like Izak, we put a lot of time into him.
“For the player that he is and going to become, I feel like we had a massive hand in that and trying to create that and surround him with a culture where he can thrive and relish.
“He’s really just started to give us the goods towards the end there.”
Miller, who was named to the All-Australian side and won the AFL Coaches Association Player of the Year award, doubled down on those comments on Thursday, saying he felt the club put a lot of resources into Rankine.
“I probably still stand by what I said. I think it was more the fact that we do a lot of work with the club to develop players,” he told SEN’s Dwayne’s World.
“Izak was high on our priority list as someone we put a lot of work into to develop as a player and a person and we feel like we surrounded him with what he needed and it just hurt a bit that he decided to go back home.
“I know these things happen in footy. For us it just probably stung that little bit more because we felt like we’ve given him a lot and were waiting to reap the rewards of that.
“It is footy and that stuff does happen.”