Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley’s comments about talking to Tom Lynch “greatly angered” the Gold Coast star according to reports, and may have severely hindered the Magpies' chances of landing the out-of-contract forward.
In July Buckley admitted to having met with the Suns co-captain, telling Channel Nine’s Footy Classified he wanted to be “transparent” in his, and Collingwood’s, pursuit of Lynch.
However, the revelation may have made the Magpies’ task to land Lynch ahead of Richmond and Hawthorn even harder.
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“This greatly angered Tom Lynch at the time,” reporter Sam Edmund told SEN Breakfast on Wednesday, speaking of Buckley’s comments.
“How much damage this does for Collingwood’s pursuit of Tom Lynch obviously remains to be seen.
“He grew up a Collingwood supporter, though, and he chose to meet Buckley, not Damien Hardwick, not Alastair Clarkson, earlier this year.”
It’s believed a group of Richmond players met with Lynch casually while he was in Melbourne recently for treatment to his knee, and Tigers coach Damien Hardwick said in the pre-season the club was keen to pursue Lynch and that he had spoken to out-of-contract opposition players, but he didn’t specifically mention the Suns star.
“You are actually allowed to do this,” Hardwick told Fox Footy in early March.
“We do talk to players that are out of contract … It’s an uncomfortable situation because I’m talking to opposition players and opposition clubs are talking to my players, it’s probably not a great look for our game.”
Richmond has been considered the front runner for Lynch’s services but there is no certainty as to where he will be playing in 2019.
However, there’s no doubt he will be glad when all the speculation is over.
“The game is not ready, we are not mature enough to deal with this at the moment as an industry,” Edmund said of the way the story has unfolded.
“It unloaded a whole heap of crap on Tom Lynch’s doorstep.
“He was obviously stripped of the captaincy, banned from the football department, having questions asked of him by younger teammates about loyalty, all the things you don’t want.”