New Brisbane Lions recruit Joe Daniher has denied he wanted to join Sydney when he was sprung meeting with the club's chief executive Tom Harley mid-season in 2019.
While at Essendon, the 26-year-old's mid-season rendezvous with the former Geelong premiership player in 2019 was uncovered while the forward was in the Harbour City for surgery.
Two months after chatting with Harley, Daniher officially requested a trade to the Swans, with a move ultimately failing after the Bombers significantly raised their asking price during the player movement period.
Now having joined Brisbane via free agency for the 2021 season, Daniher has spoken to clarify the details of his meeting with Harley, denying that anything was discussed about future decision to want to join Sydney.
"I had a personal relationship with Tom so I gave him a call to see if we could catch up and I wanted to talk about his growth from being a player, moving out of the industry, he was CEO of a football club in five or six years which is just absolutely crazy," Daniher told teammate Mitch Robinson's Rip Through It Podcast.
"He was my mentor at the AIS (Academy). We caught up and had a brilliant discussion about how I could do things in life and what I needed to do to progress off-field and stuff like that.
"Someone obviously saw me with him and blew up about me going to Sydney and at that point I was like 'I'm not going to go to Sydney'.
"There wasn't even any chat of footy (at Harley's house) … as the year kept unfolding I wasn't getting too many wins with the body and the on-field stuff, so I started to think about a change, a change of environment, would that sort of help with the injury, help the mental state of performing and playing AFL, so it started to creep into my mind.
"Someone obviously saw me with him and blew up about me going to Sydney and at that point I was like 'I'm not going to go to Sydney'.
"There wasn't even any chat of footy (at Harley's house) … as the year kept unfolding I wasn't getting too many wins with the body and the on-field stuff, so I started to think about a change, a change of environment, would that sort of help with the injury, help the mental state of performing and playing AFL, so it started to creep into my mind."
