What do we know for absolute certain about that situation?
- Millward said Dugan was a centre
- Mary said Dugan was a fullback
- Dugan signs with Sharks for 4 years
All of the rest of it is pure conjecture.
In my opinion, money and contract length played a huge part in the result.
Given the young players coming through I suspect Millward is looking for a guaranteed pathway for 1 or 2 of these youngsters into the fullback position. That means that you more than likely would not want to extend Dugan past 2 years - 3 at the very most. Not only that, we potentially have a number of youngsters vying for the centre position as well.
Based on this, Dugan would more than likely be spending a fair bit of time out of the fullback position to allow the youngsters to come through. A little next year with the 3rd year being almost exclusively a centre.
If you then factor in Mary's comments around playing him as a fullback if we resign him, and if the rumours of Dugans requested $1mill price tag are true, then you have a situation where you are trying to negotiate with what the club sees as a centre player who wants fullback money. You can't afford to be paying that sort of money for 3 years for a centre.
Sharks step in and offer him a 4 year deal on possibly the same or a little more than what we offered per year but possibly for an extra year. Dugan see's this as an opportunity to extend his career and in the end walk away with more money in his pocket.
If anything, I believe Mary's comment about playing him at fullback threw the spanner in the works. Dugan, at that stage of the negotiations was possibly OK to stay, but hearing Mary say he was going to keep him at fullback raised the money issue and hence him feeling as though he wasn't respected (not to mention both parties discussing their plans for Dugan with the media).
Not one persons fault because all have a valid opinion. Unfortunately it was just a perfect storm of sorts. If there is one point to pick is that Millward and Mary shouldn't have made their plans public. Would have been better to do the deals behind the scenes. I don't think that would have made a difference though. I still think Dugan would not have been playing for us next year.