Geelong coach Chris Scott says the club won’t use handing Tyson Stengle a football lifeline nearly three years ago as leverage in contract discussions.
The small forward, who will become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season, is the subject of intense interest from rival clubs in Melbourne.
Since joining the Cats in late 2021, he has kicked 107.46 from 57 games, earning an All-Australian blazer with 53 majors in the 2022 premiership season.
After 27 goals from 19 games last year, he has already matched that figure with ten rounds to play, sitting equal-tenth in the Coleman Medal race and leading Geelong’s goalkicking.
“We gave him the opportunity, but that was kind of the opportunity to walk in the door,” Scott said on Thursday.
“And I’d like to think we’ve helped him, but we’re not the sort of club that says: ‘Hey mate, you owe us because we gave you the opportunity’.
“We want the best for Tyson while he’s playing footy and post-footy as well.
“And part of that is him making sure he sets himself up financially and in areas outside of footy.
“I just can’t see a time where we would leverage what we’ve done for a player to get them to commit to us; we’re not that sort of club, not those sort of people.”
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Scott also played down suggestions that Geelong was the only environment that Stengle would thrive in.
“I would imagine every club’s trying to set themselves up to be able to say to young players or players who have had hiccups in their playing career, ‘If you’re coming to us, you won’t get a better opportunity to develop as a player and a person’,” he said.
“That’s what we’ve aspired to do and to be for a long period of time.
“The fact that it’s worked out with Tyson doesn’t make it a guarantee with others.”
Scott does believe Geelong’s location gives the club a point of difference.
“I’ll sell us a little bit here; we are just geographically different,” he said. “That’s not us saying we’re better than other clubs; I don’t know to be frank. I don’t know how they do things.
“But, I am really confident, with the experience that our people have had around the competition, there is something about this place that is hard to replicate in the metropolitan capital cities of Australia.
“For some, that’s a negative because they want to be in the Big Smoke. But for others, it’s a real positive.
“I think it sort of sounds like you’re trying to squeeze guys like Tyson a little bit if you say: ‘Hey mate, this is the best thing for you.
“He’s got to make that call, and we’ll let the way we go about things speak for itself.”
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