Pavlich trade talk bewildering: Dockers - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Pavlich trade talk bewildering: Dockers

By Justin Chadwick 22/04/2009 06:26:54 PM Comments (0)

Fremantle coach Mark Harvey has scoffed at suggestions the Dockers should consider trading skipper Matthew Pavlich, describing any such talk as "bewildering".

Harvey accused high-profile people in the media, including former Melbourne champion Garry Lyon, of trying to "pull the club apart" following the Dockers' win-less start to the season.

Harvey was left fuming by Lyon's suggestion that both Fremantle and the success-starved Pavlich would be better off if they parted ways at the end of the season.

Pavlich, a six-time All-Australian who has played in just four finals during his 198-game career, is contracted to the Dockers until the end of 2010 and Harvey said there was no way Fremantle would ever trade the 27-year-old South Australian.

"It's not even a consideration (to trade Pavlich), not at all," Harvey said on Wednesday.

"You guys would know as much as anyone how good a player Matthew is and what he's done for this football club.

"So for us to be talking about trading him - bewildering.

"He will go down as one of the greatest players that Fremantle has ever had.

"I think it's too easy for guys in really profile positions in the media to dissect the club and pull the club apart and I think they should be a lot more measured with what they say about a young club that's trying its best."

Pavlich has struggled to assert his usual dominance on games this year as players around him have floundered.

"Along with the team he hasn't played to the potential that we know, but he's just trying to do everything for the team at the moment because we aren't getting enough momentum through the course of the game," Harvey said.

"He's nonchalant, doesn't get fazed by it. Quite regularly he doesn't read thoughts on Fremantle or himself in the media and that's the best thing for him.

"If we had have won 50 per cent of our games I don't think we would be talking about this.

"But because of the circumstance we've found ourselves in, all of a sudden people want to pull this club apart through different methods."

Harvey described Tuesday's Ku Klux Klan fiasco as a "minor distraction" and warned that the fun was being taken out of the game.

"Look, pranks have been a part of football for a long period of time," he said.

"I think we've got to be mindful ... about how much we sanitise players.

"They were having a bit of fun away from their normal routine of being a professional footballer.

"As you saw there was nothing in it but it was blown up to be something a lot more than what it was.

"They are only young players and young men, and they're under a lot of pressure, but we are putting them under more pressure for no apparent reason."

Harvey said ruckman Zac Clarke, snared with pick No.37 in last year's national draft, and 19-year-old defender Matt de Boer, who was elevated to the senior list earlier this year, were a chance to make their debuts in Saturday night's clash with Sydney at Subiaco Oval.

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