West Coast Sign Daniel Kerr, Scott Burns
October 4, 2008 by News
West Coast today ended months of speculation when they announced an extended agreement with Daniel Kerr. In further good news for the club, it announced former Collingwood captain Scott Burns had signed on to be an assistant coach.
Chief executive Trevor Nisbett was understandably delighted to announce both signings, and had the following to say:
“We are delighted that Scott Burns has joined a structure we believe has the capacity to assist in our young squad’s development,”
“He will be an outstanding acquisition for our club and completes an outstanding group of people who will be involved in plotting our charge back into finals contention.
“In Neale and Phil we have gained great experience and insight and we believe we needed to complement the group by securing a recently retired player. Gaining someone of Scott’s credentials is a terrific result for our club.
“With Daniel Kerr also re-committing beyond 2009, everything is taking shape as we start to plan our rise back up the table. It is fantastic to have Daniel continue with us, he is a quality player who can offer important on-field direction to so many of our younger players.
“He is one of our best ever players, is a life member and we are delighted that it looks as though he will now finish his career with the West Coast Eagles. Both signings are of great significance for our club moving forward.”
The signing of Kerr is an interesting one for a number of reasons:
- West Coast were offered up at as much as $5 in bookies markets to be Kerr’s team next year, behind an incredibly hard to fathom favourite in St Kilda(?). Someone definitely did well as they shortened to $3.50 quick smart and the market did not last long.
- A number of ‘sensationalist’ journalists, including Caroline Wilson and Craig Hutchison, swore black and blue that Kerr would be in Melbourne next year. Hutchison even went as far as to ‘guarantee’ he wouldn’t be at the Eagles next year on one episode of Footy Classified.
- Kerr was made a life member at last night’s Club Champion awards at the tender age of 25 – did that have any effect on his decision?
Also, it is interesting that West Coast has not yet announced how long the extension is, seeing that was apparently the major sticking point between the two parties.
Anyway – good news for Eagles fans, and one less potential trade off the table come Monday.
Kerr has played 150 odd games which is the requirement for life membership.
Wilson and Hutcho are idiots and what have they got right this season? I would say they are on about 50/ 50. Whether your an Eagles fan or not, this signing is a good sign for AFL football with a star sticking with his team instead of going to a new club. I hope we NEVER go like other country sports were players are poached etc
I think Kerr put the rumours out there to get things moving on the deal he wanted. He wanted to show the eagles that if other clubs knew he was looking then they would be knocking on the door. He is a required player at west coast so I think the club and to give into his demands a bit and give him the playing years he wanted.