Recently retired West Coast premiership ruckman Dean Cox rejected an offer from Mick Malthouse to make a comeback and join the Blues for a final AFL season.
The 203cm, 14-season veteran announced his decision to retire at the end of the 2014 season back in July in favour of beginning a coaching career, ending a 290-game career which included the 2006 premiership and six All-Australia appearances.
Cox revealed on Tuesday that the former West Coast and current Carlton coach had approached the 33-year-old about a comeback to help the Blues’ depleted big man stocks.
“I did speak to Mick and he asked if I wanted to play on for another season,” Cox told Adelaide radio station 5AA.
“For me, the decision was made. Not being able to do what I wanted to do on the football field for a period of time, the decision was quite easy.
“We had a really good chat about my future and obviously my coaching aspirations.”
Cox is back with the Eagles in a coaching capacity, developing young bigs Scott Lycett, Callum Sinclair and the mercurial Nic Naitanui as the club’s ruck coach. The East Perth product says that his advanced aged and the rigours of AFL football had taken too much of a toll on his body to kick on into 2015.
“Recovery’s a massive part of that and I suppose you notice that when you play Fremantle and you have a couple of games in a row at home – you can actually get more training load in throughout the week not having to recover from a flight or prepare for a flight,” Cox said.
“I think it just catches up with you really quickly; the older you get, the longer it takes to recover.
“And if it’s every second week going on a plane for four hours, plus a bus trip, plus layover time, waiting for your bag, it turns out to be a long night when you get home.”
Carlton will enter the 2015 season without forward target Jarrad Waite, who departed in free agency, but managed to add Liam Jones and Kristian Jaksch in the off-season.
Despite huge strides from big bodies Sam Rowe and Levi Casboult, the Blues will be forced to rely heavily on often injured ruck pair Robbie Warnock and Matthew Kreuzer again next season, hoping both can finally manage full seasons and come good on their mostly untapped potential.
Photo: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images.
