As first reported by the Herald Sun\u2019s Ed Bourke<\/a>, 2021 premiership player Sparrow is set to \u201cpark talks\u201d on a new Melbourne contract until the end of the season. <\/p>\nSparrow, now into his eighth year as a Demon since arriving as the 27th pick in 2018, is a South Adelaide product and has attracted interest from his home state \u2014 and not for the first time. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Adelaide clubs are circling \u2026 they\u2019re keeping a very close eye on him,\u201d journalist Lauren Wood began on Fox Footy\u2019s Midweek Tackle. <\/p>\n
\u201cTom is pretty keen to park talks until the end of the season \u2014 he\u2019s not really giving it a thought. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut Port Adelaide especially, as they\u2019re looking to build that midfield depth \u2014 whether Zak Butters stays or goes, they could potentially be looking at what they\u2019re going to do either way there. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think it\u2019s just an interesting one that he could leave that to wait in the winds a little bit, see how his form continues to build throughout the season, while these South Australian clubs are looming large.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wood also raised the \u201ctwo-pronged\u201d conversation around Port Adelaide\u2019s potential player pursuits this year, given the uncertainty surrounding Butters\u2019 future at the club. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s an interesting one for players that could potentially be in the sights of Port Adelaide,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWill we see more of them waiting to see what plays out on the Butters front \u2014 because are you going to be playing with this guy, or is there going to be a bit more of his cash to play with?\u201d<\/p>\n
It comes after the Crows registered interest in Sparrow in the 2023 offseason, where the club also explored the possibility of luring teammate Harry Petty to West Lakes. <\/p>\n
Sparrow, a versatile midfielder, is averaging an equal-career-best 17.2 disposals and 6.0 tackles this year in Steven King\u2019s fast-paced Demons outfit.<\/p>\n
AFL to see 24 match seasons? | 02:17<\/p>\n
CATS PLAYING LONG GAME WITH YOUNG STARS<\/p>\n
Down the highway, while Geelong remains knee-deep in the Zak Butters sweepstakes, it\u2019s also working to secure the futures of a couple of young guns. <\/p>\n
Like the rest of the competition, the Cats are in the process of trying to lock down their prized younger talent long-term as they factor in Tasmania\u2019s arrival into the competition in 2028. <\/p>\n
Midweek Tackle\u2019s Glenn McFarlane raised the names of five Cats who the club is trying to tie down for the foreseeable future. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile (the Cats) are all-in, desperately trying to get Zak Butters, they\u2019re actually working behind the scenes trying to organise some of these contracts before Tassie comes in, to reward their young stars,\u201d McFarlane told Fox Footy. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re already talking with Shannon Neale about potentially (extending), he\u2019s already contracted until 2028. The others they\u2019re going to be looking at over the coming weeks to months will be Tanner Bruhn and Sam De Koning, who are coming out (of contract) in 2027. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd also you\u2019re looking at Max Holmes and Connor O\u2019Sullivan, (out of contract) in 2028. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey are the best club at being able to keep their players happy, keep their young players happy, but also always be in the mix for someone like Zak Butters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tasmania is plotting a multi-million dollar play for a Collingwood young gun – just not the one you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9126,64,63,689,35805,160382,301328,2105,28450,9130,301327,15631,301330,12137,647,7804,18093,677,301329,301326,6082,8016,28008,19064,1124,85,11236,12920,660,16710,29646,23510],"class_list":{"0":"post-621633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-adelaide-crows","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","12":"tag-australian-clubs","13":"tag-bruhn","14":"tag-fixture-shake","15":"tag-getty-images-inc","16":"tag-glenn-mcfarlane","17":"tag-gold-coast-suns","18":"tag-harry-petty","19":"tag-lauren-wood","20":"tag-match-seasons","21":"tag-max-holmes","22":"tag-melbourne","23":"tag-melbourne-demons","24":"tag-midfield-depth","25":"tag-oceania","26":"tag-park-talks","27":"tag-player-pursuits","28":"tag-port-adelaide","29":"tag-premiership-player","30":"tag-quinn-rooney","31":"tag-sam-de-koning","32":"tag-south-australia","33":"tag-sports","34":"tag-trade-news","35":"tag-trade-whispers","36":"tag-victoria","37":"tag-west-lakes","38":"tag-young-stars","39":"tag-zak-butters"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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