FALCONS UPBEAT DESPITE LOSS OF KRAKOUER

WHILE disappointed that Andrew Krakouer won't be lining up as expected in the 2014 WAFL season, the West Perth Football Club is not letting it effect preparations for the premiership defence but the door will always be open to the former AFL star to return if his circumstances change.

Krakouer did initially sign with West Perth for the 2014 and 2015 WAFL seasons after his 137-game AFL career came to an end following the 2013 season with Collingwood.

However, the 30-year-old informed the club on Monday that he had been offered, and accepted, an employment opportunity that would see him spend too much time outside of Perth in 2014 for him to continue to train and play at WAFL level.

As a result, he will not be lining up for West Perth and while there is no tangible loss on the field given his pre-season training to date meant he was an unlikely starter for Round 1 anyway, it does leave the Falcons in a unique position.

West Perth and Swan Districts agreed on a transfer fee when Krakouer signed with the Falcons upon wishing to return to the WAFL, and now that deal looks like it will have to be upheld despite West Perth not having even seen Krakouer in as much as an intra-club hit out.

West Perth chief executive David Crute is still ironing out the nuts and bolts of the process with both Swan Districts and the WAFL.

"Essentially we are going to be paying out X amount of dollars for nothing in effect so that is a bit gut-wrenching when money is tight in WAFL circles, and you don’t like to be throwing away money. We have to get past that before we make a rational decision," Crute said.

"If we are asked to pay it by the footy commission, we don’t have a choice. We entered into an agreement with Swan Districts and they are expecting us to pay it so that is probably what will end up happening. There's still a bit of water to go under the bridge yet though.

"Andrew and his manager made it clear that he wouldn’t be playing for the club in 2014, but that being said you never say never about next year. But right now I would have to say it's unlikely. He is still a listed West Perth player for 2014 and we have an obligation to pay his transfer fee to Swan Districts and the final details of that are still being worked through."

While Crute and everyone involved at West Perth are disappointed that Krakouer won't be seen on the field now in 2014 to help the club try and win back-to-back WAFL premierships, Krakouer had made it clear upon returning to Western Australia that his off-field life was always coming first.

"It's a little bit disappointing. It didn’t come as a total shock and we have been working behind the scenes with Andrew the last couple of weeks but he gave me a call Sunday night to tell me that he's finally made his decision. We wish him all the best," he said.

"At the end of the day, Andrew made it clear when he approached us late last year that life after football was his No. 1 focus, and he was looking at some career opportunities. At that stage, we stressed that playing football is an excellent way of building up your networks and contacts with the hope of employment coming out of that.

"Andrew did have a job lined up before he came back to Perth so that sort of made it easier for us, but for whatever reason that fell through at reasonably late notice.

"We have spent the last month or six weeks busily working behind the scenes looking for other opportunities, and we did have a number that came to fruition but then this opportunity came up in the mining industry that was a little more lucrative than we could locate in the metro area."

Given the fact that Krakouer never showed what he could offer on the field for West Perth, the loss of him from the team for 2014 won't be felt too much by the Falcons, but it is a blow to some of the Indigenous programs that were being put in place with Krakouer in line to help implement them.

"It's probably not such a blow on the field because we certainly have the players to cover him. Our coach Bill Monaghan has done a lot of work bringing through our younger players so we have no issue covering Andrew's absence," Crute said.

"He's never even played an intra-club game for the club so Bill has been doing all the work this pre-season without him there anyway. One of the reasons we were excited to sign him was because he is a rare individual in that he has huge football talent, but his off the field presence is quite exceptional as well.

"We were planning on running some programs with his help with our district staff, and we will continue to do that, but his presence with all of that would have been fantastic. We don’t know what we have missed out on though."

BY CHRIS PIKE