RUMOURS that vice-captain Tom Rockliff may join the list of young guns hoping to leave the Brisbane Lions have been dismissed by the club.
Lions national talent manager Rob Kerr admitted they had no idea why so many Brisbane players had become homesick and wanted out ahead of the AFL trade period.
But Brisbane was adamant Rockliff would not be one of them, quashing speculation the Benalla-born midfielder would join the spate of players hoping to exit the club.
"The club can advise that it has NOT entertained, or entered into, any trade discussions surrounding vice-captain," the Lions tweeted on Friday.
Rockliff's manager Tom Petroro also felt compelled to speak up about his star client who finished equal fifth in this year's Brownlow Medal count.
"This time of year, there's plenty of names thrown up," Petroro said on SEN radio today.
"But Tom's a contracted player and he's vice-captain of the club.
"I don't see anything happening there at all."
Defender Elliot Yeo has been offered a three-year deal by West Coast while ruckman Billy Longer has been linked to Hawthorn due to Hawks big man Max Bailey's on-going knee problems.
Sam Docherty, Jared Polec, Patrick Karnezis and Brent Staker are also believed to be homesick and requesting trades.
Kerr said he could not put his finger on the reason behind so many players becoming homesick.
"For whatever reason, they haven't quite laid down the roots that we would've liked them to have laid down in Brisbane so across the whole, every area of the football club, I think we have to assess what needs to be done better," Kerr told the Lions website.
"I'm yet to see a problem where there's not contributions from a whole lot of different areas and in some cases perhaps a player himself might have been more willing to come forward and express some of the issues that he had and that might've allowed us to address some of them.
"The only real common theme is that they do all talk about homesickness but you got to drill down further than that."
But Kerr added: "The reality is when you move an 18-year-old player away from every support network he has known you're not going to be able to predict with 100 per cent accuracy how they're going to transition.
"You do have to back your club in to be able to manage that and get the boys ingrained in the culture."
