GREATER Western Sydney midfielder Tim Taranto doesn't expect to put pen to paper on a contract extension in the early stages of the season, but the star is adamant he wants to remain a one-club player.
The 24-year-old doesn't qualify for free agency just yet, but he is one of the most appealing players coming out of contract this season, after the 2019 Kevin Sheedy medallist returned to his best last season following a shoulder reconstruction at the start of the pandemic.
Almost every big name drafted by Greater Western Sydney has been through what Taranto is about to experience this year. That is the nature of starting a club from scratch in rugby league heartland.
Stephen Coniglio and Josh Kelly chose to remain at the Giants after weighing up Godfather offers from Victorian clubs, while Jeremy Cameron, Dylan Shiel, Adam Treloar and Zac Williams couldn't resist the lure south of the border.
Now it is Taranto's turn to deal with the speculation surrounding his future, which could continue to swirl if negotiations stretch deep into the season.
"I'm not in a rush. I want to get this first part of the season underway and then reassess after the first five weeks," Taranto told AFL.com.au.
"Right now, I'm happy, the club's happy with where it's at. Had a good conversation with my manager [Matt Bain] and Jase [Jason McCartney] and it is all going well. I'm just not going to think about it until the first five or six rounds and see what happens after that.
"I love this club so much; I love everyone here and I love Sydney; I prefer it to Melbourne. Hopefully it works out that I can be a one-club player and stay up in Sydney for the rest of my life."
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Those inside the Giants don't have the same fears of losing Taranto that they had with others, even some who stayed. They are confident the Victorian will stay on a journey that started when the expansion club selected him with pick No.2 in the 2016 NAB AFL Draft.
It is just a matter of his manager, Matt Bain from TLA, who has recently moved to Sydney, and GWS head of football Jason McCartney agreeing to terms. It could result in a two-year deal that takes Taranto to free agency – and back to this point in 2024 – but the Giants are hopeful they can secure him for longer now.
With superstar forward Toby Greene missing the first five games of the season due to the suspension he copped following the elimination final win over Sydney, Leon Cameron is set to use Taranto as a near permanent forward as GWS looks to kick winning scores without the dual All-Australian inside 50.
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Taranto produced a dominant performance in the AAMI Community Series on Sunday to put the finishing touches on a stellar pre-season, amassing 31 disposals, two goals and 648 metres gained in the 41-point win over Collingwood, spending more time in the midfield than forward.
"It will be forward at least while Toby's out for 80 to 90 per cent of games (in the first five rounds), depending on the fitness of everyone else. But it will be pretty much all forward with a few centre bounces in a game," he said.
"I'd love to play mid, obviously it is my preferred position, but I do actually enjoy playing forward, too. It adds something different; it is a completely different position; the ability to chop in and out of that requires a different mindset. If I can get that right, I'll be fine. But that's the challenge. If you're playing inside mid you've got to have a certain method, but it completely changes as a forward. I like that I can do both."
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Greater Western Sydney reverted to a co-captaincy model late last year after Coniglio led the club throughout 2020 and 2021. Now Greene and Kelly have been voted in to share the responsibilities, relieving some of the pressure Coniglio has faced in the past two seasons.
Some associated with the Giants view Taranto as a potential future captain. Leadership has always been attached to the way he handles his business, even when he was in the classroom at St Kevin's College. But the man himself isn't sure he is the right man for the job, at least at this point.
"I definitely want to be a leader; do I want to be a captain? I'm not sure. Right now? Probably not. But in a couple of years? Maybe," he said.
"It is a bloody huge job being a captain. There are parts where you think: wow I could never imagine doing that much, thinking that much about footy, having conversations behind closed doors, they just do that much.
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"I think the co-captain model is really good. I can already see it's helping Cogs [Coniglio] out heaps. He just looks so much more chilled with way less workload. Maybe if it's something like that in the future, for sure, but I don't think I could be a standalone captain; that's a huge job and one that's tough. I'm not a huge footy head as well, so I'm not sure if its suited. Co-captain potentially."
Taranto was one of the lucky few in the AFL who was able to travel overseas during the off-season, reuniting with his father, Phillip, and three brothers in Dallas for the first time in more than two years after the United States border reopened to international visitors in November.
"I was refreshing the news literally every day throughout October, waiting to see if I could get over there. November 1 was the day (the US Border reopened) and I was on the first plane out," he said.
"I just went for two weeks and chilled with my dad and my little brothers – I hadn't seen them for two years. I spent two weeks with them. They were still at school and hard all their stuff on so I just hung out, played soccer, played footy for two weeks. It had been a long couple of years.
"My little brothers are nine and eight and the young one is nearly three, but the two older boys froth footy. They know all the players, kicking actions, what foot they kick off. That's what we did for hours over there, just kick the footy. I was trying to teach them how to do drop punts and stuff like that and they were pretty good, much better than most American 10-year-olds."
Despite the tyranny of distance, Taranto is very close with his dad, who was born and has lived in Texas for most of his life, loves to hear all the inner workings of a football club, from selection to injuries to what Toby is really like away from footy. He is just like every other dad, albeit one who didn't grow up at Victoria Park or Windy Hill.
Taranto will seek his opinion on his future when the time is right. But right now, the Giant with the heavily strapped shoulders and the ever growing stretch of body ink won't rush before he signs on the dotted line.