Essendon veterans Scott Lucas and Dustin Fletcher have signed new one-year contracts, chief operating officer, Travis Auld, announced today.
 
“This is really good news for us - between Scott and Dustin they have over 500 games of AFL experience,” Auld said. “Both are best and fairest winners, both are premiership players and they are very important to this club.”

Auld said that all parties were happy with the agreements despite media reports that Lucas was keen for a longer deal.

“It’s becoming common practice nowadays with AFL clubs that as players come to the latter part of their career they go on one-year deals and they might end up having two or three seasons of one-year deals and Scott understands that,” Auld said.

“He had a good talk to the coach and we committed to Scott that midway through next year we will start talking to him (about his next contract). We’re certainly not going to hang him out until late next year before we start discussions and he’s happy and we are happy and there is no reason why he can’t play for at least a couple more years.”
 

Auld said it was important for people to understand the context behind a one-year deal.

“It’s a minimum not a maximum and once this was explained everyone was happy,” he said.

“The rationale behind the one-year deal is that it gives some flexibility to both the player and the club because, at that stage of a career, the player wants to be happy with where they are at with their footy and the club wants to be happy with where they are at.

“We have a very young list so we have to make sure we have that blend of experience along with youth and players like Scott and Dustin are both very important.

“We base ourselves on tradition and history and both those guys are a massive part of that.

“Dustin and his father Ken broke the father/son playing record a few weeks ago and that’s important to us, it might not mean a lot to Dustin right now but it certainly means a lot to us as a club.”

Thirty-three year-old Fletcher recently speculated that he might hang-up his boots at the end of the 2009 season.

“Dustin likes to think things through himself but we can have a pretty open dialogue with him and we will speak to him mid-way through next year and we will have a chat and see how he is feeling,” Auld said.

“He’s been a stalwart of the club and we are not ruling out that he might play on even longer.”
 
Today's announcements come on the back of yesterday's news that Jobe Watson had signed a new two-year deal.