Veteran star Luke Parker is adamant one-club players will become “very rare” having being pushed out of the Sydney Swans after 15 seasons still with “plenty of football” left in him.
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Parker, 32, played 293 games with the Swans since his 2011 debut before being traded to North Melbourne where he’s signed a two-year deal.
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That will take him into seasons 15 and 16 and towards 350 games.
Despite his lengthy tenure in red and white, Parker senses a shift in club priorities at the Swans and signalled it could be a broader theme across the AFL when it came to long-serving players who could find themselves shifting unexpectedly in the future.
“I probably always had in my head that I’d be a one-club player, but these days things do change really quickly and clubs go in a different direction,” he said.
“That is going to happen more and more these days. I think it will be very rare to see a one-club player as they get over the 12 to 13-year mark.”
Parker, a former co-captain at the Swans, multiple best and fairest winner and a premiership player in 2012, said he sensed a long way out that the club was moving in a different direction, one that likely did not include him.
“It probably wasn’t until this year or halfway through,” Parker said on SEN Breakfast.
“For me, it was basically that I started to feel that the club or certain things were heading in a new direction. The club has got to do what is best for the club, and I can fully understand that.
“I still felt that I had a lot of good football ahead of me and a lot to offer. I wasn’t too confident in what my future looked like at the Swans, so that was really the reason that I started to look around.”
Despite his veteran status, Parker is adamant he’s not trying to “milk” any more games out and wants to be a part of the Kangaroos’ resurgence.
“I wasn’t coming here to milk my career for an extra couple of years and just get through to see how long I could play for,” he added.
“I’m a pretty competitive person, I always want to win, so I’m not coming here to get an extra few years and hopefully help a few boys and develop the team. I’m here to take us to where we want to go and to where I want to go.
“I’ve got full belief that there’s a possibility of that with my time here.
“That’s the thing that surprised me. I think we’re actually a lot closer than what people on the outside would think.”
North Melbourne will play Sydney in round 5 next season.