Former Sydney and Richmond forward Nathan Gordon leaves Balwyn

Gordon, who kicked the first four goals in the Division 1 grand final, informed the club of his decision to leave on the weekend.

The 26-year-old is weighing up whether to continue playing football in Melbourne or return home to Sydney.

Balwyn football director Paul Johnson said the club had been preparing for Gordon to depart the club after just one season.

“Most of them (players) expected he would go, in our mind most of us thought he would go,” Johnson said.

“He was talking about it during the season, he was talking about going back to Sydney.”

Johnson said the EFL salary cap, which has been set at $225,000 for Division 1 clubs, had played a part in Gordon’s decision to leave.

“We have put a ceiling on our payments, which most the players have accepted,” he said.

“We are going to batch our player (payments) closer together because we don’t want blokes that are playing for nothing but some clubs are going to go down the line of having three or four highly paid players.

“I don’t believe you can win it (a premiership) doing that unless you have a heap of good juniors coming through.”

Gordon, who played two games for Sydney and 21 for Richmond from 2011 to 2015, kicked 52 goals for Balwyn this year.

“He will be hard to replace but we will try and restructure,” Johnson said.

“We’re still waiting to see what happens with a few players in regards to the draft.

“We would like another forward, our forward line is getting a bit old but, in saying that, we get (Luke) Barker back.”