Well, one week of the AFL trade period down, and now the clock is really ticking with just four ‘business days’ of trading left to go – it all comes to an end at 2pm AEDT on Thursday.
Before we get onto that though, here’s a quick round-up of the deals done on Friday.
Jack Steele officially joined St Kilda as widely expected, for the price of a second-round draft pick. Seems like a reasonable enough deal, and Steele will be an excellent addition to the Saints.
Roarers were in near unanimous agreement that the Saints win the deal on our rate-the-trade poll – 83 per cent voting a St Kilda win.
Secondly in what will be remembered as one of the most bizarre deals done in history, Sam Mitchell officially joined the West Coast Eagles for a swap of late draft picks – No.54 and No.72 went with Mitchell to the Eagles, Hawthorn got No.52, No.70 and No.88 back.
Strong agreement to one side on this one as well, with 68 per cent of voters saying that the Eagles come out winners. It’s hard to argue with that – obviously there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge, but it’s not off the cards that Mitchell could win a fifth premiership there.
The Hawks also passed that pick No.52 onto Sydney and got pick No.57 back in return, finalising the Tom Mitchell deal from earlier in the week.
Opinion was a bit more split on this one with 45 per cent believing the Saints were winners, and 35 per cent voting in favour of the Hawks. For mine, it’s the potential of Hawthorn to drop a little next year and the value of their first-round pick to rise that makes the Saints big winners.
However, you can understand why the Hawks would pay up – pick 10 appears essential to their goal of snaring Jaeger O’Meara, and that’s one of the two big deals that, when completed, I suspect will set of an explosion of trading.
What’s being reported at the moment is that Hawthorn will trade pick No.10 and a player to the Suns and get O’Meara back in return. What’s not clear is who that player will be – they’ve got rumours of Jordan Lewis going to Melbourne and Billy Hartung and Ryan Schoenmakers going to Brisbane, but who is going to Gold Coast? We don’t know.
One option for the Hawks might be to make this a three-way deal, and ask the Lions to pass on Pearce Hanley to the Suns while giving the Suns pick No.10 and the two players mentioned above to the Lions. Just my own musing, but it could satisfy all three parties.
At any rate, both Hawthorn and Gold Coast have a few other trades pending this off-season and getting the O’Meara deal done will mean they move on to those. Don’t be surprised if there’s as many as five or ten deals that are finished up as a result of O’Meara moving, hopefully early next week.
It’s a simillar state of affairs with Carlton, Adelaide and Bryce Gibbs. It’s looking likely now that Adelaide won’t pass on a player to the Blues, simply because they can’t find a suitable player who wants to leave, and a trade along the lines of pick No.13 and a second-round pick – either Adelaide’s future second, or one acquired from another club for Jarryd Lyons – will probably be the deal.
That’ll allow Carlton to make a deal with GWS for Caleb Marchbank and maybe others, the Western Bulldogs to decide between offers from Carlton and North Melbourne for Nathan Hrovat, and then after that to officially acquire Travis Cloke from Collingwood, and then Collingwood to move on to picking up Will Hoskin-Elliott from GWS.
It’s all waiting to explode next week, basically! Clubs can’t lodge paperwork over the weekend, but they can announce trades and may do so.
There were two notable AFL trade rumours to pop up on Friday.
The first was that Marcus Adams after just one year in the AFL reportedly wants a trade home to Western Australia – but is happy to serve out his contract for 2017 at the Western Bulldogs, which looks to be the most likely result.
The second was that Todd Goldstein might seek a trade to West Coast, a proposition which seems utterly bizarre. There are a fair few rumours being spread around about why it might happen, none of them showing enough factual basis at this point to be worthy of being repeated here.
One last thing worth mentioning, the deadline for clubs to lodge free agency deals is this Sunday night, so we may see some movement on this front over the weekend.
Mitch Brown and Ricky Henderson are the players to keep an eye on. Both look likely to move but don’t have any clear suitors at this stage – so it’ll be either a surprise signing, or they’ll be left standing at the altar on Sunday night.
Zac Clarke is also weighing up his options but the belief at the moment is that he’ll choose to re-sign with Fremantle rather than accept a deal with cross-town rivals West Coast.
Macca
Guest
True but we could get more for Gibbs pay less for Marchbank and Pickett and more for Murphy and Kreuzer. Also if we trade Gibbs, Murphy and Kreuzer we will repeat the mistakes of the past and expose our young recruits to early with not enough leadership.
Jack
Guest
We are not playing finals until at least 2019 we may as well get as many guns as possible
Sammy
Guest
Run for cover when the tough games kick in eh...they have had some shocking luck with coaching tragedies over the last few years. A first time coach took them to the semi this season. ..so who do you support then and let us have the opportunity to critique them?. As for gibbs..hopefully the crows have said to silvagni to think about it over the weekend and if the answer for pick 13 and maybe lyons or a 2nd rounder is not on then the crows move on to other targets. I like mark bickleys take they should be going to GWS who have huge midfield depth and make a big play for dylan shiel whose girlfriend is from adelaide. Now he would be worth pick 13 and a mitch mcgovern type as he would be massive for adelaide's midfield
prideofsa
Guest
Wilhelm Klink as far as your assessment on doubting the Crows can win a flag anytime soon.Think you should stick to your name sakes favourite words as i m thinking there yours aswell ...." I know nothing I know nothing"
13th Man
Guest
I would imagine 43 is enough to get Kersten so 34 will be part of it, then perhaps a swap of later picks or something along those lines, maybe a future pick. However it is worth remembering that Hamling is out of contract and Freo have an early pick in the PSD, Freo in the drivers seat with this one but I think a fair deal will get done.
Paul
Guest
Can see the Suns taking 4,6,8,10,22 - Bowes, Scheer and three guns at 6,8 and 10 They also want players so I could see Ah Chee going for Pick 44. I think they also want Witts from the Pies but I reckon he's worth late first round at best so maybe 24 plus their third rounder from 2017? That still leaves them with pick 30. If they take three players (WItts, Hanley and Ah Chee) and draft five then surely that will be enough. Then again they may go deep to the draft and take a sixth pick at 30. That would require nine free spots on the Suns List which I'm not sure they have. Make or break year for the Suns in 2017
InvisiblePJs
Roar Rookie
Liam Jones perhaps??
Tricky
Guest
Hoskin- Elliott I don't mind but Wells and Mayne is either a tilt at the flag or a desperate attempt for Bucks to make finals and keep his job. I think we all know the answer and we all know we'll be bottom 6 again next year. Spewin on Schoenmakers - we need a KPD
rusty
Roar Rookie
Lol.
Wilhelm Klink
Guest
Gibbs won't be going back to Adelaide it seems. The Crows are trying to lowball the Blues and after the stich up they got over Eddie Betts they won't be doing that again. Maybe Pt Adelaide has a better proposition. I doubt the Crows will win the flag anytime soon. They are that typical South Australian all fur coat and no knickers style. When the tough games roll again they run for cover. Not sure how Hawthorn can possibly legally get O'Meara and Mitchell. They need to be investigated if it happens. It stinks like salary cap tampering.
Macca
Guest
Dave mac - if the blues get a second round pick with the Gibbs trade or for Tuohy then I would be very surprised if we couldn't get Pickett and Marchbank and keep 5 and 13. It would only be if we got more than those 2 13 would be in doubt.
Seano
Guest
How does pick 10 and Shoenmakers to GC not get the Jaeger deal done?
me too
Guest
Suns will need to offload some of those. Likely to be interested in future pick swaps. Maybe st kilda get back into the top ten draft this year?
Balthazar
Guest
43 AND a second rounder next year (which may be higher than 34)? would imagine it would be 34 or a second rounder next year - Freo would probably prefer to give 34
CRICKET 1
Guest
haha
Liam Salter
Roar Guru
Yeah, seems like it's true. Now comes the tricky part for Freo: what to give you guys in return? His finals series really upped his value. Pick 7 would absolutely be waaaaay to much. Pick 35 perhaps? Or pick 43 and next year's second rounder?
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Getting reported in the Age: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-trades-2016-western-bulldogs-defender-joel-hamling-signs-with-fremantle-20161015-gs30x0.html so looking legit (unfortunately for us).
Liam Salter
Roar Guru
I've seen the two tweets you've copied and pasted, and I'm still torn about whether it's legit. Probably is, but until either Freo, the Bulldogs or Hamling himself comments, I won't believe it. Media sensationalism is all the norm these days.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
So, looks like we've lost the first of our premiership 22.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Real Footy (AFL) @agerealfooty 2m2 minutes ago The @westernbulldogs premiership defender Joel Hamling will be leaving the kennel for @freodockers