The Roar
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A shorter, wiser trade period

Roar Pro
10th October, 2017
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Where's Adam Saad going, and why is it taking so long? (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Roar Pro
10th October, 2017
15

All my wisdom teeth are out. Warm blood oozed and my cheeks exploded, and mood swings are to be expected following the operation.

It is now day five and I am sick of drinking yoghurts, conservatives in power and refreshing the AFL website every 90 seconds.

I have also come to the conclusion that trade week(s) is the equivalent of oral surgery. But instead of being unconscious and the procedure finishing in 20 minutes I’m awake and it is agonisingly slow.

And – in this analogy – it is a shoddy extraction. Trade period lacks the efficiency and expertise of the hospital staff. There is a scarcity of soothing, calm and genuinely kind words (see Jake Lever). For non-destination clubs there isn’t vanilla ice cream and jelly at the end of the bureaucratic ordeal, only list-swelling.

I saw the something coloured eyes of the person snatching away my impacted chompers and I felt certain of the consistency between what I was told and what was about to happen.

I watch the shifty suit-people on TV and I all I hear is, “Yes but no. It sounds good but we’ll reconsider and recalibrate, and X wants to go home and have greater opportunities to be with more money”. Also, private healthcare is Gary Ablett.

But I don’t want this analogy to be (barely, by a thread) applicable. I want it to resemble the effects of the painkillers I’ve been prescribed.

I want to be dizzy and nauseous and deliriously high with the immediate knowledge that GWS depth player number 12 will be 120 per cent faster and stronger and hungrier wearing that great navy blue jumper.

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I don’t want this fortnight. A whole fortnight. Of a million cuts and 1000 tiny punches to the jaw and that feeling of hope – that tomorrow will be better than today – painfully dashed (see Adam Saad choosing Essendon over Carlton).

I want it all to happen as quickly and joyfully as possible.

My proposal is simple. As it stands we have a system where list manager A puts on a serious expression and presents every muscle. They wax lyrical on what is typically their 32nd best player in an attempt to boost their value from pick 46 to pick 38 plus something resembling player 36.

List manager B ums and ahs and refers to their policy, philosophy and phraseology before realising it’s day 13 and they have wasted everyone’s time.

We’re all time-poor. So let’s make trade period a sharp 45 minutes – enough time for carnage and sweaty bacchanalia and the sweet smell of Matt Kennedy in the morning, but not too much time that I spend most of my days following this ongoing process of drawn-out nothingness.

It will be scary at first but – if I have learnt anything – it’s prolonging the procedure hurts more in the long run.

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