The AFL trade period has enough tension, drama and insouciance to fact that you could wrap entire novels around it. As a form of footballing entertainment, it casts a significant shadow over the nascent AFLX, despite (or perhaps because of) a patois gleaned from the NBA trade period.
Over the course of 13 days, 40 players switched clubs, with many of the big names – including Lachie Neale, Jesse Hogan, Steven May, Chad Wingard, Dane Beams and Dylan Shiel – waiting until the last day to get it done, the latter two going down to the last televised half-hour.
In any other industry, this sort of flesh-trading would be censured. On Fox Footy and in the metropolitan dailies it is celebrated as footy pundits beat the shit out of the English language on the ankle of Tom Scully as player agents throw rumours at them like burley to a shark, to enhance their negotiating positions.
One of the appeals of the trade period is that we all have our football lenses and we take it all in through this filter. If Shiel ends up at St Kilda, he changes the momentum at Moorabbin, at Carlton, he’s part of a generational midfield alongside Patrick Cripps, Paddy Dow and Sam Walsh. Instead he goes to Essendon who Saints and Blues supporters now say paid way too much for a guy who’s not even in the top three in the Giants’ midfield. It the impossibility of ever removing that lens that is a football supporter’s defining trait and one which makes this period the only time of the year when just about every team can make an argument for having won it.
If there was a loser, it may be Geelong’s Tim Kelly who sought a return to Western Australia, where his partner and young family are expected to spend much time during the year. Kelly did himself no favours, restricting his options to the West Coast Eagles, and Geelong was right to demand a high price for the midfielder who finished runner-up in their best and fairest. Kelly’s wage of around $200,000 makes his the best contract in the league.
Sadly, Kelly would’ve been a great fit at Fremantle, who saw Neale (and pick 30) walk to Brisbane for picks 6, 19 and 55. Fremantle then secured Hogan (and Pick 65) after sending Pick 6 and Pick 23 to Melbourne.
Hogan said that conversations with Nat Fyfe and Ross Lyon helped convince him that his decision to head home was the right one. “We went through the list and the culture which aligned with where I’m at. The timing seemed right to try and pursue that and here we are.”
The list looks even better when you throw in Rory Lobb from the Giants who received Pick 11 and Pick 19 from the Dockers for Lobb, and picks 14, 43 and 47. If Fremantle’s young midfield can grow into their role alongside Fyfe, they’ve now an embarrassment of riches to kick to up forward with Hogan, Lobb (who the club says will primarily play forward) and Cam McCarthy.
While there is cause for optimism at most clubs – including the lowly Carlton who added Mitch McGovern and Will Setterfield to its list – it’s hard to find much joy outside of draft picks for the Gold Coast Suns. Out the door walked Tom Lynch, Kade Kolodjashnij and May. Or, put another way, first, second and third in their 2015 Best & Fairest count.
Craig Cameron, the Suns’ list manager, says cutting ties with contracted captain Steven May was the club’s “line in the sand moment” in breaking the cycle in its battle to retain players.
“Once we got in a position where both captains weren’t ready to commit to us long term, we had to change the strategy of the football club,” Cameron told Trade Radio.
“It was a strategy we took to ‘clear the decks’ is the wrong term, but to actually get some clear air and build a club from a base of bringing in some really good character people…we’ll get some high-end draft picks and some really talented young players.”
The Suns will take picks two, three and six into a revitalised draft that will for the first time feature live trading, in another step closer to the arcana of picks and player movement of the NBA, which in many ways is a sport in and of itself. And ultimately, that’s the AFL’s aim.
