AFL trade period generated its usual last-minute drama, this time with a primetime audience that keeps growing

EVEN though there is no AFL game to be played for five months, the league remained on the back and front pages with another intriguing trade period.

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ALL that was missing was Anthony Green, the ABC’s master of reading the play at federal and state elections.

“And now we see a late swing from West Coast to Fremantle in the chase for Tim Kelly.”

The AFL trade period went prime time for the first time. And, just as it was in the era of the 1.30pm finishes, there was a queue outside Ken Wood’s makeshift office in the corporate boxes at the Docklands Stadium in Melbourne to close the late trades.

Essendon list manager Adrian Dodoro kept everyone waiting to the final bell at 8pm to put the trade for midfielder Dylan Shiel in writing with Greater Western Sydney. Dodoro is the master of suspense and last-minute deals. He must be some poker player.

No matter if the AFL trade period went for one day, one week or one month, there would always be those last-minute deals ... and, more likely than not, Dodoro playing hardball until the clock runs out.

As clubs were seen pairing up to fashion a deal, the inevitable speculation - the trade period thrives on such gossip - rages. This is where the growing media presentation of the trade period needs Green with graphics to explain how a swap of players or draft picks is moving from “hold” to “change”.

“There’s a late swing to Port Adelaide wanting a second-round draft pick from Hawthorn for Chad Wingard or they will hold.”

The game’s highest-profile player agent, Paul Connors, loomed large in the corridors - and had all his high-profile clients, such as Shiel and Dayne Beams, ready for “exclusive” television appearances as this trade period generated its first free-to-air television show on Channel Nine with SA’s own Kane Cornes as the host.

And at 8pm there were 39 seats ... sorry, players, to change clubs ... and one, Kelly at Geelong, who did not fall to West Coast and will be subject to as much speculation on his next 12 months leading up to the next trade period as any Australian Prime Minister is today.

The AFL will be pleased. It stayed on the back pages - and some front pages - while there is not a game to play for another five months. There were just five free agents who swapped clubs. And even non-finalists such as the Power could score a premiership player (Scott Lycett) from West Coast, ensuring there is no grand debate on how free agency is destroying the league’s equalisation theme.

But it is not over.

For the first time, the AFL clubs can spend the next month - leading up the AFL national draft that will be spread across two nights for the first time, November 22-23 - re-evaluating their trades to address any oversights. They can keep swapping draft picks - and do so again with “live trading” on draft night.

Everyone is watching if Adelaide - that has three first-round draft picks (Nos. 8, 13, 16) for the first time in club history - tempts St Kilda for its No. 4 call to leapfrog Port Adelaide (No. 5) in the race for the rich crop of SA talent at the front of the grid in the draft gallery.

Even Green would find this backroom dealing as fascinating as anything in Canberra.

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