AFL Trades 2022: The eight big questions of this year’s exchange period
Essendon was prepared to throw $800,000 offers at the likes of Izak Rankine and still has a mountain of cap space at its disposal. What are the Bombers cooking up?
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Teams at the top are trying to get better as those below them on the ladder search for ways to make up the gap.
In what is shaping as the biggest player movement period in history, decisions in the next nine days will have a huge impact on team’s fortunes.
Jon Ralph answers the eight biggest questions of this year’s trade period.
WHAT IS ESSENDON COOKING?
The Bombers have $3 million bucks of cap space, a new coach keen to get cracking and have shown they are prepared to throw $800,000 offers at the likes of Izak Rankine.
But if you listen to Brad Scott, they are planning more steady-as-she-goes than trade week chaos.
Scott has already made clear he wants to develop this list methodically, so if the Dons to make a major splash, look for it to be in the 21-25 year age bracket.
He doesn’t want a quick fix and even ruled out targeting positional list holes if they weren’t in the right age bracket.
They clearly need another key full-back; long-termer Zach Reid playing only seven 2022 games and handing four-plus goals to every opposition key tall is the recipe for another long year.
But if Scott is true to his word, the Dons will go to the draft with a best-available philosophy.
Being part of the Jack Bowes cap dump and securing pick 7 for another youngster or as trade collateral makes sense for a team that has more cap space than almost every club in the competition.
Essendon fans would accept using cap space if it secured them another early pick, especially given they all believe the midfield needs a shake-up and Bowes could still flourish as a 150-game player.
WILL ANY OF COLLINGWOOD’S NEW ACQUISITIONS BE IN THEIR ROUND 1 TEAM NEXT YEAR?
Pies fans want to trust their football department after this year’s triumphant finals march.
But losing Ollie Henry and Brodie Grundy – both matchwinners at their best – and bringing in a collection of bit-parts players has them a little confused.
Billy Frampton is key back cover for Nathan Murphy, Bobby Hill isn’t certain to play ahead of Will Hoskin-Elliott, Josh Carmichael and Beau McCreery, and Brayden Fiorini has real talent but would be behind Jordan De Goey, the Daicos boys, Scott Pendlebury, Steele Sidebottom, Taylor Adams and Pat Lipinski.
Dan McStay will play a valuable role likely to be underestimated by fans, and looks resigned to the weekly boom-bust media cycle.
But while Geelong already looks significantly improved on its 2022 premiership side on paper those Pies’ acquisitions would have to improve to make an impact in a side that still hasn’t addressed its clearance imbalance.
WILL GEELONG FINISH THE TRADE PERIOD CLOSE TO UNTOUCHABLE?
The Cats are every chance to end up with three players in the top 10 of the 2020 national draft in Tanner Bruhn (pick 12), Ollie Henry (pick 17) and Max Holmes (pick 20), but first they have to play their cards right.
Only using picks 18 and 37 in the national draft there is no way they can broker deals for a pair of first-round draftees who have arguably improved their stocks since then.
It’s why securing pick 7 for Jack Bowes in the Gold Coast salary dump looms as the centrepiece of their plans.
Bowes also has interest from Essendon and North Melbourne, having met the Dons on Friday.
He is owed $1.6 million in the last two years of his current deal.
Andrew Mackie’s utopia is easy to plot.
Get Bowes, ask him to spread that salary over three years, easily fit it under the cap after the retirements of Luke Dahlhaus, Shaun Higgins and Joel Selwood (paid around $1.1 million in total) and use picks 7, 18 and 37 to seal the deals for Bruhn and Henry.
If Esava Ratugolea leaves – and Port Adelaide and GWS are keen – the Cats would even have the picks to draft another key-position tall given Ratugolea is worth a second-rounder.
But if Bowes goes elsewhere if makes everything harder.
Would the Pies accept 18 for Henry? And the Giants 37 and Ratugolea for Bruhn?
IS MELBOURNE ACTUALLY GOING BACKWARDS THIS TRADE PERIOD?
Brodie Grundy is coming but the loss of Toby Bedford to GWS after he requested a trade over the weekend will sting.
He was the first player Simon Goodwin mentioned in grand final week alongside Kade Chandler, Bailey Lawrie, Blake Howes and Jacob van Rooyen as a group of players from the victorious VFL side who would make significant AFL gains in 2023.
He has speed and X factor, but kids want to play straight away and he was the unused sub eight times in 2022 and sub in 10 games in all.
Angus Brayshaw, Christian Salem and Jake Bowey will easily fill Jayden Hunt’s void – he is off to West Coast on a three year free agency deal.
Laurie is a lightning fast small forward and mid and van Rooyen is a pack-crashing key forward desperate to throw his weight around.
So Goodwin, so masterful in his 2021 coaching performance, has enough raw ingredients in his forward line in Bailey Fritsch, Ben Brown, Max Gawn, Tom McDonald, Van Rooyen, Kysaiah Pickett, Sam Weideman, Charlie Spargo, Jake Melksham and even a pinch-hitting Harrison Petty.
It is up to Goodwin to spend a long summer finding the right mix and synergy to assemble a flag-winning forward line from that long list of talent.
HAVE THE LIONS ALREADY WON THE TRADE PERIOD?
Richmond might protest if it can land Jacob Hopper and Tim Taranto, but the Lions have benefited from a trio of 50-50 calls that should set up its premiership window for the next three years or longer.
Will Ashcroft wasn’t sure he wanted to leave Melbourne, Josh Dunkley nearly chose Port Adelaide and Jack Gunston could have stayed at Hawthorn.
Ashcroft is as close to a bulletproof No.1 pick as there is, averaging 159 ranking points and 34 disposals in his 14 NAB League games, and 130 ranking point and 29 disposals in his three VFL games for the Lions.
Gunston is a major upgrade on McStay – he has eight individual seasons with more goals than McStay’s career-high of 28 – and Josh Dunkley is a freak coming off a best-and-fairest who finally realises his marking power as a resting forward is a major weapon.
A forward line that doesn’t have to rely on the inconsistent Joe Daniher is on paper more dangerous than any side apart from Geelong.
If Gunston stays fit he should kick 40 goals given the way the ball will come down — and could join Isaac Smith as a four-time premiership player who picked the right club to move to after three flags at the Hawks.
IS CARLTON GETTING AHEAD OF ITSELF PLAYING SUCH A MINOR ROLE?
Carlton will lock away Blake Acres early, offering double the $180,000 base salary plus $5000 per match the Dockers were offering the talented wingman.
He’s a significant wing upgrade, but that could be about it for acquisitions.
It’s prudent business for a club that will attempt to sign Harry McKay and Tom De Koning in coming months and in a 12-win season lost games by one, four, five and 15 points.
Every dollar the Blues spend on players not in their 22 next year is a chance to cost them a first-choice player in the future, with Sam Docherty, Marc Pittonet, Jack Silvagni and Jesse Motlop also uncontracted past 2023.
HAS JORDAN DE GOEY’S DECISION ENDED ST KILDA’S FINALS CHANCES?
If De Goey had come to the Saints as a midfield game-changer they would have been all in.
They believed he was the player to vault them into top-four calculations, but now that he’s re-signed with Collingwood St Kilda has already flagged a draft-first approach to this period.
The Saints will keep pick 9 and also have picks 27 and 45.
Given they have already indicated their desire to secure a key forward and a key back to help Ben King and Dougal Howard, it’s hard to see how this is a transformative trade period.
Do the Saints trade a future first-round pick to get another early pick in this year’s draft despite next year being a stronger crop?
They have indicated they will keep 29-year-old Brad Hill and Hunter Clark, and they will get only a late pick for Ben Long.
Last year amid similar doubts they plucked a trio of beauties – Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, Mitch Owens, Marcus Windhager.
But for a club whose Andrew Bassat is on the record stating the flag window is now, the communication with members about the list direction will be critical.
WILL RORY LOBB GET TO THE WESTERN BULLDOGS?
Fremantle has stated outright it won’t be trading Lobb, who the Dogs committed to long before Sam Darcy stated his case as a 2023 weapon of choice.
So what it comes down to is whether the Dockers need a Dogs draft pick to broker the Luke Jackson deal, and how much do the Dogs actually want Lobb?
Given Melbourne wants a pick at 7 or better and a future first – or two top-10 picks – for Jackson, the Dockers have plenty on their plate trying to assemble that suite of picks.
They might only get the Liam Jones compo pick in the third round for Acres, they might only get a future second-rounder for Griffin Logue.
Surely the Roos would be prepared to hand over the future second and third-rounders they secured in their special assistance package for both Logue and Darcy Tucker.
But Fremantle also wants Gold Coast’s Jeremy Sharp as the wingman to replace Acres, so it might eventually need the Dogs’ pick.
The unanswered question is whether a Bulldogs side which has lost Josh Dunkley’s 18 goals and could get multiple picks for him from the Lions is prepared to offer more than its current second-rounder at pick 30.
If they think they have enough forward cover, letting Lobb go might be as easy as standing on their digs with the current offer.
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Originally published as AFL Trades 2022: The eight big questions of this year’s exchange period
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