Footy’s power balance has officially shifted after biggest trade period ever
Footy’s biggest trade period yet lived up to the hype. Captains, superstars and premiership heroes jumped ship — but the biggest takeaway? The AFL’s power balance has well and truly shifted.
Football’s power balance has shifted to Queensland in a trade period where Gold Coast landed game-changer Christian Petracca and took the game’s biggest risk in Jamarra Ugle-Hagan.
And the ruthlessness of clubs was highlighted by a $2 million act of cruelty which reinforced why players should never give up the fight for fat pay rises and guaranteed deals.
On Wednesday night as the trade deadline finally expired the immediate drama was easy to find.
Essendon holding its line on Zach Merrett, Jordan De Goey shopped around but staying, the Dogs ridding itself of Jamarra Ugle-Hagan and St Kilda only just beaten as the biggest mover and shaker in the trade period.
The bigger picture was impossible to ignore.
Brisbane getting stronger ahead of its three-peat campaign with the salary cap space for Sam Draper, Oscar Allen and the re-signing of dual Norm Smith Medallist Will Ashcroft.
But alongside them Gold Coast finally making waves in a manner that should put it firmly in the premiership race.
Of those heartland clubs Carlton loses Charlie Curnow, Tom De Koning and Jack Silvagni and resets with an incredible bevy of draft picks but with finals surely a long shot next year.
Melbourne’s chase for a second flag in this era is officially over with lockdown defender Judd McVee joining Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver out the door and Steven May a contender to play VFL next year.
The Demons said last week Oliver’s departure was not about off-field issues but in the end paid $650,000 for Oliver to pay elsewhere and upwards of $850,000 a year until 2027 for Jack Steele to play midfield.
And Hawthorn and Geelong will be thereabouts but never landed the big fish they wanted.
If Brad Scott was in his first season at Essendon and the club didn’t have a 21-year history of failure they would have taken the Hawthorn deal given the club’s stated aim to make every decision about the long-term.
But Hawthorn’s failure to put a decent-enough player into the trade haul gave Essendon the excuse to stand on its digs over Merrett.
Essendon can rightly state that it kept its word to retain its (soon-to-be former) skipper and take five players in the national draft anyway without the deal and spend the 2026 season saving Brad Scott’s bacon.
As a result Hawthorn’s midfield is weakened by the Merrett miss, James Worpel’s absence and Will Day’s continuing navicular concerns.
If all goes well next year Damien Hardwick will believe he has finally found the last 20 per cent of his premiership list he was searching for in Christian Petracca and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan.
And with Sydney’s elite midfield now having a Coleman Medallist to kick to in Charlie Curnow, the heartland clubs might just be up against it for the time being.
Curnow joins the conga line of key position stars to head to Sydney following Tony Lockett, Barry Hall, Kurt Tippett and Lance Franklin.
In 11 years from 2013-2023 10 Victorian clubs won flags and eight of those seasons saw a Victorian team defeating an interstater forced to travel to the MCG.
For lovers of a truly national competition those two Queensland sides should now hope to compete in a grand final as rivals in coming years after their historic semi-final Q-Clash contest this season.
In a year where Melbourne was very much off Broadway, Petracca’s weaknesses were clear.
He kicked the ball terribly, he was pushed out of the midfield, some of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks believed he wasn’t committing his body to the cause after his 2023 King’s Birthday injury.
Make no mistake, he will be awesome in Gold Coast colours in a team that already wants for little across every line.
If he can return to anywhere near his All-Australian best after 586 possessions, kicking 18.24 and a second placing in the Demons best-and-fairest, the Suns might just be hard to beat.
Hardwick will push him at the right times and throw an arm around him at others, and if Petracca can mentor Bailey Humphrey with his own infectious brand of leadership that pair might be impossible to stop.
Ugle-Hagan’s addition to this side is footy’s riskiest move but also one that represents the biggest potential pay-off.
The danger is not in any of the extremes.
The penny might finally drop and the footy world will ride the redemption narrative.
He might spectacularly implode and the Suns can wash their hands of him under the contract they have signed.
The danger is in the shades of grey.
If he missed some sessions but not all.
If he tries to disassociate himself from his troublesome mates but doesn’t quite succeed.
The former No. 1 draft pick tested the patience this year until the club simply couldn’t trust much of what he said.
After all, football clubs are built on trust.
So that is the deal the Suns have signed up for.
It might just be a wild ride.
That $2 million cruelty came with St Kilda jilting Leek Aleer at the altar like Hugh Grant in one of his 90s rom-coms.
It will cost him that much to slink back into the Giants on a modest two-year deal.
St Kilda would have weighed the consequences – player managers no longer trusting them, the reputational damage – before going through with a move that smacked of callousness.
If that $750,000 in cap space allows them to snare a star in a position of need next year, they will think the consequences are worth the downside.
But for the AFLPA, pushing back on clubs keen to trade players against their will and the AFL push to banish long-term contracts, Aleer’s case represents a hill to die on.
If contracts were non-guaranteed or clubs could be traded against their will what would the Demons have done with Clayton Oliver, a shell of the player they handed a $1.3 million deal in early 2021.
So the player union will continue to fight for big pay rises and player protections, aware those locked-in deals also made it ridiculously hard for Merrett to get his way out of Essendon this off-season.
So football’s foundations are shaken — as captains, Norm Smith Medallists and premiership stars jumped ship or were held against their will.
Footy’s biggest trade period truly lived up to the hype.
Originally published as Footy’s power balance has officially shifted after biggest trade period ever
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