Western Bulldogs meet with Adam Treloar and North Melbourne chase Jaidyn Stephenson
Adam Treloar has met with one of Collingwood’s Victorian rivals as he considers a trade, while North Melbourne is weighing up a bid for forward Jaidyn Stephenson.
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Collingwood’s ruthless decision to jettison Adam Treloar is on the brink of paying off, with the Pies midfielder meeting the Western Bulldogs for a medical test in Melbourne yesterday.
The Western Bulldogs are interested in brokering a trade for Treloar but only if he passes that medical, with his troublesome hamstrings their clear cause for concern.
Now the Dogs could be in a position to pull off a brilliant trade upgrade that would see them saving face after Josh Dunkley’s trade demand.
On Tuesday the Dogs secured Melbourne’s Mitch Hannan for a future third-round pick and Lions ruck Stef Martin for unknown Lachie Young yesterday in a three-way deal involving North Melbourne.
They are will only release contracted midfielder Josh Dunkley for multiple first-round selections, with Essendon believing he is only worth a single top-10 pick.
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The Dons had despaired as recently as Monday night that the Dunkley deal might wither, but Treloar’s meeting with a delegation including Luke Beveridge shows they are prepared to trade Dunkley.
If they can secure multiple early selections for Dunkley and hand only one of them to the Pies, they can upgrade their midfield while still improving their draft hand.
Treloar is unwilling to take a pay cut, with the Herald Sun revealing last month it was a five-year back-ended deal worth $4.5 million.
But a Dogs team which cleared $1.5 million in cap space when Tom Boyd retired could afford his salary if the Pies paid a chunk of the deal each season.
The Dogs would have to be confident Treloar could play next year while his partner Kim Ravaillion and daughter Georgie were in Queensland for 10 months.
The Pies believed as soon as they left early next season for her netball contract that Treloar would despair at their absence and want to follow them north mid-season.
Meanwhile, Jaidyn Stephenson’s management firm suggested on Monday he was likely to remain at Collingwood.
However, his ability to grow with North Melbourne’s exciting young group of elite players is a major pitch to the Rising Star winner as the Roos try to drag a big name out of Collingwood.
Stephenson would normally be reluctant to cross from a marquee club in premiership contention to a smaller club so far from the finals race.
But the Roos haven’t given up hope of luring Stephenson, who is owed three years of salary on over $500,000.
And Stephenson hasn’t ruled out a move to Arden Street with over a day remaining in the trade period.
Despite the Roos not having a coach and going into a rebuilding phase they are far from bereft of talent.
They are excited that the potential of Nick Larkey, Cam Zuurhar, Curtis Taylor, Tarryn Thomas, Jy Simpkin and Luke Davies-Uniacke.
Adding Stephenson to that group at a time when they are in effect buying at the bottom given his form slump would be a prudent list management decision.
He would have to be convinced the Roos could maximise his talent in a way the Pies did not this year and could make a quick bounce back rather than spend years in a massive development cycle.
Stephenson could play half forward along with the hugely talented Thomas or even move up into the wing or midfield.
The Roos are to start interviewing senior coaching candidates this week, with Pies assistant Robert Harvey one of those contenders slated to sit down with the selection committee in coming days.
The Pies will also be hopeful the Hawks might reconsider their interest in Tom Phillips despite them sounding reluctant to become involved in a trade down the wingman earlier this week.
If Carlton hands its No. 8 pick to Essendon the Dons would have a stunning trio of picks – 6, 7 and 8 – any of which would likely be used in the Dunkley deal.
The Dogs want to do a separate deal on Dunkley rather than a three-way arrangement, but the Pies want picks in this year’s draft rather than next year given they have father-son pick Nick Daicos as the likely No. 1 overall selection.
Conversely Carlton could offer its future first-round selection to Essendon on Saad which it could hand on to the Bulldogs as part of a trade with Dunkley.
But that would not help them close a deal with Treloar given the Pies’ want to trade out of the 2021 first-round, not be handed extra picks.
Collingwood was angry when told last Friday he might have to remain at the Pies given a lack of interest from all but the Dogs.
For all its attempts to clear cap space the Pies have not been able to find suitors for Jaidyn Stephenson, Tom Phillips and Mason Cox and have committed as much as $1.5 million in cap space to that trio next season.
It represents around 10 per cent of the club’s total cap, so clearing the Treloar contract would not only ease the strain, it would sidestep the disastrous prospect of him having to play with the Pies next year.
Many Pies staffers and players believe Treloar has been hung out to dry by the club, even as they separately acknowledge that he has become a high-maintenance player.
Treloar is less able to accept strong feedback about areas of his game than other Pies players, which means some Pies players and coaches feel they have to handle him with kid gloves.
HOW MUCH OF TRELOAR’S PAY PACKET WILL PIES PAY?
– Jon Ralph
Collingwood has told clubs it would be prepared to pay as much as $100,000 of Adam Treloar’s salary as Victorian teams quietly circle the elite Pies midfielder.
Treloar is yet to meet with a rival club despite reports on Friday and those clubs are yet to make any bid for Treloar let alone offer him a contract.
He remains in limbo as the Pies try to find a suitor, with many still non-starters because of a $4.5 million deal over five seasons.
The Herald Sun understands Collingwood had made clear to clubs that it would be prepared to wear as much as $100,000 of that $900,000 average salary over the life of the contract.
Clubs might push for the Pies to pay even more of his salary – even up to $150,000 per year – if they can come up with a trade that also suits Collingwood.
While his contract is back-ended at Collingwood, a new club could restructure it in any way they see fit as long as Treloar was not short-changed.
The Pies had hoped at one stage to trade him to Gold Coast for their No. 5 pick in the belief that Treloar would eventually retire in that city.
While he has made clear he will eventually retire there with partner Kim post-career, he is definitive that he wants to play his career in Victoria.
Paying players who move to rival clubs is far from rare, and Collingwood would do so to get back into a 2020 draft that they believe has star power in the top 10.
The Bulldogs are keen to trade away their No. 14 selection for multiple later selections that would have a bigger points tally to bid on No. 1 overall contender Jamar Ugle-Hagan.
So if they did receive early picks for Josh Dunkley, securing Treloar would make sense as a direct replacement.
List boss Sam Power said on Friday of Treloar: “You definitely monitor the situation”.
“Given how good a player Adam is and he has been for a long period of time. We love the way he goes about it.
“With Adam and other players who have come up, it’s very difficult to talk about guys who are contracted at other clubs.”
St Kilda list boss James Gallagher told Trade Radio that “I think it’s extremely unlikely anything would happen there”.
“He‘s a terrific player, but everyone is subject to list sizes and cap space and draft capital and all those sorts of things, so the discussion there has raced a long way ahead of any discussion we’ve had with Adam’s management, which hasn’t really progressed at all,” Gallagher said.
“There‘s no point in pursuing (a meeting) or leading anyone on with any false hope, it’s unfair on the player and also from us as a club, we don’t want to be scattergun with this sort of stuff and react to a name that’s in the newspaper.”
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Originally published as Western Bulldogs meet with Adam Treloar and North Melbourne chase Jaidyn Stephenson