Moving Brendon Ah Chee to Gold Coast would keep Port Adelaide’s second draft pick in top-50

PORT Adelaide will salvage holding two picks in the top-50 of next month’s AFL draft by unloading midfielder Brendon Ah Chee to Gold Coast.

Brendon Ah Chee wants to move on from Port Adelaide. Picture: Sarah Reed.

PORT Adelaide will salvage holding two picks in the top-50 of next month’s AFL draft by unloading midfielder Brendon Ah Chee to Gold Coast.

The Power’s top-50 calls at the AFL national draft in Sydney on November 25 are in the first round at No. 9, none in the second round as this pick was “future traded” last year to the Suns for key forward Charlie Dixon and third round at No. 49.

And this third-round pick that started at No. 45 will drift out of the top-50 as the AFL loads more free-agency compensation into the draft order — including a pick to Adelaide for eventually losing utility Ricky Henderson.

Ah Chee’s manager, Anthony Van Der Wielen, has confirmed reports from The Advertiser last week that the Suns want to unite the Ah Chee brothers — Brendon and Callum — in the rebuild at Gold Coast. He also adds Brendon Ah Chee would happily stay at Alberton next season.

Ah Chee, a second-round draft pick at No. 45 in 2011, this year gained an automatic contract renewal for next season at Port Adelaide by playing 11 games. The 22-year-old — who has played 22 games in his two seasons at Alberton — would command Gold Coast’s third-round draft pick, No. 44.

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This would give Power recruiting manager Geoff Parker, on today’s draft order, calls at 9, 44, 49, 67 and 85. By the end of the trade period next Thursday, Port Adelaide should retain its top-10 pick and need Ah Chee to move to get a second pick in the top-50.

And the extra first or second-round draft picks the Power craved — and was trying to engineer by trading contracted vice-captain Hamish Hartlett — appear lost today. This may change if Port Adelaide becomes a broker in multi-club deals late in the slow-moving trade period.

Port Adelaide’s other trade play — finding forwards to cover the delistings of Jay Schulz and John Butcher and back-up ruck power — appears blocked as contracted ruckman Matthew Lobbe is not drawing significant interest.

This has prompted Geelong ruckman-forward Nathan Vardy — who was to replace Lobbe — to look at his options at West Coast and Greater Western Sydney.

New Richmond football boss Neil Balme was in Adelaide on Wednesday but did not renew the Tigers’ initial interest in Lobbe. And West Coast — that is desperate to find a short-term ruck option to cover the loss of Nic Naitanui with a serious knee injury — is ignoring Lobbe because the Eagles do not want to inherit his three-year contract.

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Originally published as Moving Brendon Ah Chee to Gold Coast would keep Port Adelaide’s second draft pick in top-50