Jeremy Cameron to leave the Giants regardless of trade period deal: manager
The Giants are playing hard ball in negotiations with the Geelong Cats but Jeremy Cameron and his people are threatening to leave GWS with nothing.
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The Jeremy Cameron trade talks are getting uglier with the GWS Giants rejecting the Geelong Cats’ first offer, with the 28-year-old star leaving the club no matter what.
Geelong reportedly offered the Giants two first round picks for the 2019 Coleman Medallist but it was quickly rejected.
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The Giants became the first club in free agency history to match a rival club’s offer after Geelong tabled Cameron a deal worth a reported $4.5 million over five years.
But the Giants appear to want all three of the Cats’ three first-round picks — 13, 15 and 20 — with no Cats player reportedly wanting to join the GWS to sweeten the deal.
Channel 7 AFL reporter Tom Browne said negotiations didn’t advance very far on the weekend as both sides try to secure their dream deal.
“In terms of Geelong, they’re trying to land Jeremy Cameron. There’s not a lot of progress on that over the weekend and if they don’t advance that today or tomorrow, that could be headed, I reckon, for mediation,” Browne told the Triple M Hot Breakfast.
But Cameron’s manager Alex McDonald told SEN’s Dwayne’s World that if the trade wasn’t worked out now, Cameron and the Cats would look to used the pre-season Draft.
The issue with that move is that the Bombers or another club with an earlier pick could sweep in and steal the star if it was able to afford the big money contract.
It’s a threat St Kilda great Leigh Montagna told Fox Footy’s Trading Day was a real possibility and puts Geelong in the box seat.
“In this situation it’s up to the Giants to just get the deal done and accept that, because there is still the threat he could walk through to the pre-season draft,” Montagna said.
“And now that we know the threat’s not there from the Giants, to say ‘well, we’ll just keep Jeremy Cameron and you don’t get him at all’, we know that’s not the case – Geelong have got the upper hand to say well, we’ll let him walk to the pre-season draft.
“And I reckon if that is the case, Jeremy Cameron’s manager and the Cats can manage a way to get him there through the draft.”
Montagna said the “two-first rounders is pretty fair”.
But North Melbourne premiership winner David King said the Cats were being hypocritical, having forced West Coast to pony up for a deal with Tim Kelly last year. The move cost the Eagles picks 14, 24 and 37 plus their 2020 first-round selection, for Kelly, pick 57 and a 2020 third-round pick.
“That’s a fair price, Geelong were happy to play ball then,” King said on Trading Day.
“They were happy to get them coming in. And now they’ve got to go the other way, they want to say ‘aww, no, we’re not prepared to do this, we’re not prepared to do that’.
“Well, that’s market rate. You guys set it last year. Cameron’s as much an important part in the premiership window for the Cats as to what Kelly is for the West Coast Eagles.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got a very similar case with the same club, 12 months apart.
“So they know the work, they know if they can get out of this with just giving up two first-round picks, it’s a bargain.”
As for the lottery of going to the pre-season draft, the Herald Sun’s Jon Ralph said other players might be able to jump in early and take Cameron before it gets to the 13th pick.
But Montagna said the strategy will be to try and scare other teams off.
“If you’re his manager, you speak to all those other clubs and say, ‘If you want to sign Jeremy Cameron, we’re only signing a one-year contract, we’ll leave at the end of the year anyway and I’ll tell you now, he’s not going to be happy’,” he said. “If you’re the Kangaroos or the Suns, and you heard that from a manager, would you still take him?”
Originally published as Jeremy Cameron to leave the Giants regardless of trade period deal: manager