Moneyball: All the latest trade and contract news
Only 24 hours after Collingwood’s loss to Gold Coast, Archie Perkins dazzled on the same ground. Here’s how he could have been a Magpie.
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Collingwood’s decision last year to accept a modest Giants offer for the Magpies’ future first-round draft pick bemused rivals after its ambitious demands before that.
The Herald Sun can reveal Collingwood list manager Ned Guy wanted a top-10 selection last year in exchange for the club’s 2021 first-round pick, which is provisionally No. 2 because of the Pies’ poor start.
Guy was desperate to offload Collingwood’s top choice this year, because the club can match any bid for father-son prospect Nick Daicos, who is widely considered the best player in the draft.
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The Western Bulldogs (Jamarra Ugle-Hagan), Greater Western Sydney (Tom Green) and North Melbourne (Tarryn Thomas) are among teams that previously made trades to manipulate this dynamic.
Instead, the Magpies settled for the Giants’ lesser proposal, which ended up being picks 24 and 30 in last year’s draft, plus a future fourth-round choice tacked on to satisfy AFL rules.
That’s despite a number of other clubs, including Richmond, Essendon and Adelaide, trying to prise the pick out of Collingwood.
Opposition recruiters expected the Pies’ top pick this year would land somewhere between eighth and 12th, and there is still a feeling, in some quarters, they won’t finish as low as they are now.
Collingwood already sent its future second-round pick to Hawthorn – also for a so-so return – and clubs can’t give up multiple future selections without bringing one in when a first-rounder is involved.
The AFL blocked the deal until Guy acquired an extra 2021 selection, which GWS agreed to provide.
Even then, Collingwood was fortunate to get a deal done after leaving it until almost the last moment – but the call to load up in last year’s draft has left it in a tough spot for this year’s edition.
The Magpies added six players in the national draft, whereas seven opposition clubs recruited two or fewer in a shallow class that had so many unknowns after the COVID-19-impacted season.
Adding to the complexity, they also matched a bid last year for Academy prospect Reef McInnes, who fortunately slipped to No. 23, before the Giants attempted to draft him.
Daicos is an enormous prize, but the AFL allocates a points value to picks in descending order and Collingwood must go into deficit to match an early bid on him, as its draft hand stands.
In effect, the earlier the young star is bid on, the greater number of points the Magpies will have to cough up to match.
That means Collingwood risks its first selection sliding in the 2022 draft, because the deficit will be made up then.
The Tigers tried to tempt the Pies with pick 20, which eventually was traded for Geelong’s future first-round selection.
It’s understood both the Bombers and Crows were willing to offer a bevy of picks in the 2021 draft to help with the Daicos situation, but couldn’t appease Guy.
Part of Adelaide’s package is believed to have included two picks in the 20s, but there is extra intrigue in what draft sources say Essendon was willing to part with.
The Bombers’ offer revolved around them swapping their second of three top-10 selections, which ended up being No. 9 (Archie Perkins), for Collingwood’s first pick at 17 (Oliver Henry).
Two future third-round selections as part of the offer – one of them Port Adelaide’s – were designed to help the Magpies’ points haul, while Collingwood would part with its 2021 first in return.
That potential deal would have left the Pies with a worse points disparity than the Giants one, but also a coveted top-10 pick and more points protection for the Daicos draft.
The trade will look better if Collingwood climbs the ladder by season’s end, but that won’t impact whether Guy and co. left themselves too much to do.
MASSIVE TRADE CALL COLLINGWOOD MUST CONSIDER
Jon Ralph
Nick Daicos can’t be Collingwood’s saviour all on his own.
As the realisation dawns on Collingwood’s powerbrokers they are a fairly mediocre football team, the decisions they make next will define their premiership window.
Of course the coach is the biggest decision.
Football boss Graham Wright’s statement on Saturday that “it all tracks in the right direction” for a Nathan Buckley contract extension is the most positive sign for the coach in weeks.
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But what the Pies will know better than anyone is premiership teams need a huge bunch of kids coming along together.
Nick Daicos as the No. 1 pick of 2022 and their bunch of six kids taken within pick 44 can’t be enough.
The Pies need to, at the least, find enough draft points so they don’t go into draft deficit matching a bid for Daicos, and ideally find more points to take another pick or two.
Right now trading out the future fourth-round pick is right in theory but in execution has seen them hand over the current No. 2 pick (2517 points) for just over 1400 points (picks 24, 30 and a future fourth-rounder).
Former Carlton supporter Daicos hasn’t even declared himself as a Pies father-son and will be happy to be interviewed by rival clubs to go through the process before he makes his decision.
Still, surely by year’s end he is a certainty to nominate the Pies and join brother Josh, who along with Isaac Quaynor, Darcy Cameron, Mark Keane, Finlay Macrae and Beau McCreery will join the nucleus of the next wave.
Given the club’s entire list management strategy was based around keeping Jordan De Goey, Darcy Moore and Brodie Grundy, they aint going anywhere.
As Wright told ABC Radio on Saturday, ideally clubs don’t offer seven-year deals but a host of rivals would have done so with Grundy, so they are on the hook for six more years and six million.
It means rivals will spend the season picking over the Collingwood list.
Mason Cox is the tallest player in the competition and has played big finals in the 2018 preliminary final and Grand Finals and last year’s elimination final.
He’s a little like Tyrone Vickery – kicks goals but otherwise wildly inconsistent.
But surely a rival would give up a second-round pick for a player who is under-utilised as a ruckman, having averaged less than three centre bounces per game since 2018.
Lost in the mediocrity has been the excellent form of Darcy Cameron, who kicked three goals from 22 possessions on Anzac Day and had 13 hit-outs and 10 contested possessions against the Suns.
The Pies can afford to move on Cox, aware he will never be the club’s ruckman behind Grundy and out-of-contract ruck-forward Cameron.
It’s easy to trade Americans, who are out of contract and aware of the US sports market where players change teams multiple times a year.
Steele Sidebottom would be the premium product that might cap off a list hellbent on a premiership.
He turned 30 in January, is a free agent in 2022, and might see a club hand over a very early second-round pick.
If that seems overs, remember that the Cats handed over pick 30 for Shaun Higgins, who was 32 at the time.
They can’t trade Scott Pendlebury, they shouldn’t trade Taylor Adams or Jeremy Howe, and there is very little other currency on their list.
Daicos is the best kid in the land, but the recruiters aren’t labelling him the generational talent like Chris Judd or Lance Franklin who can change a club’s fortunes on his own shoulders.
No, this will be a weight-of-numbers resurgence and the Pies can’t do it by taking only a single pick in November’s national draft.
It means potentially tough decisions on beloved players.
Having ripped the bandaid off with last year’s jaw-dropping trade period, the Pies can’t afford to stop the pain after only one off-season.
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