AFL trade news: ‘No doubt’ Sydney will make huge play for Jamarra Ugle-Hagan next year
The Dogs just signed Aaron Naughton, they’re about to draft another tall in Jordan Croft and Tim English’s payday is looming. One rival seems acutely aware, as they make an audacious play.
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Just days before he was taken as the No. 1 draft pick, Jamarra Ugle-Hagan was asked about comparisons to superstar Lance Franklin.
Both were Indigenous, athletic freaks and left-footers with the Warrnambool teenager revealing he tried to model himself on the Sydney champion.
“I just use him as a person that sets goals for me,” Ugle-Hagan said back in December 2020.
“Everyone has that person you want to become, or even do better [than].”
That dream could become a reality in 12 months.
There is a growing belief among rival clubs that the Swans will next year make a blockbuster offer to Ugle-Hagan to become the next Buddy Franklin in Sydney.
The Western Bulldogs certainly know it’s coming.
In the past couple of weeks they managed to thwart a bid by the Swans to snare their other key forward, Aaron Naughton, who was offered a whopping 10-year-old deal worth over $11 million.
Naughton rejected it and instead signed an eight-year deal to stay at the Whitten Oval.
That move has almost been called a Trojan horse given Ugle-Hagan is a future box-office star which is what the Swans need in the Harbour City.
“There is no doubt the Swans will go big for Jamarra,” one rival list manager said.
“It was like they were almost testing the waters with Naughton, of course if he’d said yes they would have been happy but the one who ticks all the boxes for them is Jamarra.”
Franklin was more of an established star when he shocked the football world by taking a nine-year deal worth $10 million to move to Sydney.
He was already a premiership player, best and fairest winner, two-time Coleman Medallist and four-time All-Australian when he left the Hawks to become the face of the AFL in the rugby heartland.
Ugle-Hagan is still very much a work in progress but the evidence continues to mount that he has all the tools to become one of the game’s best key forwards.
This season he played 23 games and kicked 35 goals and 35 behinds (Naughton kicked 44) with two bags of five goals. After a slow start to his career, he’s now played 45 games in three seasons and kicked 60 goals.
The training habits, attitude and physique have come together with his Dogs teammates in no doubt the sky’s the limit for the 21-year-old.
For a club that struggled for so many years to find tall forwards – 182cm Brad Johnson won the club’s goal kicking five times in the early 2000s – they suddenly have a glut of them.
The Bulldogs recruited Rory Lobb from Fremantle as a back-up ruckman but he prefers to spend more time forward while 208cm Sam Darcy is an excitement machine who the Dogs hope becomes a defender but might really be a better centre half-forward.
And next month they will have another father-son selection coming in with 200cm Jordan Croft, the son of Matthew, who is described as a utility but has shown great talent as a ruck/forward for the Calder Cannons.
There is also the pressing issue of re-signing All-Australian ruckman Tim English.
With fellow Western Australian Naughton now signed, the Dogs will turn their focus to English who is obviously also going to command a considerable pay rise.
He has been continually linked to a return home but in a positive sign for the Dogs his girlfriend, netballer Rudi Ellis, has relocated from Perth switching from the West Coast Fever to play for the Melbourne Vixens.
So how much of the pie will be left for Ugle-Hagan?
“They’re going to struggle to keep them all, that’s just the reality,” one industry source said. “Jamarra is going to have a big decision to make because the Dogs won’t be able to offer anything near what Sydney can.”
At the very least a new deal for Ugle-Hagan would have to start around the $750,000-$800,000 mark for the 2025 season. He could sign a four-year deal which then gets him to free agency where it is easier to move and his price tag would most likely be through the roof.
Or he looks at Sydney‘s $1 million plus per season offer next year and sees it as too good to knock back.
Ugle-Hagan‘s manager Robbie D’Orazio has already indicated they won’t be rushing to sign a new deal, preferring to back their man in to have a breakthrough season next year.
That will also give the Swans more time to get their ducks in a row as they have their own potential curveball.
Western Australian key forward Logan McDonald was taken at No. 4 by the Swans in the same draft as Ugle-Hagan and for the past three years has learnt his trade behind Buddy Franklin.
His stats are similar to Ugle-Hagan’s given he has played 44 games and kicked 56 goals since debuting in 2021 and this season kicked 32 goals from 20 games.
The Swans like him but so do the two Western Australian clubs with word coming out of Perth that the Fremantle Dockers will make a huge play for McDonald when he comes out of contract next year.
“He’s contracted for next year, we see Logan as a big part of our long term plans,” Sydney’s football boss Charlie Gardiner said during the week.
“He has taken some great strides already in his time with us, he’s developing in front of our eyes.
“We also don‘t want to put too much pressure on him, young key forwards take a bit of time.”
McDonald out, Ugle-Hagan in. Could that be the Sydney narrative for next year’s trade period as they search for the new Buddy?
Ugle-Hagan said three years ago the comparisons to Franklin were just words: “I‘ve got to show my X-factor on the field and off the field but they’re just words. I just use it as a drive and obviously, hopefully [I can] get there one day.”
That day might just be coming sooner than he thought.
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