It had been locked in a vault and jealously guarded by only a handful of people.

McConville didn’t blow the whistle. Instead he swiftly went to work for his client.

As Hawthorn plotted a pathway towards grand final redemption in the back end of the 2013 season, it had become almost an accepted fact that the game’s most dynamic player, Lance Franklin, was locked into joining the AFL’s fresh test-tube franchise Greater Western Sydney the following season.

The Giants believed it. The Hawks believed it.

The footy world knew it … except he hadn’t.

McConville figured this out by process of elimination.

He had been working away on what should have been a regular contract for Sydney’s reigning premiership ruckman Shane Mumford.

But every time McConville tried to sit down with the Swans’ general manager of football Dean Moore, all he received was the player manager’s version of a ‘don’t argue’ rebuff.

“I knew Dean (Moore) wasn’t keen to do a deal,” McConville reflected a dozen years on.

“I knew mid-season something was going on. I was doing the numbers. I knew exactly what Mummy was earning. I knew there was nearly $2m (the Swans) were banking.

“I said to a couple of close confidants, ‘Don’t be surprised if there is a backflip here … don’t be surprised if he (Franklin) ends up in Sydney.”

WHEELING AND DEALING

In a bygone age, the art of the recruiting or trade deal always came down to keeping a secret.

Enterprising former North Melbourne recruiter Greg Miller – the man who ‘bought’ teenagers John Longmire and Wayne Carey off Sydney for a total of $70,000 – always maintained “possession is nine tenths of the law”.

The best recruiters of the previous generation became the masters of dodgy paperwork, fake addresses, hiding players, cash and car inducements, and the art of making the deal when others couldn’t.

But in the modern whirlwind that is the AFL free agency and trade space, secrets are few and far between.

Yet if a secret holds, as it did for Franklin, his then manager Liam Pickering and a handful of Sydney officials including coach John Longmire, it can be the most powerful of things.

McConville’s suspicions that Sydney was “up to something” during the 2013 season saw him open up his own secret discussions with Hawthorn about Mumford moving to Waverley.

A tentative commitment was made in the home and away season … until the ‘Franklin to Sydney’ bombshell was exposed days after the Hawks – and Buddy – claimed the 2013 flag.

The Giants realised they had been left at the altar without the game’s best goalkicker.

The bankroll they had set aside for Franklin had to be spent, and Mumford and Collingwood’s Heath Shaw were about to be the beneficiaries of a deal they simply couldn’t knock back.

Mumford had been set to be Hawthorn’s ruckman in 2014; instead a godfather offer from the Giants added several hundreds of thousands of dollars per season to his salary.

“They (the Giants) had all this money parked for Buddy,” McConville said.

The Hawks pivoted late and offered up Shane Savage for St Kilda ruckman Ben McEvoy, who would go on to win the next two premierships in brown and gold.

EARLY FEELERS

Jake Stringer got more than he bargained for when he met with one Melbourne-based coach as his relationship with Western Bulldogs collapsed during the 2017 season.

He was seeking a fresh start after his form had collapsed and his off-field behaviour was being heavily scrutinised.

He thought he might get some love from his prospective new coach.

But all he got was a mouthful about wasting his talent and changing his behaviour.

The meeting lasted less than five minutes. Stringer walked out, having immediately crossed that club off his list of suitors.

He ended up choosing Essendon.

The Bombers gave up picks 25 and 30 for him, with the Dogs trading pick 30 – plus pick 28 and a future second rounder – to Carlton for picks 16 and 40 in return.

Pick 25 ended up with the Lions for Josh Schache, while the Dogs used pick 16 on a kid called Ed Richards.

Sometimes the swings and roundabouts of a trade aren’t appreciated for years afterwards.

Bailey Smith went from the Bulldogs to Geelong at the end of the 2024 season. It was one of the worst kept secrets in footy as the Cats’ early feelers went out not long after he ruptured his ACL in December of 2023.

But for whatever reason Smith chose not to officially meet with the Cats until he had returned from an overseas trip in May last year.

Still, the early feelers did the job. He was always on his way out of the Whitten Oval.

THE PITCH

Footy changes with the times.

Richmond offered young Tasmanian tyro Royce Hart six shirts to sign on the dotted line.

North Melbourne famously threw the keys to a brand new Holden Commodore to a 16-year-old kid called John Longmire, as part of the deal arranged at the local Chinese restaurant attached to the Corowa Bowling Club.

Coaches and key players within a club have much more to do with the selling process these days, with Sam Mitchell one of the latest to cash in on such recruiting raids including strong pitches to Tom Barrass and Josh Battle last year.

Mitchell may have missed his mark when his meeting with Eagles captain Oscar Allen leaked out earlier this year, but the Hawks coach is helping to change the trade narrative.

Clubs pitch different things to different players, drawing on what they think the player might covet. They don’t always get it right.

Carlton went above and beyond in the race for Dylan Shiel as he looked to leave the Giants and find a new home in what was a fascinating 2018 trade period.

Most footy insiders thought the Blues had the inside running after they flew him from Essendon Airport to Noosa in the private jet of billionaire backer Bruce Mathieson, where they wined and lunched as Shiel was sold on the merits of joining Carlton.

Code Sports understands those on the jet included Carlton’s then list boss Stephen Silvagni, footy director and former great Chris Judd, then coach Brendon Bolton, footy boss Brad Lloyd, Mathieson as well as Shiel and his manager Paul Connors.

Whispers of a lavish lunch including fresh crayfish and a few bottles of Grange are still the talk of a footy industry that finds it hard to keep things quiet.

St Kilda offered Shiel the most money – minus the private jet experience – while Essendon and Hawthorn were also pitching hard for him.

Those close to the Shiel trade maintain he was torn between the Blues and the Bombers, with one source saying he changed his mind “about 40 times” before ultimately choosing red and black.

He saw Essendon as having a better chance of success than Carlton at the time, as he struck up a close connection with the Bombers’ then CEO Xavier Campbell who talked up the club’s future as well as a potential lucrative post-footy career if the club was to ultimately win a premiership.

Code Sports understands that the Giants’ insistence on two first round picks almost scuttled the deal at the death knell. Essendon desperately wanted to do it for less, but had already won a verbal commitment from Shiel, which almost tied their hands.

The trade wasn’t officially registered until 8.22pm on the last night of trade period, with eight minutes left on the clock.

Essendon traded pick 11 and a future first rounder for Shiel. While the trade hasn’t worked out for a variety of reasons – including Shiel’s injury and at times form issues – internally Bombers always planned to try to prise the player the Giants took with that pick 11 back home to Melbourne.

It was Jye Caldwell, and he chose The Hangar as his new home exactly two years later.

Brodie Grundy famously had pitches across two different trade periods.

He met with the Demons – and the man who was meant to be his new ruck partner Max Gawn – at the home of senior coach Simon Goodwin during 2022.

Grundy and Gawn had been rivals as All-Australian ruck at times, so it was an unusual set of circumstances, given they had almost been “frenemies”.

It didn’t work.

Grundy wasted away for a period in the VFL, with the Demons at least doing the right thing in trying to facilitate a trade at the end of that one season that just didn’t work.

Two clubs pitched hard to him in late 2023, with different carrots.

Port Adelaide sold itself as having a great football culture with Ken Hinkley as coach as well as a rich history in Grundy’s native state.

He met with Zak Butters and Connor Rozee as the Power trumped its strong football base.

Sydney went a different tact.

In a meeting at the Swans’ Melbourne base at Lakeside Oval, they sold the anonymity of the Harbour City compared to the traditional footy states’ goldfish bowl focus.

Grundy and his now fiancee Rachael were sold on the Swans, and locked into them without hesitation.

CULTURE IS KING

Geelong was once derogatively described as ‘a Sleepy Hollow’ where it was a hard sell to get the most attractive players down the highway.

That has changed spectacularly.

A former list manager said all that changed during the Covid pandemic where it was all of a sudden a great lifestyle move to move to the Bellarine Peninsula.

Perhaps it started even earlier when Patrick Dangerfield moved back home to Moggs Creek – and Geelong – in late 2015 after lighting a fuse with his talents at the Crows.

Jeremy Cameron was genuinely torn about leaving the Giants for Geelong after a challenging year in the 2020 hub.

He finished the season thinking he would be a Giants player in 2021, but a camping trip with his partner and now wife Indiana convinced him the Cats was the place he wanted to be at.

“I ended up saying to Indi, ‘Let’s go away for a weekend’ … on the drive back I knew I was going to make the move,” Cameron told this reporter at the time.

The prospect of the one-time kid from Dartmoor securing a farm down that way swung the decision for him, as hard as it was saying goodbye to the Giants.

Two years later a dusty Cameron put his 2022 premiership medal around the neck of one of his cows, and it darted off into an open paddock. Thankfully, he got it back.

It was fitting on his dual lifestyle – part-time farmer, full-time footballer.

Another senior football figure said this week that “culture is king” when it comes to a player selecting a club during a trade or free agency move.

Geelong, Collingwood, Sydney and more recent times Hawthorn have led the way.

Clubs at the other end of the ladder are a harder sell, which is why St Kilda and North Melbourne have found it hard to use their “war chests” in the most effective way, though the Saints believe they can land a big fish with Carlton’s Tom De Koning offered as much as $1.7m per season to jump ship to Moorabbin.

Jack Bowes accepted less money at Geelong than Essendon and Hawthorn offered him when he was part of a Gold Coast salary dump along with a tantalising pick seven thrown in.

He chose the Cats because he felt they valued him as a footballer, more than a means to secure a high-end draft pick.

The Bombers presented him with the offer of the No.5 jumper – made famous by James Hird – in their pitch, and he also met with Hawks coach Sam Mitchell.

But Dangerfield proved the ultimate salesman. He went hard, explaining to Bowes that the Cats weren’t as interested in the prized pick as they were in gaining his services, with Geelong coach Chris Scott telling him “You will be in the (senior) team.”

Bowes has played 51 of a possible 65 games since choosing the Cats.

KEEPING IT FLUID

If the bottom hadn’t fallen out of Melbourne’s 2024 season, Dan Houston would almost certainly be playing for the Demons now.

Or if a deal could have been arranged, he would have been playing for Carlton.

Instead, he is 14 games into his new career at Collingwood, a team that is the premiership favourite heading into the back end of the season.

The Houston case is a perfect example of why player managers – and clubs – have to remain fluid in terms of trading places.

Rival clubs understood that a deal was all but done, with the Demons content to hand over their first pick of 2024 – which was then likely to run somewhere between picks 12 and 17, depending on how they finished – as well as first round pick for 2025.

Then Melbourne’s season collapsed, Christian Petracca suffered a sickening King’s Birthday injury … and Houston got cold feet.

Trade queries over Petracca and Clayton Oliver came as Goodwin’s team looked in free fall, losing five of their last six matches.

Houston sent his manager Nick Gieschen a text message during one late season Friday night game, telling him to abort the deal.

It was over.

A few months later he was a Collingwood player after an intricate deal involving Port Adelaide and Gold Coast.

It further emphasises an old recruiting adage – a deal is not a deal until the paperwork is lodged.

Essendon heavily courted Bobby Hill and Josh Dunkley and looked set to pick them up, but the Giants and the Bulldogs repelled those moves, unwilling to do the deals as the timeline ticked down.

Hill would go on to win a Norm Smith Medal and a premiership medal after moving to Collingwood in 2023; Dunkley would help the Brisbane Lions secure the 2024 flag after coming agonisingly close the year before.

BUZZER BEATERS

The AFL loves nothing better than a bit of theatre on trade deadline night, even putting the clamps on official trades being announced earlier on the final day.

But it’s not just theatre.

If you quiz most clubs about the most challenging team to trade with on the final day, most will pinpoint Essendon, at least over the last decade or more.

The Shiel deal was only finalised with 10 minutes spare.

Last year’s Stringer trade from Essendon to Greater Western Sydney looked dead and buried at one stage before it was revived late.

One of the biggest trades in recent memory – Cameron’s move to Geelong – went through with just seconds left.

The Cats buckled at the last minute realising the star goalkicker might not make it through to them in the draft, with the Giants becoming the club to receive a trio of first round picks.

The buckle from the Cats was worth it.

The cut and thrust – and heated discussions – as the sands run down in the metaphoric trade hour glass brings out the best and worst in some clubs.

Most deals get finalised, with certain player management agencies priding themselves on getting the job done – a pitch that they give to prospective clients.

But some players are still left without a chair when the music stops.

Ryan O’Keefe famously wanted to move to Hawthorn in 2008; the Swans didn’t buckle and four years later he won a Norm Smith Medal; Bryce Gibbs had to wait a year to get to Adelaide after a deal couldn’t be reached with Carlton in 2016; and Jack Martin had to go into the pre-season draft when he couldn’t get to Carlton from the Suns in 2019.

And Collingwood’s salary cap fire-sale trade of Adam Treloar to the Western Bulldogs in late 2020 was put through so late that the finer details of his five-year deal – which the Magpies had to pay a significant portion of – could not be finalised until weeks later.

It’s time to buckle up for 2025.

The jostling has been going on behind the scenes for months already and there is only three months left on the trade clock.

CODE SPORTS’ AFL PLAYER AGENT SURVEY RESULTS