Inside AFL Trade Period: Scott Gullan’s take on the highs and lows from 2024
The frantic finish to this year’s AFL Trade Period reinforced clubs are being allowed to “take the p***” by cramming 10 days of work into a few hours, writes SCOTT GULLAN.
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The walls in the Marvel Stadium corporate suites aren’t very thick so the spray delivered by a prominent player manager reverberated down the corridor.
Tensions were understandably running high given 10 days of nothing had come down to the final 15 minutes before the trade deadline.
The haggling over a late draft pick sliding one or two spots and the refusal of another club to not to help financially with exiting a player they wanted out was at the centre of the robust discussion.
While the deal eventually got done with minutes remaining, the repercussions for one club are set to live on over the next 12 months.
It’s fair to say any hope of them having a crack at some big-name free agents from that management stable in the near future took a sizeable hit.
That’s the games which are played in the AFL trade period.
There is a lot of you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours but there is also a clear understanding that if you screw me over now, it’s coming back 10-fold in the future.
Leading agent Paul Connors, who has been in the game for 25 years, described this year’s trade period as “one of the hardest” and that it was easily “the hardest last day I have been involved in.”
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His team, including partner Robbie D’Orazio and Nick Gieschen, spent a lot of the final hour at Marvel Stadium on Wednesday night going in and out of the club allocated suites given they were linked to the big deals involving Bailey Smith, Jake Stringer, Tom Barrass and Dan Houston.
“It’s been a hard last few days as clubs are getting shrewder and tougher,” Connors lamented after getting all his big names done with literally just seconds remaining before the 7.30pm deadline.
The CCTV vision which AFL trade radio had access to of the suites and the corridor was bizarrely enthralling television even if there was no sound.
As the clock ticked into the last half-hour the sight of Connors sitting next to Geelong list boss Andrew Mackie gesturing with his hands suddenly gave hope that the Smith deal was still alive.
In the end nine players got traded in the final 30 minutes and many of those for deals which had actually been on the table for days.
The AFL loves having the focus for the 10 days but once again having it all go down in the final hour rams home again that they’re allowing clubs to take the piss by having such a drawn-out period.
Holding out to get a future fourth round or shuffling three spots in the fifth round is madness and hardly worthy of chest-beating afterwards but that’s how some list managers see it.
Richmond’s Blair Hartley has been one of the busiest given the exodus of premiership stars from Punt Rd and he summed it up perfectly: “10 days, I’m a big advocate for three.”
The spin was in overdrive when each club was required to front the cameras at the end of the madness.
When Hartley outlined the circumstances behind Liam Baker, Shai Bolton and Daniel Rioli wanting to leave, he gave the latter a nice drive-by.
Referring to Rioli who won the Tigers best and fairest and was now moving to the Gold Coast, he said he was “coming to the twilight of his career”.
Five minutes later, standing in the same spot, Suns list manager Craig Cameron described Rioli as “an A-grade player in a position we wanted to bolster”.
Port Adelaide football boss Chris Davies was next and he vented his frustrations at the recent trend of players signing long-term contracts and then wanting out.
He’d had a tough few days accommodating All-Australian halfback Dan Houston who had three more seasons to run with the Power but requested a trade.
“The AFL needs to look at players in contract wanting out … a balance has to be looked upon,” Davies said.
In the end everyone left Marvel Stadium looking tired but seemingly happy, many were heading off for a well-needed beer although one club didn’t need that, they already had a hangover which might last 12 months.
Originally published as Inside AFL Trade Period: Scott Gullan’s take on the highs and lows from 2024
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