One more year: How Blues and Bombers can keep their big stars — for now at least
For different reasons, the Blues and Bombers can’t trade Charlie Curnow and Zach Merrett. Even if they want out, Jon Ralph writes, there’s one way the two clubs can keep their superstars.
Seven days ago on morning radio Michael Voss spoke about how Carlton’s decision to cut depth players last off-season had left the club dangerously exposed this season.
If he is looking for a more dramatic history lesson as he considers Charlie Curnow’s future he should rewind six more seasons.
Carlton coach Brendon Bolton was sacked in June 2019 less than four seasons into his tenure after naively agreeing to turn over the list.
“There are lots of reflections,” Bolton said in 2024.
“We turned over 45 players in three years. It was probably professional suicide. It was a whole club approach but (if I had my chance again) I wouldn’t cut that deep.”
Voss knows he will coach Carlton next year but under a stay of execution with an expiring contract rather than a mandate to rebuild this list.
So trading out Curnow for anything other than a phenomenal return would be joining Bolton on the path to coaching’s gallows.
Brad Scott has the faith of his board and CEO and a fresh contract to 2027 but he faces an identical issue with his best player and cultural heartbeat in Zach Merrett.
On face value he cannot trade him under any circumstance.
You could argue Merrett is the only A-grader on Scott’s Essendon list.
Nic Martin was approaching that status but tore his ACL in July so isn’t back any time soon.
Sam Durham might get there but this year didn’t rank elite in any Champion Data category — and was average in disposals and kicking.
And yet as Scott said himself in a February interview, he doesn’t want to hold players against their will.
“Potentially it is possible to coerce a player into staying. A player in the end resents that and looks back and thinks that they were either guilted into staying or coerced into staying. I think that’s a bad outcome for everyone. If that’s the case, you’re not going to get the best out of that player.”
Scott was referring to free agent Sam Draper, but if Merrett does eventually declare he wants to be traded it would be hypocritical for Scott to hold him given that statement in a pre-season preview to Nine newspapers.
Essendon would be royally screwed on every front if Merrett left — with lack of A grade talent, for on-field leadership, with the potential for other Dons to flee as a snowball effect, for the hope from fans.
Essendon would be rudderless.
And if Curnow left, Voss would have with a forward line without his dual Coleman Medallist, without Tom De Koning, without swingman Jack Silvagni, without last year’s depth players Matt Kennedy and Matt Owies.
And with Harry McKay having played only 12 games this year with absences for mental health, knee surgery and concussion.
What Carlton and Essendon should do is take a leaf out of St Kilda’s book in its pitch to Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera.
Plead with both players to give the respective clubs one more season to get their house in order and prove they are not the basket cases they currently resemble.
But do it with an undertaking that if those players want a trade at the end of 2026 the club will willingly grant it.
Not an empty promise but a concrete commitment to trade them to their club of choice providing they get fair value.
The issue for both clubs is that if they traded into the 2025 national draft they would do so knowing it is hugely compromised and paper thin anyway.
Essendon has already had experience with having multiple picks in a poor draft when it took Nik Cox, Archie Perkins and Zach Reid in a Covid-affected 2020 national draft that is already full of busts.
It already has two top-10 picks set to be pushed back by free agency compo picks and northern academy stars in this year’s draft and two academy prospects it might match a bid on in the second round.
Putting off Merrett’s impending departure a year would allow it to potentially trade into an elite 2026 national draft that has very few northern academy stars and might have clubs locked out of academy and father-son picks anyway.
More to the point, it gives them a chance to show to Merrett the impact of a completely new fitness team and of the gains it has made in development, coaching, board stability and football department resourcing.
Brad Scott would back himself to finish top eight with an even run with injury and if Merrett wants out at 30 he still has huge trade currency.
St Kilda president Andrew Bassat told Code Sports late last month the Saints acknowledged if they were still ordinary by 2027 they deserved to lose Wanganeen-Milera.
“With the two year (deal) of course we wanted longer. We are not denying that. But part of it is it’s a nice challenge for the club. The message for the club now is we need to get good as a football club. We need to get better on field and be the sort of environment that makes it impossible for Nasiah to want to leave,” he said.
“That is the challenge. That is the challenge in front of us not just for Nasiah but all of our players and I don’t mind that challenge. That’s what the industry demands. A long-term term deal would have been better. But it’s time for us.”
It is impossible to think of a more demoralising reality for Essendon fans — and players — than Merrett departing but no one would blame him.
It would make clear that Merrett has judged everything Essendon has tried to build in recent seasons has failed.
Its development pathway, its coaching structure, its rebuild, its fitness program.
Already clubs above Essendon on the ladder are showing their ambition in an impossibly even competition.
Sydney is trying to lure Curnow, St Kilda is going scorched earth to transform its list, Melbourne is trying to drag Marcus Windhager out of the Saints.
Having surely lost its popular and effervescent ruckman Draper, Essendon would surely lose more senior players if Merrett departed on a weekend when rival fans celebrated 21 seasons since the Dons won their last final.
Carlton, which this weekend marked 25 seasons since the club finished top four on the ladder, might eventually find a way to secure the right compensation for Curnow.
Code Sports reported last month that Gold Coast was emphatic that it wasn’t trading No. 3 draft pick Jed Walter under any circumstances in a package for Charlie Curnow.
The club knows it would be a terrible look to fight so hard for its academy status then trade a ‘nepo baby’, with Damien Hardwick a huge fan of the raw but talented Walter.
He isn’t in the team right now but he’s played 30 exciting games and has a 12-year career ahead of him if he stays.
But the Suns showed against Fremantle they are right in the flag window, with Curnow clearly giving them their best shot at a flag right now.
Ethan Read could one day be great as a ruckman, forward or key back but was dominated by Alex Pearce until Mac Andrew’s heroics saved the game as he followed Josh Treacy forward.
So the Suns have big decisions to make based on how their season finishes and Hardwick’s urgency to chase a flag now or back the current list strategy.
If Carlton could secure a package that includes Gold Coast’s Walter, Sam Flanders and more, then it could provide a win-win trade.
So Carlton has a narrow path forward without Curnow, but is extremely narrow.
Essendon and Carlton have promised much and delivered very little this century, so putting themselves on a 12-month deadline to improve might be fraught with danger.
The alternative is too grim to consider even if it requires Scott going back on his words of February this year.
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Originally published as One more year: How Blues and Bombers can keep their big stars — for now at least
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