AFL Trade Period 2024: Gold Coast Suns tick all the boxes with Daniel Rioli, John Noble trades
The football world has finally wised up to the Gold Coast Suns’ list building strategy but after Wednesday’s deadline day trades, is it too late to stop them?
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The football world has finally wised up to the Gold Coast Suns’ list building strategy but after Wednesday’s deadline day trades, is it too late to stop them?
Last week the Suns were being laughed at for even contemplating trading picks 6 and 23 to Richmond for Daniel Rioli. But by the time the deal was formally struck on Wednesday afternoon, their master plan was clear.
Richmond and Carlton may have ‘won’ the trade period by bolstering their 2024 draft hands, but Gold Coast now has almost all the capital it needs to stockpile Suns Academy talent for the next two years – while also adding established running defenders Rioli and John Noble in the process.
The Suns successfully cleared cap space by jettisoning Jack Lukosius and Rory Atkins, while adding two 2025 first-round picks to go with their own.
Those picks will be pivotal this time next year when prospective No. 1 selection Zeke Uwland, brother to breakout Suns defender Bodhi Uwland, is on the board – alongside fellow Suns Academy talent Beau Addinsall.
And that is all without mentioning Leo Lombard, the uber-agile mid-forward who looks ready-made for an AFL start after two years within the Suns’ VFL program.
The should-be top-15 pick will join the AFL list next month thanks to the draft points the Suns accumulated to match a bid on Lombard at or after pick 7/8, all the while ticking the rest of their trade period boxes in the process.
Essentially, the Suns’ trade period ends with two best-23 inclusions (Rioli and Noble), a top-15 talent in Lombard – to come in November – and the draft capital required to add another two Suns Academy first-rounders in 2025.
Lukosius and Atkins were never in Damien Hardwick’s plans for next year and there is now roughly $1.3m of extra cap space at the Suns’ disposal after they were sent to Port Adelaide.
In 2023, Gold Coast drafted four Suns Academy stars in a first-round draft coup and by the end of next November could have added six – perhaps seven – players from its pathway program over a three-year period.
For years the victim of a system that allowed top-end talent to leave for greener pastures, the Suns pivoted to cultivating homegrown players and are finally starting to see the pay-off.
Assuming Lombard arrives next month as expected, Gold Coast will enter 2025 with 13 Suns Academy graduates on its list. Many of those would be considered best-23 players and if not, are expected to become such over the course of the season.
It is a list strategy years in the making, long before it first hit the football public’s consciousness last year when Jed Walter, Ethan Read, Jake Rogers and Will Graham were drafted out of the first round.
While the majority of AFL club list managers are based in Melbourne, Craig Cameron relocated to the Gold Coast to be closer to the Suns Academy once the decision was made to go chips-in on the in-house talent pathway.
“It means I get to understand the talent coming through both the men’s and women’s pathways,” Cameron told this masthead earlier this year.
“I’m able to build strong relationships with our academy coaches which is really important.
“Last year we took four academy players (in the draft). That’s not going to happen every year, but our aim is to build out the percentage of our list as local talent as much as we can.”
For the second straight year, the Suns have ticked all their boxes in the lead-up to the draft.
But for all the successful wheeling and dealing, the fact remains premierships are not won in the off-season.
The onus is now on Hardwick and his coaching staff to harness the talent at its disposal and finally deliver a maiden finals berth for the no-longer-fledgling franchise.
Originally published as AFL Trade Period 2024: Gold Coast Suns tick all the boxes with Daniel Rioli, John Noble trades
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