Hawthorn linked with midfield star amid reported Bulldogs unrest

Bulldogs star Bailey Smith has been linked with a bombshell move to his boyhood club amid reports of unrest at Whitten Oval.

Western Bulldogs superstar Bailey Smith has been linked with his childhood team as reports swirl of unrest at Whitten Oval.

7News reports that Hawthorn are understood to have an interest in the 22-year-old, should he request a trade away from the club that drafted him with the seventh pick in the 2019 draft.

Smith is reported to have his annual exit meeting with the club on Tuesday and has one year remaining on his current contract.

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With the Bulldogs missing out on finals football after going down in an upset loss to West Coast in Round 23, the focus has turned to the moves that the 2016 Premiers will make in the race to return to contention, having played in a Grand Final in 2021.

Football media personality Craig Hutchison suggested that the Bulldogs would be a “seller at the right price” for Smith on Footy Classified, and Nine’s Caroline Wilson suggested that the Bulldogs’ public insistence that Smith was not headed elsewhere was a front.

“(Bulldogs CEO) Ameet Bains has said that Bailey Smith is a required player,” Wilson said.

“But there is huge frustration with him, he’s on a huge amount of money, he’s clearly a very high maintenance player, there’s several clubs looking at him, Collingwood and Hawthorn as well as Geelong.”

Smith is considered one of the most marketable players in the league. Photo by Michael Klein.

Wilson’s co-host Kane Cornes suggested that a move further west down the Princes Freeway under the tutelage of Chris Scott would work well for Smith.

“I think Geelong is the right home for him, they’ve taken a risk on players like Tyson Stengle with really good results, he’s a hard worker and I think he fits in perfectly (at Geelong),” said Cornes.

Bains told press before Round 24 that Smith’s profile brought with it media speculation, but that his contract status was the end of any conjecture.

“(We) obviously always understand the interest in someone with Bailey’s profile, he’s contracted for next year, so as far as we’re concerned, that’s that,” Bains said.

Growing up in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, playing his junior football for East Malvern and attending Xavier College in Kew, Smith would under the old VFL zones be considered a through-and-through Hawthorn product.

Smith was a Hawthorn fan as a child before being drafted by the Bulldogs, and recently posted a photo to his Instagram of himself as a nine-year-old in a Hawthorn jumper with Lance Franklin.

Smith would slot in seamlessly to a young midfield that is looking for another major cog to partner All-Australian squad nominee Jai Newcombe, and his youth would allow him to grow with a team that is set to rise after showing glimmers of promise in 2023.

A News Corp report earlier this year ranked Smith as the league’s most marketable player, this year ranked 19th of all Australian athletes ahead of his hero Franklin in 20th, and it would serve as a massive boon for a club that is searching for a new face around which it can centre its burgeoning rebuild.

While Smith remains on contract, the Hawks will have to show their draft hand if they want to bring him into the fold for 2024, and currently hold picks 3, 29 and 48 in the upcoming national draft.

Bailey Smith (front right), now at the Western Bulldogs, pictured as a child, approximately aged 8, with Hawthorn's Lance "Buddy" Franklin. Photo: Instagram

Smith is reported to desire more time in the midfield, having been moved around in 2023 and played as a winger and half-forward at times for Luke Beveridge’s side.

Despite his misgivings, the Bulldogs are insistent that they have no desire to trade Smith and that he remains firmly in the club’s long-term plans.

Smith has had a mixed experience since playing in a Grand Final aged just 20, taking time away from the game for his mental health and speaking out after being suspended for two games in 2022 for “conduct unbecoming” after he was pictured with a bag of white powder.

“I have made mistakes, but I resolve to learn from each and to do all I can to avoid letting myself down, and those around me,” Smith said in 2022, speaking of the depths of his mental health troubles in late 2021.

“In confronting this, the temptation is to speak in vague generalities and avoid the issue. However, I am determined to learn the lessons of my past and be a better person in the future.”

There have been no indications that Smith would request a trade thus far, and SEN’s Tom Morris reported that Smith would not be doing so this week.

“Bailey Smith won’t request a trade this week, we’re not sure what’s going to happen in the next few weeks, but he won’t request a trade this week, and that’ll play out,” Morris said on SEN Breakfast.

“But the Dogs are resolute, they asked for two first-round picks for Josh Dunkley from Essendon, and I would expect they would ask for something similar for Bailey Smith.

“Who’s going to give up two first round picks for Bailey Smith? I’m not sure. And at the moment they’re saying he’s not for trade anyway – he’s got another year left on his contract.”

It is the same steadfast position that the club took in the negotiations surrounding former Bulldog Josh Dunkley, now at Brisbane.

Smith has had an interrupted 2023. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

A young Bailey Smith with Lance Franklin in 2009. Photo: AFL, Twitter

Dogs list manager Sam Power reportedly refused to allow Dunkley to be traded to Essendon unless two first-round picks returned to Footscray, which saw the deal fall over and Dunkley later traded for a raft of draft picks.

AFL journalist Damian Barrett has also claimed that Geelong remain in the race for Smith’s services, with the pair sharing a sponsor in retail fashion giant Cotton On.

“There’s a lot to play out with him. The official line is he’s contracted as a Bulldog for 2024, but Geelong has shown interest in him in the past and they are showing interest in him again,” Barrett said on Footy Classified.

“There’s a mutual friend and sponsor (Cotton On) of Bailey Smith personally … they supported him immensely when he was going through that trouble off field last year. He needed some support at the time and they backed him.

“There are conversations in play that align themselves with him not necessarily being at the Bulldogs next year.

“People around Bailey are having conversations on his behalf and I’m assuming he doesn’t even know of all the conversations being had.”