Moneyball AFL trade news: Eagles’ draft assistance play, star Swans set to cash in
The Eagles’ poor start to 2024 has prompted calls for draft assistance, but will the club cave? Plus, a Magpie has pushed his contract talks while two Swans are set to get paid in the latest AFL trade news.
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On face value, no team has ever deserved draft assistance less than West Coast.
But as AFL greats including Gerard Healy make clear the Eagles deserve an AFL-approved draft package, West Coast will wait until later in the year to consider whether to make such a request.
And the AFL will have the same impossible conundrum it has been confronted with over Gold Coast and North Melbourne draft packages – how much do you reward a club’s ineptitude?
But Gold Coast received four additional picks in late 2019 after being routed as an expansion club (they lost co-captains Steven May and Tom Lynch) and winning only 23 games across five seasons.
North Melbourne secured three extra end-of-first-round picks in 2023 after winning only 12 games across four years.
West Coast is a very different proposition given it won the premiership in 2018, played finals in 2020 and was in the eight for all but three rounds in 2021, ultimately winning 10 games.
Teams which haven’t won a flag since 2018 would be in uproar if the Eagles were handed extra picks.
Those teams include Adelaide, Brisbane, Carlton, Essendon, Fremantle, Greater Western Sydney, Gold Coast, Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Port Adelaide, St Kilda, Sydney and the Western Bulldogs.
Hawthorn, Adelaide, North Melbourne and Gold Coast haven’t even played finals since West Coast’s most recent September berth in 2021.
Those clubs would revolt, with Geelong one club who behind the scenes believes the AFL works too hard to ignore the fact this is a competition and not football socialism where everyone is as even as possible.
One option is a watered down package of future picks of the manner the Roos received in 2022 – future second and third-round picks that helped them secure Griffin Logue.
It was only in the following year after another terrible season the Roos got those three end-of-first-round picks.
It is on record that West Coast bungled its Covid experience, re-signed stars long-term at inflated prices who had terrible injury histories and did not keep up to date with modern game trends.
They also traded a trio of quality picks for Tim Kelly just as their flag window was ending.
But the only factor in their favour will be the AFL’s desire for a competitive TV deal as Tasmania prepares to enter the league.
Punishing West Coast also punishes the AFL because it makes one of the AFL’s nine games each weekend a marketing nightmare.
RISING SWANS SET TO CASH IN
Sydney’s Errol Gulden can expect to play for over $1.1 million next season as he and Logan McDonald close in on new deals at the Swans.
This masthead reported on Tuesday that James Rowbottom had signed a four-year deal and Gulden and McDonald’s manager Ben Williams told AFL.com.au both of his clients were deep in talks to stay at the Swans.
Williams has recently brokered an eight-year extension for Port Adelaide captain Connor Rozee worth between $9-$10 million that also has CBA clauses to reflect the rise in the salary cap.
So as a player who has as much talent and star power as Rozee, expect Gulden to sign on for a similar dollar value per year.
Fremantle would have been keen if McDonald wanted to return to West Australia but has huge faith in Jy Amiss and Joel Treacy, who it recently re-signed to 2026.
HAWKS AND ROOS BATTLE IT OUT DOWN BACK
Let’s call it the great defensive drought.
Both Hawthorn and North Melbourne are desperate for an elite ready-made defender and yet there are almost none available on the AFL landscape.
Last year Esava Ratugolea, Ben McKay, Tom Doedee, Joel Hamling, Bigoa Nyuon, and mid-sized interceptor Nick Coffield changed clubs.
North Melbourne and the Hawks were in it to win it but missed out on most.
Nyuon went to Arden Street, while Ratugolea and McKay considered but ultimately rejected the Hawks.
This year both clubs have vast cap space and the inclination to give up quality picks for a star defender but there are almost none on the market.
St Kilda free agent Josh Battle is keen to stay and Mark O’Connor and Jake Kolodjashnij will remain at Geelong, while Nick Haynes and Adam Tomlinson are options but not in the right age demographic.
It means the Roos will scour the market but are determined not to overpay for a player who won’t figure in a potential premiership team, having already spent well over $1 million Griffin Logue and Adam Corr.
The Roos drafted pick 22 Wil Dawson as a 200cm key defender and he took five intercept marks in his best VFL outing so far against Carlton in a sign he could be their answer in future years.
They also believe Charlie Comben could settle down back, but are prepared to wait another season if necessary to fill that defensive hole.
Hawthorn is keen on another key forward, a classy mid and a key back to round out their list build but with Ben King re-signed and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan and Logan McDonald staying they face similar challenges to the Roos.
Clubs have noted how even the best state league defenders in Australia — Charlie Dean and Toby Pink — have struggled when picked in their senior sides.
It means the Hawks and Roos will need to get a player to break a contract or wait another 12 months to fill that need.
THE YOUNG HAWK STILL WAITING TO FLY
Hawthorn is confident Denver Grainger-Barras will be back in plenty of time to make a strong second half surge amid speculation about his future at the club.
Grainger-Barras was taken at pick 6 and while he has failed to fire so far the Hawks had believed he was improving year on year.
He was diagnosed with turf toe after an intraclub game and needed surgery to repair the pesky injury.
But the Hawks are now hopeful he is as few as seven weeks away.
Both club and player will need more information about where he stands on the list but after four seasons it would be futile for the club to hand up off to a rival for a late pick.
The WA draftee was taken in a draft while little Victorian exposure so if eastern seaboard Under 18 sides had played a full year he might not have been taken that high.
Both Fremantle and West Coast need young defenders but the hope is he can show why he was drafted so high in the back end of the year and re-sign at the Hawks.
HOLDING PATTERN ON HOWE
High-flying Collingwood defender Jeremy Howe will wait until the second half of the season before stepping up discussions with the club about potentially playing on into 2025.
Howe turns 34 in June but remains a highly important Magpies’ defender and club leader.
Both Howe and the club are content to park the conversations at this stage but there remains a chance he could yet play on for a 15th AFL season next year.
He is one of several veteran Magpies yet to make a decision on what next year looks like.
Howe had genuine doubts about whether he would recover from a horrific broken arm suffered in last year’s opening round game against Geelong, contemplating a potential early retirement from the game.
But he fought hard to overcome his injury and played a critical role in the Magpies’ defence in the back end of the season, including a stunning 24-disposal, eight-mark game in the grand final victory.
He is only 14 games away from reaching the 250-game mark (he played 100 for Melbourne), and the same figure away from 150 games in black and white.
LIBBA SIGNS ON, JAMARRA NEXT?
As the Bulldogs close in on a two-year deal to keep key forward Jamarra Ugle-Hagan in the tricolours until the end of 2026, one of the club’s spiritual leaders Tom Liberatore has recommitted for a 15th season next year.
This masthead first reported in February that a new deal was in motion for Libba after his re-emergence in the Bulldogs’s leadership group following an extended absence.
He has now agreed to play on in 2025, and threw out a cheeky message to his Brownlow Medal-winning father Tony after signing on the dotted line.
“I’ll try and catch the old man, (I) think he played for 16 years so I’m one behind,” Tom, who turns 32 next months, said.
The father-son midfielder told the Sunday Herald Sun recently that he would like to play on for as long as his form holds out and for as long as his battle-scarred knees hold out.
“I’m rapt to sign again, it has been a great journey so far,” Liberatore said.
“It is really nice to get it done this early, particularly given the start to the season and I am focused on what we’re building here at the club.”
Tom has played 219 games for the Bulldogs since his 2011 debut, and he is 64 games short of his father’s 283 games.
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