Was the trade window: (A) Good, (B) Bold, (C) Bad, (D) Tedious?
Answer: (E) All of the above.
Firstly, we’ll start happy and take (A) The good.
Players moved. Things happened. A lot of players moved and clubs got the chance to fundamentally change their list make up.
Look at Richmond. That is the most stunning injection of talent to a recent premier to expedite change and rebuild on the run. The arrival of Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper turns them back into serious contenders. This was a move that has a Geelong-like defiance of gravity about it.
Look also at Hawthorn. Actually, don’t if you are a sentimental type. But that was the trade period of a club in a hurry. They have been unabashed in going young and doing it as fast as they can. Names mean nothing, reputations even less. Veterans were made to look like speed humps.
Luke Jackson has joined Fremantle.
Often trade periods are guilty of spending an extraordinary amount of time dwelling on ordinary players. This wasn’t that.
A number one pick from 12 months ago wanted a trade and was traded. A two-time All-Australian ruckman on mega bucks was traded to the premier of 12 months ago. The premier of 12 months ago traded their star young premiership ruckman and forward of 12 months ago.
A Brownlow medallist was put on the table and was quickly joined by his highly priced teammate whose entire trade move escalated quickly from of a wedding conversation last weekend.
Assuming Alastair Clarkson does actually coach North next year, the Hawks will be paying a premiership coach and two players’ wages, one of them a Brownlow medallist, and the other a former vice captain, to play or work for someone else.
Brownlow medallist Tom Mitchell joined Collingwood.Credit:Getty Images
But they are far from alone. Nearly every club pays a portion of a former player’s salary at another club. Clubs now understand better than ever that managing your salary cap is as important as your trading and drafting. They don’t look at the money spent paying a chunk of a player’s salary elsewhere as a cost it is money saved in not paying the rest of the big contract.
Which brings us to ….
(B) Bold. Salary dumps.
Some people are still struggling to get their heads around salary dumping but that is primarily because the club that most enthusiastically embraced it, Gold Coast, was the same club asking for more early draft picks only three years ago. Suddenly, they were giving them away.
This is understandable angst but also wrong-headed. The draft picks they were gifted have actually now helped them fix a salary cap bulging with having overspent on mediocre players just to keep them. Using pick seven to fix their cap is far more beneficial than getting in another preciously talented kid they will have to pay a fortune to keep in two years’ time. Fixing the cap is the key.
Just look at Geelong. It was galling to see pick seven go to the premier because the system should dictate they are the last club that should have cap space to afford a salary dump, but that isn’t the Cats’ problem. The problem for the AFL is the club that has yet to play finals has overpaid on players and the club that never misses finals and just won the flag has been able to (relatively) underpay.
The Bowes salary dump was by far the most significant trade of the window. It will reshape how trade periods run in future.
Next (C) Bad.
Players walking out on clubs after two years is hard for fans to cop. But after one year for a number one draft pick is next level.
North have culpability in this for they plainly chose the wrong player a year ago and their club has not exactly been a picture of stability and harmony over the year. But still one year in and you say trade me home and I only want to go to one club?
For the Giants losing Tanner Bruhn was an all-too-familiar story for the expansion clubs but this year it reached the next level when Ollie Henry was homesick for Geelong while living in Melbourne. Geelong!
Seriously. Neil Balme commuted from Melbourne his entire time working in Geelong. Plenty of others do it. The pull of playing with your brother is more than reasonable, but it was, well, an unusual decision.
The AFL should push hard for three-year initial contracts for first- and second-round draftees. The AFLPA won’t like it but they need to look at it.
Finally, (D) Tedious.
The whole thing for many people is an exercise in tedium. That’s ok, tune out. But even for those with an interest in it, could the whole thing have been shorter? Yes. Will it be? No. The AFL has commercialised it and makes a good earn on it, so no. Besides, when you consider the original mega-deal involving nearly half the clubs to get Horne-Francis to Port fell over last Friday, there was still time to resurrect the guts of it into a new deal so time was helpful.
Could other deals have happened sooner? That’s like asking if you can get over-priced pies and watery beer at the footy?
The Bulldogs and Lions’ intransigence on the Dunkley deal was as predictable as the fact it would still ultimately be resolved with minutes to spare. As Dunkley’s manager Liam Pickering drily observed the haggling in the end was over a future fourth-round pick that probably won’t even be used.
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