After 13 games last season, Carlton had just four wins and a draw and sat in the bottom four. They struggled to move the ball and Harry McKay couldn’t kick straight. The faithful were apoplectic, and wanted heads on plates, in the customary Carlton manner.
The transformation of the Blues from that embarrassing nadir to a team that made the preliminary final was astounding and one of the stories of the season, as was the slightly less surprising recovery of Greater Western Sydney under Adam Kingsley.
Harry McKay catches his breath during Carlton’s round 13 loss to Essendon.Credit: Getty Images
The Giants had four wins and eight losses at round 12 and, at the end, they were unluckily within a point of a grand final berth against the Brisbane Lions.
Consider what those clubs might have done if a) they’d lost another game when they reached their nadir and b) if there had been an established mid-season trading system that gave the 18 clubs the freedom to offload or gain players in that June period.
For argument’s sake, let’s imagine that the Blues were one win the worse (3-8 and a draw) and that while the club hierarchy had backed coach Michael Voss to continue in 2024 without reservation, they were willing to explore some aggressive trading to fast-track their move into contention.
Melbourne, who were in the top four and very much in contention, would be in pole position to win the premiership if they had a high calibre key forward to support Jacob van Rooyen.
McKay and the Blues turned their season around and made it all the way to the preliminary final.Credit: Getty Images
So, the Blues make the radical call to trade McKay to the Demons, in return for two first-rounders (at that point, the Dees had Fremantle’s first), plus van Rooyen or another younger Demon who suits their needs, under a largely unfettered mid-season trading regime.
Yes, this is an AFL version of magical realism, but it’s a way to illustrate the obvious pitfalls and dangers inherent in the “inevitable” march to mid-season trading.
Carlton, in effect, would have an incentive to fold the tent and give up a key player, if they’d gain a premium from a rival club that saw itself as one chess piece short of the flag. They’d have ended the season with three first-rounders, and two picks inside six, plus a player who suited their needs. If necessary, they could trade those picks for a gun player in October.
Melbourne’s rivals, especially Collingwood and the Lions, would have faced a Demon attack featuring McKay and Kysaiah Pickett at his feet.
Melbourne fans would have had plenty to cheer about with a forward combination of McKay and Kysaiah Pickett.Credit: AFL Photos
In this fantasy, the Blues would also stump up most of McKay’s wage for 2023 – which is what the AFL allows in October trades (see Brodie Grundy, Adam Treloar and many others); in effect, the Blues would be buying a better draft hand and handing the Demons pole position for the 2023 premiership.
We could apply the same make-believe world to GWS and Brisbane or Collingwood.
The clubs are pondering the question of a mid-season trading system, which is considered a serious chance for 2025, but the clubs say is all but ruled out for this year.
A view has taken hold, in some quarters, that mid-season trading will be exciting, that more movement of players is an inherent good and that, as with the NBA, NFL, baseball and European soccer, such mechanisms will enhance the competition.
The AFL has asked clubs for feedback on player movement; there is support for mid-season trading from several clubs, although one has already suggested that mid-year trades should be restricted to lowly paid or minimum wage players, that it should be about player opportunity, rather than handing leverage to top teams and players.
This column, which has often backed rule changes – such as the six-six-six and kick-in and man-on-mark changes that improved the spectacle – is concerned about the unintended consequences of mid-season trading.
Here’s a few blatant wrinkles in a liberal mid-year trading system that emulates overseas sports:
- Assuming there’s little restriction on who you can trade, clubs down the ladder, eg Carlton last year, have greater incentive to give up on the season and effectively tank. This flies in the face of the equalisation that has made the AFL more appealing.
- The teams higher on the ladder would enhance their position if they can a) acquire a key player that redresses immediate need and b) can get the vendor to pay a portion of that season’s contract.
- Integrity. The fixture will always be compromised, but is it right to cop, say, Richmond with Tom Lynch in round six – and then your top eight/four rival gets the Tigers without him in round 18? Not because he’s injured/suspended, but since he’s playing for Collingwood or Sydney by then?
- Players and their agents could ruthlessly exploit a mid-year trade threat: “I want to go to Geelong and I want to be traded now (Cats are thereabouts). Or sign me on a $6 million deal now.”
Players already favour top-six sides when weighing up trades. If mid-year trades aren’t heavily restricted, this trend will be exacerbated.
Many within the media will favour mid-season trading, since it will create more content for fans who devour every skerrick of information about even the most minor players and deals. It will be a boon to the player movement media industrial complex and will continue the code’s continued embrace of American sporting culture and practices.
But league CEO Andrew Dillon and the commission must remember that Australian rules football has an entirely different culture – it grew out of communities, not professional sport per se – and that fans also need to have a group of one-club players and a stable relationship with their best and more beloved players.
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