Opening day is normally sedate. Lots of meetings over sausage rolls and party pies within the corporate suites of Etihad Stadium, but the activity comes later.
Not this time. The 2012 Gillette AFL Trade Period went off with a bang, with a flurry of activity throughout the day topped off by the huge trade by the Western Bulldogs of champion defender Brian Lake to Hawthorn.
It is your classic win-win. The Hawks get another key defender, who even at age 30, could be the missing link for a side whose premiership window remains well and truly ajar.
The Bulldogs get yet another first round draft pick and will now have six selections inside the first 50, including Lachie Hunter, obtained as a father-son selection on Monday.
2012 trade hub
Students of list management will point to premiership teams of the past that were built pretty much in the one draft. Little wonder that Bulldogs list manager Jason McCartney said he wished the NAB AFL National Draft was this week, not November 22.
It is the sort of deal that free agency is designed for. Lake would have become an unrestricted free agent in 12 months, and who knows what sort of compensation the Bulldogs would have received if they lost him next year. In this instance, they played a much stronger hand in the negotiation.
It is the sort of deal that gets done in American sport and European soccer all the time. Non-contending US teams regularly ship out their big names ahead of free agency, take the draft picks in return and load up emerging talent for a fresh title run some time down the track.
Trade Machine
There are always inherent risks in bringing players older than 30 into your club. Cameron Bruce to the Hawks was a case in point. But imagine if it works out for the Hawks. Lake, with the body and smarts to play on the monster forwards, Ryan Schoenmakers on the second forward and Josh Gibson freelancing as the third man up and the set-up man out of defence.
The net cost for the Hawks is that their first pick in the draft moves from 21 to 27 and they also forfeit pick no.41. On paper, the deal works.
As did the other deals we saw on the first day. St Kilda continued its planning for the post Riewoldt-Koschitzke era by bringing in Tom Lee, a 21-year-old who kicked 60 goals for Claremont this year in the WAFL. He was pre-listed by GWS and the second round pick the Saints also obtained in the deal gets the Saints into the ballpark to get defender Mitch Brown out of West Coast.
Angus Monfries from Essendon to Port Adelaide also seems likely to work. He's a walk-up start for Port's best 22 next year, with Port football manager Peter Rohde likening him to Jay Schulz, another South Australian who played his best footy after returning home from Victoria.
Monfries, you would imagine, will get the opportunity to play through the midfield that was denied him at the Bombers.
The other notable piece of business was Gold Coast sending the second pick overall at the national draft to GWS for Western Australian gun Jack Martin, one of the Giants' mini-draft 17 year olds.
It continues the Suns' strategy of staggering the introduction of their elite young talent. Gold Coast did that this year with Jaeger O'Meara, also originally from Western Australia, and is delighted with his progress.
O'Meara averaged 20 touches a game for the Suns in the NEAFL for the first half of the season before being shut down ahead of the start of pre-season training in the next couple of weeks. He is on track to play round one for the Suns next year and the club expects Martin to progress at a similar clip through the NEAFL next year ahead of his AFL debut in 2014.
You can follow AFL Media senior writer Ashley Browne on Twitter @afl_hashbrowne.
The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL
