I hear on the street that some of our fans might be frustrated by the inactivity, but what that does is put us in an outstanding position for the AFL National Draft next month. We have three picks in the top 30 and no club, other than Gold Coast, is in a better position for the ballot.
Our strategy is to build a team capable of challenging for a premiership in the mid to long term and we we're not going to compromise that position by trading away our early picks. Those three picks in the top 30 are pure gold.
In trade week we were looking for young players, who had been exposed to AFL football, who could assist us in building our list, but there were not many of those players looking for a new start.
The trade period better suits clubs in the top half of the table who are generally more active in securing players they believe they can top up their list and keep them in what so often these days is referred to as the “premiership window.”
Certainly that was the case with Collingwood and the Western Bulldogs and, to a lesser extent, Hawthorn.
We went into trade week with an open mind and had a chat with Andrew Krakouer. But we also wanted to retain our early draft picks. When Collingwood offered Gold Coast pick 25, the only way we could top that would have been to offer pick 4 in the national draft. And we simply were not going to do that because that was not in keeping with our mid to long-term strategy.
Andrew had a fantastic season and would have been a good acquisition for us, but he turns 28 before next season.
People see players in the market declaring themselves available and wonder why their club has not gone after them. Well, in our case, we have only three positions open on our senior list, having committed to take Jacob Brennan as a father/son selection.
Andrew Strijk and Callum Wilson had already been elevated from the rookie list as well.
We traded Ben McKinley to North Melbourne and traded pick 45 to Collingwood for the third round compensation selection they secured for releasing Josh Fraser to Gold Coast. The important thing about that is we were not intending to use pick 45 and the compensatory selection can be banked and used in any draft over the next five years.
We can activate it in an uncompromised draft in the future and we also have the option of trading it.
We believe our strategy of building from beneath is the way to go and are in a good position to add exciting young talent by retaining picks 4, 26 and 28 in the National Draft next month.
