With Free Agency and Trade period done and dusted for another year, we have seen 29 players move to a new location for the 2015 season.

I’ll be honest, there were a couple of names on here that I thought I’d never see leave their team. With that said, there have been a lot of stories all throughout the Trade/Free Agency period.

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We saw Dayne Beams return to his home state of Queensland after six illustrious seasons at Collingwood. There was of course the Patrick Ryder ordeal, which began around when the finals were about to begin, and after intense negotiations, finally became a member of the Power and we also had the shock departure of Ryan Griffen at the Bulldogs, which led to the demise of Brendan McCartney. Griffen ended up at Greater Western Sydney, which along with giving up their pick six, received last years number one draft pick, Tom Boyd, who expressed a desire to return to Melbourne after a season at the Giants.

But in amidst all the stories, rumours and lucrative deals, which teams were the winners of the player exchange period? Who lost out?

The Big Winner

For me the Big winner was Collingwood. Sure they lost a superstar player in Beams. He was a best and fairest winner and All-Australian at the Pies and was a key cog in their engine room, and they also lost Heritier Lumumba to Melbourne, who despite his much-maligned personality, can still play some decent football. They got some good compensation for losing Beams and Lumumba. The Pies managed to acquire Jack Crisp, Travis Varcoe, Levi Greenwood and also Pick five from Brisbane.

Crisp has only managed 18 games at Brisbane, but his ability to play virtually anywhere is what Collingwood can look forward to out of him. Greenwood will be a handy acquisition for their midfield stocks, especially with Beams gone, Swan not looking too flash and Pendlebury shouldering a good load of their midfield work. Greenwood finished third in North Melbourne’s best and fairest count this season, and isn’t one to shy away from a contest, and last but certainly not least, Varcoe’s speed and forward pressure would almost have to be invaluable to this side. The highly-talented Varcoe was highly rated at Geelong, in particular his early days, but since his fantastic performance in the 2011 AFL Grand Final, things have gone downhill for Varcoe. Injury has held him back and form dipped a fair bit as well. A new start was what he needed, and now he has that chance at Collingwood.

Hawthorn and Greater Western Sydney would probably be just behind Collingwood in the winners list.

Hawthorn’s list was bolstered by the acquisition of Jono O’Rourke from GWS and the expected signing of James Frawley from Melbourne. Say what you want about Frawley, but he’s still only 26, and I think given that he is in a much better environment now at the Hawks than when he was at Melbourne, I think we will see some of Frawley’s work at Hawthorn, similar to his 2010 form, where he became an All-Australian when he was still working with Melbourne. I think the O’Rourke deal is a bargain for the Hawks. They basically gave up their first round pick, pick 19 for a guy who was taken pick two a couple of AFL drafts ago. They also exchanged later picks in the deal, and although they lost a key ingredient in terms of their future midfield in Mitch Hallahan (Off to Gold Coast), The acquisition of O’Rourke fills that hole and then some.

The Giants, although they lost a handful of players, had got some pretty sweet players and draft picks in return. They may have lost O’Rourke, Kristian Jaksch, Mark Whiley, Tom Boyd, Jonathan Giles and Sam Frost to Victorian clubs, but they picked up Ryan Griffen from the Bulldogs, Joel Patfull from Brisbane, along with Picks six and seven, acquired from the Western Bulldogs and Carlton respectively to go along with their pick four. Griffen and Patfull bring in a combined 384 games worth of experience as well as four club best and fairest awards between them. Their experience will be invaluable to the Giants in season 2015 as they begin to ascend up the ladder.

The Losers

The clear losers were the football clubs that were not sighted in the trade period. The Western Australian clubs, West Coast and Fremantle went missing during the whole duration, and both sides could’ve done with one or two new acquisitions. Both sides do have a near complete list though, but for West Coast, they could do with an extra big bodied midfielder and Fremantle need a key forward to help out and eventuallly be the successor to Matthew Pavlich. They attempted to do so by gaining Scott Gumbleton last season but backfired on them bigtime.

St. Kilda were entertaining offers for trading away the number one draft pick, but other than that, they did next to nothing. They lost Rhys Stanley, which was a surprise, because he has shown great potential, with more still to be fulfilled. He will be a good recruit for Geelong. Richmond also didn’t do much either, apart from nearly securing Jack Trengove, which fell through due to a failed medical examination.

A lot of people would also be quick to jump on the Western Bulldogs as huge losers of the trade period as well, considering all they have been through in these last three weeks. but I don’t see it as such.

They lost a coach as well as a pick in the top ten and four players, one of them being the captain and another one being a Brownlow medallist. But the truth is that trading away our captain led to gaining the club’s first power forward since Barry Hall’s short stint in the red, white and blue which you think about it, it’s a win for them. The acquisition of Tom Boyd is one that people will be talking about for a while. Traded for Griffen and Pick six, Boyd and the Bulldogs then stirred up a bit more controversy when it was revealed that Boyd would sign a seven-year deal, worth a million dollars a season. It’s a really brave move when you consider the fact he’s only played nine games and has kicked eight goals, but it seems obvious that Boyd has been shown a huge amount of faith and will be their go to man in the future.

As a die-hard Doggies fan of 16 years, the losses of Shaun Higgins to North Melbourne and Liam Jones to Carlton are losses that don’t faze me too much, but losing Adam Cooney and to Essendon of all places, is one that hurts me the most. I grew up idolising Cooney as a teenager and marvelled at some of the things he could do, but he’s now 29 years of age, and with those knees that have been troubling him since he won the Brownlow in 2008, I believe a move away from the Kennel is best for the business, I don’t like it, but I think it’s a move that will help the Dogs in the long run.

Eyes on the Draft

Now all eyes turn towards the draft which is about a month away.

The lead up will be exciting, with people guessing who will be the number one pick from this years draft crop. The experts are saying it will be the highly-talented, big bodied midfielder Christian Petracca, but that hasn’t been set in stone just yet. There are still a few names within the top 10 that could make a massive claim at any time from now until draft day.

Stay tuned Football Fans, we’re set for another fantastic draft.