2026 Trade / FA Thread

[Soups]

Package up Ed Allan & Bobby, for their 1st.
Should land within the top 10.
Although would like to keep Allan if he cements he's spot by end of season.

Might get us a late 3rd

 

[soreplums]

I don’t know what sort of ruckman Coe is, but we need a leaper until Steene is back- and that might be until 2028.

Cameron is still great around the ground, but if we are not competitive in CB then Nick will get smashed and our backline will constantly be under pressure to defend, leading to poor rebound.

Without saying we need another quality mature mid with Nick and feel that Josh needs to play the middle as well.

 

[Roverjg]

Keep giving the club a free pass with its horrendous recruitment.

This is the reason why our best 3 mids are a player that fell into our lap from father son (Naicos) and players taken 20 and 22 years ago.

We have been crying out for a pure mid to support daicos for years, but the gun that is available and on the market (Butters) is likely going to a minnow club that already has a stacked midfield…

Why, because we hadn’t even made a serious approach to him by August last year (told by someone in his immediate family - reported here last year).

Rightly or wrongly, all our recruits in the last few years (apart from maybe Hill/Mcstay) were last minute scattergun acquisitions… I would use the word opportunistic, if we didn’t get reamed in all our trades.

No one's giving the club a free pass. I've already said the cap management around 2018–20 was poor and probably cost us the chance to seriously compete for some big names.

But I think you're jumping from "we missed out on Player X" to "our recruitment is horrendous", and they're not the same thing.

The Butters example is a good one. Unless you're sitting in those conversations, none of us really know how serious the club was or wasn't. And even if they had approached him earlier, there's no guarantee he chooses Collingwood anyway. Good players knock back big clubs all the time.

As for the "scattergun" recruitment claim, I don't really buy it. Hill, McStay, Mitchell, Schultz, Houston and Perryman weren't random pick-ups. You can argue about what was paid for some of them, but they were brought in to fill specific needs.

The midfield point is fair. We could definitely use another top-line midfielder alongside Daicos. But that's a different argument from saying we're a minnow in the trade and free agency market.

At the end of the day, if our recruitment has been as disastrous as you're suggesting, it's a bit strange that we've won a flag and remained a contender through that period. That doesn't mean the club gets everything right, but it does suggest the picture is a bit more complicated than "we missed Lynch, Cameron and maybe Butters, therefore recruitment is a disaster."

Our drafting over the past 10+ years is a different story...

 

[Scodog10]

That Butters mail you mention even if it's true can have something to do with everyone knowing that if he leaves Dogs are his most likely destination. And that's without even mentioning the fact we don't have the currency to facilitate this trade.
The only recent scattergun acquisition as you call it was Houston after Carlscum left him hanging.
Was he worth the trade price, yes. Was a he a list need, no. Is he justifying what it cost is also a no.
We did go pretty hard after Lynch and Cameron, both Pies supporters growing up which hurts even more.
We also were a millimeter away from getting May before that fell through and he ended up at Melbourne.
So while it's obvious af our drafting hasn't been up to scratch for a while, trading players in is a completely different kettle of fish.
You can't always get what you want.

I’m 99% of the way with you. I disagree with the bolded only. Our 1st would have been post 20 had we retained it and there’s only two players I’d have been happy to use that pick on in hindsight, Swadling and Ison. I think where the deal could be argued as a net negative is around Noble and that’s primarily due to the philosophy of allowing a contracted player to leave. I doubt they’re giving anything before 30 for him so the deal without Houston doesn’t work and what you’re left with is should we have held him to his contract? I’m not dying on that hill myself because there wasn’t a single poster pushing that view in September/ October 2024. The resounding view even before Houston became viable was don’t be campaigners let him go. On Houston the player **** me the drop off in his defensive fundamentals has been frustrating!

 

[SchuPie]

I think where the deal could be argued as a net negative is around Noble and that’s primarily due to the philosophy of allowing a contracted player to leave.

I used to be of the opinion of holding players to their contract - now if they want to go then leave - but if they're under contract the other club needs to pay a fair price+

We'll never know if we picked a hit or a bust but keeping the Noble pick, in a year when we were crying out to draft KPP (taking Cochran 47 and West 50) could have landed us Shanahan
Not sure if he was on our radar at the time

Keeping the F1 MAY have us allowed us to move up to grab another mid or take Archie Ludowyke

Just shooting the breeze

Some love our our 2023+ moves, some hate them (drafting / trading / appointments)
Unfortunately I'm in the later but you know what they say about opinions...?

 

[Vankri]

I’m 99% of the way with you. I disagree with the bolded only. Our 1st would have been post 20 had we retained it and there’s only two players I’d have been happy to use that pick on in hindsight, Swadling and Ison. I think where the deal could be argued as a net negative is around Noble and that’s primarily due to the philosophy of allowing a contracted player to leave. I doubt they’re giving anything before 30 for him so the deal without Houston doesn’t work and what you’re left with is should we have held him to his contract? I’m not dying on that hill myself because there wasn’t a single poster pushing that view in September/ October 2024. The resounding view even before Houston became viable was don’t be campaigners let him go. On Houston the player **** me the drop off in his defensive fundamentals has been frustrating!

He is running out of excuses for those missed spoils, soft tackles or going to ground rather than defending goal side the past two weeks especially, which tbh isn’t something I had noticed in his time at Port. But season long he’s still one of our higher performers. He did go from the loosest to the tightest coach in terms of role playing and structures so maybe that’s his last excuse especially as you now have Josh with reduced impact when he takes the same job.

An interesting tidbit from the ground a week ago vs WC. At a mid ground throw in we were setting up behind the ball and Dan and IQ were arguing about who should go up to stoppage and defend the space at its back and who should be going back to man up on an Eagles small forward. Dan ended up ‘winning’ the argument and went up despite IQ’s form that game. They weren’t angry at each other just trying to do the right move and it could mean nothing but I found it odd they had to talk it out back and fourth in such a simple set play.

We also seem to over possess in the last couple of seasons, last night was a glaring example of it.
And while our forward stocks aren't exactly top notch this makes it a lot harder for them to find separation.

Definitely, and again to me I give the players leeway because it’s often because there are too few options to go to by foot. I agree it isn’t exactly rocket science to lead towards the ball once we get possession back and you don’t need to be J Cameron to figure out where to position yourself. It goes back to our defensive set up and that if you actually attempt a decent run forward you’ll have 2 on 1s in front of you and likely little on your sides because our wings and HF are primarily used to set up territory defence.

 

[gouki88]

Keep giving the club a free pass with its horrendous recruitment.

This is the reason why our best 3 mids are a player that fell into our lap from father son (Naicos) and players taken 20 and 22 years ago.

We have been crying out for a pure mid to support daicos for years, but the gun that is available and on the market (Butters) is likely going to a minnow club that already has a stacked midfield…

Why, because we hadn’t even made a serious approach to him by August last year (told by someone in his immediate family - reported here last year).

Rightly or wrongly, all our recruits in the last few years (apart from maybe Hill/Mcstay) were last minute scattergun acquisitions… I would use the word opportunistic, if we didn’t get reamed in all our trades.

Enough with this tantrum please. It is unbelievably boring

 

[stormskye]

Enough with this tantrum please. It is unbelievably boring

Life’s much better with this one on ignore

 

[sr36]

Package up Ed Allan & Bobby, for their 1st.
Should land within the top 10.
Although would like to keep Allan if he cements he's spot by end of season.

I think we should trade our first round pick to the Cats for Stengle and Jhye Clark - however, it probably won't be as good as WCEs pick and Stengle is an All Australian and Clark was a higher pick than Allan, so we'll need to throw in a significant sweetener.

 

[sr36]

Keep giving the club a free pass with its horrendous recruitment.

This is the reason why our best 3 mids are a player that fell into our lap from father son (Naicos) and players taken 20 and 22 years ago.

We have been crying out for a pure mid to support daicos for years, but the gun that is available and on the market (Butters) is likely going to a minnow club that already has a stacked midfield…

Why, because we hadn’t even made a serious approach to him by August last year (told by someone in his immediate family - reported here last year).

Rightly or wrongly, all our recruits in the last few years (apart from maybe Hill/Mcstay) were last minute scattergun acquisitions… I would use the word opportunistic, if we didn’t get reamed in all our trades.

The proof is in the pudding. There's only 3 clubs - Cats, Swans and us who have defied the draft system and been regularly in contention for 20 years without a significant amount of time at the bottom. We'll need a bit to go right to continue to defy the system - I wouldn't bet against us.

 

[No SPIN]

I don’t know what sort of ruckman Coe is, but we need a leaper until Steene is back- and that might be until 2028.

Cameron is still great around the ground, but if we are not competitive in CB then Nick will get smashed and our backline will constantly be under pressure to defend, leading to poor rebound.

Without saying we need another quality mature mid with Nick and feel that Josh needs to play the middle as well.

The last QTR showed that with the right mix of players and setups- a dominant Ruck can be neutralized. Setups should be our priority to overcome the issue.

 

[Dtennent94]

No one's giving the club a free pass. I've already said the cap management around 2018–20 was poor and probably cost us the chance to seriously compete for some big names.

But I think you're jumping from "we missed out on Player X" to "our recruitment is horrendous", and they're not the same thing.

The Butters example is a good one. Unless you're sitting in those conversations, none of us really know how serious the club was or wasn't. And even if they had approached him earlier, there's no guarantee he chooses Collingwood anyway. Good players knock back big clubs all the time.

As for the "scattergun" recruitment claim, I don't really buy it. Hill, McStay, Mitchell, Schultz, Houston and Perryman weren't random pick-ups. You can argue about what was paid for some of them, but they were brought in to fill specific needs.

The midfield point is fair. We could definitely use another top-line midfielder alongside Daicos. But that's a different argument from saying we're a minnow in the trade and free agency market.

At the end of the day, if our recruitment has been as disastrous as you're suggesting, it's a bit strange that we've won a flag and remained a contender through that period. That doesn't mean the club gets everything right, but it does suggest the picture is a bit more complicated than "we missed Lynch, Cameron and maybe Butters, therefore recruitment is a disaster."

Our drafting over the past 10+ years is a different story...

We are all just salty that Geelong get to bring in Danger, Cameron and Smith on the cheap. The bastards better not get Butters as well. Let us be salty.

 

[The Royal Sampler]

I think we should trade our first round pick to the Cats for Stengle and Jhye Clark - however, it probably won't be as good as WCEs pick and Stengle is an All Australian and Clark was a higher pick than Allan, so we'll need to throw in a significant sweetener.

They might just delist Clark because he sucks.

 

[stormskye]

We are all just salty that Geelong get to bring in Danger, Cameron and Smith on the cheap. The bastards better not get Butters as well. Let us be salty.

Geelong won’t have any top 10 picks for butters. If they are in the conversation they will have to give up quality elsewhere. Port aren’t going to roll over and let butters walk for late teens picks

 

[Scodog10]

I used to be of the opinion of holding players to their contract - now if they want to go then leave - but if they're under contract the other club needs to pay a fair price+

We'll never know if we picked a hit or a bust but keeping the Noble pick, in a year when we were crying out to draft KPP (taking Cochran 47 and West 50) could have landed us Shanahan
Not sure if he was on our radar at the time

Keeping the F1 MAY have us allowed us to move up to grab another mid or take Archie Ludowyke

Just shooting the breeze

Some love our our 2023+ moves, some hate them (drafting / trading / appointments)
Unfortunately I'm in the later but you know what they say about opinions...?

My take on player contracts around trade time is to firstly never allow one you want to keep to enter a contract year (the O Henry/ Smith scenario) and it’s horses for courses on letting them leave. I’m softening on holding them to contracts because for me the practicality of holding onto a guy that doesn’t want to be there doesn’t usually outweigh the trade price, but there are exceptions Merrett being one for instance.

I would position your Houston/ Noble outcome as a premium result. Even then it relies on GC giving us a pick good enough to get Shannahan and I’d have Ludowyke behind Swadling and Ison. I hate the 20-20 hindsight game, but if you’re looking for one to really hurt it’s GW moving Ginnivan in the Shoota deal and paying Hawthorn trade capital to take him. I love Shoota, but we missed an opportunity to retain a ripper in Ginnivan and potentially a shot at M Reid.

As frustrating as Houston can be I just don’t think we’ve lost on that deal.

 

[Scodog10]

But the priority has to be bringing in more young midfielders, we can't keep kicking the can down the road.

I agree having neale and Hewett as bridge mids and teachers for the next generation will be invaluable.

I expect we would do that via our 1st pick of the draft. I also wouldn’t limit our pro scouting to those two and would be targeting a Hill/ WHE type value trade for a young mid on the fringe elsewhere. I like O’Driscoll, but others like Rogers, Marshall, E Hewett and Gothard (less so on the fringe than the others) appeal to me.

This one will be polarising, but I’d be into Tsatas as well. He’s not yet near the point of justifying his lofty draft status he finds it though and I think Scott did him dirty.

 

[Roverjg]

We are all just salty that Geelong get to bring in Danger, Cameron and Smith on the cheap. The bastards better not get Butters as well. Let us be salty.

Mate. I am as Salty as xxxx with who they get as I have to live with the gloating down here on Torquay. Now with the rumours of Toby coming it is becoming nauseous

 

[ksardog]

i would gladly trade Hill and our first pick ( 8-12 range im guessing ) for WC second round pick and Shanahan
may need a sweetener

 

[ksardog]

I expect we would do that via our 1st pick of the draft. I also wouldn’t limit our pro scouting to those two and would be targeting a Hill/ WHE type value trade for a young mid on the fringe elsewhere. I like O’Driscoll, but others like Rogers, Marshall, E Hewett and Gothard (less so on the fringe than the others) appeal to me.

This one will be polarising, but I’d be into Tsatas as well. He’s not yet near the point of justifying his lofty draft status he finds it though and I think Scott did him dirty.

the one thing he can do is get a clearance, didn't he also use to play with Nick at junior level, im sure he could give some good insight if so

 

[gouki88]

i would gladly trade Hill and our first pick ( 8-12 range im guessing ) for WC second round pick and Shanahan
may need a sweetener

I’m not sure Hill has any real trade value right now, if he even wants to go west

 

[satty]

i would gladly trade Hill and our first pick ( 8-12 range im guessing ) for WC second round pick and Shanahan
may need a sweetener

Honestly, I am not sure hill has any trade value . His contract extension which kicks in from next year until 2030 will be the biggest obstacle in any potential trade discussions.

I wonder if Collingwood has any standard triggers built into the contracts that allows them to get out of it without paying out a majority of the contract.

 

[ksardog]

Honestly, I am not sure hill has any trade value . His contract extension which kicks in from next year until 2030 will be the biggest obstacle in any potential trade discussions.

I wonder if Collingwood has any standard triggers built into the contracts that allows them to get out of it without paying out a majority of the contract.

this is key, problem is i cant recall if there were any issues with him at the time of signing so i doubt if there would be

i would rather not let him go for nothing while still paying part of his contract at another club, everything that has happened has been self inflicted

who knows, in a months time he will probably back in Melbourne playing VFL talking about wanting to be in the senior side again

 

[Dtennent94]

Mate. I am as Salty as xxxx with who they get as I have to live with the gloating down here on Torquay. Now with the rumours of Toby coming it is becoming nauseous

Geelong need the opposite of COLA.

 

[stormskye]

Honestly, I am not sure hill has any trade value . His contract extension which kicks in from next year until 2030 will be the biggest obstacle in any potential trade discussions.

I wonder if Collingwood has any standard triggers built into the contracts that allows them to get out of it without paying out a majority of the contract.

Need to be objective with trades. If hill played for the eagles, had spent over 12months in the side lines, what would we offer. We’d be saying a third rounder at best

 

[satty]

this is key, problem is i cant recall if there were any issues with him at the time of signing so i doubt if there would be

i would rather not let him go for nothing while still paying part of his contract at another club, everything that has happened has been self inflicted

who knows, in a months time he will probably back in Melbourne playing VFL talking about wanting to be in the senior side again

Need to be objective with trades. If hill played for the eagles, had spent over 12months in the side lines, what would we offer. We’d be saying a third rounder at best

I am hoping the club redid their contract structures with regards to off field issues after the dayne beams situation.

This is like the JUH situation, except it is worse in the sense that there doesn't appear to be a roadmap for his return to play.

With JUH the club and the AFL were somewhat aware of his problems , and knew what was required for him to return to AFL level . With Bobby it is always 1 step forward , 2 steps back.

Honestly given Bobby's history, I am not sure I would trade a third rounder as that would place his value at pick 40 or pick 44 from an eagles and Collingwood standpoint (if Collingwood were trading for Bobby from the eagles).

He is not worth more than a late 4th rounder. Where the suns got lucky was that JUH agreed to rip up his original contract and sign a highly conditional one at gold coast.

There were reports from reports last year that for a period of time, bobby completely ghosted the clubs and his teammates and was uncontactable.

If Collingwood really wanted to, I am sure they would be able to find a way to nullify his contract extension under come clause . I just think they are keeping their guns holstered and giving him the benefit of the doubt .