The recently concluded Trade Period has come and gone but this year, there was some unusual anomalies that have got in the way for further player movement.
I'm not going to sit here in judgement of why and how the Hawks went about there business but everyone knows they were strongly trying to trade out O'Meara, Breust, Mitchell, Gunston & Wingard in order to revamp their draft hand. A couple of deals were on the table with Breust & Wingard but the players themselves vetoed the move and the club was left helpless as a result.
Putting aside the vagaries of what may happen across season 2022 in the Hawks locker-room & the selection committee meetings amongst all of the personnel involved, this situation has clearly highlighted why there needs to be a change to the rules that would have allowed the Hawks to make the trades they needed to without the players being able to intervene.
The players (& AFLPA) wanted the introduction of a Free Agency system which gave them the freedom to move to another club when THEY wanted to yet the clubs have no say at all going the other way.
This is far too one-sided and deterimental to the clubs in their quest to rebuild lists or make strategic moves etc.
I for one would like to see some a dramatic change to the system but with some inbuilt 'protectors' for the players who are on the lower end of the pay scale. Having a young guy with a young family earning around $150K per annum being told to move interstate due to a trade deal would be a little unfair.
However, a fully professional player on a contract of $700K per annum shouldn't be able to dictate terms with the club when they wish to trade him out for whatever reasons they deem important.
I'm interested to read other peoples thoughts and some possible 'tweaks' on how the proposed system should operate.