Cats ‘open’ to trading
All options on the table for Geelong, says Wells
GEELONG shapes as a major player in this year’s trade period after confirming all options were on the table in order to land a big-name recruit.
The Cats have been linked to multiple stars in recent weeks, including Jeremy Cameron, Joe Daniher, Brad Crouch, Jack Viney and Shaun Higgins.
Higgins, who entertained a move to the Cattery last season, was the latest in the mix after North Melbourne indicated it was open to trading the contracted midfield star.
The Cats will have their first-round pick from this year, West Coast’s first-round pick from this year (received via a trade for Tim Kelly) and a firstround pick received from Gold Coast via a trade at last year’s draft at their disposal during the trade period at season’s end.
Cameron, Daniher, Crouch and Viney are all restricted free agents, so Geelong could yet snare one or more of that quartet for nothing, but a matched offer from their clubs would force it to trade for them like it did with Patrick Dangerfield five years ago.
But while free agency and trade options abound, there is a promising group of players emerging from the Geelong Falcons, which has routinely been a source of talent for the Cats.
It means Geelong list manager Stephen Wells will have more flexibility than in previous years and he said nothing would be off the table come the end of the season. “We are always looking to improve and we look at every opportunity that comes our way,” Wells said.
“Whether that be old players, young players or draft opportunities, we always have an open mind about what may be a good way to continue to improve and putting ourselves in a position we have again this year which is to compete for a premiership.
“It might be a year where you put a couple of picks together but at this stage we would be expecting to go to the draft with those picks.
Free agency is always a great strategy because you don’t have to give up draft picks to get players to your club, so we always look closely at that.
“But we are open to trading as well, so we will look at making decisions that give us the best opportunity to improve our team.”
A final decision on the make-up and size of AFL lists is still yet to be reached, and
Wells said until there was confirmation on that Geelong would have to wait to prioritise its draft and trade strategies.
“We don’t know what list sizes or the salary cap is yet, and we haven’t finished playing yet either, so we haven’t finalised some of those decisions,” he said.
“That is impacting our planning because we like to operate and make decisions having full knowledge of the rules and having gathered all the information, so not having that has meant we haven’t been able to finalise any of our recruiting priorities.”