HPN will be covering this AFL Trade Period with daily posts, as a roundup or with progressive updates through the day. Watch for updates on social media.
Tuesday, the penultimate day of trade period, saw some of the now regular Super Trades drop, two three way deals which both saw highly credentialed players and several first round picks change hands. Brisbane also made some further tweaks to their draft pick hand, heading into some heavy duty points number crunching.
Liam Baker and Matthew Owies swapped for an Eagles pick downgrade
Liam Baker and Matt Owies both make the move out to West Coast where they stand to help the difficult process of building the Eagles list so it can climb from the bottom of the ladder.
Baker has been a solid member of the Tigers premiership era and more recently part of the remaining old guard providing leadership – something he looks like continuing in Perth. Baker is known for his versatility and could either be asked to move around the field for the Eagles as needed, or perhaps settle into a regular role in the defensive half of the ground where the Eagles will spend a lot of time playing next year.
Owies appeared to have been given license to shop around by the Blues this off-season, and was even the subject of fanciful rumours an excessive asking price. That may have been more about PR for the club trading him away than anything else. He’s a useful small forward, and with 60 goals in the last two years should slot in alongside Jamie Cripps and Liam Ryan. He’s also decent at hit-up leads and can apply pressure in bunches – which may help their whole ground defence.
Both inclusions might more give time for the continued development of the fringe youth the Eagles have often had to field. This squeeze lowers the number of spots they have to find players for in the short to medium term.
While both players are good, it probably doesn’t improve them enough to leap them up the ladder before they are ready. Both players are, however, notionally young enough that they could be around when the Eagles will be next targeting finals. The biggest variable there is their recent horrendous injury luck and deployed game style over the past four or five years. If those two things change a few bets could be off.
The trade is reasonably well balanced all up. The core of it sees the Eagles move down from pick 3 to 12 while getting two clear best 23 players. In this year’s reportedly even and high quality draft pool the downgrade isn’t as significant as it might have been last year. The Eagles may even have a good chance of nabbing a local player at the pick, something they’ve been known to trade around for in past years. Even if they can’t nab a local, the Eagles might rate the players available (and their keenness to go west) at 12 (or the pick 15 it likely becomes) as being better fits for their emerging list.
For Carlton the swap looks, on paper, like a loss of value. Sending Owies away unbalances things a little more though it suggests they did not see him in their first choice team plans. There’s a chance that the Blues would have either delisted him or forced him through the draft process. Having the Eagles shortcircuit that process isn’t worth nothing, but perhaps isn’t worth his ordinary full value.
In isolation, though, just the picks 12 and 14 would often be expected to outperform pick 3 quite regularly. For Carlton, they will think one shot at the very top is worth more than two very good ones a bit later. They have expectations of a premiership contention window and likely think the players they can get at pick 3 are more likely to contribute to a team in “win now” mode in the next couple of years.
Richmond get back pretty much what they wanted for Baker, and a pick that has similar expected value to the remainder of 27 year old Baker’s career. The Tigers are looking to aggressively get picks in this draft – one which other clubs are also clearly targeting. If they can pull it off – and the draft ends up panning out – it could set up a big era for the club in half a decade’s time.
Verdict: Fair trade all around.
The old Richards, Noble, Atkins, Houston and Lukosius switcheroo
This trade was hanging around the trade period from the start in a variety of forms involving a wide variety of different parts and partners. At times the construction involved more clubs, and the constituent parts were allegedly discussed in isolation as well.
Given a lot of the shared interests involved it made sense brought together, even if Port got cold feet at the end of Monday. That hesitation could have been board or club pressure, potentially brought about by the power exerted by outside forces. The final form of the trade was almost unchanged after a day of limbo – an indication that it was more about the way of doing things against the actual fairness of the deal.
Let’s start at the headline of the deal, the best current player to cross clubs during this trade period.
Dan Houston is a two times reigning AA quality defender who should fit in perfectly at Collingwood. His ability to create damage via foot has helped propel the Power for several seasons. He’s not the best defensive defender in the league, but Collingwood should have enough to cover for that. The Pies might even be tempted to play him higher up the ground. He’s a better fit for the Pies than Lachie Schultz was last year.
In theory he should fit the Pies pace and space type systems pretty well. There might be some quibbles about how much the ball should be in his hands against their other options but those seem easier to solve.
For those playing at home, this is the second straight year Collingwood has nabbed the best available player at the price of a shed-ton of draft picks.
Replacing Houston at Port are three players led by Jack Lukosius, a talented and intriguing player who has not yet managed to fully settle and showcase his gifts in the AFL. If Houston is the best kick in the league Lukosius isn’t a mile behind.
He’s a thumping and pinpoint kick and has shown the ability to play both back and forward. There’s a lot to like about him as a 195cm interceptor who can turn defence into attack at the drop of a hat. He’s been on the record in the past about his preference to be used in the forward half – which could also work well. He’s probably not a traditional centrepiece forward but the game is sort of shifting away from that anyway.
If the Power can cobble together something like the Lions’ multifunctional set up with a variety of mobile talls who can both deliver the ball inside 50 and act as targets – look out. If Lukosius plays as the fourth tall, he’ll have a pretty big mismatch to exploit.
Port presumably want him as part of a mobile forward line but may be tempted by his ability behind the ball regardless of pre-trade discussions about role.
Rory Atkins also moves with Lukosius and is by far the lower profile player. Runner up in the VFL JJ Liston Trophy, he’s likely been sought by Port for a specific purpose. Most footy fans missed that he also managed 17 solid if unspectacular AFL games in 2023, largely operating in a back half distribution role.
Port may look to replace Houston’s quarterback role by committee, relying on the system that played to Houston’s strength to work nearly as well with less credentialed players. Atkins really isn’t a stellar defender either at this point, but that’s also not his role.
Atkins also is (allegedly) on less than the AFL average wage and has just one year left on his last contract. Even as mere depth it isn’t a startling amount of money to pay.
Joe Richards is the third player to move to Port here, a mature age draftee with nine games under his belt. Over the last two years he showed flashes at Collingwood, blocked by a number of options ahead of him. Port will be looking to reformulate its forward half plans in the post Dixon era, especially after inside 50 potency proved a huge stumbling block to them late last year. A lot depends on how many talls the Power choose to use this year, but Richards should be in the mix for a position as a pressure forward in this new era.
One player also headed up north in this trade – Collingwood’s John Noble. It may be the most curious part of this deal.
John Noble’s movement out of defence is likely attractive to the Suns as they look to rejig their lineup under Damien Hardwick. However, they’ve already committed to Daniel Rioli in this trade period and already have developing options for that type of player going forward.
There’s a chance that the Suns coming crop will push him out in the short to medium term, but there is some logic in getting mature players who want to be at the club in for a side who has literally never played finals. It’s probably not HPN’s choice of target, but HPN isn’t in charge of any club.
The Suns part of the trade isn’t about Noble, however. It’s about making sure they have picks ready for the 2025 draft where they could have up to half a dozen Academy kids ready. That includes the potential number one pick Zeke Uwland. Noble is, according to HPN, the third most valuable element coming in for the Suns. The Suns are giving up pick 13, but that was probably going to get eaten up in any bid match for Leo Lombard.
In short, the Suns are playing a different game to everyone else here.
For Collingwood this trade represents going all-in for their immediate window. Houston is one of the best in his role in the league even if his raw production tails off slightly next year. To get him they’ve traded a regular senior player and a potential top 10 pick next year, though they will obviously expect the value of their future first rounder to be lower than projected on 2024 results.
Finally, Port have replaced Houston with a talented and versatile piece in Lukosius who could help them a lot at either end, depending on the gameplan adjustments Port make in the post Dixon era. They’ve also got a potentially valuable pick in this highly rated draft. Each club has different valuations, and they might see that late 20s pick as being more useful than others may. To get there they’ve also had to surrender a future first, but next year’s draft is shaping to be historically compromised at this early stage. From the position of Houston wanting to leave that’s good business. Atkins and Richards are firmly on the speculative side but could both prove bargains as Port rejigs.
Port also has more business to do as most of their acquired picks fall into filled list spaces. They’ll need to likely need to consolidate some of those picks and delist/trade other listed players to make the most of those selections.
Verdict: Trade weighted against Collingwood in service of their “win now” agenda.
Brisbane’s pick swap with St Kilda
There’s a point where pick accumulation hits its natural end point, and consolidation needs to occur. Brisbane appears to have found that point with this trade.
The Saints get an extra pick around the same range as the one they give up here, and would be expected to use these in trades they’re yet to make. Brisbane would appear to have found themselves with more picks than they can use, giving up points value to reduce their hand a bit.
Brisbane may also benefit from a sharing of information about 2024 and 2025 tied prospects that could save them points on that front.
Verdict: Trade favours the Saints. Brisbane likely had no choice but to reduce the number of picks held in this draft in order to use them all for bid matching.
Melbourne nab Harry Sharp
It’s hard to crack into a premiership side, and Harry Sharp made the tough call to try his luck elsewhere. There didn’t appear to be any easy ways into the Brisbane best 23 for Sharp in the short term despite the glimpses he has shown at VFL and AFL level to date.
Sharp is a strong runner in a strong team, and will be backing himself to get regular game time at Melbourne given the occasional discontinuity they’ve had in those outside roles. Beyond Langdon and Windsor, a lot of roles are potentially up for grabs, and the Dees are expecting Sharp to be in that mix.
Even if he doesn’t play immediately, he will provide solid depth for a side looking to charge back up the ladder.
Verdict: Balanced trade. Sharp looks like the least valuable piece given the lack of exposed form, but regular senior gametime will comfortably outperform his rating.
Note: This post is part of a series of posts using a valuation method called Player Approximate Value (PAV) to evaluate trades for fairness and balance. Readers can explore these values with tools such as the HPN Trade Calculator to evaluate potential trades.
Elsewhere, read much more about the method and theory behind PAV. Expressing the value of players and picks in terms of expected future PAV provides a common currency for comparing them in trades and other movements. Players are projected using PAPLEY, a method to derive expected future PAVs.