Trade Week - Day 1

With the 2006 Draft still over a month away, the attention is focussed on the all important trades that will take place this week between clubs. Will established stars leave their clubs? Will bottom rung sides give up top draft picks? Will any deals be seen as unfair? We'll let you be the judge!

An interesting start to the beginning of Trade Week for a number of clubs. The hot discussion at the moment is the heresay and conjecture surrounding Collingwood's Chris Tarrant; He has expressed an interest to move. He is under contract. A number of clubs have approached the club about him. Yet Collingwood management won't give him up without a reasonable deal. That reasonable deal could either take the face of some early picks or a player to replace the 2003 All-Australian.

It seems that although Tarrant had a seemingly lousy seaons this year, the Pies still view him as an important attribute to their side. Other clubs feel the same way. At the moment the media is stating that Fremantle would be the front-runner to grab him. A possible menage-a-trois between the Dockers, Richmond and the Pies could still take place. Its confusing but let me explain this one:

Graham Polack at Freo is being hunted by the Tigers. The Tigers, in order to grab Polack will need to return an equally good deal to Freo. Enter Collingwood. The Pies are willing to get rid of Tarrant in return for some great collateral.........let's say for instance an early round draft pick which the Tigers possess. In exchange for this, they will release Tarrant to Freo.

Three-way deals get struck all the time, however this one seems to hit the Pies a little unfairly and I just can't see it happening.

Nor can I see Richmond give up early draft picks. If they have learnt anything from other clubs such as Carlton who are intelligent enough not to budge, then they will not participate in the deal.

However this is footy and anything is bound to happen.

The Sunday Times ran a rediculous article in yesterdays paper. Although I can't stand this paper and refuse to buy it, I saw it at my cousins house in the early evening and had to have a gander at a headline that caught my eye about Chris Tarrant. The story basically went on to say how the Eagles were the favourites to grab Chris from the Pies. What a load of rubbish. This only came from the rumour that Tarrant wanted to move to either Freo or West Coast.

The Eagles are smart enough to avoid picking up big name stars from other clubs, especially those over east. This is for 2 reasons:

Firstly, the salary cap. Everyone seems to forget about this and the consequences for breaching it (except for Carlton who may never forget). West Coast would have way too many big names looking for bigger money and would not be able to do so. It would create rifts and problems between mates at the club and affect team performance.

Secondly, the Eagles already have an excellent line-up and as we saw before the Grand Final, there are many quality players working hard just to make the final line-up before a game. Tarrant would only force younger developing players to miss out on more games. West Coast would have another McDougall situation where those players would leave even after being offered contract extensions.

However let me just state my relief that McDougall has finally left. Not to be harsh to the young man, I do believe he has great potential, however to see someone who was far too good a player to be in the WAFL have to be kept out of the Eagles' lineup every week was sad. I was at the one game he played for West Coast this year at Telstra Dome. The loss to Collingwood. He played very ordinarily and that was the result of being out of the big leagues for so long, as well as having some huge shoes to fill.

I wish Andrew all the best at whichever club he ends up at next season (most probably the Bulldogs).

And some other big news, Jason Ackermanis is now a Bulldog. The Brisbane premiership player and Brownlow and Norm Smith medallist has officially moved to Whitten Oval. I see great things for the Bulldogs next season and believe they will be an absolute powerhouse.

Well that's all for today, I'll be back tomorrow with another update on day 2 of Trade Week, seeya!