Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Essendon, St Kilda and Geelong have all registered preliminary interest in star Sydney defender Nick Blakey whose future remains under a cloud with a week remaining of the trade period.
The 26-year-old has not met with any clubs as yet and remains undecided at this stage whether he pursues a trade.
Contracted until the end of 2031, he had, as this masthead reported, expressed a willingness to consider a trade soon after being one of five players suspended for the season for breaching club standards at the Pullman Hotel.
Essendon have links with Blakey through new coach Mark McVeigh and football performance boss John Longmire and some draft capital, while the Cats have limited draft capital to pull off a deal.
The Saints have been keen on finding a running defender throughout the season. Blakey is yet to request a trade, but North have also expressed a willingness to ask the question if he does want to move.
Thanks for joining us today. Here’s a quick summary of how the day panned out.
- Jordan Ridley officially became a Cat. The Bombers received Jack Bowes, a 2027 first-round pick and a 2028 second-round pick, while Geelong get Ridley, pick 60 this year and a future fourth-rounder in 2028.
- Clubs are circling star Swans defender Nick Blakey. You can read the latest here.
- Hawthorn one-gamer Aidan Schubert has been offered a five-year deal by Gold Coast.
- The Brisbane Lions’ Will McLachlan wants to be traded to Melbourne.
We’ll be back on Thursday for the latest in the AFL trade period, and look out for the next episode of the Real Footy podcast, which will drop this evening.
Brisbane Lions forward Will McLachlan has indicated he wants to be traded to Melbourne after seven matches with the Lions in the past two seasons.
The talented forward from Colac in country Victoria had an offer on the table from the Lions but he decided, after meetings this week with the Demons and Essendon, to request a trade to Melbourne.
McLachlan has been outstanding in the VFL, kicking 92 goals in three seasons, including 35 this season.
The Lions had picked him at No.6 in the 2024 mid-season draft.
This week marks the seventh occasion the competition has held a dedicated Pride Round, celebrating diversity, inclusion and belonging across the game and recognising the contributions of LGBTQI+ communities to AFLW.
Pride Round kicks off with Western Bulldogs versus Essendon at Whitten Oval on Friday night. The Saints are chasing their first win of the season for their clash on Saturday against Collingwood.
We will bring you all the action over the weekend in our dedicated AFLW blog.
Danny Daly will be on the panel to select a replacement for triple premiership coach Chris Fagan rather than being a candidate for the Brisbane Lions’ vacant coaching job.
Daly, the Lions general manager of football, was touted as a possible candidate for the job the moment Fagan departed last Thursday.
The selection panel charged with the responsibility of finding a new coach is Lions chair Andrew Wellington, CEO Sam Graham, Daly, former Australian basketball coach and club coaching mentor Phil Smyth. Board member Leigh Matthews will serve in an advisory capacity, with club legend Simon Black, sports psychologist Matti Clements, who were both involved the selecting Fagan in 2016.
Assistant coaches Cam Bruce and Dale Morris are frontrunners, but external candidates could include Geelong assistant Nathan Buckley and first-timers, such as James Kelly and Daniel Giansiracusa.
The biggest move of this trade period, so far at least, was Zach Merrett’s transition late on Monday from Essendon to Hawthorn.
Fresh after donning the Hawks colours for the first time, Merrett spoke at the launch of the Caulfield Cup carnival (he’s an ambassador for the event) this morning.
Jon Pierik was there for us, hearing Merrett admit he’s still signed up to the Bombers playing group’s WhatsApp thread, but knows that association will probably end soon.
Read Pierik’s full report here.
Hawthorn’s promising-but-raw key forward Aidan Schubert has played just one AFL game, but has a five-year contract offer from Gold Coast to consider.
The 195cm teenager is back in Melbourne after flying north and meeting Suns coach Damien Hardwick yesterday.
Any deal between the clubs over Schubert will be closely monitored by the AFL because the Hawks yesterday tabled their own offer to Suns restricted free agent Ben King.
King was one of the leading goalkickers in the AFL this season.
Although his medical was not an issue, West Coast were reluctant to take the plunge on Gryan Miers, who would have needed an attractive, long-term deal to make the move from Geelong where he has two years remaining.
The Cats made it clear to Miers that if the Eagles were to make the move worth his while, they would not stop him, but they weren’t forcing him out the door.
Miers did a medical to cover all his bases, but he was not pushing to leave either.
After flirting with the idea of joining the Brisbane Lions last year, Essendon best and fairest winner Jordan Ridley has decided to seek a fresh start at Geelong following an injury-riddled three seasons at the Bombers.
The Cats had success in re-igniting the latter part of Jack Martin’s career, and it appears physio Steve Saunders will again be hard at work trying to get to the root of Ridley’s soft-tissue problems.
Despite that injury history, the Cats had to pay a fair price for the talented soon-to-be 28-year-old, adding Jack Bowes alongside next year’s future first pick, which could be in the 30s, and a second round pick in 2028, which will also be late in the national draft as Tasmania enter the draft in 2027.
Essendon, St Kilda and Geelong have all registered preliminary interest in star Sydney defender Nick Blakey whose future remains under a cloud with a week remaining of the trade period.
The 26-year-old has not met with any clubs as yet and remains undecided at this stage whether he pursues a trade.
Contracted until the end of 2031, he had, as this masthead reported, expressed a willingness to consider a trade soon after being one of five players suspended for the season for breaching club standards at the Pullman Hotel.
Essendon have links with Blakey through new coach Mark McVeigh and football performance boss John Longmire and some draft capital, while the Cats have limited draft capital to pull off a deal.
The Saints have been keen on finding a running defender throughout the season. Blakey is yet to request a trade, but North have also expressed a willingness to ask the question if he does want to move.
In other Geelong news, it looks like Gryan Miers – to paraphrase Leonardo Di Caprio’s character Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street – has told the Cats “I ain’t leaving”.
Miers’ manager Liam Pickering is also a media identity with a regular afternoon hosting slot on AFL Trade Radio throughout the trade period.
He’s told the program his client – who has two years left on his contract with the Cats – isn’t interested in moving to West Coast.
Miers battled a knee injury mid-season, and pragmatically submitted himself for a physical appraisal at the Eagles before recently jetting off on an overseas holiday; apparently just in case a trade opportunity emerged.
But Pickering hosed down speculation Miers was on the move, saying he’d told him he wants to stay at Geelong, the city he was raised in.
