{"id":101554,"date":"2025-08-28T06:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T06:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/101554\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T06:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T06:53:08","slug":"the-win-win-deal-that-will-shape-this-years-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/101554\/","title":{"rendered":"The win-win deal that will shape this year\u2019s draft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__summary\">\n                Not every pick trade works but this time Essendon and Melbourne both came out on top\n            <\/p>\n<p>                                Isaac Kako celebrates a goal during Essendon&#8217;s clash with Carlton in round 24, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n<p>THE BEST trades are the wins-wins. The deals that serve both clubs&#8217; purposes and aims for their different trajectories. Essendon&#8217;s pick swap with Melbourne is proving an example of that.<\/p>\n<p>The Bombers last year traded pick No.9 and a future third-round pick in exchange for Melbourne&#8217;s first-round 2025 pick as well as picks 28, 40, 46, 54 and 65 in the 2024 draft.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The motivation for both parties was clear \u2013 for the Bombers getting ahead of a bid for Isaac Kako, which would have come before the selection had they held at No.9. And for the Demons, it was important to double up with a second top-10 pick to go with their own selection.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Melbourne had targeted Xavier Lindsay and had picks out the back the Dees weren&#8217;t going to use. Getting into the premium part of the draft was critical and Lindsay, along with Harvey Langford, will shape the Demons future. Lindsay would be a top five or six pick in this year&#8217;s group and that was a hard-won fight for the Bombers&#8217; selection as other clubs hotly pursued the up-for-grabs pick.\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>With Melbourne&#8217;s struggles this season, Essendon has traded pick nine for pick five and Isaac Kako (by using the later picks to match points).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More pick swap trades occurred after that deal that essentially landed the Bombers selections to use on Angus Clarke and Kayle Gerreyn, and then the draft night swap that saw the Bombers use more selections to trade for St Kilda&#8217;s future second-round pick. That has ended up being No.25 on the draft board and will likely go a long way to matching a bid for the Bombers&#8217; NGA prospect Adam Sweid.\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>The pick swap allowed the Demons to get two early draft selections in back-to-back years, helping their regeneration of young talent in an exciting top end of last year&#8217;s draft, and in Lindsay&#8217;s 18 games in his debut season he showed he will be a long-term plank of Melbourne&#8217;s future. Playing the future picks market was a big part of the Demons&#8217; rise to the 2021 flag and they have been aggressive in this space.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>DRAFT HUB <a title=\"https:\/\/www.afl.com.au\/draft\" href=\"https:\/\/www.afl.com.au\/draft\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-outlook-id=\"b440fa27-eac7-4f92-811f-78fce459db01\">Click here for\u00a0the latest draft news<\/a><br \/>\u00a0<br \/>And for the Bombers it landed them Kako, Clarke, Gerryn, likely Sweid as well as whatever the club does with pick No.5 this year. No blunder there.\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>With the home and away season now complete, more than half of the draft order is settled before the finals series.<\/p>\n<p>                    Xavier Lindsay during the round 19 match between Carlton and Melbourne at the MCG, July 19, 2025. Picture: Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The top-10 picks are locked in and include four picks that were swapped from rival clubs last year \u2013 the Essendon and Melbourne deal, North trading its top pick to Richmond (No.3), Gold Coast having Port Adelaide&#8217;s pick (No.6) as one of its three first-rounders, and Hawthorn having Carlton&#8217;s selection (No.8).<\/p>\n<p>Compensation picks for West Coast&#8217;s Oscar Allen, expected to come at No.2, and Carlton&#8217;s pick for Tom De Koning, also going to be in the top-10.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>TRADE HUB <a title=\"https:\/\/www.afl.com.au\/trade\" href=\"https:\/\/www.afl.com.au\/trade\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-outlook-id=\"8b456c12-9fd5-4368-994f-57cb43823335\">All the latest player movement news<\/a><br \/>\u00a0<br \/>INDICATIVE DRAFT ORDER BEFORE FINALS<\/p>\n<p>ROUND ONE<br \/>1 West Coast<br \/>2 Richmond<br \/>3 Richmond (tied to North Melbourne)<br \/>4 Essendon<br \/>5 Essendon (tied to Melbourne)<br \/>6 Gold Coast (tied to Port Adelaide)\u00a0<br \/>7 St Kilda<br \/>8 Hawthorn (tied to Carlton)\u00a0<br \/>9 Sydney<br \/>10 Western Bulldogs<br \/>11 West Coast (tied to Hawthorn)\u00a0<br \/>12 Gold Coast<br \/>13 Fremantle<br \/>14 GWS<br \/>15 Gold Coast (tied to Collingwood)\u00a0<br \/>16 Brisbane<br \/>17 Geelong<br \/>18 Adelaide<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>ROUND TWO<br \/>19 West Coast<br \/>20 North Melbourne (tied to Richmond)\u00a0<br \/>21 North Melbourne<br \/>22 Essendon<br \/>23 Melbourne<br \/>24 Port Adelaide<br \/>25 Essendon (tied to St Kilda)\u00a0<br \/>26 Hawthorn (tied to Carlton)\u00a0<br \/>27 Sydney<br \/>28 Western Bulldogs<br \/>29 West Coast (tied to Hawthorn)\u00a0<br \/>30 Gold Coast<br \/>31 Fremantle<br \/>32 GWS<br \/>33 Collingwood<br \/>34 Carlton (tied to Brisbane)\u00a0<br \/>35 Geelong<br \/>36 GWS (tied to Adelaide)<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>ROUND THREE<br \/>37 Brisbane (tied to West Coast)\u00a0<br \/>38 Fremantle (tied to Richmond)\u00a0<br \/>39 North Melbourne<br \/>40 Brisbane (tied to Essendon)\u00a0<br \/>41 Adelaide (tied to Melbourne)\u00a0<br \/>42 Port Adelaide<br \/>43 St Kilda<br \/>44 Carlton<br \/>45 Sydney<br \/>46 Brisbane (tied to Western Bulldogs)\u00a0<br \/>47 West Coast (tied to Hawthorn)\u00a0<br \/>48 Brisbane (tied to Gold Coast)\u00a0<br \/>49 Fremantle<br \/>50 Adelaide (tied to GWS)\u00a0<br \/>51 Collingwood<br \/>52 Melbourne (tied to Brisbane)\u00a0<br \/>53 Geelong<br \/>54 Adelaide<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>ROUND FOUR<br \/>55 Hawthorn (tied to West Coast)\u00a0<br \/>56 Gold Coast (tied to Richmond)\u00a0<br \/>57 North Melbourne<br \/>58 St Kilda (tied to Essendon)\u00a0<br \/>59 Melbourne<br \/>60 Port Adelaide<br \/>61 Brisbane (tied to St Kilda)\u00a0<br \/>62 Carlton<br \/>63 Sydney<br \/>64 Collingwood (tied to Western Bulldogs)\u00a0<br \/>65 Hawthorn<br \/>66 Gold Coast<br \/>67 Fremantle<br \/>68 Adelaide (tied to GWS)\u00a0<br \/>69 Collingwood<br \/>70 Brisbane<br \/>71 Geelong<br \/>72 Adelaide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not every pick trade works but this time Essendon and Melbourne both came out on top Isaac Kako&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,83,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-101554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-text","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}