{"id":148121,"date":"2025-09-16T19:45:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T19:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/148121\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T19:45:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T19:45:07","slug":"suns-gun-wishes-to-explore-trade-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/148121\/","title":{"rendered":"Suns gun wishes to explore trade options"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Suns gun Sam Flanders has told the club he wants to explore opportunities elsewhere\n <\/p>\n

Sam Flanders handballs during Gold Coast’s elimination final against Fremantle on September 6, 2025. Picture: Getty Images<\/p>\n

GOLD Coast midfielder Sam Flanders has officially told the Suns of his desire to be traded elsewhere next season.<\/p>\n

Flanders is contracted until the end of 2027, but has attracted attention from a host of Victorian clubs.<\/p>\n

AFL.com.au reported on Monday that Carlton, St Kilda, Essendon and Melbourne have all enquired<\/a> about the 23-year-old.<\/p>\n

“Sam expressed an interest in exploring other opportunities for next year at today’s exit meeting,” Suns list manager Craig Cameron said in a statement<\/p>\n

“However we have reiterated to Sam that he is a contracted player with our football club and part of our best 23 players”.<\/p>\n

Sam Flanders during the round 15 match between Greater Western Sydney and Gold Coast at ENGIE Stadium, June 22, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n

The news comes as Malcolm Rosas jnr confirmed his desire to seek a trade,<\/a> with the Suns saying they are willing to facilitate a move.<\/p>\n

He has attracted interest from both Richmond and Sydney.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Flanders battled to become a senior regular at the Suns in his first three seasons but enjoyed a breakthrough stint in the second half of 2023, largely under caretaker coach Steven King, who was last week appointed as Melbourne’s senior coach.<\/p>\n

He spent most of 2024 in the midfield and averaged more than 30 disposals a game, but shifted out of the engine room this year into a half-forward role.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick was adamant in June that Flanders would not be at another club in 2026<\/a>, saying the Suns were “not in the business of trading [their] very best players”.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Suns gun Sam Flanders has told the club he wants to explore opportunities elsewhere Sam Flanders handballs during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,83,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-148121","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\/148121","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=148121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}