{"id":217571,"date":"2025-10-16T11:05:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T11:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/217571\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T11:05:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T11:05:17","slug":"afl-news-2025-blake-hardwick-instagram-story-zach-merrett-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/217571\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2025 | Blake Hardwick Instagram story, Zach Merrett trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hawthorn<\/a> defender Blake Hardwick has taken aim at the Bombers, implying the club is like a prison in a deleted Instagram story.<\/p>\n

Hardwick would’ve been hoping to have a new teammate when Bombers captain Zach Merrett<\/a> made his intentions clear he’d like to join the club.<\/p>\n

However, early in the trade period Essendon was steadfast in its statement that Merrett wasn’t leaving.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Titmus announces shock retirement at 25<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Inside the frantic final moments of Curnow trade<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Ex-Storm beast confirms R360 approach<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite Hawthorn’s offer on deadline day, Essendon didn’t accept<\/a>. The Bombers were well within their rights considering the captain is contracted until the end of 2027.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath, Hardwick posted a photo of Essendon’s logo and captioned it ‘Alcatraz’.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Zach Merrett and Blake Hardwick’s story.\u00a0Getty\/Instagram<\/p>\n

He deleted that story but then shared another photo of the island prison. That post has been deleted too.<\/p>\n

Kane Cornes didn’t have a problem with the posts.<\/p>\n

“I don’t really mind Hardwick having a crack at another club,” he said on Trade Radio.<\/p>\n

“I wouldn’t have done it, but it’s a bit harmless. It’s kind of funny.”<\/p>\n

With the trade period now over, Essendon has a strong draft hand with picks 5, 6, 21, 27, 30, 83, 101.<\/p>\n

Hawthorn has 10, 22, 62, 76, 94, 112.<\/p>\n

Hawthorn’s final offer was picks 10, 22 and a future first round pick along with Henry Hustwaite.<\/p>\n

Essendon were hellbent on a 2027 first round pick too but that wasn’t on the table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawthorn defender Blake Hardwick has taken aim at the Bombers, implying the club is like a prison in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-217571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217571","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=217571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}