![\"Melbourne](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/8753b646723ba8bd5542bebef6ee645e4fd930a5.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nBut something has almost always been true about AFL deals: you can only ask for what the other club has.<\/p>\n
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That is why the Giants matched Geelong\u2019s restricted free agency offer for Jeremy Cameron in 2020, knowing the Cats had scored a draft bounty for agreeing to send homesick midfielder Tim Kelly to West Coast a year earlier.<\/p>\n
By doing so, GWS went from what would have been a single free agency compensation pick just outside the top 10, to brokering a historic trade with Geelong for selections 13, 15 and 20.<\/p>\n
It was the first time any club matched a free agency offer, and also the first time one player returned three first-round picks in a trade.<\/p>\n
Five years later, both Curnow \u2013 who went to Sydney instead of the Cattery \u2013 and Demon-turned-Sun Christian Petracca commanded at least three first-round selections for their former clubs, Carlton and Melbourne, respectively.<\/p>\n
Essendon also demanded from McKenzie\u2019s Hawks an extraordinary four first-round picks, plus a second-rounder, if they were to consider trading captain Zach Merrett.<\/p>\n
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Melbourne lost Christian Petracca to the Gold Coast but strengthened their draft hand.Credit: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
Hawthorn refused to do that, but their final offer was still pretty compelling: picks 10 and 22 this year, their 2026 first-round selection and fringe midfielder Henry Hustwaite.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think that our offer at the end was very strong and reasonable,\u201d McKenzie said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what we wanted to do, put our best foot forward and make some moves to improve the offers we had chatted to Essendon about over the last couple of days, but in the end, you\u2019ve got to respect their position. He\u2019s a contracted player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of the league\u2019s thinking in delaying clubs being able to trade two years into the future was to protect them from themselves.<\/p>\n
Rules also state that list bosses must seek board approval before trading any future first-round picks, while the AFL had stipulated that every club had to use \u2013 not trade \u2013 at least two first-round selections in a five-year period, but that was softened because of Tasmania\u2019s impending arrival.<\/p>\n
That temporary tweak paved the way for the monstrous returns and offers for the game\u2019s biggest stars.<\/p>\n
The Swans were hell-bent on securing Curnow as the Harbour City\u2019s newest marquee forward, behind the likes of Tony Lockett, Barry Hall and Lance Franklin, who like the ex-Blue were \u201cbums-on-seats\u201d players, as the club\u2019s list manager Chris Keane said.<\/p>\n
Sydney managed to snaffle two second-round picks this year and another in 2027 off Carlton, but Curnow\u2019s recruitment comes with a significant level of risk.<\/p>\n
Curnow, who turns 29 in February, has a history of knee injuries, and the Blues also ended his season early this year for him to undergo another knee operation.<\/p>\n
Beyond the potential cultural issues the Swans may need to remedy after trading Will Hayward and Ollie Florent, and raising James Rowbottom in discussions, they are now not due to make a first-round pick until 2028.<\/p>\n
The draft pick cost to trade for a superstar is why clubs are so willing to pay a higher salary to lure recruits in free agency.<\/p>\n
However, Sydney have several academy prospects up for grabs this year, with the best of them \u2013 Max King \u2013 likely to receive a mid-first-round bid, while Harry Kyle and Lachy Carmichael are in the top-30 mix. That lessens the risk for Keane, who made securing Curnow his top priority.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe knew we had to give up something to get the deal done and get a player of Charlie\u2019s calibre in,\u201d Keane said.<\/p>\n
On the flipside, Melbourne, Carlton and even Hawthorn \u2013 after not convincing Essendon to trade Merrett \u2013 all used new AFL lingo in their trade summations.<\/p>\n
They have \u201cfuture-proofed\u201d themselves with strong draft hands. That is, until the next big name is up for grabs, and they have to empty their assets to be in the race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But something has almost always been true about AFL deals: you can only ask for what the other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-221562","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\/221562","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=221562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}