{"id":237888,"date":"2025-10-24T15:45:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T15:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/237888\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T15:45:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T15:45:14","slug":"saints-did-giants-young-gun-aleer-dirty-says-gws-skipper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/237888\/","title":{"rendered":"Saints did Giants young gun Aleer ‘dirty’, says GWS skipper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leek Aleer was “done dirty” by St Kilda, but GWS captain Toby Greene says he’s happy to see the young defender remain at the Giants.<\/p>\n

Aleer had been pursued by the Saints for well over a year and was left “rattled” after the club backflipped on their plans for a trade deal.<\/p>\n

North Melbourne considered making a play for the key defender, before the 24-year-old re-signed with the Giants for two years.<\/p>\n

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Aleer had wanted a move to Victoria after struggling to crack into a stacked Giants backline, which boasts the likes of Sam Taylor and Jack Buckley.<\/p>\n

The athletic tall has played just 25 games across four seasons since making his debut in 2022.<\/p>\n

St Kilda coach Ross Lyon didn’t shed light on why the club backflipped on their decision after a chase of well over a year, but denied they had “reneged” on the deal.<\/p>\n

The Saints had a busy trade period, saying goodbye to Melbourne-bound Jack Steele and securing Carlton duo Tom De Koning and Jack Silvagni, Gold Coast midfielder Sam Flanders, and West Coast forward Liam Ryan.<\/p>\n

Greene, who was speaking at an Amazon Prime event in Sydney on Friday, said GWS were happy to keep Aleer.<\/p>\n

“He was a little bit rattled,” Greene said.<\/p>\n

“It certainly came as a surprise, and the Saints probably did him dirty a bit, but that’s footy as well.<\/p>\n

Leek Aleer requested a move from the Giants before the Saints backflipped on their commitment.\u00a0Photo by Darrian Traynor\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

“They had every right to do that. It’s the way footy is going, with player movement.<\/p>\n

“It helps us, we get him back, and he adds to our team, that’s for sure.<\/p>\n

“It’ll be great having him back at the footy club.”<\/p>\n

GWS are also set to add Clayton Oliver to their best 22 after the 2021 premiership player was told to look for another club by new Melbourne coach Steven King.<\/p>\n

After refusing to trade Oliver to Geelong last year, the Demons will now pay a huge portion of the on-baller’s contract after trading him to the Giants for a future third-round draft pick.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old was signed to Melbourne until the end of 2030, but has been below his best for the past two seasons as he managed off-field challenges.<\/p>\n

GWS are no strangers to helping players reboot their careers, doing so with former Melbourne forward Jesse Hogan and Essendon’s Jake Stringer.<\/p>\n

Greene said Oliver will live with former Demons teammate Toby Bedford to start his life in Sydney.<\/p>\n

“He was obviously a little bit disgruntled at Melbourne last year and has had a few challenges himself, but that’s why we want him,” Greene said.<\/p>\n

“We want to try and get the best out of him. We’ll do everything we can to make sure that happens.”<\/p>\n

Oliver will likely fill the void left by veteran midfielder Josh Kelly, who is expected to miss most of the 2026 season after undergoing hip surgery.<\/p>\n

The Giants will also be without exciting small forward Darcy Jones (ACL) and retired club great Callan Ward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leek Aleer was “done dirty” by St Kilda, but GWS captain Toby Greene says he’s happy to see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-237888","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\/237888","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=237888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}