{"id":240233,"date":"2025-10-25T16:36:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T16:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/240233\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T16:36:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T16:36:23","slug":"port-adelaides-zak-butters-tipped-to-request-trade-to-western-bulldogs-by-chad-cornes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/240233\/","title":{"rendered":"Port Adelaide’s Zak Butters tipped to request trade to Western Bulldogs by Chad Cornes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Departing Port Adelaide<\/a> assistant coach Chad Cornes is predicting star midfielder Zak Butters to depart the club next year. <\/p>\n

The 25-year-old raised the possibility with the Power of returning home to Victoria before this trade period, something that was swiftly denied by the club.<\/p>\n

However, Butters becomes a restricted free agent at the end of 2026 and will be able to depart in the trade period if he chooses.<\/p>\n

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\"Zak<\/p>\n

Zak Butters.\u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

It was a curious trade period to say the least, with Butters seen training with a Carlton development coach one day and then golfing with Essendon players the next.<\/p>\n

Cornes, a 2004 Port Adelaide premiership player and assistant coach since 2015, is departing the club as part of a coaching revamp following the exit of senior coach Ken Hinkley at the end of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

He is planning to join the AFL media in South Australia, following in the footsteps of his brother Kane.<\/p>\n

Speaking on SEN, Cornes said his feeling is Butters will exit the club in 2026 and named the Western Bulldogs<\/a> as the frontrunners to land him.<\/p>\n

“I love (Butters). He’s such a great guy. If you had to make a prediction, I think he goes this time next year,” Cornes said.<\/p>\n

“And I would be saying, he loves the Bulldogs. Just a real hardcore Bulldogs supporter before he got drafted.<\/p>\n

“I don’t want to make a big call too early.”<\/p>\n

\"Chad<\/p>\n

Chad Cornes, Port Adelaide assistant coach. \u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Port Adelaide list boss Jason Cripps said the club’s focus is signing Butters long term in the next year.<\/p>\n

“We want Zak to be at the club for the next 10 years, and that will be our sole focus at the right time,” Cripps said during the trade period.<\/p>\n

“Zak’s really happy, 100 per cent committed to the club and a super important player for our future.”<\/p>\n

As well as the Bulldogs, teams including Carlton, Hawthorn, Collingwood and Geelong have all been linked with Butters, though every Victorian team will certainly pick up the phone.<\/p>\n

The Blues in particular now have a very strong Port Adelaide flavour at the club.<\/p>\n

Head coach Michael Voss was an assistant coach at the Power before landing the Blues job, Chris Davies moved from Port to Carlton in a head of football capacity in 2025 and now Port Adelaide midfield great Travis Boak is joining the club as a development coach.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Michael Voss, senior coach of Carlton.\u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Another Blues development coach in Torin Baker coached Butters in his junior days at the Western Jets as well.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs will certainly be licking their lips if Cornes’ comments prove correct, but the move won’t be straight forward given Butters’ status as a restricted free agent.<\/p>\n

This means Port Adelaide has the right to match any contract offer put to him, forcing the club to then trade for the player.<\/p>\n

And given we saw three first round picks paid for Charlie Curnow and Christian Petracca and offered for Zach Merrett in this year’s trade period, Butters will be worth all of that and more, given his age.<\/p>\n

The Power will certainly be incentivised to match any offer and force the Bulldogs or whoever else to trade for him rather than lose him for one first-round compensation pick.<\/p>\n

GWS is the only team to ever apply this move to a restricted free agent, doing so to force Geelong to trade for Jeremy Cameron in 2020.<\/p>\n

Butters has won three straight Port Adelaide best and fairests, winning in 2025 despite missing a month of the season.<\/p>\n

He has two All-Australian blazers and won AFL Coaches Association Player of the Year in 2023. <\/p>\n

Hinkley in his final press conference as Port Adelaide coach went as far as to call Butters “the best player in the competition, nearly”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Departing Port Adelaide assistant coach Chad Cornes is predicting star midfielder Zak Butters to depart the club next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-240233","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\/240233","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=240233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}