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1. Jack Steele (Melbourne)<\/p>\n
Josh Barnes says: \u201cHe\u2019s been excellent at Melbourne. St Kilda are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for him to play at Melbourne and Melbourne only gave up a 2027 Round 3 pick to get him in \u2026 He\u2019s holding together a midfield that is sort of \u2018bits and pieces\u2019 plus Kozzy Pickett starring, he\u2019s doing the grunt work in there and been sensational for a team who\u2019s currently on track to being in the top 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rosas bags five in stunning first half | 00:42<\/p>\n
2. Malcolm Rosas (Sydney Swans)<\/p>\n
Jon Ralph says: \u201cSydney gave away the equivalent of a caramel milkshake and a Kit-Kat for Malcolm Rosas. I think he\u2019s the No.1 (small forward) player in the game \u2013 that\u2019s what the Champion Data boys said, I\u2019d have Nick Watson ahead of him \u2013 but he\u2019s playing amazing football. He\u2019s got an appreciable role and he\u2019s a really good pressure player as well \u2026 He\u2019s been a spectacular addition \u2013 and you know what? He might just play in a premiership.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. Clayton Oliver (GWS Giants)<\/p>\n
Josh Barnes says: \u201cJust quietly, Clayton Oliver is having a very good season. With Tom Green down, he\u2019s been doing a lot of the grunt work. His numbers are reasonably close to when he was at his absolute peak. He\u2019s not quite that player, but just like Steele, half his wage is being paid by Melbourne at the moment for him to be there. Again, that was for a 2026 Round 3 pick, so absolutely nothing to get him to GWS for what is, alongside Finn Callaghan, almost equally their best midfielder this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
4. Brody Mihocek (Melbourne)<\/p>\n
Jon Ralph says: \u201cHe said on the Ball Magnets podcast that the Collingwood had been \u2018insulting\u2019. We\u2019ve all sort of worked towards that, but \u2018insulting\u2019 \u2013 that was extraordinary. I think Gerard Healy on SEN radio said he was on two years at $750,000, which is a pretty penny there. He\u2019s been fantastic and, more to the point, he\u2019s done what he\u2019s supposed to do, which is kick some goals but also help those young players like Matt Jefferson and Jacob van Rooyen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tears shed upon Jamarra’s return | 01:51<\/p>\n
5. Jamarra Ugle-Hagan (Gold Coast Suns)<\/p>\n
Lauren Wood says: \u201cI was a little bit laughed at on the CODE Sports social media channels for saying at the start of the year \u2018I\u2019d love to see him kick 40 goals for Gold Coast\u2019. It was looking a little bit hairy early with that knee injury and the subsequent surgery that went with it, but another three goals on the weekend. When you talk about bang for buck, he\u2019s not on much \u2013 we read about his games trigger this week \u2013 and all signs are good. He\u2019s happy and he\u2019s well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jon Ralph says: \u201cI think he\u2019ll be the No.1 recruit, bang for buck, by the end of the season. I think his upside is massive.\u201d<\/p>\n
6. Jai Serong (Sydney Swans)<\/p>\n
Josh Barnes says: \u201cHawthorn got a future third-round pick, gave up a fourth and Jai Serong \u2013 so basically a pick swap of no significance. I\u2019m going to say right now he is playing the wing role better than Josh Weddle is at Hawthorn \u2013 I\u2019m not going to say he\u2019s the better player, but this season he\u2019s playing better than Weddle is. He\u2019s a really important part of that running game \u2013 he\u2019s run almost more than anyone else in the competition \u2013 and they basically got him for free. That\u2019s a huge pick-up for Sydney.\u201d<\/p>\n
7. Sam Draper (Brisbane Lions)<\/p>\n
Josh Barnes says: \u201cIf you look at the numbers this week, he\u2019s the No.1 ruck in the game for centre clearance differential. So when he\u2019s in there, they win the ball out of centre better than every other ruckman in the competition. He\u2019s still only finding his groove, he\u2019s still missing his boots sometimes with his kicks, but otherwise he\u2019s fantastic. He might be on a pretty penny as a free agent, but that\u2019s an absolute winner right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suns win despite Bombers scare | 04:46<\/p>\n
8. Christian Petracca (Gold Coast Suns)<\/p>\n
Jon Ralph says: \u201cHe\u2019s the best player in the game. They gave up two top-12 picks and a future first-rounder and got back Picks 24, 28 and a future-second. They would\u2019ve thought he would\u2019ve been a good player, but could they ever have dreamt he\u2019d be one of the best kicks in the game? He had horrific goal accuracy, his kicking inside 50 wasn\u2019t that much better \u2013 and now he is laser. That is extraordinary and a testament to how hard he has worked. He\u2019s (No.8) only because they gave up so much for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
9. Max Heath (Melbourne)<\/p>\n
Josh Barnes says: \u201cHe\u2019s back-up for Max Gawn at the moment, he\u2019s providing some cover. A 2027 Round 4 pick for Max Heath \u2013 that is as far away as you can possibly get and he\u2019s playing valuable minutes right now. We\u2019re going to see how valuable they are at the back-end of the season if Melbourne are still in the hunt, because these are minutes where Max Gawn doesn\u2019t have to play in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some players thriving at their new clubs were traded for throwaway draft picks, while other big-name recruits are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,12093,64,63,689,55,639,3423,3237,1129,19120,7803,28967,315519,3499,2458,2105,2485,9130,315512,315517,12112,681,91125,51310,3512,15631,35801,242771,12097,36889,647,7804,315516,3530,677,133830,230473,315515,701,11244,85,1122,313670,87609,7200,302899,315518,315513,315520,315514,660,126250],"class_list":["post-652341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-another-fine-day","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-ben-waterworth","tag-brisbane-lions","tag-charlie-curnow","tag-christian-petracca","tag-clayton-oliver","tag-clearance-differential","tag-clubs-genuine-bang","tag-daniel-pockett","tag-data","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-gold-coast","tag-gold-coast-suns","tag-grunt-work","tag-horrific-goal-accuracy","tag-jack-steele","tag-jon-ralph","tag-josh-barnes","tag-josh-weddle","tag-knee-injury","tag-lauren-wood","tag-malcolm-rosas","tag-matt-jefferson","tag-max-gawn","tag-max-heath","tag-melbourne","tag-melbourne-demons","tag-midweek-tackle-list","tag-nick-watson","tag-oceania","tag-pick-swap","tag-pressure-player","tag-pretty-penny","tag-queensland","tag-sam-draper","tag-sports","tag-st-kilda","tag-stunning-first-half-performance","tag-suns-win","tag-sydney-swans","tag-tears-shed","tag-throwaway-draft-picks","tag-trade-bargains","tag-trade-recruits","tag-value-trades","tag-victoria","tag-wing-role"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652341","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=652341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}