{"id":745193,"date":"2026-06-18T20:29:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/745193\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T20:29:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:29:15","slug":"hawks-not-limiting-trade-chase-to-just-merrett-they-believe-they-can-land-multiple-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/745193\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawks not limiting trade chase to just Merrett. They believe they can land multiple stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hawthorn will continue their pursuit of multiple players from rival clubs rather than confining their effort and trade capital to Essendon veteran Zach Merrett, as they did last year.<\/p>\n

The Hawks remain keen to acquire Merrett<\/a>, who is again expected to seek a trade to the club at season\u2019s end, and are the favoured destination for Gold Coast key forward Ben King if the restricted free agent chooses to leave. They have been a leading suitor for Suns young gun Bailey Humphrey, who is contracted for 2027, as well as King. They met with Humphrey last spring.<\/p>\n

\"ZachZach Merrett is one of several stars Hawthorn believe they can secure at the end of this year.Getty Images<\/p>\n

While industry figures question how Hawthorn could snare Merrett \u2013 certain to cost at least one first-round pick \u2013 and still land either King or Humphrey, a club source familiar with their position said they would still chase multiple targets, such as Merrett and King, in the belief that snaring more than one A-grader was feasible, if those players wanted to join them, which was not confirmed yet.<\/p>\n

Gold Coast have signalled that they would match any offer for King, forcing a trade rather than merely accepting the compensation of one first-round pick. King indicated to this masthead last month that his wish was to stay with the Suns,<\/a> but the Coleman Medal leader remains unsigned, with a two-year offer on the table for months.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Luke<\/a><\/p>\n

The position of King is crucial for other clubs and for the futures of other out-of-contract key forwards. These include Hawthorn\u2019s own pair of Mitch Lewis and Calsher Dear, and Gold Coast\u2019s burly young forward Jed Walter, who fielded interest from rival clubs and has a five-year deal worth close to $4 million on the table from the Suns.<\/p>\n

Lewis is an unrestricted free agent and would clearly be more likely to seek a new home if the Hawks landed King, whose decision rests on his personal situation \u2013 whether he and his partner would prefer to be in Melbourne \u2013 rather than contractual terms. He would be an unrestricted free agent after 2028 if he signed the two-year extension.<\/p>\n

Merrett is viewed as all but certain to reiterate his wish for a trade at season\u2019s end, regardless of who coaches the Bombers from 2027 and beyond. He is contracted for next year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Led by then new president Andrew Welsh, the Bombers spurned the offer of three first-round draft picks<\/a> just before the trade deadline. The Dons argued that the future choices would be late \u2013 and especially in 2027 when Tasmania owns the bulk of the draft\u2019s first 20 picks \u2013 and held firm on the president\u2019s stance that the then skipper would not be traded.<\/p>\n

Should Merrett follow the pattern of Melbourne and Christian Petracca, then he would get his wish to leave Essendon on the second attempt, although the Dons might not garner the same draft offer as the Demons did \u2013 belatedly \u2013 in 2025.<\/p>\n

The Hawks have their first picks for this year and next intact, plus three second-round choices this year \u2013 currently picks No.26, 27 and 32. They would receive draft compensation for Lewis if he left as a free agent.<\/p>\n

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\"JakeJake Niall<\/a> is a Walkley award-winning sports journalist and chief AFL writer for The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-745193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745193","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=745193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}