How AFL clubs make their pitches to the stars

Franklin’s deal also triggered the spate of six, seven and eight-year deals that gun players – hell, even slightly-above-average players – would grab.

Geelong are the only club that have been able to fend off decline, as if they were Dustin Martin repelling a tackler, courtesy of the free agency system and the recruitment of Dangerfield and then Cameron, without whom they wouldn’t have won the 2022 premiership. In Dangerfield’s case, it helped them make a succession of preliminary finals beforehand.

Of the 66 genuine free agents (restricted or unrestricted) who’ve shifted clubs, only seven have played 100 games for their new club. Tim Membrey (159) and Mitch Robinson (147) were delisted free agents, the former flung when the Swans were making room for Buddy.

Some current free agents, headed by Lynch (86 games) will pass 100 games, but you get the point – free agency is a limited mechanism for gaining players. One could argue that the father-son rule – see Collingwood, Geelong and the Bulldogs – has been more impactful on post-2012 premierships.

It follows that, as Richmond go into some version of a list reconstruction, free agency will not be the primary or even secondary source of any resurrection. Nor will free agency rescue Collingwood when their current large cohort of veterans (nine aged over 30) shuffle off, just as Hawthorn could not use free agents to defy gravity after 2016.

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Finding fresh young talent in the draft, locating the next Jack Crisp or Bachar Houli in a cheap trade and trading for a serious A-grader – even under contract – is how clubs vault back up the ladder.

There aren’t enough free agents in the system to cover the absence of six or seven exiting older players. If you’re in the demographic right spot – as Carlton, GWS and Sydney appear to be now – free agency could deliver a crucial missing piece of the jigsaw, as with Lynch and Cameron. It might cover just one positional need.

But it makes less sense for a team that has descended, after five or six years in the premiership window, to rely on free agency to prop themselves up. Indeed, it is hard enough to defy the socialist system by deploying trades.

Hawthorn and Richmond tried to prolong their premiership contention periods via trading, and it is telling that Jaeger O’Meara and Tom Mitchell, despite their talents, are at their third clubs and did not have team success in brown and gold.

Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper, Richmond’s answer to O’Meara and Mitchell, might fare better at their second team, but the list profile suggests it will be some years before the Tigers contend.

Essendon, the major free agent player last October, understand Ben McKay, Jade Gresham and Todd Goldstein (35 years old) are not the panacea that will deliver a 17th flag (Brad Scott has acknowledged this). This trio will merely support what the Bombers can develop through the draft: what they can extract from Archie Perkins, Zach Reid, Elijah Tsatas and co will have a much larger say.

Lately, the Brisbane Lions have been the most successful club for acquiring quality – and putting themselves within repeated reach of the grail – through trading. Lachie Neale, Charlie Cameron and Josh Dunkley are top level. Joe Daniher was a rare high-end free agent.

This raises the question of how clubs pitch for players.

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The monstrous Melbourne teams – Collingwood, Carlton, Richmond, Essendon and Hawthorn when they’re thereabouts – are selling similar experiences: packed MCG, blockbusters, public holiday games and the buzz of being on Broadway.

The Lions, like Sydney, GWS and Gold Coast, pitch to players as the Getaway clubs – where you go to avoid getting filmed on a mobile phone, can go to the pub and have a few quiet beers without having your skin folds questioned.

Geelong have a de facto regional zone – 18 of their list can be defined as locals from Geelong/surf coast/western district – while also offering a country vibe, surf and even paddocks if you’re agriculturally inclined. No one else had a prayer of landing Dangerfield and Cameron.

St Kilda are attempting to mine Melbourne’s southern corridor, while the Dogs, North and Melbourne have to sell intimate, special environments. The Demons, who also offer heritage and the ’G, have not used free agency much, but landed the defensive double act of Jake Lever and Steven May in trades.

Melbourne’s 2021 premiership and the recent retirement of Angus Brayshaw underscores the other side of free agency that might well prove more consequential: compensation picks.

James Frawley left the Demons as a free agent in 2014 to play for Hawthorn’s loaded 2015 premiership team, in a transaction widely viewed with cynicism, after the AFL handed Melbourne pick No.3, which turned into Brayshaw.

The picks gained through the AFL’s arcane “secret herbs and spices” compensation formula will often prove more valuable to the club that “loses” the free agent than that player to his new team.

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