West Coast supporters are angry and disappointed after a massive three-club trade between the Blues and Richmond was confirmed, turning on their own club’s social media channel.
Carlton has landed itself with the third pick in the draft and Liam Baker is now an Eagle.
The move will also see Blues forward Matt Owies join Baker in heading to Perth, along with West Coast picking up picks 12 and 73 – all for giving up pick 3.
The Eagles confirmed the Owies deal will involve a three-year contract with West Coast, while the club retain pick 12.
Along with pick 3, Carlton will receive picks 63 and 68 – and will give pick 14 to Richmond for Baker’s move to the Eagles.
West Coast CEO Don Pyke has defended giving up pick 3 on SEN WA Mornings, saying that after losing the option of pick 14 (for Tom Barrass trade) from Hawthorn, pick 3 was too high for Liam Baker and the next pick 26 was not going to get the deal done.
“If you look at the deal in isolation, the slide from pick 3 to pick 12 and using 14 to get Liam Baker, it looks a bit odd, but for us it was part of a bigger play, around Liam and the commitment we had around getting him to the club. So, it was about honouring that,” Pyke said.
“We slide back in a draft that we believe has got some depth, and while 12 won’t replace pick 3, we get that, but at 12 we still believe that there will be plenty of talented players still in the draft that will fit our needs and list re-build.”
(Photo by James Elsby/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Pyke added that the club is nowhere near done in the trade period and hopes to re-enter the top 10 of the draft via the Hawthorn deal.
“The offers that were there wasn’t enough and Hawthorn decided to trade that pick away and we had to come up with an alternate solution,” he said.
“We’re still confident, and we are in conversations with Hawthorn now, that we can finalise a suitable trade that gives us fair compensation ahead of the deadline tomorrow.
“For us it’s about how do we build the list. We have a gap between recognised 23 year olds and 27 year olds on our list and we have to fill that gap to allow the players we are bringing in like Baker, Graham and Owies are good consistent performing footballers…We have to bring in talent year on year but also build through the middle part of the list to support the senior guys.
“We are still active in getting the Barrass deal done and then whether we can leverage that back into a further pick this year or retaining those picks for future years, we’ll cross that bridge at the end of Trade Period and obviously draft night where you can trade picks.
“We believe that there will be a really good player for us at 12, and we will work to close the Barrass deal and hopefully get ourselves back into the draft in some fashion – either in the top 10 or 10-20 range to get us the three picks we want to keep bringing in talent.”
But the move has not gone down well with Eagles fans, who took to social media to voice their frustration.
Some labelled it as being “taken advantage of” in the “worst trade in the club’s history” – while other supporters are even threatening to cancel their memberships.
It was set to be an exciting year for the club, with new coach Andrew McQualter taking the reins and Harley Reid entering his second year after being the top pick last year – along with a fairly strong draft hand.
But the general consensus is that they have now traded most of their advantages away.
Earlier, before the trade was confirmed, Kane Cornes had an interesting analogy, comparing the Eagles club to a situation to a scene from a nature documentary.
“When you’ve got a big wildebeest carcass, and every animal known to man is just coming and picking it off,” Cornes said on AFL Trade Radio.
“You start with the lions and they get the first go. They get all the good stuff and take all the meat off the bone.
“After that, the hyenas come and take the scraps – then all the birds start and they take the scraps of the scraps.
“West Coast are the wildebeest on the ground and the 17 other clubs are just picking them off.”
Co-host, Sam Edmund also joked that he could already see the wave of anger coming from West Coast supporters.
“If I was the West Coast Eagles, I’d be locking all doors at HQ,” he said.
“Possibly with armed security hired as well to protect themselves from their army of supporters.
“Are the Eagles being fleeced in this trade period? They got burnt on the Barrass deal with Hawthorn on Friday, when (pick) 14 went off the table.”
Meanwhile, the Herald Sun is reporting that the Eagles are again interested in fringe Brisbane midfielder Deven Robertson.
The WA product only featured twice this year at AFL after knocking back a move to the Eagles last season.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.
Charlie Curnow sits equal 16th, and Harry McKay is equal 20 in the Top 100 Goal Scorers list.
Out of contract at the end of the 2025 season, Tom De Koning is set to headline contract talks at Carlton alongside Adam Cerra,…
Carlton's famously injury-prone summers have once again bitten the club, with star forward Charlie Curnow set to undergo knee surgery. The two-time Coleman Medallist…
You frost-free fellas from Fawkner to Frankston don’t know football like we do. We play in the snow and dodge trees in the middle…
The Blues have doubled down on their existing squad to break the near three-decade premiership drought rather than seek improvement by being bold.
