THE TRADING CHRONICLES 2008: DAY ONE

THE TRADING CHRONICLES – DAY ONE

THE AYCE IN THE DOG PACK by the Oracle

Well, things went according to plan on the opening day of the AFL's trade period. Not a single player found a new home although one young pup found himself a new kennel.

The Saints opened proceedings by making a bid for father/son prospect Ayce Cordy and offered their first round pick for the young 202 cm ruckman and son of former Bulldog Brian Cordy who spent most of the year on the injured list after undergoing shoulder surgery. The Dogs had the joker in the pack and trumped that offer by drafting him under the father/son rule with their first round pick at number 14 and despite the hefty price tag attached to the youngster, his new coach Rodney Eade was happy to have him on board. Cordy was the only father/son nomination for 2008 and the first ever to go for a first round draft selection.

The clubs then got down to the usual day one argy bargy and, at the end of proceedings, everyone left empty handed. There were no deals done and precious little news came out of the day's proceeding but that doesn't mean that the clubs weren't talking to each other. The problem is that there wasn't a great deal on offer in terms of players of any substance. The highlights of draft talk were:-

Hawthorn is keen to meet Ryan O'Keefe and will seek to fit him within the club's salary cap. At the same time, the Blues seem to have mysteriously lost interest in the uncontracted Sydney forward. The Hawks are prepared to discuss out of favour ruckman Simon Taylor, while second string full forward Tim Boyle might be on the move to the Bulldogs and young forwards Mitch Thorp and Beau Dowler have also attracted some interest from clubs.

North Melbourne coach Dean Laidley dropped the major surprise of the day by indicating he would be willing to look at a trade for ruckman Hamish McIntosh, forward Corey Jones and midfielder Daniel Harris.

Carlton football manager Steven Icke confirmed football's worst kept secret i.e that his club had offered its second-round pick for uncontracted ruckman Robert Warnock. Fremantle duly knocked back the offer.

The Western Bulldogs have also expressed an express interest in Richmond key position player Jay Schulz while the Tigers are said to lead the race for Port's out-of-contract midfielder Adam Thomson.

Essendon is apparently the preferred destination of injured Geelong midfielder Brent Prismall.

And so on, and so on …

The news filtering through from Telstra Dome was so underwhelming that it was inevitable for some not so elaborate hoaxes to gain momentum around the traps and particularly in cyberspace. One rumour had Paul Wheatley going to the Swans for a second round pick; another involved Irishman Setanta O'hAilpin moving to Melbourne for selection number 51. I received a few calls from some distraught Demon fans so I took it in my hands to go directly to the one impeccable source of news on the subject. I went straight to the White Pages telephone directory and looked up the name ”Connolly” and took a punt and dialled the first person with that name whose first initial was a "C".

Bingo!

The bloke on the line was Chris and he was very forthcoming about the day's trading. He told me he found it all a little boring and, in fact, he couldn't stop yawning through most of the proceedings. Had a big laugh about the rumours concerning Paul Wheatley and Setanta O'hAilpin and told me that he felt some "jock on the internet made them all up".

Then he confirmed that other clubs had shown interest in Brad Green, Chris Johnson and Mark Jamar and that Carlton wanted all three of them. He said the Blues were incredible – they were negotiating with seven of the clubs over a list of about twelve players. Apparently, they were confident they could fit all of them comfortably within their existing salary cap. Word is that Visy is beefing up its environmental sanitation department and has the capacity to employ about a dozen beefy toilet cleaners at a solid wage in their local plant.

At this stage the speaker on the other end of the line started cracking up with laughter and confessed he was a Connolly but not the Chris Connolly, that this was the fifth call he'd taken on the subject during the day and that he really knew very little about football.

Nevertheless, I was suitably enlightened about the day's events as a result of this conversation.