Get all the latest news in the trade, free agency and draft landscape every week in Inside Trading, AFL.com.au‘s dedicated column for player movement. Find out the latest on contracts, deals, trades, draftees, rules, agents and who is going where from the AFL.com.au team.
FLORENT’S FREE AGENCY CALL
SYDNEY free agent Ollie Florent is in negotiations on a long-term extension at the Swans as the club continues on its quest to re-sign its batch of key players.
The Swans last week locked in Errol Gulden on a four-year deal, having already secured James Rowbottom also to the end of 2028, with rivals expecting Florent to also stay at the club.
The versatile 25-year-old, who has played across half-back as well as being a regular wingman for the Swans across his career, is in talks on a deal, likely to be four or five years.
As an unrestricted free agent, rivals could tempt the Victorian with the opportunity to walk to another club without the Swans being able to match the deal, however that is not considered likely with discussions underway on an extension.
Florent is due to play his 150th game for the Swans in round eight having been a first-round pick to the club in 2016. His draft partner from that year, Will Hayward, is a restricted free agent and expected to wait until later in the season before making a contract decision amid a rush of rival interest in South Australia and Victoria. – Callum Twomey
LIONS MAKE BERRY MOVE
BRISBANE has tabled a contract offer to keep free agent Jarrod Berry as the experienced midfielder weighs his decision.
The Lions are understood to have put forward a multi-year deal to Berry, who is one of only nine restricted free agents remaining in the competition for this season.
The 26-year-old is firmly entrenched in Queensland, where his younger brother Thomas is playing at Gold Coast, with contract talks expected to pick up in coming weeks.
Other clubs have been monitoring Berry, who has spent time on the wing with other centre square midfielders preferred at the Lions through this season, and he has played every game so far this season.
Brisbane has two restricted free agents – Berry and star midfielder Hugh McCluggage – it is aiming to re-sign, with McCluggage not rushing into a decision as rivals come with mega offers for him. – Callum Twomey
YOUNG TIGER EYES TRIGGER
RICHMOND rookie Seth Campbell will trigger a contract extension after the Tigers’ early-season bye.
The 19-year-old was limited to just five VFL games in his first season at Punt Road due to injury and only secured an extension in September.
But after a strong pre-season, new Richmond coach Adem Yze rewarded him with a debut and has played the Tasmanian across the first six games of the 2024 season.
Campbell kicked two games against Gold Coast in Opening Round and has shown he can handle the intensity at AFL level since then, rewarding the club’s faith in him last year.
Richmond is expected to rework an extension in the coming weeks for Campbell and reward the small forward with a two-year deal.
Tigers GMs Blair Hartley and Tim Livingstone have a number of list management decisions to make this year on a wide range of premiership players.
Dustin Martin, Dion Prestia, Dylan Grimes, Toby Nankervis, Kamdyn McIntosh and Jack Graham are all out of contract.
Unlike the names above, Liam Baker is not a free agent but is out of contract and is weighing up his future.
While those decisions will take time, Campbell’s early-season rise has taken care of one piece of list management for Richmond. – Josh Gabelich
BIDDING CHANGES COULD ARRIVE IN 2024
THE AFL hasn’t ruled out making changes to its Academy and father-son bidding system as early as this year, with the League to review the process at the conclusion of its ongoing competitive balance reviews.
Speaking to AFL.com.au on Wednesday, the AFL’s chief executive Andrew Dillon said the League was in the final stages of its meetings with clubs and was considering alterations to the bidding process as early as 2024.
“It will depend on the timing of when the review is finished. I wouldn’t rule it out, coming in during 2024. But I’m not saying it will either,” Dillon said.
As revealed on AFL.com.au last October, the League has already written to clubs saying it will review the bidding system, Next Generation Academy incentive and the Draft Value Index to ensure teams with Academy players are paying a fairer price to match bids at the draft.
It comes after Gold Coast matched bids on four Academy players inside the first round of the draft last season (Jed Walter, Ethan Read, Jake Rogers and Will Graham), with Sydney (Caiden Cleary) also matching a first-round bid on its own Academy talent later in the night.
“We are looking at all of our competitive balance mechanisms at the moment with the review going on. The Academies will stay, but we will certainly be looking at the bidding system, the points system, and all of those things,” Dillon said.
“It’s to make sure that the draft, because there are compromises to it, but we want to make sure that if you are getting elite talent on your list, that you’re paying the appropriate price for that.”
The AFL is also expecting to inform clubs on whether payouts made to players forced to prematurely retire due to concussion are included inside or outside of the salary cap in the coming weeks.
It comes after Melbourne’s Angus Brayshaw and Collingwood’s Nathan Murphy were both forced into retirement earlier this year, having fronted an independent concussion panel following a series of head knocks.
“The salary cap, or Total Player Payments, are an important part of our competitive balance mechanisms,” Dillon said.
“What we are working through with the clubs, first of all internally, is whether there is a mechanism whereby potentially a proportion of the payments made to a player who is forced to a retire as a result of going before the AFL panel … does it make sense for a proportion of that to be outside the cap?
“There’s a couple of players at the moment. We’ll work through with those clubs on that. What we’re hoping to do, and what we will do, is set aside a policy where it’s known to all clubs what the provisions are. We’re talking weeks, at the most.” – Riley Beveridge
CONTRACT QUIRK FOR TOP DRAFTEES
THE new Collective Bargaining Agreement has limited the potential earnings of top draftees in their third season but a quirk within the rules will allow the best performers, such as West Coast gun Harley Reid, to earn more.
Under the League’s new rules, top-20 picks from the previous draft cannot re-sign with their clubs beyond their now standard three-year deals until after round six has passed.
With that coming this weekend, it is seen as unlikely there will be a rush on deals for the best talents from last year’s draft to extend beyond 2026 as yet.
There has been angst among agents about the capping of the third-year contracts given the explosion of young talents such as Nick Daicos, Jason Horne-Francis and Errol Gulden making them high value by the time they hit their third seasons. Under the new rules, those players would have had their earnings capped in their third AFL seasons.
A provision within the new CBA will allow for starring youngsters to be paid extra money, however, should a first-year player or second-year player achieve one of the performance incentives within their first two years seeing the player and club able to negotiate an Additional Services Agreement for their third year of their standard playing contract.
The player will need to either finish top 10 in the Brownlow Medal, top five in a club best and fairest, top five in the AFL Rising Star or be in the All-Australian squad to then be able to add an ASA to their contract.
Or, for players picked in the top five of their draft, they can also reach the mark by receiving a Rising Star nomination and by playing 20 or more matches across their first two seasons.
It means from last year’s draft Reid, Gold Coast’s Jed Walter, North pair Colby McKercher and Zane Duursma and Hawk Nick Watson could all be eligible for the ASA by being nominated for the Rising Star and playing 20 or more games across the 2024-25 seasons.
The ASA is essentially a pool of money kept by the club separate to the salary cap whereby the players are paid for their marketing responsibilities by their club.
Generally, the ASA can add between $50,000-$100,000 to a player’s contract but the amounts can be larger as well depending on their marketability, which could give clubs flexibility to reward the best talents who may have already outperformed their standardised deals. – Callum Twomey
YOUNG GUNS NAMED
PROSPECTS pushing for chances at the mid-season rookie draft will get an opportunity to impress across the next two weekends in the Young Guns series.
On Saturday at Avalon Airport Oval, the Young Guns will play against a Vic Metro under-18 squad before facing the Vic Country squad at Windy Hill on Sunday, April 28.
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The Young Guns squad includes players who were eligible for last year’s draft but did not get selected, with prospects nominated to take part in the pair of games and push their case ahead of the May 29 mid-season rookie intake.
Geelong pair Will McLachlan and Liam Kershaw, ruckman Joe Pike, Gippsland forward Tom Hannily, Tasmanian Geordie Payne, midfielder Kade De La Rue, wingman Tarkyn O’Leary and exciting midfielder/forward Dayten Uerata have all been named in the Young Guns squad after catching the eye as potential mid-season candidates.
Tall pair Remy Maclean and Illiro Smit have also both been included, as has medium option Ben Hopkins.
Some players in the squad did not nominate for the national draft last year so are not automatically eligible to be in the mid-season draft this year, however there is still time to reach the necessary three games at state league level for them to qualify.
Hawks father-son prospect Ned Maginness – the son of former Hawk Scott and current player Finn – has also been selected in the Young Guns squad. However, after not nominating for the draft last year he isn’t eligible for the mid-season draft as not nominating would mean he retained his father-son status in 2025. – Callum Twomey
SAINTS ADD SON OF FORMER TIGER, LION
ST KILDA has completed its list management team for 2024, promoting Michael Jordan and adding a familiar name as a pro scout.
Veteran recruiter Simon Dalrymple moved to the Saints from Sydney at the end of last year, joining list manager Stephen Silvagni and head of talent and acquisition Graeme Allan at RSEA Park.
But with Chris Toce and Jarryd Roughead departing Moorabbin, the Saints have opted to make Jordan full-time after he reunited with Silvagni at St Kilda following a stint as Carlton’s recruiting coordinator.
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Billy Lambert, the son of former Richmond and Brisbane midfielder Craig, is now working in pro scouting for St Kilda.
St Kilda has completely overhauled its list management team across the past 18 months with former list boss James Gallagher and national recruiting manager Chris Liberatore departing at the end of 2022.
Roughead returned to Hawthorn as player acquisition manager early this year, while Toce landed a role at Punt Road as Richmond’s new national recruiting boss. – Josh Gabelich
