If history is a guide, the Lachie Neale, Jesse Hogan and Rory Lobb trades will all get done.

Neale has left Fremantle emotionally and players don’t come back from that.

The Hogan deal was resurrected at the weekend and has become a genuine possibility again. Greater Western Sydney probably need the Lobb move to the Dockers to get done to ease a bulging salary cap.

But let’s play devil’s advocate: What if Fremantle do the Neale trade and only take one of Hogan or Lobb (it would be Hogan for mine because he transforms a forward line)?

Or what if they trade Neale out and then don’t take either of the tall forwards? The 2018 draft represents unique opportunity that is at least worth considering.

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The South Australian clubs are trying to scramble up the draft order to get access to the talent from their sensational under 18s carnival team.

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Fremantle have already capitalised to some degree on that opportunity by flipping pick six with Port Adelaide to get selections 11, 23, 30 and 49.

Adelaide would love the pick five the Neale trade will net and they have selections eight, 13 and 16. If they didn’t trade for Hogan or Lobb, the Dockers would have picks five, 11, 23, 30 and 49 in what is considered to be a very strong draft.

If they flipped selection five with Adelaide for picks eight and 16 they would have eight, 11, 16, 23, 30 and 49. That is three first-rounders, two second-rounders and a third-rounder.

Fremantle have talked the talk on their rebuild, but they have never quite walked the walk and you have to blame the whole club, not just Ross Lyon for that.

They have tried to “shoehorn” talent in with Harley Bennell and Cam McCarthy. They have wanted to bolster the “middle age” on their list with the likes of Joel Hamling, Shane Kersten, Brandon Matera, Bradley Hill and Nathan Wilson.

Hamling, Wilson and Hill have been more than useful. Bennell has barely played. Neither of Kersten or McCarthy would be a definite for spots in the best 22 in round one of 2019 whether Hogan and Lobb arrive or not.

Camera Icon The Dockers’ team leading the trade week charge. Credit: AFL Media

When the Hogan deal teetered on the verge of collapse last Friday and the Melbourne media descended on the Dockers, one scribe reminded them of how many “big fish forwards” had slipped through their fingers.

Mitch Clark, Travis Cloke and Jarrad Waite were names mentioned.

Clark played 24 games in five years for two clubs after he left Brisbane. Waite played more than 14 matches in a season in just one of four years at North Melbourne.

Cloke did not manage 40 goals in a season after 2013 and did not command a regular senior berth at either Collingwood in 2016 or the Western Bulldogs in 2017.

Sometimes the best trade decisions you make are the trades you decide not to make. I don’t see anyone offering standing ovations for the trades that brought Bennell and McCarthy to the Dockers.

Fremantle last committed to a rebuild between the end of the 2008 season and the start of 2010.

In that period, Stephen Hill, Hayden Ballantyne, Nick Suban, Zac Clarke, Michael Walters, Nat Fyfe, Matt de Boer and Michael Barlow arrived: Eight of the 22 from the 2013 grand final team.

So did Anthony Morabito, who, but for his knee woes, may have altered the outcome of that match.

Fremantle have talked the talk on their rebuild, but they have never quite walked the walk and you have to blame the whole club, not just Ross Lyon for that.

Alex Silvagni, Greg Broughton, Dylan Roberton and Clancee Pearce, all who played in finals, also came in this period.

When you added the experience of Aaron Sandilands, Matthew Pavlich, Luke McPharlin, Michael Johnson, David Mundy, Ryan Crowley, Garrick Ibbotson and Paul Duffield to this group, it produced the best period in the club’s history.

The Dockers have a specific need to address — the lack of a tall target. But they also have to build a critical mass of talent.

Will there ever be a better opportunity than this year to do that?

And when building that critical mass, the draft is always the best way.