HIGHLY rated Greater Western Sydney midfielder Will Setterfield has met with Victorian clubs with the Giants' permission.

AFL.com.au understands Setterfield met with Essendon and Carlton last week, and reported their interest in August.



GWS list manager Jason McCartney compared Setterfield's situation to Dylan Shiel and Rory Lobb when speaking to NAB AFL Trade Radio on Tuesday.

That pair is contracted until the end of 2019 but they have been talking to teams in their home states – Victoria and Western Australia, respectively.

"He's not too dissimilar to Dylan and Rory. With our permission, he's been out there with his manager," McCartney said.

"He's just catching up with a couple of clubs.

"He's obviously got two years to run as well (on his contract) and he's a highly touted junior.

"Unfortunately he's just had a bit of a bad run, especially this year with an ACL injury. We'll just work through that over the next week or two."

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Setterfield, 20, has played two games since he was drafted at No.5 in 2016.

A left knee reconstruction in February forced him to miss all of 2018.

The Bombers considered using their No.1 selection in 2016 on Setterfield, but ended up selecting Andrew McGrath.

GWS are resigned to eventually losing Shiel and Lobb.

"We've had a number of conversations with players and managers, this year, really mature combinations about what 2019 and beyond looks like," McCartney said.

"Our understanding with the players [is] it's probably more likely than unlikely beyond 2019 they'd look to explore to get back to their home states."

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