Yeah yeah yeah, it’s June and all that.

But for eight teams the season is over, so before the chaos of July and August takes hold let’s spend some time looking ahead to the AFL’s unofficial season within a season.

I’ve been running with this “ten teams are still in it” for a couple of weeks now, but it has been further confirmed with the latest run of simulations by the blog boys of the AFL. The currently-in-11th Adelaide Crows will get a bit of star power back this weekend but have less than a one-in-ten chance of making it into September from here.

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That’s only partly a product of their season: the real challenge will be overcoming both North Melbourne and Hawthorn on the ladder given each has a significantly kinder fixture to come.

Greater Western Sydney are hanging on to the tail end of that group, and their grip will loosen as a result of Jeremy Cameron’s lengthy suspension. We may be down to nine teams within a fortnight.

For everyone below them, the vaudeville hook is about to, or has already, gone to work. The best laid plans have failed, and it is time to look ahead to next year. The season of the offseason, the player exchange period, looms large.

And this year, free agency looms larger than ever. Now in its seventh year, free agency is close to reaching its maturity as a mechanism for player movement.

In the 2019 offseason, every player drafted into the league will have – through good fortune or careful planning, and high-quality play – had the opportunity to gear their own contract situation around eligibility for free agency after eight years in the league.

Players with smart management will ensure they come out of contract at the eight-year mark of their career, so they can take the most advantage of free agency rules as they exist. This will prove doubly important once the AFL decides to codify lifetime free agency, as a player who has passed restricted free agency earns the right to move wherever he wants at the end of subsequent contracts.



Unrestricted free agency becomes a permanent tag, allowing players to control their own destinies once they’ve been in the league for close to a decade.

Think free agency is a big, hairy, ugly, evil development? It’s going to get bigger every year. However, for now, the class of 2018 looms as the most influential and league-shaping free agency class the AFL has had available yet.

Timing is everything

When the AFL released its official free agency list on the eve of the season, one’s mind couldn’t help but fast forward a little to the eve of the free agency window’s opening in early October.

Rory Sloane. Tom Lynch. Andrew Gaff. Jeremy McGovern. Cam Guthrie. Mitch Wallis. Tom McDonald. The list of restricted free agents resembled a cavalcade of top-flight talent, and in a volume great enough to whet the appetite of list managers across the league.

The list of unrestricted free agents isn’t too far behind. And unlike prior years, it isn’t stacked full of one club generational players who happen to be out of contract.

No, Kade Simpson isn’t going to move clubs, nor is Aaron Sandilands. But Eric Mackenzie? Luke Dahlhaus? Taylor Durea? Alex Fasolo? These are all players with many years of football ahead of them, available for nothing but otherwise latent cap space and a spare list spot.

We sit here today, 90-odd days from free agency, with so many of these quality names still on the board. In the restricted free agent pool just two have re-signed with their existing club to date: Cam Guthrie and Tom McDonald. Even fewer unrestricted free agents have signalled their intentions.



Now, it is early in the year, so it is more likely than not that the pool shrinks by October. But it will not diminish to nothing. It looks certain that we’ll enter the exchange with as many players available as we have to date. That creates liquidity, which is a recipe for more deals across the board.

Meanwhile, a number of teams around the mid-table and top of the ladder have the means, motive and opportunity to add talent via free agency. Even if only half of the names currently on the board make it through to the exchange period – and it will be more than that – then we have the potential for some league-shaping moves to go down.

With that in mind, here are four big considerations related to this year’s free agency pool.

Is Tom Lynch a team-altering centrepiece in the modern AFL?

The short answer, based on potential, has to be yes. The long answer is a little more complicated. AFL level football has changed a lot in the past four to five years.

At face value, Gold Coast’s Tom Lynch looks like the archetypal small ball key forward: the near-two metre tall contested marking and pack-splitting machine that doesn’t need a lot of big man support inside the stripe. He regularly plays 95 per cent or more of available game time and played eight full games without a break on the bench in 2017.

This year, Lynch has been hit by a knee injury which saw him miss three games through May (which included Gold Coast’s bye).

History suggests he’s good for around 20 games a season, with a number of niggling injuries hitting his availability over his eight-year career with the Suns to date. And he’s only 25 and will be entering his 26-year-old season in 2019, making Lynch one of the youngest free agents the AFL has seen to date.

He’s been held goalless three times, although one of those was the northern Queensland slop fest in Round 1. It’s also hard to argue against the proposition that 2018 has been Lynch’s weakest season – both statistically and by the eye test – since he was still finding his feet in the first few years of his career.



Those who covet him will have to look past his 2018 form and come to the conclusion that Lynch can be what he showed us in 2016: the All Australian full forward who kicked 66 goals 34 behinds, averaged 2.8 contested marks among 8.1 contested possessions, on a 6-16 team with a limited supporting cast (a first-year Peter Wright and Sam Day, who was swinging between forward and back lines).

That Lynch is a slam dunk fit for Collingwood’s most pressing need. Imagine the Pies running their flexible, midsized forward line with Lynch standing 25 metres out from goal instead of Mason Cox.

He would receive the best midfield service of his career from Collingwood’s on-ball core and would have a forward unit that could apply forward pressure in a way that allows him to focus on what he does best. The Pies have the means to create a bunch of salary cap space too given their free agency pool and list of out of contract players.

Everything lines up.

Lynch also suits Hawthorn’s most immediate top end talent need and sits beautifully inside the club’s newfound demographic window. A cashed up North Melbourne don’t necessarily need to add another big-bodied key forward given Ben Brown’s rise to the upper echelons of the league; most other clubs across the league are all set as far as tall forwards go, and adding Lynch might cause complications from a broader list management.

Gold Coast, and the potential of its future, will be front of mind for Lynch has he makes his free agency decision. The Suns will have been planning for Lynch’s free agency for a number of years, and if they are smart will have the financial means to offer him the most money of any club in the competition. Lynch will be in his 26-year-old season next year, and if he is able to deliver on his potential is probably only half way through his career. Whether that is enough time for the Suns to return to something resembling a competitive team is a significant question.

Clubs will be salivating over the forward line power and structural integrity Lynch could bring to their team. They will be wary that he hasn’t recaptured his 2016 form in what is now a decent sample of games, but that doubt will surely be overwhelmed by a well-cut highlight tape.



Rory Sloane should run it back

Adelaide’s Rory Sloane has faced a frustrating year, a plantar fascia injury limiting him to four games as his club struggles both on and off the field relative to preseason expectations. It is hardly ideal for a player entering free agency to be spending so much time on the sidelines; it is even less ideal for the Crows who (rightly) had high ambitions for 2018.

There has been limited real news emerge about Sloane’s impending decision. At one point it looked as though the AFL’s impending free agency change may have resulted in Sloane becoming an unrestricted free agent – a disaster for Adelaide if it had come to pass. But as it is, the Crows have the right to match any offer that comes Sloane’s way.

Like Lynch, Sloane’s 2018 has been somewhat limited compared to the peak of his form. He averaged a hair under 20 disposals in his four injury-limited games, and is down across the board on the clearance, inside 50 and tackle front.

That is almost certainly to do with his foot injury; Sloane has been one of the most consistent contributors in the league over the past five years.

Sloane’s scorching hot start to 2017 saw teams begin to put a lot of time into scrapping with him in the clinches. He changed his game, relishing the tag and helping create more opportunities for the rest of his midfield.

It’s a shame we haven’t seen him go to work with Bryce Gibbs and Matt Crouch – the trio has the talent and fit together so beautifully that I thought they could be the best starting midfield group in the competition (yes, better than Geelong).

Adelaide’s season is finished. Even if it manages to get to 13 (requiring 7-2) or 14 wins (8-1) from here, that’ll get it to an away elimination final against a team who would surely squash them. As we discussed last week, Adelaide will be in a position to run it back and contend for another year or two yet – talk of a rebuild is silly, and has been made even more silly by Tom Lynch’s re-signing late last week.

Rory Sloane should re-join the Crows and have another dip at winning a premiership with the team he has been with through both highs and lows.



This was, of course, my ill-fated position on Patrick Dangerfield’s free agency. This time it’s a little different, although the pull for home is reportedly quite strong.

However, unlike Dangerfield, Sloane has been to the summit with his team only to be knocked back down again.

And unlike Dangerfield, there are far fewer obvious fits for Sloane given his (relative) age and play style.

Contending Victorian teams like Richmond, Collingwood, Melbourne don’t really need another inside dominant midfielder – even one of Sloane’s stature. The Western Bulldogs, St Kilda and Carlton are a couple of years away from being able to offer Sloane the same football situation that he’s potentially leaving. Geelong surely couldn’t make room for his cap hit.

It leaves North Melbourne and Essendon. North has enough inside midfielders to fill a second team, but could consider Sloane as their third man flex-type midfielder – a Bryce Gibbs type as it were. However, according to reports in The Age, the ‘Roos have tabled a million dollar per annum offer for Jordan De Goey, hinting Sloane isn’t on their radar (or the ‘Roos aren’t on his).

The Dons are a far more intriguing fit, if not a slam dunk from a demographic perspective. They are in desperate need of inside midfielders, as suggested by their pursuit of an off-the-market Ollie Wines. Sloane could be that guy for them, even if he’d join as one of the team’s five or so oldest players.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Sloane remained unsigned right up to free agency but ultimately sticks with Adelaide for another one or two seasons to take him to unrestricted free agent status. Coming into the year I thought he was sure to leave.

The series of unfortunate events we know as the Adelaide Crows’ 2018 season surely leaves some sense of unfinished business; the Crows can offer Sloane a shot at the ultimate success without the risks inherent in jumping to another club.



West Coast’s six million dollar question

The West Coast Eagles have a $6.6 million dollar problem: Jeremy McGovern’s reported asking price – if correct – will leave the club in an extraordinary bind come free agency.

According to a report on News Limited’s digital pages, McGovern’s management has indicated its initial asking price for McGovern to remain an Eagle is $1.1 million per annum for six years. West Coast had offered $800,000 per annum for four years. The difference in money is staggering: $6.6 million locked in versus $3.2 million locked in.

McGovern’s management has suggested their client is mostly interested in the security of a long-term contract; their asking price would afford McGovern the most guaranteed money of any player in the competition going forward.

McGovern’s management requesting the Eagles lock up around nine per cent of its salary cap each year through to the end of the 2024 season would hamper its medium-term list management flexibility, and surely make it almost impossible to retain its other free agents in Andrew Gaff, Scott Lycett and Eric Mackenzie.

It would force the club to choose.

West Coast might struggle to hang on to Gaff and Lycett as it is anyway. The former is sure to follow up on his 2015 All Australian selection with another jumper this season, becoming more of a rounded midfielder capable of being the number one or two option for a team.

The latter is ninth in the league for hit out win percentage, and 17th for hit out to advantage percentage, albeit on a structure-induced 42 ruck contests per game. He could be a number one ruckman but never will be while he’s at West Coast and Nic Naitanui is still in the league.



It is a delicate situation, that relatively green list manager Brady Rawlings (fresh off a retrospectively stellar trade and draft period in 2017) and his team will be losing sleep over.

Is McGovern worth money that, on 2017 salary cap figures produced by the AFL, would put him inside the top six paid players in the league? He might be one of the best handful of defenders in the competition, but in the top handful of players full stop? Absolutely not.

The reality is the ambit claim is as much about setting an anchor in negotiations – West Coast go low, McGovern goes high, and we end up somewhere in the middle. Still, it is a complication the Eagles could have done without.

Value add opportunities

Those are the big issues to confront. But there are plenty more, both in terms of issues for some clubs to navigate and for others to capitalise on.

Take the Western Bulldogs. Three of the older players in its relatively young brigade are free agents: Mitch Wallis (restricted), Tom Liberatore (unrestricted) and Luke Dahlhaus (unrestricted).

Retention of all three would almost certainly help the Dogs rise back up the ladder quicker, because none are likely to attract offers that net the club high band compensation picks.

Layer in the looming Marcus Bontempelli contract negotiations – he’s out of contract next year, his sixth in the league so is not a free agent – and the Dogs have an opportunity to lock in much of their midfield core for the next five to ten years. The stakes are high.



St Kilda is a club that needs some extra help from the outside. The added liquidity of this year’s free agent pool is their friend, so long as they are willing to deal. That has not been the club’s strong suit in recent years, as Maddy detailed for us yesterday.

Clubs with challenging salary cap positions – I’m thinking here of Greater Western Sydney and Geelong primarily – can scoop some extra help from the pool of unrestricted and future delisted free agents. That could help prolong their respective premiership windows, which grow shorter by the week (noting GWS has a number of years of both contention and challenging list management practice).

It surely looms as the most important, impactful and enticing free agency period we’ve seen in the mechanism’s short history. Now, with that off my chest, we’re ready to cover what will be an even more enthralling run home on the field.