Fans of the Quentin Tarantino classic Pulp Fiction take note.

The spectacular mega-trade triggered by Lachie Neale’s departure for Brisbane from Fremantle which led to the Dockers getting Jesse Hogan and Rory Lobb while miraculously gaining draft picks had a Winston Wolfe moment.

And “The Wolf” in this case was TLA player management group supremo Tom Petroro.

The Dockers didn’t have a corpse minus a head in a blood-splattered car that needed to be disposed of.

They had a complex deal, which involved at least three players at their end and was likely to involve several more players and clubs at other ends, all of whom had their own goals and agendas.

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The Dockers trade team: CEO Steve Rosich, new football manager Peter Bell, senior coach Ross Lyon, head of recruiting David Walls and respected recruiter Neil Ross, recognised that achieving their goals of getting Hogan and Lobb to the club while somehow having a presence in each round of the AFL draft, was going to be difficult, bordering on impossible.

This deal had more legs than an octopus.

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They had one card in their favour and they played it: They effectively out-sourced the deal to Petroro, who oversees the player managers who manage the key players in the deal.

Like Pulp Fiction, this rescue mission also had a coffee moment and, like the movie, it involved some “serious gourmet” caffeine after Fremantle’s long-held ambition of luring Hogan back home from Melbourne had seemingly hit the rocks on Friday last week.

The Dockers had publicly “withdrawn” from trade negotiations with Hogan’s club Melbourne in a move that stunned observers and frustrated Hogan’s connections.

Fremantle, in search of a power forward to replace Matthew Pavlich, had been a long-time Hogan suitor.

Lyon, Rosich, president Dale Alcock and former football manager Chris Bond had met him before the 2017 trade period at Alcock’s house.

Suddenly, with the 23-year-old rising star almost in their grasp, they were walking away?

The Dockers were trying to reset the trade negotiations with Melbourne.

They had also traded the one draft pick that might have got the Hogan deal done. Fremantle had entered the trade period with just pick six and pick 81.

They flipped six with Port Adelaide to get picks 11, 23, 30 and 49. This gave them a hand in the draft and made their eventual trade outcome possible.

But, temporarily, the Demons were asking for what the Dockers no longer had.

The serious gourmet coffee moment came the next day, when Rosich met Hogan’s Melbourne and Perth managers Matt Bain and Jason Dover in a quiet back corner at trendy Cimbalino in Napoleon Street, Cottesloe.

It was a peace summit of sorts, and a bid to see if the deal was retrievable and achievable and what sort of contract Hogan would need to come.

After a “positive” chat, it was agreed that more serious talks would take place the next day, with Hogan, the managers, Lyon, Rosich and Bell at Bell’s house. After two hours, the Dockers still wanted Hogan and Hogan still wanted to come if the deal could be done.

The next day, Monday, the trade team sat down to discuss what getting Hogan meant in terms of Fremantle’s overall trade and draft goals.

It became clear how complex the required deals would be.

It was time to call in Petroro, “The Wolf”.

“We had to negotiate with a number of clubs on what would be multi-party transactions,” Rosich said.

“It included Brisbane who in turn would have been potentially negotiating with Collingwood and the Gold Coast and or Port Adelaide, with Melbourne who in turn would have been negotiating with the Gold Coast, and it included GWS.

“We felt the best way to achieve our outcome was to not directly do that ourselves so I picked up the phone and called Tom. His staff, Matt Bain and Jason Dover (Hogan), Nick Gieschen (Lobb) and Tim Lawrence (Neale), were responsible for the players from our end in this trade.

“Tom understood what our desired outcome was and then he got to work with his managers and the other clubs and over the next 48 hours they were able to bring that to life.

“Without Tom I am not sure we would have been able to achieve the outcome that we did.

“Tom was able to flesh it out in a manner that we probably wouldn’t have been able to do if we were directly involved with a club in a multi-party transaction.”

To do the deal, Fremantle had to trade Neale, their recently crowned Doig medallist.

They wanted Brisbane’s pick five in the draft and another pick inside the top 20.

Melbourne were only likely to trade Hogan for Brisbane’s first pick and something else.

And they were only likely to do it at all if they thought the trade proceeds would get them Gold Coast defender Steven May.

Then, the Dockers had to have enough left over for the Lobb trade, then the draft.

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The managers were able to work as a team and, work with the other teams involved without the one-upmanship and politicking that often comes when clubs deal with clubs.

“It could have fallen over at any stage but I think all the clubs were motivated and very reasonable and everyone has walked away with something that they can be very happy with,” Rosich said.

Remarkably, the managers all but had the deal in place by Tuesday night, on the eve of the trade deadline.

The only doubt was whether Brisbane could produce the second pick, inside 20, that would get the Neale trade done and trigger the whole process.

By Wednesday morning, a pick swap with Gold Coast had given Brisbane pick 19 and the dominoes fell like clockwork.

The managers even did most of the paperwork as a courtesy for the clubs.

Hilariously, pick six found its way back into Fremantle’s hands briefly after Brisbane swapped five and six with Port Adelaide.

It then went to Melbourne for Hogan, a deal completed by the pick 23 the Dockers had received early in the trade period from Port as part of the swap involving the very same pick six.

The travelling pick then went to Gold Coast for May.

Pick 19 became critical in the Lobb deal, allowing the Dockers to retrieve pick 14 after giving up pick 11. After picks flew back and forth like confetti at a wedding the Dockers completed their aim of getting Hogan and Lobb and still having picks in the first four rounds of the draft.

Essendon’s Travis Colyer came late, after Essendon released him when they sealed the trade deal for Dylan Shiel.

Rosich said the feeling at the end of it all was relief and the club was also sobered by the reminder that it had a significant loss as well as significant gains.

“We have to remember that we have traded Lachie Neale to Brisbane — a great young man who has been a great player for us,” he said.

“He texted me last night and the thing he is most worried about is whether Ross will tag him in the first game against Brisbane.

“But we did receive two players we had targeted and we were also able to maintain a strong hand at the draft.

“The crazy thing for us is that we have ended up with picks in the first four rounds of the draft — but they all come from other clubs, pick 14 from GWS, pick 31 from North Melbourne, 43 from GWS and 65 from Melbourne.

“What we set out to achieve was able to be achieved by taking a different approach.”

Rosich was not buying into changing expectations that come with the trade bonanza.

“It is the ongoing execution of the plan that we put in place at the end of 2016. It had a draft focus across 2016-17-18 and we will take those four picks again this year,” he said.

“But we also try and complement it with some seasoned AFL talent. It is about getting back to playing consistent finals football. We are hoping this plays its part in that because that is what our members and supporters are looking forward to.”