While he was lying on the couch watching Netflix or cleaning out his sock drawer, or indeed doing anything at all rather than going to his club’s best and fairest night, Rowan Marshall quietly finished 10th at the St Kilda awards function he was not at.
Marshall avoided needing to pose for red carpet pics or speak disingenuously of his love and affection for a club he has felt neither from in the past year. (We’re not talking about his teammates, players always love their teammates.)
Marshall didn’t want to be at Moorabbin this year after the club brought Tom De Koning in over the top of him last October. We were told Marshall was fully on board with having a new stable partner. We now know he wasn’t.
But then, as now, Marshall had a contract so he sucked it up and played the season. Played it well, too, to come tenth in the B&F. Interestingly, TDK was not in the top 10. This trade period Marshall is less inclined to suck it up. Monday night was a first statement.
Twelve months ago, St Kilda rejected Geelong’s overtures for Marshall and never stated what would persuade them to change their minds. This year they have at least put a price on a trade. They want Geelong’s first round pick and “a player”. Say what? OK, it’s an opening gambit, but sheesh, a first rounder and a player? It would be remarkable were that to be the eventual trade price.
There is a logic to the ambit bid though, and it’s a logic that that ripples through deals involving Geelong, Carlton, Brisbane and GWS.
St Kilda needs to lose a Marshall to gain a Marshall. Rowan needs to leave so Sam can come in.
The Saints want midfielder Sam Marshall, the Brisbane academy product who was taken at pick 25 in the 2024 draft. The Lions want a similar pick for him now and unfortunately the Saints don’t have one: their first pick is at eight (too much even for a club that gave up pick seven for Sam Flanders 12 months ago) and their next is 49.
Lions list boss Dom Ambrogio said on Monday: “[St Kilda] have got an awareness of what we are looking for, albeit it’s not in their hands at the moment in that they don’t hold the pick in the range we think is appropriate.”
Whether “what we are looking for” and “what is appropriate” are the same thing in any trade is doubtful and normally depends on what colours you wear. In this case, what the Lions are looking for and thus what they hope is appropriate for Marshall is a pick in the 20s.
So the Saints are trying to find a pick in that range. Losing one Marshall might buy them the draft capital to pass on for the other Marshall.
The Cats are reluctant to part with their first pick (14) for a 30-year-old ruck, albeit a contracted one. Their next pick, the one they have offered for Rowan Marshall, is currently 34.
The problem is that the Cats’ pick 34 won’t satisfy Brisbane for Sam Marshall. Why not? It’s not far off the pick they want. Thirty-four seems fairly close for a player who played one game this year, is out of contract and has Essendon also keen on him – and thus able to take him for nothing in the pre-season if it came to it. But Brisbane want a pick in the 20s because they have a good academy player available (yes, another one. One out, one in). They need a pick to cover that bid.
Academy player Caylen Murray is likely to be bid on somewhere in the mid-to-late-first round. Under new rules the two grand finalists have a 20 per cent loading on the points required to match a bid that comes in the first 18 in the draft for an academy player. And you can only use two picks to match any bid.
So the Lions really need another pick in the 20s to be able to cover a bid on Murray. Pick 34 won’t cut it. So unless St Kilda can find another way of bringing in a pick in the 20s – another player going out? – the Saints will need more from Geelong for Rowan Marshall, to be able to pass it on to Brisbane.
But Geelong don’t have one. Or do they?
Gryan Miers did a medical at West Coast on Friday before he flew overseas. It was a precaution in case the trade world moved while he was away. Given he partially tore his ACL this year and has not had surgery to repair it, the normal buyer beware caveat carries more heft. He’d rather stay at Geelong but is clearly open enough to West Coast’s interest to be doing a medical there.
If the medical is clear enough and the Eagles want him, and Geelong is prepared to trade him (and that’s lot of ifs) what is Miers worth? A pick in the sweet spot with West Coast’s second round pick at 21? Bear in mind that when bids come for Dougie Cochrane and Cody Walker early in the draft, West Coast as one of the bottom five clubs will be compensated with an extra pick at the end of the first round. So they will have picks at what is now 21 and 24. Miers, anyone?
Carlton are in a similar pickle trying to satisfy GWS for Lachie Whitfield. The Blues have picks at 23 and 24 and have offered one for Whitfield, which seems about bang on market price for a 32-year-old being swept up in the Giants’ list renewal.
But the Giants want more; they want a first round draft pick. They were also filthy not to get a first round or end-of-first-round pick as compensation for losing Toby Greene. They got pick 26 instead and really, that’s decent for a 33-year-old, albeit one on about $1 million a year. Unhelpfully for the Giants, pick 26 only further framed the idea that Carlton’s pick 23 is market rate for Whitfield.
But GWS, like Brisbane, have an academy player who will be bid on in the first round of the draft, in their case probably quite early in the first round. They are hoping the bid comes after their first pick (seven) so they can take a good player and still get academy kid Ethan Matthews. One way to ensure they can do that is to bundle some first round picks together in a trade, and shift their first pick even earlier. Hence, the interest in a first rounder for Whitfield. In the other scenario, the bid for Matthews comes after pick seven, but they still need enough points to cover it.
And so, “what we are looking for” and “what we think is appropriate” once more collide. Meanwhile, Rowan Marshall reaches for the TV remote.
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Michael Gleeson is an award-winning senior sports writer specialising in AFL and athletics.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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