Adelaide’s List Manager:
“We heard around the traps that Harrison Petty was being badly treated by his teammates on account of his meagre wage. They started calling him “Petty Change”, which hurt his feelings, so we decided to step in and offer him crazy money. Unfortunately, we couldn’t secure him, or any other player for that matter. But it didn’t stop us for being relentless in our quest for improvement. I can now disclose that we approached Sydney for a trade that would have seen them get one of our fringe players in exchange for their goal umpire.”
Brisbane’s List Manager:
“This trade period was more about maximising points rather than trading players. We tried to arrange a deal with the Pies that would have garnered us 5 extra points, but the Pies weren’t prepared to relinquish the flag. Gunston never quite settled in and knew he was on the outer when we told him his choice of post goal music was rubbish. Melbourne called about Fullerton which surprised us as nobody has called about him since he turned up at our club, not even his mother.”
Carlton’s List Manager:
“We are delighted to get Elijah Hollands who we convinced to join us, after a group of our leadership presented to him at a nude skinny-dipping event as Ed Curnow’s house.”
Collingwood’s List Manager:
“We feel, just like in the season proper, we won the trade period. The Shultz deal was a major win for us. In fact, as far as we’re concerned, we feel we did to Fremantle what Dan McStay did to his girlfriend in the toilet cubicle. We see Shultz as a like for like replacement for Ginnivan, as Ginnivan attended the infamous race meet the night before the Grand Final and Shultz rode the winner in race 8 that same night. A lot was made of our spelling Shultz’s name wrong on our press release. Some claimed it indicated that we didn’t properly value the player. That is ridiculous! In fact, we rate Shultz extremely highly, and we see a big future for him in our forward line amongst the likes of Mihocheck, Eliot and Macreeri.”
Essendon’s List Manager:
“Free agency has served us well, but due to the crazy money we are giving McKay and Gresham in particular, our salary cap has been somewhat depleted, with our much-heralded war chest now looking more like Nik Cox’s chest. We were sick of people joking that our recruits weren’t born the last time we won a final, so we brought in Goldstein who was 32 when we last won a final. Gresham’s offer raised some eyebrows, especially Gresham’s eyebrows, but we think he will gel really well with the other short players who miss targets. There has been a lot made out of the fact that Gresh is paying his own way to Arizona. So he should! Did you see what we’re paying him? The Duursma play was actually initiated by the people down at the Bomber Shop who thought that the custom-made club bow and arrow set would go well with the bestselling Dodoro dart board. We were able to secure a deal for Zerk-Thatcher who won the reverse Coleman but didn’t get a viable suitor for Shiel who won the reverse Crichton. We offloaded Massimo to the Hawks in exchange for a like on Instagram.”
Fremantle’s List Manager:
“I have to admit this wasn’t our best trade period. We were at least able to get a decent deal done with Shultz, with us giving up the player and in return getting their future first and the letter “t” from Shultz’s surname as a sweetener. We are at a loss as to why we keep on losing all our players. Luckily, we have reacted decisively by making a play for Gather Round to ensure that all of them come back to us for at least one week of the season. I can confirm that we are in talks with Ritalin as our new major sponsor in light of our Retention Deficit Disorder.”
Geelong’s List Manager:
“We were pretty disappointed to lose Ratugolea but we thought we got a fair deal for him. We got back 76 and 94 in the deal which represents the age range of our playing list."
Gold Coast’s List Manager:
“We had a very steadfast strategy coming into the trade period. First step was to acquire points for our academy players. Then the job will be to select them, extend their contracts on inflated wages, get into salary cap distress, give up draft picks to teams like Geelong to take the said academy players off our books and then cry poor to the AFL. Our new coach, Damien Hardwick thinks he has 80% of a premiership side, and he would know because he has been 80% faithful to Mrs Hardwick.”
GWS’s List Manager:
“We tried hard to get some takers for Haynes to get his 1.3 million dollars a year off the books, but unfortunately there were no suitors. Wealthy as he is, he now has a decision to make; does he play VFL or buy out the VFL. Our doctors are confident that they can prevent Fantasia from being sidelined with injury by opting not to play him."
Hawthorn’s List Manager:
“Jack Ginnivan is the big “in” for us. Some would be concerned by his behaviour but he has agreed not to cross the line, and we believe him as he is quite partial to lines. We have brought him in with a view to bolstering our forward division and also to prepare our club for the likelihood of an imminent war by teaching our players and staff the duck and cover technique which he has perfected over time. We weren’t worried about him attending the races on Grand Final Eve because most of our list are usually overseas the night before the Grand Final. We are proud to welcome Jack Gunston back to our club after his gap year and Mabior Chol has joined us for up to 4 years, depending on whether or not we replace Sam Mitchell with Damien Hardwick mid contract. Losing Brandon Ryan is tough as it further depletes us in the crucial two first names department. For those who haven’t seen Massimo play, our coach will uploading a clip of his highlights as soon as he’s finished his director’s cut of the clangers Tom Mitchell made while he was playing for the club."
Melbourne’s List Manager:
“Clayton Oliver dominated the trade period and basically, I think it was a bit of a media beat up. There’s no doubt there’s something a bit wrong with him. It was obvious to us that he was not in a good way when we gave him the responsibility of choosing our subs for our finals games. But things were not as bad as was reported. Like, for instance, his recent hospitalisation was not due to drugs as was suspected but was rather due to an innocuous incident involving Dylan Shiel’s daughter. People ridiculed his decision to tattoo himself, but that was not a reckless act at all. I can reveal that his self-tattoo was simply a message to remember to reapply sunscreen. A perfectly reasonable tattoo for a redhead. Some clubs did try to initiate a trade for him but there’s no way we are trading someone with 3 AAs (4 if you count Alcoholics Anonymous). In the end, with Oliver, he belongs at the Dees because he, like most of our fans, enjoy hitting the ice around mid-June. Reports that he has moved in with the Gawn family is not true as we felt that it was too much for Max and his wife to look after both Clayton and Simon Goodwin.”
North Melbourne’s List Manager:
“When Essendon offered that crazy contract for Ben McKay, we had a big decision to make; do we laugh hysterically before or after choosing to take pick 3 and run. Some of our fans are concerned that names like Fisher, Steven, Nguyen and Pink aren’t exciting. Of course they aren’t! If they were, we wouldn’t be able to go to the AFL next year for more handouts!”
Port Adelaide’s List Manager:
“We realised after our finals capitulation that we needed an injection of big names and both Zerk-Thatcher and Ratugolea possess very big names. Duursma was a bit of a loss, but he was quite unhappy in his role, which was basically to avoid doing anything noticeable and make Rozee and Butters look good. It’s not new for our club to assign a role like that. In fact, Kochy has that same role at Sunrise. Like Jason Horn Francis’ ice bath, we have no intention of using the future 4th rounders we got in the deal. Jordan Sweet came to us after passing an intensive physical that involved checking that he was tall and had a pulse.”
Richmond’s List Manager:
“Some may accuse us of not being active this week, but it has not been wasted by any means as I was able to get a new Makita drill.”
St. Kilda’s List Manager:
“We were delighted to bring Dan Andrews in to help us negotiate our trades. His work on the East/West link and Commonwealth Games was perfect for Billings in helping us pay for something we had no intention of using. Dougal Howard did his due diligence before deciding to stay and fight for his spot in the backline, just as soon as he finishes fighting his parents for naming him Dougal.”
Sydney’s List Manager:
“We are happy to welcome Grundy as part of our ongoing time share arrangement and look forward to moving him on in a years’ time to the next club. Veteran Sam Reid persuaded Adams to come to us after convincing him that unlike Collingwood, we play injured players in Grand Finals. We wrestled with the decision about whether or not to make a play for Clayton Oliver, before coming to the decision that wrestling has not served our club very well – just ask Callum Mills. We were inspired by ‘Air’, the movie about Michael Jordan, in our decision to make a play for James Jordon. The club is excited to announce that we are going into production with a new club coloured footwear line entitled, Meh Jordon.”
West Coast’s List Manager:
“We were thrilled that Flynn was prepared to move to us because movement isn’t one of his best attributes. Tyler Brockman, we see as an exciting prospect with a keen eye for the game which he will put to good use as the ball will usually be camped quite far away from him and his fellow forwards.”
Western Bulldogs’ List Manager:
“We wish Jordan Sweet all the best as starts his next inglorious chapter with Port. Sweet, like most of our bogan fans, was starved for opportunity due to English. Harmes and Coffield were selected for their ability to play in multiple positions, which works for us as our coach has no idea where to put any of our players. Bailey Smith considered leaving us for Hawthorn before realising that the Western Suburbs offers better drug options than Dingley. Many had us as one of the clubs into Clayton Oliver on the basis of a connection between Oliver and Libba, in that Oliver tattoos himself and Libba’s tattoos look so bad he could only have done them himself.”