Three-time premiership player Tim Watson has questioned how the Western Bulldogs would be feeling, after Essendon traded their coveted first round pick to Greater Western Sydney for Devon Smith.
Out of favour Dog Jake Stringer wants to get to the Bombers, but the Bulldogs have held firm on their stance of wanting an early first round pick in return. However, Essendon’s earliest pick is now number 24, meaning a combination of later selections will have to suffice for Stringer.
After they reportedly turned down an offer for Stringer involving pick 11, Watson has highlighted why the 2016 premiers have backed themselves into a corner.
“The problem for them now is they can’t get that pick, and they can say we want to deal with someone else, but Jake Stringer wants to go to Essendon,” he told SEN Breakfast.
“There has to be a significant shift before they can do a better deal.
“How would the Bulldogs be feeling? That deal was put to them; they could have taken pick 11 and then shuffled a trade. They sit on that, they prevaricate on it, and then it’s whizzed away on them and it ends up at GWS. How would they be feeling about that?
“Would they be feeling filthy on themselves because they didn’t take the deal, or would they be filthy on Essendon because they went and did that 11 pick with somebody else?”
Former Melbourne captain Garry Lyon believes the Bulldogs wasted their chance at acquiring the first rounder.
“It depends if Essendon said, listen, if you don’t move on this in the next couple of days, we need to get going,” he said.
“You snooze you lose, first in best dressed. It is a competitive market. He [Stringer] is almost the most nervous player at the moment.”
Essendon list manager Adrian Dodoro said yesterday that a potential deal for Stringer is “not necessarily” off the table, despite trading pick 11 to the Giants.
“There is a long time to play out in the trade period and we will try fairly hard to get it done,” he said.
“It is trade period and these things take time. Pick 11 is not on the table, pick 11 is now gone. It’ll have to be a combination of other things.
“We have given a strong indication to Jake that we will do our best to get the deal done. There is a fair way to go and we hope we can land him.”
Stringer has played 89 games and kicked 160 goals since being drafted in 2012 with pick number five.