Gold Coast coach Stuart Dew says his club is scouring the state leagues for either a ruckman or a key forward for the mid-season draft.
The draft takes place in June and the Suns need ruck support, with Jarrod Witts, Matt Conroy and Sam Day on the long-term injury list and Zac Smith only now returning from his own knee issue.
“We’re having a bit of a look around. Clearly with two of our ruckmen going down, we had three ruckmen on our list and obviously Zac Smith played his first little hit-out on the weekend, but he hasn’t played AFL for over two years and Matthew Conroy hurt his knee in the pre-season,” Dew told SEN’s Dwayne’s World.
“We’re probably having a look in the ruck market.
“It’s a difficult one because generally the guys over 6’6 and can play are generally drafted, but you just never know.
“So we’re having a look around to see what’s there and what’s available.
“Sam Day hurt his knee too so we’re also looking in that key forward space as well.
“We’ve potentially got an opportunity to look at one or two there.”
Dew added that he would be in favour of a mid-season trade period, but only if it was used to give players struggling to get a game greater opportunity.
“I would (support a mid-season trade period), but I think the mid-season trade period would have to be a two-way thing,” he said.
“By-in-large the trade period is driven by one party, but I think the mid-season, if there’s players at the halfway mark that don’t see that they’re going to get a game and if they don’t play for the rest of the year, they perhaps don’t get another look at it.
“It will be an interesting thing. Parties would have to agree and it would have to be someone desperate to use the second half of the year to prove they can play AFL football so they don’t then drift out of the system.”
The Suns travel to Victoria to take on Collingwood on Saturday afternoon.
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