Essendon list manager Adrian Dodoro has revealed what Bobby Hill was doing on Wednesday night as trade negotiations heated up between GWS and the Bombers.
Hill requested a trade to Essendon over the weekend, however, a proposed deal did not go through as the Giants held tough over their contracted small forward.
Dodoro said the potential deal had the green tick from all parties except GWS.
“We got the call on Friday that Bobby might potentially want to move from GWS and he had met with Collingwood,” Dodoro told Trade Radio.
“We had a chat with him and he was pretty keen to get to the Bombers.
“The player was on board, the club was on board, the manager was on board, but the most important part was GWS.
“Jason McCartney (Giants football boss) was really honest and upfront from our first discussions that he didn’t want to entertain trading Bobby.”
Reports on Wednesday suggested the 21-year-old was very keen to avoid going back to the Giants, however Dodoro rubbished those suggestions.
“He’ll be fine, he’s a resilient tough kid. You get to know these boys and you form these friendships with them really, really quickly, but he’ll go back and have a really good year next year,” he said.
“My last conversation was with him at 5pm, I said, ‘Look, we tried our best, we wish you all the very best,’ and he was fine, he was getting a tattoo actually, so he was happy.”
The Bombers had a quiet trade period after a prospective deal for Hill fell through, with free agent Jake Kelly the only addition to the club’s list.