Greater Western Sydney are set to be among the most active clubs in the 2023 Trade Period.
The Giants have several players on their list whose futures are in limbo, while GWS footy boss Jason McCartney also confirmed a name the club is interested in recruiting.
See all of McCartney’s updates below, via AFL Trade Radio’s Trade Exchange.
Matt Flynn
“Not yet (has he informed us of his intentions),” McCartney began.
“Matt’s a wonderful person, he’s come through our academy… we haven’t been in a position to offer Matt a contract so him and Scott Lucas (his manager) have done the right thing and explored options.
“We’ve been working with him a little bit on this, maybe advising in the background to help him, obviously Scott is a wonderful manager and gives him the best advice, but he’s looking for an opportunity to play more regular football. He did it earlier in the year for us but obviously Kieren Briggs really stood up and shone through in the second half of the year.
“It’s fair to say he’s weighing up options now, between West Coast and Melbourne is what it looks like but I don’t think he’s actually come to a final decision on that yet.
“Those clubs will hear more soon as we will.”
Braydon Preuss
In response to if Flynn leaves, does that mean Preuss is likely to earn a new deal? “It will.
“We hadn’t put offers to either of those two players in Matt and Brayden because what we were doing in the back half of the year is just assessing what we want that ruck space looking like going forward.
“With both those boys, obviously Braydon has missed a lot of footy with injury, he got back and played VFL at the end of the year and just that continuity of training and playing match sim during the finals to make sure we had a level of confidence in him potentially being able to stand up.
“You don’t want too many but you don’t want to be too short…”
Nick Haynes
“We do (expect him to be at the club next year).
“It was unfortunate in the end. The back line just evolved before our eyes, it started to last year but just that back seven or eight… it was just so dynamic in the end and they could mix and match and play on a variety of types, small, tall or medium.
“It was really hard but Nick, to his credit, he played his 200th game this year, he’s been a wonderful servant and he was sort of sitting on the fringe there and I know from chats we’ve had in the last few weeks… he’s pretty keen to try and get his spot back in that side.
“We expect him to be playing on next year at this stage, that’s for sure.”
Elliott Himmelberg (Adelaide)
“We’d really like to (get him into the club) as a positional need… we had some really good chats with Adelaide a fair way out because this one is a little bit different because you need to be quite mindful and respectful that Elliott still has a year left on his contract before he becomes a free agent, so we’ll continually work through that.
“I know Adelaide’s got a little bit on their plate, maneuvering and doing a few things at the moment, they’d love to have some coverage in that position if he was to leave.
“We see it as an opportunity. It’d be a role and position that the club’s done really well with someone like Lachie Keeffe over a long period of time, Elliott is a similar size and plays a variety of positions, he can really add value to the group at 25 years of age.”
Lachie Keeffe
“Just in limbo at the moment, just waiting.
“It’s an interesting one for us with not looking to be moving too many layers out this year, list spots becomes a bit of a juggling act.
“So we’ll just work through that, obviously we’ve got consideration for a rookie list as well. The great thing about playing right to the depth, the guys who are in limbo are only there for a couple of weeks before they get more clarity.
“We’re just working closely with Lachie and his manager Lachie has been an outstanding servant of our footy club, it’s a tricky spot to be in because if we had the list spots available, it’d be an absolute certainty that he’d get another year. I know he’d love to play on.
“But we’ve got to manoeuvrer a few things before we can actually be in a position to say that could happen with us.”