Hawthorn head of football Rob McCartney has offered a comprehensive trade period update on the Hawks’ plans.
Hawthorn has missed out on trade targets Ben McKay and Esava Ratugolea but are still firmly in the player movement space, with McCartney offering the latest on numerous potential moves into the club.
See the updates below.
Mabior Chol
“I think he’s edging closer (to a decision). I think by the end of the week (we’ll have a decision),” McCartney began on AFL Trade Radio's Trade Exchange.
“We like what we see in Mabior, he’s played 60 games of AFL footy… he’s proven he can play at the level.
“Didn’t get a lot of opportunity at the level this year, we see there’s definite opportunity for him to play regular AFL footy with us if he was to land here.
“Mitch Lewis needs a bit of a foil to play alongside and we’ve explored a few different options over the last couple of years and haven’t really landed on something we think has worked well regularly.
“We think Chol might be about to be a player that can definitely play alongside Lewis, make him a better player, but if he lands at us we want to make Mabior a better player as well.”
Pick 1
“I think last year we definitely showed with the (Josh) Weddle experience that if we can get a little higher in the draft… we’re very open to that.
“I think you’d agree Weddle has proven to be a good decision in terms of getting a bit higher in the draft and again, if you could turn a Pick 3 into a Pick 1 and the resources you put around it aren’t to the detriment of the long term success of the group, then we’d be willing to have that conversation and we’d be willing to have that with West Coast.”
He added: “Tyler Brockman being part of that conversation is definitely real.”
Bailey Smith
“The first thing I’m going to say about Bailey is he’s a wonderful player, I reckon there’s 18 clubs – including the Bulldogs – who would say he can make us better.
“In saying that, I know that conversations with his manager are very, very clear that he’s committed to the Bulldogs in 2024.
“So at this stage, no, I don’t think there’s anything happening in that space.”