Which team will your club support in 2025?

West Coast isn’t the only team actively rooting for another team to fail, or at least slide down the ladder, in 2025.

The Blues would like to see a post-premiership post-Brisbane, which would give them a decent second-round pick, while the Hawks will have their fingers crossed that Carlton misses out on next season’s finals after barely kicking the ball this season year.

Hawthorn traded his 2024 first-round pick for the Blues’ first- and second-round picks next year, the first blockbuster deal of this year’s trade period.

The only clubs to receive additional first-round picks next year were Essendon and Gold Coast.

The Bombers opted to trade their sought-after number nine this year to Melbourne, knowing they could match any bid for Next Generation Academy sensation Isaac Kako, while the Suns snagged first-rounders Collingwood and Port Adelaide for 2025

Essendon list boss Matt Rosa believes they have given themselves the chance to attract plenty of young talent in the next two drafts while maintaining the option to pivot in a different direction.

“The cool thing is we can get picks and two first-rounders next year, so it gives us flexibility,” Rosa said.

“We could get into the draft this year and next year, we could also try to do a trade as part of it, or we could do a combination of both. We feel like this gives us more flexibility so we can get to work on selecting good guys in this year’s draft.”

Who does your club want to move?

The future trade not only provided clubs with more options, but also added an element of risk and reward to the movement of AFL players.

Whenever prospective players are involved in a trade, their host club hopes that the other player will fall in the rankings the following year, meaning they will receive a better pick.

The opposite is true for the team trading selections. It is often unknown for 12 months which party “won” the deal.

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A common strategy for future trades is for clubs to use this mechanism to offload first-round players next year if they know there is an elite father-son or academy prospect waiting for them, as Collingwood did the year before they welcomed Nika. Daicos. This effectively allows the club to double down, gaining additional assets to use say a year before they exercise any bet on a player tied to them a year later.

The image above lists the 2025 draft picks your club traded during this year’s trade period. Geelong, North Melbourne, St Kilda, Sydney and Western Bulldogs have not added or traded any future picks.

Other changes could occur between now and draft night, when teams can continue to trade picks. For example, the Crows will have their fingers crossed that the Demons and Giants perform below expectations next season as they have some of those clubs’ future picks.

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