From bolstered fan interest in the nitty gritty to working through "mega deals", list managers are navigating an increasingly sophisticated AFL Trade Period. Image: AFL Photos.

FIRST AFL trades by the Port Adelaide Football Club?

It was late 1996 with Port Adelaide - as the new entry to the national competition - holding much-debated recruiting cards to set up its inaugural squad. To this day, then Port Adelaide chief executive Brian Cunningham still regards the terms of entry to the national recruiting market as the toughest attached to any of the four South Australian and West Australian-based AFL licences. 

Good thing then that Port Adelaide had ensured future captain Matthew Primus would not follow his Fitzroy team-mates to Brisbane ... and (even if it did lead to a $50,000 fine from AFL House) there were plans in place to ensure outstanding local talent such as ruckman-forward Brendon Lade, midfielders Peter Burgoyne and Josh Francou and inaugural AFL club champion Darren Mead would be at Alberton after the original launch date of 1996 was delayed by 12 months.

Seemingly everyone remembers at least three of the "big four" - the four uncontracted players Port Adelaide could claim as "wildcard" recruits: Inaugural captain and Brownlow Medallist Gavin Wanganeen from Essendon; Primus from Brisbane/Fitzroy; Ian Downsborough from West Coast (who was later traded down West Lakes Boulevard); ... and the club's first AFL All-Australian player, defender Adam Heuskes from Sydney.

Gavin Wanganeen returned to Port Adelaide in 1997 as the club's inaugural AFL captain. Image: AFL Photos.

These were more AFL-endorsed "raids" than "trades".

There also were the SANFL-based players who Port Adelaide could pre-draft ... or trade to rival AFL clubs for "established" talent.

The notables in this group are the homecoming pair of Magarey Medallist Scott Hodges and rover David Brown; midfielder Shayne Breuer (who kicked Port Adelaide's first goal in AFL company) from Geelong and key forward Scott Cummings from Essendon.

The Breuer deal had a significant silver lining - it also involved trading draft picks, advancing Port Adelaide from No. 43 to 37 ... to call on Essendon reserves player Adam Kingsley, the club's 1998 John Cahill Medallist.

And there were trades that brought inaugural vice-captain Brayden Lyle and Shane Bond home from West Coast.

The first trade when established as an AFL team - and no longer working with expansion concessions? The famous first deal across the great divide in South Australian football - Downsborough to West Lakes to have ruckman Brett Chalmers back at Alberton. Chalmers played 25 AFL games for Port Adelaide; Downsborough had 12 in tricolors.

Adam Kingsley was recruited to Port Adelaide from Essendon's reserves team, debuting in the club's inaugural AFL side. Image: AFL Photos.

Port Adelaide entered the trade market in 1997 when there was:

NO trading of future draft picks,

NO draft value index that measures each draft call from No. 1 (3000 points) to No. 73 (nine points),

NO free agency, 

NO concessions for "salary cap dumping" and

NO AFL trade radio with the seemingly obsessive fascination of commentators and fans alike to evaluate trades in play ... or script their own trades (always blind to how the critical salary cap is limiting a club's prospects),

NOR any "mega trades" designed by Brownlow Medallist and No. 1 draftee Adam Cooney who is still trying to load a kitchen sink into a deal.

Horne-Francis and Rioli land at Alberton in complex trade

For almost two weeks - from the second Monday after the AFL grand final to the following Wednesday evening - this is the process that builds new hope among fan bases for a new season.

Does the trade period go for too long? Some would argue for a three-day trade period, particularly when AFL clubs are pre-casting trades with two-year lead-in plans and players are meeting rival clubs and touring their facilities during the season to evaluate their options.

But the list managers would respond that three days is not enough time to deal with arranging such sessions and organising medicals for players thrown up as "trade bait" during the exchange period.

As confused and frustrated as some fans become - when they are clinging for that new hope for a new season - while trades rise and fall, there is no doubt the interest in the trade market rises each year (the AFL trade radio digital audience figures prove such) and the AFL commands prime space in the media market while rival sports are trying to start up their summer seasons.

Are the players - and their managers - better placed by the current AFL rules than the clubs during the trade period?

Port Adelaide list manager Jason Cripps put forward during the 2018 trade period that free agency - that allows players with at least eight years service to take a walk to a rival club after falling out of contract - had tipped the scales in the players' favour.

Port Adelaide list manager Jason Cripps. Image: AFL Photos.

If players could walk - and the AFL is eager for more player movement - why can't the clubs move on contracted players, as happens regularly in other professional leagues? No surprise the AFL players' union did not agree.

"I have no problem with players who are contracted (and) testing the market (as early as a year before the contract expires),” Cripps said in October 2018. "But we need to get to the position where clubs can trade players who are contracted - and trade them to their choice of club; not always have the choice decided by the player.

"If we are going to continue down the path with free agency - and reduce (from eight years) when a player becomes eligible for free agency, the power balance needs to move back to the clubs. The power should be with the club in trading contracted players."

And what of the compensation picks handed to the club for losing a free agent - as Port Adelaide collected this month (second-round call No. 27) for wingman Karl Amon after he, as expected, nominated Hawthorn as his new club?

Should the AFL add such picks to the draft order, further compromising the annual bidding for new talent in the national draft in November? Or should the AFL - with its "secret herbs and spices" formula for evaluating compensation on a free agent - strip a draft pick from the club gaining the free agent and hand this to his former team?

Port Adelaide received a second-round draft selection as compensation after winger Karl Amon confirmed his move to Hawthorn. Image: AFL Photos.

Since entering the AFL in 1997, Port Adelaide has worked 44 trades to Alberton and called 209 times at the draft table. This 1:5 trade-draft ratio might swing more towards tradees, more so when trade gains are contributing more games than draftees - as might be expected with established AFL talent rather than the speculative potential of teenage draftees.

This year's AFL trade period will close at 7pm on Wednesday. In a process that is supposedly based on deals that can be described as "win-win" there is - perhaps as a contradiction - the annual scorecard of winners and losers in the trade period.

Port Adelaide entered this trade period needing to cover the loss of (the irreplaceable) Robbie Gray and Steve Motlop – enter Junior Rioli from West Coast and potentially left-footer Francis Evans (No. 41 in 2019 national draft) from Geelong's delisted group.

Every team needs extra midfield talent - such as 2021 No.1 draftee Jason Horne-Francis in a homecoming trade from North Melbourne.

A tall defender would also be valuable – perhaps the versatile Esava Ratugolea from Geelong.

Most of this was accomplished by Monday evening. It was complicated, particularly with the "mega-trade" that ensured Port Adelaide had the cache of future draft picks to close the deal that parcelled Horne-Francis and Rioli.

How this was all done - and at what cost - made for intense anticipation and will make for even more critical review, usually with the benefit of hindsight. It is the AFL trade period ... more complicated than ever before but never dull.