PORT ADELAIDE will work with Essendon to broker a deal that would see forward Orazio Fantasia land at Alberton, after the 25-year-old indicated a desire to be traded to the Power.
Fantasia is South Australian and knows Port captain Tom Jonas and forwards coach Nathan Bassett from their time together at SANFL side Norwood, where he won a premiership in 2013.
Speaking on AFL Trade Radio on Thursday, Port Adelaide General Manager – Football, Chris Davies said while the clubs would look to work out a trade, there was no guarantee that Fantasia would be in Power colours in 2021.
“We believe Port Adelaide is his club of choice if he was to leave Essendon and I think in fairness to Essendon here, because I know he’s a contracted player there, I think he’s had that conversation with Essendon,” Davies said.
“We know… where a player is contracted that the club he’s at right now hold a level of power so despite the fact that Orazio has said that his preference is to come to Port Adelaide, we know that realistically that doesn’t mean a great deal unless Essendon is willing to complete a trade.
“That will play out through the trade period and (Bombers list manager) Adrian (Dodoro) and Jason Cripps at our end will have to do some work in order to get that done but he has told us that his preference is to land at Port Adelaide.”
The 80-game 111-goal forward has another year left on his contract with the Bombers.
While the Fantasia deal is a realistic shot, Davies played down speculation that Port was chasing Sydney backman Aliir Aliir.
He said the door was closed to that deal.
“I can confirm we’ve asked Sydney about him but it’s an interesting one that’s grown some legs without it really having something that’s got massive legs,” Davies explained.
“List managers will meet or have discussions throughout this period and go through each other’s lists and say ‘have you got an interest in this player’, or ‘we think we’ve got X number of defenders on our list so we’ve probably got some depth here if you’re looking for it’, and in fairness to Sydney, I know that discussion… was a very brief one with regards to Aliir.
“It was a question that was asked about was there potential for him to be looking to move or Sydney to want to move him but the reality is that it’s hit a closed door.
“Nothing happened there that wouldn’t have happened a number of times across the competition, it’s just that it’s one name that got out so we’re having to talk about him more.”
With Essendon needing to replace a couple of running half backs including Adam Saad and Connor McKenna, Port defender Riley Bonner has been mentioned in the media as possible option to help get the Fantasia deal over the line.
But Davies said Port was eager to keep the left footer despite the potential to recruit strong bodied defender and NGA prospect Lachie Jones at December’s draft.
“We left our exit stuff with Riley with him suggesting he wanted to have a big pre-season and break his way into that team,” he explained.
“I imagine other clubs will be looking at Lachie Jones from a draft standpoint and saying Port Adelaide do have some depth in that area and I imagine that the majority would think that Riley is a good enough player to be on their list as well.
“That doesn’t mean that we want Riley to go but it also means we can’t stop those conversations from happening as the Aliir one has happened with us.
“I don’t think that Riley will be at any other club other than Port Adelaide in 2021.”
Davies said given the retirement of Justin Westhoff, his club was also keen to retain its three ruckmen, Scott Lycett, Peter Ladhams and Sam Hayes – fending off any suggestion that one could be traded.
“I don’t think we want less than three rucks on our list,” he said.
“Lycett came as a free agent on a significant deal at the time for five years I think it was of which he’s got three left, we’ve got Ladhams who can definitely play… and is a good young developing ruck and we’ve got a guy by the name of Sam Hayes who was an All-Australian Under 18 for a couple of years waiting in the wings.
“I don’t think we can have any less than that on our list and I’m comfortable with where those ruck stocks are at. You never say never but I can’t see how we would be willing to let any one of those guys go.”
And for that matter, Davies reiterated that Port Adelaide expected to be a minor player in the trade and draft period, instead electing to focus on continuing to develop a group that fell seven points short of a Grand Final in 2020.
“During our exit interview process after that Preliminary Final loss to Richmond, we didn’t have any player who said to us that they wanted to leave the club and we didn’t say to any player that we thought it was best for them to look elsewhere either,” Davies said.
“I think we’re going to be pretty stable, obviously we’ve got a couple of people that we’ve been talking about reasonably heavily but overall, I think our focus will be to just get that business done and do what we can at the draft.”
The player movement period begins in earnest on Friday when the free agency window opens. Trade period commences officially on Wednesday 4 November.
