Ben McKay

So

we're going to have a look at the market, some potential landing spots for Ben McKay if he leaves Essendon, plus some club-by-club trade plans for the Bombers, Richmond, West Coast, North Melbourne, Port Adelaide.

So let's get into it.

right kicking off every episode on the afl trade show we are going to look at the state of the market so looking at the done deals the players likely on the move and all the latest whispers and speculation across the afl and if we start with some done deals while we're a month out from the afl trade period we can still get some signings done maybe some free agency hints and some contract extensions but the biggest news from the last few days in the afl world is scott penderbury confirmed to be a gold coast suns player as of next year

But the Eagles, who showed in faith in him when other clubs didn't, are going to get the rewards back as well, seemingly.

He's going to sign a two-year deal.

that's the market wrapped up for this week we'll get back to that next week with all the latest uh trade news uh but rolling into our landing spot so each week we're gonna look at a player who looks like they might depart their club but we don't have a certain landing spot for them and we're gonna name a few and this week it's ben mckay who has three years left on his long-term deal he signed with the bombers after leaving north melbourne at the end of 2023 As we know, that deal is expected to have been heavily front-ended, meaning that the tail of his contract is a bit cheaper, maybe closer to the average salary mark than what most free agents would be signing.

But yeah, he could now be departing given he's a fringe player and a player that might not be wanted in the Mark McVeigh era.

I think it's gonna be more so just a convenience thing for Essendon to get him off.

Like, they're gonna pay out Ben McKay by all accounts, so let's see what they do with this one.

Oh, I'll believe that when I see it, mate.

Surely not.

So we just covered Zane there.

Ben McKay as well.

I think a lot of his issues are like between the ears.

So I'm not sure that McWalter or us generally will see the appeal of getting in a play like that, that a club like Essendon, who's in a very similar position, also needing a key back.

And trade period does throw up some strange stories.

And both Cal Toomey and Tom Morris have run with this week the idea that Essendon might look to trade or even pay out Ben McKay after his retirement.

his poor season obviously has been a real disappointing season for Ben but I think fans and the wider media tend to forget that for the first year and a half that he had I thought he did the job that we brought him over to do he stopped us getting dominated by key forwards and I thought it was a really solid dependable key back and again you have to remember what we were dealing with when we brought him over we We traded out Brandon Zirk-Thatcher because we didn't think he was up to it and he wanted to go home.

We had Jayden Laverde who was very undersized.

I think we need speed, class, and front half connection.

The one positional area we might address, but maybe we've already solved it with Lockie Blackiston.

And this is still dependent on what happens with Ben McKay and Jordan Ridley's key defense.

But I still think there's a lot of water to go under the bridge before we can deep dive into this further.

What the concerning point about him is he looks a bit soft, and that is not what is...

We'll talk about Ben McKay later, but that's what's killing him at the moment is that he's not a hard, tough...

And I think Spike likes those sort of guys, so...

I agree he should be given more time because he's a tall, but I feel like if he didn't get a game in those last few games of this year, you could have dragged him in for a game just to see what he did.

Yeah.

But anyway, I'd be shopping around would be my view on it.

The most interesting one from the last couple of days is Ben McKay, who has three years left to run on a very front-ended deal, and that is an important part of this, is that the majority of his cash was paid his first two seasons, three seasons.

Correct, Sam?