As the AFL carefully stage manages the 2018 Trade Week to ensure all the major deals just so happen to go down on the last day of the period while they’re broadcasting their highly-vaunted rolling coverage live on their various web platforms (look me in the eye and tell me this isn’t what is happening), the second last day of proceedings has seen potentially one of the all-time strangest and most lop-sided deals in football history go down: that of Greater Western Sydney midfield Tom Scully to Hawthorn.
[jwplayer ufxzSg8Y]
Scully’s stunning transfer to the Hawks was confirmed a short handful of moments ago, with the Giants sending the elite-level midfielder to Hawthorn in exchange for the mind-boggling paltry sum of a future fourth-round draft pick.
DONE DEAL | Tom Scully has been traded to Hawthorn for a future 4th round pick reports @sam_mcclure#NABTradeRadio #AFL
Move with Red Energy; 100% Australian owned energy retailer. pic.twitter.com/TFL0KFk9pj
— AFL Trade Radio (@traderadio) October 16, 2018
That deal is even looser than what was originally floated: pick 53, a third-round pick, in this year’s draft.
How Scully’s trade stock came to fall so spectacularly hard is a story that will be picked apart for months to come; the 27-year-old is a former overall number 1 draft pick who was rated elite in several midfield categories across the 2017 season, and was considered one of the top gut-running players in the competition.
However, a shocking ankle injury suffered in round two of this year’s season seems to have proven the impetus for the Giants to offload him, and for a price that’s akin not just to a set of steak knives, but a box of toothpicks instead.
Rumour is rampant that Scully’s ankle is in far worse condition than the Giants let on; the on-baller broke his ankle and damaged his syndesmosis ligaments in the round two incident, but narrowly avoided what likely would have been a career-ending Lisfranc foot fracture *adjusts glasses*.
The Hawks will put their often-championed rehabilitation unit to work on Scully’s foot in a bid to get him firing once again. Meanwhile the Giants continue to shed players in an effort to relieve extreme salary cap pressure.
The AFL Trade Period ends at 8:30pm AEDT tomorrow night. Several key deals are still to be resolved.
