Reluctantly submitting to the inevitable Essendon finally relented and accepted that pick 26 was good as it was going to get for losing Stewart Crameri to the Western Bulldogs.
Eighteen days after the trade period began with the Bulldogs making an offer of their second round draft pick for the forward, Essendon accepted it could not squeeze more from the deal.
The Dons had been pushing for later draft picks to be tied into the exchange to sweeten the deal for the player who had three times led the club’s goal kicking.
While disappointed in not securing more for Crameri, the trade now at least delivers Essendon a draft pick after they had been barred from the first two rounds of the draft by the AFL for the supplements program.
Essendon had already traded its first live pick in the draft (48) to Greater Western Sydney for Shaun Edwards and Kurt Aylett so the Crameri deal gets them back into the draft.
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A deal is still to be completed for Scott Gumbleton’s likely shift to Fremantle.
“I’m confident pick 26 will get us a quality player,” Essendon list manager Adrian Dodoro said of the Crameri shift.
“We’ve picked up guys like David Zaharakis and Jake Carlisle with second round picks and there’s no reason why we can’t pick up a player of that calibre to join Kurt Aylett and Shaun Edwards and hopefully Paul Chapman on the list.”
Securing Crameri on a four-year deal worth about $1.8 million will deliver the Dogs a genuine forward who has kicked 34, 32 and 30 goals in each of the last three years to win the Dons’ goal kicking in those years.
He will play alongside the recently re-signed Jarrad Grant, Liam Jones and veteran Daniel Giansiracusa who, after winning the Dogs goalkicking again last season, has been signed on to play again in 2014.
“We identified Stewart’s physical attributes and his goalkicking capabilities as important components to add to our team moving forward,” Bulldogs list manager Jason McCartney said.
