Western Bulldogs List Manager Jason McCartney spoke with Trade Radio on Tuesday 6 October. We recap the key topics from McCartney’s chat with Danny Frawley and Cam Luke.

Player retention

The Bulldogs signed new contracts, or contract extensions, with a whopping 20 players this year.

McCartney says player retention has been a key focus of the Club’s list management. 

“What underpins anything in a list build… what we’ve been able to do during the year, and we’ve made sure our player retention, we’ve been able to secure key pillars in this team going forward for long-term contracts. Without that you’re chasing your tail constantly.” 

Those key pillars include big names Jake Stringer, Marcus Bontempelli, Luke Dahlhaus, Mitch Wallis and Jack Macrae.

Ruck stocks

After delisting Ayce Cordy at the end of the season, the Bulldogs ruck stocks have been a conversation topic externally. McCartney said the ruck is a growth area for the Club, with Will Minson contracted in 2016, Tom Campbell showing promising AFL form before injury curtailed his year, and Jordan Roughead and Tom Boyd showing the capacity to play through the centre square role this season.

“We’ve been looking, but we’ve got to be careful. Will Minson’s still in contract at the Club, Tom Campbell has been bubbling away, played some good footy later in the year and unfortunately got injured and went out of the side and Jordan Roughead’s one that we see, he didn’t train as a ruckman in the pre-season, he was training with the key defensive group, so we think there’s a lot of growth there.”

McCartney said the ruck position would be an area though that the Club would carefully explore through the trade period.

Michael Talia

While the defender enjoyed some solid form early in the season, McCartney said the Club would explore trade opportunities for the fourth-year defender.

“He played some good footy early in the year and we were happy with his development but where that sits, we’ve just got to wait and see how this [AFL Integrity Unit]  investigation pans out.

We’ve been working very closely with his management, at this point in time we’ll continue to work closely with them and be looking for trade opportunities there with Michael... It’s looking unlikely that he will stay, but nothing’s set in concrete at this time, there’s still a bit to play out there.”

Jake Carlisle

McCartney indicated that the Bulldogs weren’t in the leading mix for the Essendon defender, despite Carlisle being linked with the Club throughout the home and away season.

“It was one we followed closely… It was one where we thought with some of our key defenders we were bubbling along nicely there… But as it sits with any of these, we’d done some work and put it on hold."

"St Kilda and Carlton I believe are fairly well advanced in that race to secure the signature of Jake Carlisle. 

"So it’s one we’re not in the race for, we’re a bit off the mark with that one in regards to the progression made by other clubs. 

"With those situations, we asses where we’re at, we looked, and it wasn’t going to be the right fit at this point in time.”

McCartney said the development of players like Zaine Cordy had given the Club confidence in the future of the defensive group.

Jarrad Grant

As an unrestricted free agent, McCartney was realistic about Grant’s future with the Bulldogs. Despite no formal offer being made, McCartney said Grant’s fortune wouldn’t be known until the end of the trade period.

“There hasn’t been a contract offer put forward from us to [Jarrad Grant] because you just need a bit of flexibility through this trade period.

"So we’ll work through the trade period, we understand as everyone knows, you need to be making three selections in the national draft.

“We understand that Jarrad is also an unrestricted free agent so he’s within his rights to explore opportunities there….

"Nothing will be resolved there until we get through this trade period and see what presents.”

Nathan Hrovat

Rumours had circled about Nathan Hrovat’s potential discussions with St Kilda but McCartney indicated the 2012 first-round draft pick was a contracted player at the Kennel for 2016.

“Nathan’s a contracted player and I understand speaking to Nathan’s management, as I do with most player managers, you do enquire about players and what their situation is and we understand that, but contracted player we expect him to be playing at the club next year… we remain open-minded, but when players are contracted you kind of think they will be a player here next year.”