Star midfielder Adam Treloar has joined the Western Bulldogs in a final-minute trade.
The 27-year-old has established himself as one of the competition’s premier on-ballers and has become a Bulldog after a trade was brokered with Collingwood in the dying moments of the 2020 AFL Trade Period.
A host of draft picks have been exchanged between the Bulldogs and Magpies as part of the deal.
The Magpies will receive pick 14 and a future second round pick, with the Bulldogs receiving Treloar, pick 26, pick 33 and pick 42 in return.
Treloar will join the Bulldogs on a five-year deal.
“We’re extremely happy to bring Adam in,” General Manager of List and Recruiting, Sam Power, said.
“He’s a fantastic player and will really add to our group.
“Adam’s been a great player for a long period of time and he’s got some attributes we’d love to add to our midfield group with his speed, power and ability to get away from the stoppage.
“To get that deal done at the end of the day was fantastic.”
Josh Dunkley will remain a Bulldogs player, after Essendon was unable to facilitate a trade for the contracted midfielder.
The 23-year-old has a deal with the Bulldogs which runs until the end of 2022.
“We had a lot of conversations with Essendon and were open to doing a trade if we thought it was of reasonable value to us, given how highly we rate Josh,” Power said.
“The preference from the start of the trade period was that we wanted to retain Josh as a player.
“We’re rapt to have Josh and for Josh to stay. We just know the type of person he is and the type of player, that he’ll have a really good 2021.”
Power said the trade period had been a successful one for the Bulldogs, who have also acquired experienced ruckman Stefan Martin from the Brisbane Lions, crafty forward Mitch Hannan from Melbourne and a host of draft picks as part of the Treloar trade.
“We had some pretty clear objectives about bringing in certain types of players, which we feel we’ve done,” Power said.
“But also we knew we were going to have to get points to match a bid in this draft and to be able to do that during this window was fantastic as well.”
