The Zach Merrett Trade That Never Was

Don TheStat
7 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 7 days ago

Why Essendon were right to walk away from Hawthorn’s “unprecedented” offer

The biggest story of the 2025 AFL Trade Period wasn’t a trade at all.

For two weeks, the football world was transfixed by the possibility of Essendon captain Zach Merrett joining Hawthorn. What began as speculation turned into open-season drama, leaks, punditry, and all-too-familiar hand-wringing over “Essendon’s culture.”

But when the clock struck 7:30pm on deadline night, the deal that dominated headlines never happened. And despite the noise, the Bombers made the right call.

What Hawthorn Offered

According to multiple reports, Hawthorn’s final offer included:

Pick 10 and Pick 22 in this year’s draft
Their 2026 first-round pick
Henry Hustwaite, a former pick 37 with ten senior games in three seasons

The Hawks framed it as “unprecedented” - three first-rounders for a 30-year-old midfielder and publicly suggested Essendon were unreasonable for not taking the deal.

But context matters.

The Illusion of “Three First-Round Picks

In 2025, not all “first-round picks” are created equal. With Free Agency Compensation and Academy Selections* pushing picks further down the order, the label doesn’t carry the weight it once did.

Hawthorn’s “future firsts” were likely to land around:

Pick 18-20 (2026)
Pick 28-30 (2027, with Tasmania concessions)

When you strip away the marketing spin, it’s effectively one top-10 pick and a collection of seconds. That’s not equal value for one of the best midfielders of the past decade.

Essendon’s Perspective

For Essendon, the offer simply didn’t make sense in context.

The club already holds Picks 5 and 6 in this year’s draft, along with three others in the top 30. Adding more mid-range selections would have created a list-spot logjam and potentially forced the Bombers to forfeit picks they couldn’t use.

If accepted, Essendon would have either had to delist two more players to create the list spots needed to use those picks. In this case, it would have almost certainly needed to be contracted players. Or on-traded the picks, doing Hawthorn's work for them (it's not on Essendon to make Hawthorn's deal work for us), failing to do so would have risked losing them and diluting the end trade value.

Comparing the Market

The two other blockbuster trades of the period, Christian Petracca to Gold Coast and Charlie Curnow to Sydney, highlight the difference in approach.

Both the Suns and Swans started negotiations early and offloaded "best-22" players to make deals work. Hawthorn, on the other hand, tried to secure an elite midfielder without giving up a core piece of its side.

As Dean Cox put it when discussing Sydney’s strategy:

"To get something, you have to give something.”

Hawthorn tried to get away with not doing so.

The Fallout

The failed pursuit leaves the Hawks in a tricky spot. They’ve lost depth players like Worpel, Jiath and Serong, and three of their top performers Gunston, Amon, Impey aren’t getting any younger.

Meanwhile, Essendon retain their captain, still have cap space, and draft flexibility heading into 2026. If Merrett does revisit a move next year, there’ll be more suitors, more competition, and likely a return that is no worse, given Hawthorn's deal included two picks we couldn't really use.

In the meantime, Andrew Welsh’s presidency and the football department’s unified stance have shown something that’s been missing at the Hangar for years - clarity of direction and resolve under pressure.

The Verdict

Hawthorn misread the play. Essendon held firm.

For once, the Bombers didn’t blink and in doing so, they’ve sent a message to the rest of the competition: "the days of cutting deals out of desperation are over."