AFL Trades: West Coast Eagles chief executive Don Pyke defends club’s divisive pick-split trade

West Coast chief executive Don Pyke has conceded the club’s pick-split trade appears “a bit odd” in isolation, but has defended the Eagles’ call as part of “multiple strategies” around filling holes on the list.

And he’s revealed the club will now look to get another pick inside the top 20 of this year’s draft as they look to rebuild the list under new coach Andrew McQualter.

The Eagles set the AFL world alight when they traded pick three as part of a three-club deal with Carlton and Richmond that landed them pick 12 alongside Liam Baker and Matt Owies, despite the duo not having a contract for 2025.

The call was largely met with ridicule from analysts and fans alike, with many believing the price of the deal was too high.

Pyke said there was multiple strategies going on at the Eagles, including bringing in experienced talent to the team.

“If you look at the deal in isolation, the slide from three to 12 and using 14 to get Liam Baker looks a bit odd... but for us it was part of a bigger play we had around Liam and the commitment we made to him to bring him to the club. So we were fulfilling and honouring that commitment as well as sliding back in a draft we believe has got some depth,” Pyke told SEN.

“The challenge with not splitting pick No.3 is we had three and 26 ... three was going to be too high and 26 wasn’t going to get it done, so following Hawthorn’s decision to trade out the pick 14 which we could potentially have got direct from them we were looking at how do we facilitate the trade? And that was the solution that we came up with.

“We’re looking at how do we build the list, and to a point where we’ve got a recognised gap between 23 and 27-year-olds on our list through various reasons, but a gap is there.

“We looked at how do we help fill that gap... to allow the guys that we’re bringing in like Baker and (Jack) Graham and Owies are all consistent, good performing AFL footballers — in the case of Baker he’s better than that, he’s a top-six finisher in the last five club champions so he’s a high-end performer.

“Not only just building from the younger players, which we’re really mindful we’ve got to keep bringing in talent year-on-year, but we also can build through the middle part of the list as well which is really important to support our more senior guys.

“There’s multiple strategies going on here. We’ve always said we want to be able to add three picks if we can and use the draft around the top 25, top 30 talent but we also need to bring in some other talent which is what we’re doing with Liam, Jack and Matt Owies as well.”

Pyke said there was never any thought of walking Baker or Owies through the drafts despite having the option.

“That’s just not how we’re going to do business,” Pyke said.

“It’s easy to sit there and say we’ll do that but the reality for us as I said we had conversations with Liam at the end of the season and his management said he wants to come to West Coast... it’s beholden on us to try to make that deal work without necessarily threatening people walking because that doesn’t leave anyone in a good position and it has other ramifications long term and trying to do deals with anyone.

“We weren’t going to go down that path.”

Pyke conceded they’d not get a good a player at pick No.12 as they would have at No.3 but believed they’d still get a talented footballer and wanted another inside the top 20 if they could do another deal.

“The choice we’ve made - I guess it’s not going to be popular with everyone but we’re going to get a good player we believe at 12. Not as good as we would get at three, we recognise that,” he said.

“But we believe there is going to be a good player available for us at 12 and we’ll now do work to try to close the (Tom) Barrass deal and hopefully get ourselves back into this draft in some form or fashion either in the top 10 or in the 10 to 20 range to give us those three picks that we want for this year to keep bringing talent onto our list.

“We’ve also added now added three what we believe are top 22 players to our list which will help us also from a performance viewpoint and to drive the whole group forward and support that gap we’ve got in the middle.”