Player moves, deals, pick trades and more with Charlie Curnow, Zach Merrett, Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver in the mix for new clubs

Giants football boss Jason McCartney has described key defender Leek Aleer as “shattered” following the collapse of his lucrative move to St Kilda yesterday.

McCartney said both he and coach Adam Kingsley spoke with Aleer yesterday following St Kilda’s decision to pull out of the move. Aleer is on holiday in Barcelona.

“This wasn’t a difficult trade [negotiation] – I want to get that on record,” McCartney told AFL trade radio.

He added that a future second-round pick was part of talks.

“A second-round was part of it, but you can trade two years into the future. There are plenty of mechanisms, but I will leave it at that,” McCartney said.

He said the young defender was still a player the club wanted, but was in shock at present after being convinced he was heading to the Saints.

“What I will say is that Leek is shattered,” McCartney told AFL trade radio.

“He loves this footy club, he was in tears at his exit interview. He just needs game time and there are two elite key defenders at our footy club.

“Leek is more than welcome at our footy club, there is a spot there, but our thoughts are with him right now.”

McCartney said the Giants had re-signed 16 players this year, several of them weren’t out of contract until future seasons, under the expectation Aleer was likely to leave, but there was still a place if he chose to stay.

The Giants are working towards a trade for Clayton Oliver.

Giants football boss Jason McCartney didn’t expect Oliver would want to head to the club before the trade period but after meeting with him in Sydney, they convinced him he could thrive at the expansion club.

“It’s really satisfying for us that Clayton wants to play for us,” McCartney told AFL trade radio.

“It shows how agile and nimble clubs needs to be. A meeting occurred last Thursday and the goal posts changed completely. We got on the front foot and Clayton was happy to meet with us.”

McCartney said trade talks were now underway with the Demons sometime today.

New Blues football boss Chris Davies can see Mitch McGovern remaining with the club while he likes the prospect of Ben Ainsworth joining the Blues if a deal can be reached.

“There is some chance Mitch stays,” Davies told AFL trade radio.

“It will all be determined by how this period goes for us. It is unfortunate, once the period ends we will make an assessment on if he fits our list.”

On Ben Ainsworth, the Blues do like the player.

“We have had some chats with the Suns,” Davies told AFL trade radio.

“We think Ben Ainsworth is a player that can help us, and we will continue discussions on him going forward.”

New Carlton football boss Chris Davies has got on the front foot this morning after Geelong offered three first-round picks for want-away forward Charlie Curnow.

But Davies, the former long-time Port Adelaide football manager, isn’t impressed with the picks reportedly offered by the Cats.

“We don’t want Charlie leaving Carlton,” Davies told AFL trade radio.

“I want to make that very clear. Those three picks the Cats offered were picks effectively in the 20s.

“No one would think that was a reasonable deal for the player Charlie is.”

Davies reiterated that the Blues did not want to trade Curnow.

“We are not in a situation where we are volunteering anything in relation to Charlie,” Davies told AFL trade radio.

“I am not going to sit here and suggest what we want from Sydney or Geelong because we want him to stay.”

Hello and welcome to day four of our rolling coverage of the AFL trade period.

I’m Roy Ward, and I’ll be steering our live coverage today.

Some of the biggest names in the game are on the move, and there’ll no doubt be others who emerge from left field.

Stick with us as we bring you all the news as it happens.

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