If Jack Bowes is traded to Geelong, with the Cats also gaining the prized pick seven in the national draft, the deal will represent a worrisome watershed in the competition’s history.
What should concern the AFL and what the Bowes deal lays bare is that expansion teams are nowhere near parity if they have to compete with the same set of rules as Geelong, Essendon, Hawthorn, Richmond, Collingwood, West Coast and so forth.
Greater Western Sydney operates under the same grim circumstances, or worse, than the Gold Coast, in that they have been forced to pay close to a million dollars a season for four players - Stephen Coniglio, Josh Kelly, Lachie Whitfield and Toby Greene - and for terms of at least six years. The player they could least afford to lose, Jeremy Cameron, joined the Cats for a lower price than he was paid at GWS.
The Giants and Suns are caught in a cycle of losing players, whom they have little choice but to overpay based on their high draft position; hence, the Giants are giving up Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper (albeit they have too many inside mids) rather than Coniglio or another older player on a hefty contract.
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/the-problem-the-jack-bowes-trade-reveals-20221004-p5bn74.html
