With the arrival of Brodie Grundy and Mason Cox, the place for Jarrod Witts in the Pies best 22 slowly disappeared. Witts was a senior regular at Collingwood in 2014 but has played 11 and 2 games since then, mostly toiling in the VFL. This trade sees Witts moving clubs for greater opportunity, and Gold Coast have always needed a solid ruckman.
We’ve rated him as worth about pick 39, based on expected production of another 83 games. At a club where he’s in the best 22 he could well exceed that.
As we’ve stated before, Gold Coast haven’t had a top-shelf ruckman since entering the competition, and Witts might represent their best chance at one. At 209cm, only two players in the league are taller than him, and both of those players have been All Australians (Gawn and Sandilands). As the old maxim goes: you can’t teach height.
On paper Gold Coast have overpaid, but they have shown a repeated trend for undervaluing picks due to their large supply of them. They would be unlikely to have much use for pick 44, let alone pick 62. So this presents as a win-win, with 44 alone having about the future expected production that Witts has. It is likely that the Pies will end up using one of these picks to bid on Daicos, or in a trade for Lynden Dunn later today.
Verdict: Notionally lopsided to Collingwood, but the Suns will not feel that way.
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