The Continental Tyres AFL Trade Period wrapped up on Wednesday, with a late flurry of activity across the league to close out a busy 10 days.

Port Adelaide secured Adelaide’s Luke Pedlar seconds before the deadline, while pick swaps earlier in the week acquired important capital for the next three national drafts.

Speaking with the media at the conclusion of the trade period, Cripps touched on the club’s strategic approach and what was achieved over the past week-and-a-half.

Cripps on the trade period
“In terms of what we set out to do, and I've talked about us being dealt some brutal and unprecedented hands, and we stand by that, but I think strategically as a club, we were able to position ourselves as best we could and maximise the hand we’ve been dealt.

“We had to be creative and it's been well documented some of the paths we've tried to take and the landscape has changed obviously with the change of rules and I think the AFL are understanding based on those rule changes that clubs will look at ways to bring in more draft capital, if that's your objective to match bids. Every club's got a different objective but we were pretty clear on what ours was and what the strategies needed to be. But we also needed to be flexible, which we were, and in the end, I think we've just maximised the hand we've been dealt.”

Cripps on NGA products Cochrane, Salopek, Pilot
“We think they're obviously really talented but we're not relying on those three players in particular. There are other parts of our list that we need to add to, but those guys certainly help that process. We've got good picks in this year's draft, we've got the three first-rounders next year and we’ve got another two first-rounders in 2028 so it's a three year process for us where we want to add more elite, high-end talent to the list. But we’re not just getting caught up in this period, or next year's period or focusing on what two or three players can do for our list. It's about multiple picks, multiple players, so we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us still.”

Cripps on the potential to trade out pick seven
“We're open minded (around further pick swaps for this year) and we're sort of exploring that. Even draft night, we're still open minded. Picks seven and 12 give us the opportunity to match a bid at pick one and not go into deficit, or a small amount of deficit that won't affect next year's pick. We're open minded to sliding seven and 12 potentially and going into next year with a little bit of deficit. Part of our strategy around bringing in Richmond's future first potentially gives us some flexibility around moving seven and 12, but we have to balance that out because we also wanted to improve our hand this year so being able to get Richmond's pick 22 this year, which we think is a really good pick int this year's draft, was a positive. We tested the market with pick five and Richmond's deal in the end was clearly the best deal and we're pleased to be able to have facilitated that deal.”

Cripps on future player movement
“We’re open minded on all that, that's certainly one of the advantages of having the five first round picks over the next two years. We certainly want to be open minded on trades and we'll end up attacking the free agent market also. Probably the next three years the real focus is on the draft and bringing in younger players but we're certainly open-minded on players at other clubs that can help our list, there's no doubt about that.”

Cripps on Luke Pedlar
“We were pleased to get it done in the end. We've had good discussions with Adelaide, in particular Roughy (list manager Jarryd Roughead), in the last few days. We just got caught up a little bit with the Adelaide/Kangaroos potential deal they had going on so we just explored some different options with some pick swaps but in the end we just worked one on one right at the end.

“We think if we can help (Pedlar) with his body, get him into consistent training, he's got the ability to go through the midfield. He's obviously got some real power, he's very competitive, he's very combative, so we think he's going to be able to spend some time mid and forward and add some real depth in those areas.”

Port Adelaide AFL Trade Period details

Additionally:

• Pick 5 came in as compensation for Zak Butters, and later went to Richmond in a pick swap.
• A 2027 4th Round Pick came in via a pick swap with Richmond, and later went to Adelaide in the Luke Pedlar trade.