At the end of business on Wednesday night, many nominated Hawthorn as the biggest winners of the trade period.
Securing the talents of Chad Wingard, Tom Scully and Jack Scrimshaw, Hawthorn adopted an aggressive approach in their pursuit of further improvement in 2019.
Asked whether he foresaw the Hawks being able to lure all three players, Hawthorn’s GM-Football Graham Wright was honest in his response.
“No would probably be the short answer,” Wright told RSN on Thursday morning.
“But things change a little bit through the period and you’ve always got to be ready to move.”
Wright said the opportunity to land Scully was one that came latest in the piece, having only met with the former number one draft pick a few days before signing him.
As for a return date for Scully from his “significant injury”, Wright said there was still hope he could be available for the start of the home and away season.
“We will be hopeful but I think that would be a best-case scenario to be honest.”
“We won’t be aiming for Round 1 though, we will just be aiming for when he is right.”
In a similar vein to Scully, Wright said Wingard also identified Hawthorn as the club which was going to provide him with the best possibilities moving forward in his career.
Watch: Wingard's top ten goals
“I think he just felt that this was the place he could get the best out of himself and get back to being that All Australian forward that we know he is capable of.
“At 25, we think he’s got a lot of good footy left ahead of him.
“He’s tough and he’s hard at the footy but he’s highly-skilled as well, so from that perspective we are really excited to get him on board.”
