Fremantle are hopeful of receiving fair value for Adam Cerra at the upcoming Trade Period in October, with executive general manager of football Peter Bell stating that the young midfielder has been a highly valued part of Fremantle’s system for the past four years.
Drafted at no.5 in the 2017 NAB AFL National Draft, Cerra informed Fremantle on Tuesday of his intentions to return to his home state of Victoria.
Speaking on 6PR, Bell said Cerra is a high-quality footballer who showed leadership around the Club.
“We drafted Adam as a pick five, he’s now played close to 80 games, he finished third in the Doig Medal last year, he’ll have a very high placing this year as well,” Bell said.
“He’s an outstanding character with leadership qualities. We think he’s worth a lot.
“At this stage Adam hasn’t indicated a team that he would like to be traded to. He had said that Carlton would be one of the teams that he and his management would speak to.”
While disappointed at potentially seeing Cerra leave, Bell added that it was not a reflection on the Club or its football program.
“Adam’s made it clear that there’s not a thing we could have done better, or any more support or resources that we could have put around him, to help him become the player or person that he is,” Bell said.
“If players decide that they might want to leave, then it’s incumbent on the club to turn that into the best result for Fremantle, as we saw with the Bradley Hill situation where the draft collateral ended up turning into Caleb Serong and Michael Frederick, both of whom we think will be very good players for a long period of time.”
Bell said that Fremantle would look at the number of tall talent available in November’s draft, including a number of WA-based players.
“Here in Western Australia, there’s some real talent around. Some big talls and a few mids and they’ve been able to play a lot of footy. It’s great from a local perspective that we’ve been able to get as much footy here and I think that will really enhance the draft pool in WA,” Bell said.
“I think that’s fair (that Fremantle need to go tall) the tall guys are a bit harder to find as well. There is some talent here this year, not only in WA but over on the east coast.
“We’ll run through all of those possibilities. We’re comfortable that there is a lot of talent in the draft and there is tall talent, which you’re right to identify as a need of ours.”
Bell highlighted Claremont's Eric Benning, who is a part of Fremantle’s Next Generation Academy, as a player the Club may look at.
“Young Eric Benning from up in the Kimberley is a tall, about 197cm, who doing some nice things,” Bell said.
“The draft is a long way off, in the middle of November, potential for further football for these guys to press their claims and then we’ll assess where things are at and where likely bids for those players may or may not come.”
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