Executive General Manager of Football Peter Bell says he doesn’t expect ‘any issues’ with Rory Lobb after there was speculation that the forward-ruck would request a trade to the east coast during the Continental Tyres AFL Trade Period.
There were multiple reports throughout the trade period that linked Lobb with his former team GWS, however Lobb never formally requested a trade.
Bell said he would meet with Lobb on Thursday to discuss the upcoming pre-season.
“(Senior coach) Justin Longmuir has reached out to Rory and Justin and I will catch up with him tomorrow,” Bell said.
“I had waited until the end of the trade period, it’s just that crazy a period that we wanted to get through before we had those kinds of meetings.
“Having said that, we don’t think there’ll be any issue whatsoever with Rory. He’s shared some texts with his teammates about really coming in and training hard and helping us get to where we want to get to and also for Rory to become the player that he wants to be, and we all believe he can be.
“I’m not foreseeing any issues whatsoever.”
Bell addressed the trade of Adam Cerra to Carlton and said the Club was well placed to cover his absence in the midfield.
“It’s disappointing we lose the great character that is Adam but also the four years of development that we put into him,” Bell said.
“We think there will be opportunities in the midfield for players like Darcy Tucker, Will Brodie comes in, Connor Blakely as well.
“We experimented a little bit with Sam Switkowski doing some pinch hitting in the midfield and I think that’s something we’d like to continue to explore.
“Michael Walters is another one and we didn’t have Nathan Fyfe for the last third of the season.
“With Andrew Brayshaw, Caleb Serong and David Mundy as well, we think we’ve got pretty good depth there but there will be opportunities for other players.”
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