Elijah Hollands Carlton, Gold Coast Suns happy to move him, Mabior Chol Hawthorn

Gold Coast list boss Craig Cameron has confirmed his club is happy to part ways with top 10 player Elijah Holland, but suggested a trade won’t be completed quickly.

And Cameron believes his club will approach Ben King before the end of the year to discuss their offer of a contract extension to the star striker.

While Hollands is under contract with the club for next season and has not officially requested a swap with Carlton – the club his younger brother Ollie plays for – the player is considering a move to Ikon Park – although his management have stressed last week that Hollands would. be happy to see his contract with the Suns come out.

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Hollands has only played 14 games since being drafted by Gold Coast with Pick 7 in the 2020 draft.

Asked if the Suns were willing to move Hollands forward, Cameron told SEN on Monday morning: “Yes, we are – and there are a number of reasons for that.

“First of all, to play Elijah (at AFL level), we played him a little bit out of position so we could get him in and play games. I think he’s better suited to the middle rather than on the wing.

“With the emergence of Sam Flanders in the second half of the season, we believe Bailey Humphrey will require more time in midfield and even youngster Alex Davies has developed very well for us – we believe this area of land for us is well stocked.

“Elijah probably didn’t take the opportunity we gave him – even though we probably didn’t play him in what we think was his best position.

“I think the other thing – and I’ll be careful how I say this… we’ve actually made some very difficult decisions to get our TPP (Total Player Payments) to a position that we’re really comfortable with. comfortable. But I think going forward we have to be very careful with some of the players we have signed, if they don’t meet that contract level we will have to make some decisions. We have some young emerging talent who are going to demand certain salaries, you’ve seen what we’ve done over the last few years – which has been quite radical – to get to a position where we have to get to – and we’re not doing it. I don’t want to let that go. We We did too much work to get to the right position.

Cameron added: “Elijah is not paid exorbitantly, but I think we need to be very careful about all our contracts going forward. »

When asked how he valued a player like Hollands and what a trade might look like, Cameron replied: “Given what we did last week with the points, I think we would like something in the future. But if we can do something that also gives us a few extra points for our academy students, we would look at that as well. I don’t think it will be a simple deal, I think there will be a few elements.

Asked if talks with the Blues were progressing well, Cameron said: “It hasn’t progressed much yet, but I think it will progress in the coming days.”

The Suns have already been involved in four trades this offseason as they prepare to match offers on star Academy quartet Jed Walter, Ethan Read, Jake Rogers and Will Graham. As of Monday, they held six second-round picks in this year’s draft.

They’ve already added the Bulldogs’ future first-rounder and one of North’s late-first-round special assistance picks to their 2024 draft arsenal. That comes as rival clubs expect Leonardo Suns 2024 academy prospect Lombard – who was part of the Suns’ 2023 VFL premiership triumph as a 16-year-old – attracts a first-round bid.

Cameron said his club was confident he would be well placed for November’s national draft.

“We’ve done everything we can during this trade period, other than maybe a few picks,” he said.

“We can probably only take six picks in the draft, but on draft night some clubs indicated they would like to trade with us. The anomaly in the system is that we can only put as many picks into the draft as we have available roster spots, but once draft night happens we can expand it. We think we’ll do a little more work on draft night to make sure we have enough picks.

“We earned a few first-round picks next year, which gives us a little bit of isolation instead of going into a deficit.” So we think everything is fine.

The Suns will soon focus on signing King, who is out of contract after the 2024 season.

The 202cm star has scored 129 goals in 73 games since the Suns drafted him with Pick 6 in the 2018 draft.

Cameron said King has had an offer from the Suns in front of him “for quite some time.”

“We are confident that we will sit down with his leadership group before Christmas to discuss an extension,” Cameron said of King.

Asked if he was concerned that King hadn’t re-signed yet, Cameron said, “No, not at all.” He was not asked to make the decision then and there, when we did. We gave it to him a while ago to understand that we would like him to extend it.

“We don’t really feel any stress about the situation at the moment. He’s pretty happy and comfortable, we have a new coach coming in, so I’m pretty sure he’s excited about it all.