Youth policies, rebuilding, focussing on the draft - they're the sorts of things you say when you can't get a trade done, so you won't be hearing any of that sort of touchy feeling stuff from Fremantle this year. Jubilant over their top 6 finish this year, Fremantle have gone into top up mode and hit the trade tables hard over the past week, confident that they could uncover some previously uncovered gems born in the mid 1980's, while at the same time unloading some dead wood on an unsuspecting Collingwood to try and bring the premiers down a peg.

Fremantle's first order of business was to get into bed with the Gold Coast. You're nobody if you're not dealing with the Gold Coast and Fremantle wanted to get in some of that inaugural action. They hopped in the Learjet to go and see Guy McKenna in his Palaious subaquatic headquarters to negotiate the release of former Sydney Swan, Peter Faulks who the Gold Coast had snapped up with one of their concessions. 

Fremantle had identified Faulks early in the season, mainly because the Lloyd brothers had thought up a lot of Fork puns, and Chris Bond does an awesome impression of Columbo after a few ports. To their surprise, it turned out he could play a bit, dominating at full back for Williamstown in the VFL and testing well in the AFL sanctioned obstacle course.

Bluey McKeena had more blokes on the books than he knew what to do with and was happy enough to let Faulks go but Brad Lloyd was keen to do a deal, and swapped pick 55 for pick 61, so h would be able to Twitter his mates - We got Faulks for steak knives.

The Fremantle team stayed on the Gold Coast for a couple more days to hit the water slides before heading back down to Bluey's aquarium to do another deal. A bloke from Perth with a funny name had caught their eye on Channel 2 one afternoon and they thought they might be able to weasel him off the Gold Coast as well, while the Suns were all busy doing their life guard duties and filling parking metres with coins.

Luckily McKenna was still in his bikini when the Freo boys met with him so he was keen to get the deal over with as quickly as possible and Fremantle secured Perth's Best & Fairest, the galloping defender, Tendai Mzungu.

In exchange for Mzungu, Fremantle had to hand over pick number 38 but were able to take back pick number 44 if they agreed not to publich the photos of McKenna they'd taken on their iPhones.

So they flew back down to Melbourne, commercial this time because the Gold Coast needed the jet to fly Gary Ablett's collection of Bobblehead Dolls up, armed with pick 44, pick 61 and Chris Tarrant  - who had had enough of being treated well and respected at Fremantle, wanting to return to Collingwood where they ridiculed him and relieved themselves over the fence in his general direction every time he missed a shot on goal.

Pick 61 was quickly converted into East Fremantle ruckman, Jon Griffin, after Adelaide got scared that he would nominate for the draft and they'd end up with nothing for him.

Fremantle weren't quite so flinchy, and not just because they'd been on the XXXX all weekend up in Queensland. Collingwood were playing hardball with Chris Tarrant, making claims about drafting him for nothing, offering up picks that Fremantle knew were too high for Collingwood to count to anyway, and trying on every bluff they could think of.

None of it worked though, Fremantle had seen the x-rays.

Barely able to stand up without some sort of Weekend at Bernie's style action from Fremantle trainers, the Dockers were secretly desperate to unload the flaky forward.

Feigning disappointment, they were eventually able to get back pick number 55, that they'd swapped with the Gold Coast for Faulks, as well as switching their 3rd round pick 44 (also from the Gold Coast) for a 2nd round pick 43, avoiding all the crazy Gold Coast recruiting concessions that the AFL have thrown in between the 2nd and 3rd round of the draft.

The end result sees Fremantle lose Chris Tarrant and pick 38 while gaining Jon Griffin, Peter Faulks, Tendai Mzungu and pick number 43.

The draft will take place on the 18th of November where the Dockers will have picks 20, 43, 55, 72, 89, 106, 123 and 140.