Geelong Head of Football Andrew Mackie says that the club is ‘open’ to conversation with other clubs now that the Cats’ draft hand is clear on the back of the Esava Ratugolea trade.

Geelong sent Ratugolea to Port Adelaide on Wednesday afternoon in exchange for picks 25, 76 and 94, which leaves Mackie, Stephen Wells and the recruiting team with picks 8, 25, 76, 87 and 94 ahead on next months’ AFL National Draft.

Speaking to AFL Trade Radio, Mackie said the delay in the deal getting done was Geelong looking to maximise their return for the key defender.

“It was always pretty close to be fair,” Mackie said. 

“I spoke around trying to maximise the deal if Esava was to go and that was my job to try and do that and I feel like it's landed in a pretty good spot for both parties.”

Speaking from Marvel Stadium following the official lodging of the paperwork on Wednesday afternoon, Mackie said he expects pick 76 to come in a little bit as the draft gets closer, but ultimately the deal does provide the Cats with some flexibility ahead of November 20. 

“We're really open to what our picks look like from here, so the 25 actually allows some flexibility with other clubs involved with pick 8 as well, so we'll structure that around there,” he said.

“We'll have some conversations from here from a list management point of view and work out where we think players might land and what we might need to do.”

While the Cats were active last year securing Tanner Bruhn, Oliver Henry, Jack Bowers, and Pick 7 which turned into Jhye Clark, this year was always likely to be quieter according to Mackie, but he is optimistic about where Geelong’s list currently sits. 

“When you do those things last year, we were really clear about what it meant in the future given we were moving the future picks, and with Esava the only player going, we're really comfortable with the young core group we've got," he said.

“We've got some experienced guys that given full availability next year, we're really optimistic about what the whole group can do and we feel there's a lot of improvement left in that. 

“There's some players that missed a fair bit of footy, some form, and whatever the reasons were, but I think from here on in we're really ready to be active in the space again. It's hard to do every year but we're really well positioned going forward. We've just got to draft well. 

“Clearly we invested in the future last year and we're really happy with the way those guys are tracking.”