Mackie on Rowan Marshall

Yeah really happy to get Rowan in.

Obviously, we would have loved to have been standing here last year, having done that deal. It didn't happen, but we were able to execute this year.

We didn't muck around, we probably went into the trade period thinking we would like to hold onto pick 14. But out of respect to him, we just wanted to get him in.

I feel like he will be a great match with Mitch Edwards, our young ruck who we are super bullish on.

Rowan has got a lot of footy left in him, we know at that position there are a lot of years left for him at our footy club.

In the end, we weighed all that up and thought lets just get that trade done, while there was a window to get it done. 

Mackie on Gryan Miers

It was not very close.

I spoke the other day, there has been some interest in Gryan. He is obviously a great player, but we are really looking forward to having him back.

He is contracted for a couple of years and that didn't get too far down the track. If there is something too good to be true for the player, we out of respect will have a look at it for him.

It didn't get to that stage and he is overseas having a good holiday, and well deserved. 

Mackie on whether the moves can help Geelong's premiership chances

We're crystal balling, aren't we?

We do things that we do think can help us to win a premiership. At the same time, there is now and we are worried about the future as well.

We are not trying to be all in now and kick the future down the road, we are trying to do it all. We are being greedy I suppose, but we are really confident with the three guys that we did bring in and what they can do for our footy club in the now.

But at the same time, and I sort of spoke to this last week, that we are also optimistic about the next tier of players that we have and our age demographic. We are really bullish on what they can be, I feel like we have got a really good core that will take this footy club forward.

To add some senior players to that is great for us, but at the same time, we feel like it will help develop from within as well. 

Mackie on Jordan Ridley

We are getting him into our footy club with the thought that he can really help us win games of footy.

Clearly, there has been injury history and like I said, hopefully a change of scenery can really help that. At times, it as simple as going to a different environment and things change, there is an element of risk within that.

But it is the same thing, we didn't muck around from a trade point of view. We wanted to get him in, executed that quite early and we were respectful of Essendon's position there.

He was contracted, there were two contracted guys we brought in so you can only do so much there.

There is a body of work that will need to go into setting himself up for the remaining part of his career. He is only 27 so if we do get it right, we feel like there is plenty of footy left in him.