It's 2002 and Essendon's Justin Blumfield is on an island off New Zealand and I called him at 1.30pm on the final day of Trade Week. He was an Essendon premiership player and highly respected and had signed a new two-year contract three months prior to that day. The trade deadline was 2pm and Essendon had had a week to do a trade but left it to the last 30 minutes, as Essendon was prone to do.

This is not an unusual situation for a top-four club having to unload a player due to a salary cap squeeze. The Bombers told me Blumfield didn't have to go if he didn't want to, but they really wanted to do the deal. It's a manager's worst nightmare.

You have 30 minutes to not only negotiate a new deal with the new club; Richmond - but you also have to convince Blumfield to agree. I told him to think about it, that the Bombers were keen to avoid any potential fine for breaches of the salary cap, and I'd call back in 20 minutes. When I called, he said he wanted to stay and I agreed.

At 1.50pm, I called Essendon and gave them the bad news and the person who took the call said in a loud voice: What do you mean he doesn’t want to go? Then I heard another familiar voice say: ''Stuff him, tell him he'll be playing in the reserves all year.''

I've heard some unbelievable things over the journey, but this hit a particular raw nerve. Where is the justice in trading a player who was contracted in good faith three months prior?

So, I rang Richmond and demanded a much bigger deal, told Blumfield he had to go, but the 2pm deadline comes and goes. At 2.05, I tell Essendon he will go. But how do we tell the AFL we've done a deal five minutes too late? I used lesson 246 (the Ian Collins explanation as to why the Greg Williams move from Sydney to Carlton was late), which was blame it on technology; the fax machine.

I ring the AFL and start abusing them for how I've been faxing them for 20 minutes and the fax machine has been engaged. Unbelievably, they apologised and gave me another fax number. Problem solved. Blumfield is Tiger, all done in 25 minutes.

Unquestionably, Trade Week has improved since then. But if the AFL was being totally honest, it really exists for legal reasons to prevent a restraint of trade case.

Trade Week produces such predictable results. No more than 10 deals get done and there's mad rush from clubs before the Monday deadline to show supporters they are busy trying to improve their list.

Every player manager has a minimum five players and maximum 15 who will want to change clubs for a better opportunity. Now, we see a shift of 10-20 players full stop.

Trade Week drags because clubs wait in case they find a better deal, do their due diligence on the player, and in some cases sit on their bum, wondering if they are being screwed.

A good manager does plenty of planning prior to trade week, including:

1. Reviewing my list of clients and determining which might need a change
2. Talking to clubs in the second half of the season about why a player may want to be traded.
3. Counselling players about why they might be traded;
4. Analysing which clubs will need my player and why, and creating a ''sale factor'' which is the manager's tool of overvaluing their player. For example, telling Carlton they should trade Fevola for Lachie Henderson because he will be a key position player for 10 years.
5. Creating an internal trade myself, ie: trade one of my players to a club for another one of my players. A straight swap. That exists in the big firms.
6. Knowing how clubs operate and avoiding the clubs who I have in the too-hard basket.

It is critical managers know the market value of their player, which Collingwood may have found out the hard way in the past week.

Trade Week itself is a week-long period of frustration and testiness. Many champion premiership players have seen their relationship become strained and estranged, which leads me to Daniel Bradshaw. One day he is premiership player, the next he is telling his family he is flying to Melbourne for a medical.

It's about loyalty, or lack of it. How do Fremantle players feel about their coach being sacked with two years to run on a contract? Do they now show loyalty back to the club when they want to be released from a contract. How can the Dockers say no.

A combination of Mark Thompson, Ross Lyon, Tom Scully and Callan Ward has changed the face of loyalty in our game forever.

Ricky Nixon

Image courtesy of perthnow.com.au

For more information on Ricky Nixon, please visit www.rickynixon.com.au or follow him on Twitter @rickynixon1