Port Adelaide great Kane Cornes admitted he was “shocked” by the Dan Houston trade deal, stating the club has not improved its list.
Houston was part of a mega trade that involved three clubs on Tuesday.
Port Adelaide received Jack Lukosius and Rory Atkins from the Gold Coast along with Joe Richards from Collingwood. Picks 13, 29, 36 and 50 also went to the Power.
ANALYSIS: ‘Unprecedented’ chaos leads to frustration on AFL deadline day
READ MORE: Greene facing monster fine over controversial party
EXCLUSIVE: What Olympic breaking star thought of Raygun fiasco
Collingwood landed two time All-Australian defender Houston and pick 58, giving away a 2025 first round pick, Richards, John Noble and pick 36. The Gold Coast Suns received Noble, the 2025 first round pick and pick 39.
It was a prolonged process after it was reported Monday that Port rejected the exact same deal.
Cornes’ immediate reaction was “thank goodness” but it then turned to shock when the deal was announced.
“Have they improved their list for next year? You have to say no,” he said on Nine’s Footy Furnace.
“I can’t work out why they have done this.”
Houston’s move comes after Port list manager Jason Cripps told Nine’s 3AW the club had explored every possible avenue.
“The opportunity with Dan, we explored multiple clubs,” he said.
“The Connors Sports Management Group did an excellent job in allowing us to explore multiple clubs for Dan rather than nominating one and we feel like we exhausted all those opportunities and we landed what was the best deal available to us in this period.”
Cornes wasn’t convinced.
“I don’t buy that at all. I asked (Port general manager) Chris Davies why didn’t you trade him to North Melbourne and he said because Dan Houston didn’t want to go there,” he said.
“So (Houston’s manager Paul) Connors didn’t say he can go to any club.
“He (Cripps) just thanked Paul Connors for an unknown reason, you had Paul Connors’ client who had three years left on a contract, break that contract to make your team significantly worse.
“So the only thing I can say as the reason they did this was to keep that powerful agent group happy.”