Only hours after Adelaide had been pessimistic about the deal, the Western Bulldogs secured Alex Keath late in the AFL trade period.
The Bulldogs had done nothing in the trade period before confirming deals for Keath and key forward Josh Bruce inside the last hour.
Keath and Bruce were the Bulldogs’ two trade targets and they look significant winners with the deals.
By securing Bruce from St Kilda, the Bulldogs have recruited a good foil for young key forward Aaron Naughton in the rejuvenated attack.
Keath will boost their defence, provided he recovers from leg surgery.
The operation complicated negotiations with Adelaide and earlier on Wednesday, Crows list manager Justin Reid was still saying he was “not real confident” about reaching a deal.
But Bulldogs counterpart Sam Power said he always felt it would go through.
“We made a fair bit of ground in the last 24 hours,” he said.
“From our end, I was always really confident that it was going to get done.”
Keath has joined the Bulldogs on a three-year deal and Power does not expect his injury to be an ongoing problem.
“We expect post-Christmas, January, that he’ll be in full training,” he said.
“That won’t impact his 2020 season.
“This (surgery) was nothing that was concerning with us.”