Updated ,first published
Darwin: Port Adelaide coach Josh Carr has detailed how he and Port Adelaide have handled the decision facing Zak Butters on whether he returns to Victoria, reiterating the hard line on compensation that the club will take if their champion and free agent chooses to leave.
Carr said the Butters discussion, one of the major AFL stories of 2026, had not impacted on team performance, and that he and Butters had been “really open with each other” about his situation.
Carr also made a strong case for the AFL to amend a problem in the bidding system rule change, highlighting the problem facing not just Port Adelaide but potentially any of the 18 clubs in 2027 when Tasmania will have the lion’s share of the first round of the national draft.
While Butters is exploring a move back to Victoria – with the Bulldogs and Geelong viewed as frontrunners for him – the Port Adelaide coach said the club had achieved a scenario in which Butters and the Power had put the team first, without affecting team performance this year.
“I’ve been there myself as a player,” Carr told this masthead in an exclusive interview before the Power’s game in Darwin, speaking of Butters. Carr navigated a trade to Fremantle after Port won the 2004 premiership.
“I think everyone understands when a player comes out of contract, they’ve got every right to explore and understand what’s out there.
“And we understand that players do want to go home, and we want to bring players back to Adelaide that are from Adelaide.”
Carr indicated, too, that Port retained an interest in Saints star Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera if he explored a move, the Saints gun having signed only a two-year extension last year.
“So to understand the landscape, I think the maturity of us as a footy club, but also Zak himself, is about now and about our investment in the football club right now, and making sure we’re all getting better.
“And he’s a great leader of our footy club. He leads by example. He demands high standards around the footy club, and that hasn’t stopped, and so we’ve been really honest with each other about what that looks like, and about making sure we put the team first, and, and that’s been the goal for everyone, and feel like that’s being achieved right now.
“We’re always really, really open with each other and what it looks like. But again, what it ends up coming back to is making sure the team isn’t being affected. And I don’t think it is.”
The Power have been highly competitive in Carr’s maiden season as senior coach, toppling Geelong and almost beating Hawthorn.
He is unequivocal the club will match any offer for Butters if the player exercises his free agency rights, which would then force a trade. Butters would fetch just one first round choice for the Power if they let simply leave, but in a trade Port will demand far more.
“It’s not even really a discussion … we will match it. So whatever it is, it’ll be matched,” Carr said.
And its clear to see why, given Butters was Port’s best player by a significant margin yet again on Friday night, finishing with 35 touches, eight clearances and eight score involvements in a 25-point loss to the Suns.
Like Carlton, Port has rights to a potential No.1 pick in this year’s this draft – academy recruit Doug Cochrane. But Carr said the Power were not thinking of Cochrane – who could cost the draft equivalent to picks four and eight if a bid was made for him at No.1 – as an effective swap for Butters.
“We’re not really thinking about it like that,” he said.
Speaking on the Tasmania’s impact on draft bids in 2027 – when the Power will have the rights to take highly rated youngster Louis Salopek as a father-son selection and potentially another recruit from their next-generation academy – Carr said the AFL needed to consider all clubs, not simply the Devils, with its 2027 draft rules.
The league has made the price higher for clubs with rights to father-son and academy players, with two picks the maximum that can be used to match a bid under the revised system.
Port’s position is not to oppose Tasmania’s draft haul, which will include picks one, three, five, seven, nine and more.
They want the bid to be in line with ladder position, and their “natural” pick rather than the skewed order created by Tasmania owning the lion’s share of the early part of the draft. If the AFL uses the actual 2027 picks – irrespective of ladder order – clubs will find it harder to match bids.
“From my point of view as a coach, we do everything we can to get those players, and we will, and there’s still a bit to go with what next year looks like with Tasmania coming in,” he said. “We just hope the AFL are thinking about everyone, we’re not just Tasmania when it comes to those decisions.
“So right now, if it keeps going like it is, the value of our pick could slide off on the back of what Tasmania have.
“So there’s conversations being had, and we hope it comes into consideration that, you know, whoever it is – it’s not just us – it is all AFL clubs, that if you have a pick, that value holds with the bids that come in from Tassie.”
Carr said Port tried hard to lure Wanganeen-Milera last year and retained an interest if he was open to a move.
“I don’t need to go into details as far as me and that, but to say that I put a lot of work in, like every club, to get the best players in the competition,” he said.
“He was one it would have been nice to … get him over to, or back to, Adelaide. But that’s the way it was.
“We want good players. Want to bring the players back to Adelaide, and if he’s open to a move, then we’ll be having those conversations.”
Carr said gun midfielder Jason Horne-Francis, the No.1 draft pick of 2021, had matured in how he prepared for the AFL, agreeing with those who likened the powerful matchwinner to Hawthorn’s Luke Hodge, who took time to become a superstar in comparison to West Coast’s Chris Judd when they both emerged from the 2001 draft.
“I think if you look at the way he’s prepared himself now, like physically, he looks elite now; the way he looks after his body and his understanding of what it takes to be a professional footballer. He’s got so much upside.
“I think that’s fair [comparison]. He loves football, but he loves his mates as well.”
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Jake Niall is a Walkley award-winning sports journalist and chief AFL writer for The Age.Connect via X or email.
