The Cats were given an end of first round pick for Motlop, selection 19, which was earlier than clubs had expected.

It is understood the Cats initial reaction was to go to the draft with the pick but the club is still trying to attract Melbourne's Jack Watts and do a deal with Gold Coast for Gary Ablett.

Early on they had interest in Jake Stringer but ruled him out in part because they had nothing to offer as a trade.

Stringer meanwhile is still in career limbo and poised to head overseas. He wants to go to the Bombers and no other club has publicly declared interest as an alternative if an Essendon trade falls over. To date Stringer has said he only wants a trade to Essendon.

To get the quality pick they were after for him the Dogs appear likely to have to trade Stringer for two picks in the twenties and use those bundled up to court a club with a pick around 10.

The alternative is that he goes back to the Dogs. The Bombers still want him but were not prepared to hand over pick 11 alone for it would stop them doing other deals.

One of those deals is Adam Saad, expected to get done this week.

The trade period will intensify from Monday after most clubs had a break in negotiations for the weekend. The free agency window closed Sunday afternoon with no further players applying to move, chief among those was interest in Daniel Menzel from Geelong.

Port Adelaide are also in the running to secure Melbourne's Jack Watts, who is still yet to make up his mind where he wants to be traded to next year. Port Adelaide are presumed to be a favourite but Watts is still to reveal a preference.

Adelaide and Brisbane will discuss a trade of Charlie Cameron to the Lions. Cameron, who is contracted, wants to go for family reasons.

Carlton wants to do a deal for GWS midfielder Matthew Kennedy and have offered their third round pick this year but the Giants turned it down. The Blues are understood to have also offered a future third round pick.

GWS and Fremantle are haggling over future picks on Nathan Wilson's move to the Dockers.

Port's Matthew Lobbe met with Gold Coast and Brisbane officials on Friday but neither club has committed to trying to attract him yet.

Hawthorn will do a deal this week for Luke Hodge to join the Brisbane Lions. The Hawk have an interest in key forward Josh Schache but have no draft picks or players to be able to get that deal done.

There is a possibility they could seek to add to the Hodge deal to try to get Schache to the club but no arrangement has been put to Brisbane about this.

Out-of-contract Cats midfielder Darcy Lang is considering interest from North Melbourne.