You have to wonder whether the powerbrokers at Collingwood have had a chance to sit back, smell the roses and enjoy what was a very hard-won AFL Premeirship.

The Pies were always going to make the front pages of the papers after beating St Kilda just nine days ago, but the headlines surrounding the club since the historic have been a mixture of the good and the bad.

The sexual assault stuff is in a holding pattern while we await the results of as police investigation, but what should have been a good news day for the Pies on Monday, with the return of Chris Tarrant after four years at Fremantle, was tempered by a contract dispute involving Travis Cloke.

Cloke, through his manager-cum-father-cum-spokesman David Cloke, feels slighted - possibly by the money offered by the Magpies for a new deal, perhaps by the length of the new deal and or even by the fact that Travis isn't a member of the leadership team at Pie-land.

It could be one of the above or it could be all three, but it smacks of looking for any old reason to walk out on the club and head towards a more friendly suitor at next month's national draft. Carlton perhaps?

Magpie fans are using any forum they can find to vent towards Cloke senior. Speaking for the Magpie masses, 'Piesnchess' wrote on Nick's Magpie Net, a leading Collingwood message board: "Old man Cloke reminds me of the type of footy dad I used to cringe at when my sons played junior footy, always mouthing off at the umpire, always screaming for their kid to go in harder, calling other kids names, the bad parent syndrome. Tennis is riddled with types like Cloke senior, he reminds me of Dokics crazy father. Its time Travis told him to take a hike and keep out of his life, I realise the old man is his manager-worst possible job for a parent of a player-but he interferes far too much, and thinks he is helping his kids, but he is not."

And that's the mild stuff.

Travis Cloke is overseas, so this will play itself out for quite some time to come. A bit like Luke Ball this time last year, it will be the major player personnel story for the foreseeable future. He is an valuable player in the Collingwood side - BPL's Wayne Carey reckons he is the most important of all - and it would take some of the gloss off the premiership win if he wasn't there for the flag unveiling in round one next year.

The other notable item out of the final day of trading was the start of clubs trading current picks for future picks and vice-versa.

Geelong got in on the act, trading back to the Gold Coast one of the discretionary picks it received inside the first round for Gary Ablett. It gives the Cats two first-round picks this year as it embarks on a mini-rebuild and allows the Suns - five months out from their first game - to stockpile picks for next season, when it will be Greater Western Sydney's turn to plunder the draft, or for when the draft becomes uncompromised again at the end of 2012.

Player trading is about to become a whole lot more complicated and a whole lot more interesting, with free agency on the horizon. The drudgery that is trade week might soon become a thing of the past.