This isn't completely true the club made the calculated decision on both players. Pushing for a premiership in contract years and try to convince them both to stay.In a perfect world we would have, but without player approval our hands were tied. The Hawks most likely trade for him last year if he agrees to go there (not pick 4, that’s fantasy, but something decent) but Smith and Dunkley the year before made a calculated decision to wait until OOC so that they could minimise the return to the club.
In Dunkley's case it nearly worked given we made the grand final, Smith obviously didn't get the chance given his ACL.