IT HAD been a seismic Trade Period for Brisbane in 2018.

The club had been stunned by the departure of former captain Dayne Beams, and elated by the arrival of future Brownlow Medal winner Lachie Neale, when its list manager Dom Ambrogio remembered a chance mid-year discussion about his next target.

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Winston Rous, the manager of Gold Coast midfielder Jarryd Lyons, had asked Ambrogio during the year if he'd ever snared the same player twice. Ambrogio had, after all, been the list boss when the Suns first acquired Lyons.

Lyons had played 37 games across two seasons with Gold Coast, but had been dropped twice throughout the 2018 campaign by coach Stuart Dew. He had one season remaining on his deal, but the mid-season discussion had sparked a thought.

Gold Coast was prepared to delist Lyons, saying his opportunities would be limited after it had brought in a host of players and secured three top-six selections at the upcoming national draft.

Brisbane could offer him additional opportunity in its ever-improving young midfield group, if he was willing to make the switch. So, it put in a Hail Mary call to Rous from Phoenix Management Group.

"It's hard to go past the delisted free agency of Jarryd Lyons," Rous told AFL's trade, draft and free agency show Gettable this week, recounting his favourite historical player movement story.

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"I got the call from Brisbane on the Friday about catching up. I didn't know what it was about. They said, 'Is there any chance this could be part of something?' after they had lost Dayne Beams and brought in Lachie Neale.

"It just grew legs really quickly from there. We had to have willing parties and we had to keep it away from the media in a sense, because I think if it had got legs media-wise it might have been shut down.

"Jarryd hadn't been looking for a trade and the Trade Period had ended. He had fully intended to head back to the Suns and fight for his spot with a year to go on his contract."

Lyons, who was preparing for his wedding the following week when he got the call from Rous, had agreed to the switch by the end of the weekend. The result has been 91 impressive games across the following five years at Brisbane, helping the club's rise to being a premiership contender.

"It was something that came on last minute," Rous said.

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"Dom brought Jarryd through to Gold Coast when he was there. We had a mid-year discussion and I asked the question, 'Have you ever done it twice? Have you ever brought the same player in twice?' It was as a lead-in, because at the time Jarryd was out of the Suns' team. We never mentioned it again for four or five months, then it came up at the end of the year.

"It was on a Saturday. I called [Lyons] and said, 'Mate I've got something I need to talk to you about'. He was at a wedding and the next week was his own wedding. I flew up that Saturday night and said, 'This is what it is'. Brisbane was there on the Sunday and by the Monday I was basically asking him to make this life-changing decision. Away it went."