WHEN Ryan O'Keefe decided to turn down what he considered a sub-par deal with Sydney and test the waters in the AFL's trade week, he was clearly unaware he would be swimming with sharks.

However, as O'Keefe's career remains in limbo with the hard-working forward uncertain whether to run the gauntlet of the pre-season draft or accept the Swans' revised contract offer, the 27-year-old has found the game is sometimes played much tougher off the field than on it.

Predictably, O'Keefe has been cast as a mercenary by Swans fans for his post-season walkout. However, his initial disillusionment with a contract offer he did not believe matched the service he had given the club over 10 years - believed to be for about $400,000 a season - was understandable as he had earned the same money for the past three, very successful, seasons.

But somewhat naive was O'Keefe's apparent belief that, should better offers come from Melbourne clubs, the AFL's trade mechanism would ensure he would find the lucrative new home of his choosing.

After the Herald carried the first report that O'Keefe was disillusioned with the Swans' contract offer late last month, he and his new management received plenty of tempting offers. However, what O'Keefe was not told was that few clubs would be willing to give up their first-round pick or a quality player who would represent a fair trade for a player included on this year's All-Australian short list.

As one Swans official said: "What Ryan was told and what was actually put on the table during the week were a long way apart. He was being led to believe clubs were making genuine offers to get him, and we didn't get one."

What seems obvious is that the clubs that made lucrative contract offers to O'Keefe - believed to be up to $600,000 a season - did so in the hope that they could get him in the pre-season draft.

That would leave O'Keefe in the uncomfortable position of leaving the club that awarded him life membership just two weeks ago empty-handed - something his agent Tom Petroro said was never his intention. "Ryan has been with the club for 10 years and he has been determined all along to do the right thing by the Swans," he said.

Sometimes in these circumstances, a player might rationalise leaving a former club empty-handed on the basis that he had given them every chance to strike a fair deal. But, again, it was not the Swans but the clubs that told O'Keefe they coveted his services who would not play ball at the trade table - not with the value of draft picks inflated by the impending arrival of the new Gold Coast and western Sydney teams.

So O'Keefe has been left in an awkward position. He must either put a hefty price on his head and hope to get to a preferred team in the pre-season draft or make an embarrassing backdown and return to the Swans, who have increased their initial three-year contract offer to more than $450,000 a season.

Petroro yesterday declined to discuss reports that Carlton, one of the teams that had told O'Keefe it would pursue him vigorously in trade week, had withdrawn its interest. Nor would he say whether O'Keefe had decided to go into the pre-season draft or accept the Swans' revised offer.

Either way, it is a case likely to ensure a few players who think the grass looks greener will check twice before jumping the fence for fear they are being fooled.