Toast Jamarra Ugle-Hagan - Welcome to the club

Mar 20, 2009
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They mean compromised as in players are already aligned to clubs not that one or two clubs hold all the picks.



I think the academies are great for the Buku Khamis types who may not have been given the opportunity without the academies. I’m not sure it’s a great thing with these guys that would’ve been top 10-15 picks (Tarryn Thomas, Isaac Quaynor) who probably would’ve made the system regardless. Definitely needs a tune up, not sure what it is. Doesn’t seem fair that we get a prospect as good as this seemingly without doing a hell of a lot of work. But as you said, let’s hope they don’t change it for a couple of years.

Hell of a lot of work? Are you mad? The best forward prospect we've had in years only now just landed on our doorstep and we lucked out as we originally thought he was a KPD.

The last truly great game changing forward we had was big bad bustling Barry Hall who kicked 80 goals for us after getting kicked out of Sydney.

Now another presents himself via the NGA and you think it hasn't been a hard graft?

Are you mad?

Get out.
 
If we finish right near the top next year, plenty will cry foul and the noise to take academies away will build. Purely cause this kid is top 3 talent.
I agree that there will be a backlash but it's not just because he's a top talent.

It's because a significant proportion of the players in the draft will be locked up in NGA/FS arrangements. If the draft is going to operate as intended it needs less and less compromise. Instead the degree of compromise has been steadily increasing.

It's also because we - the upstart Western Bulldogs - are the club that has the nerve to lay claim to this special talent. If it was Collingwood or West Coast there would be more chance that the media would be saying "nothing to see here".


I'm happy to see changes made but it will be a harsh call if they make them before next year's draft. The later they leave it the more unfair it becomes. The idea of the NGA was that clubs should spend years developing players who didn't have normal AFL development pathways. If that has really been happening (somewhat debatable to say the least) then the AFL would have to give at least a couple of years notice and allow passage of the 2-3 crops of academy players that clubs have supposedly been putting so much resource into over the last few years.

If on the other hand the AFL shuts down the process abruptly it's tantamount to admitting that the whole NGA thing has been a sham - perhaps right from the start. It seems it was more to silence the Vic-based clubs and to provide cover and legitimacy for the special access to talent that the expansion clubs were getting under the banner of "academies" even though many of those players have come from traditional AFL feeder zones like the ACT and the Riverina.

However I'm not expecting that level of public candour from the AFL.

The AFL's private thinking is probably something like this: now that the NGA program has got out of control and is almost matching what the expansion clubs are getting it's time to close up shop or change the rules.

So if it is going to be reshaped according to the AFL's latest whim let's hope we can at least salvage Jamarra out of it before any of that comes into effect.
 

Triple Baileys

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Jan 7, 2019
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They mean compromised as in players are already aligned to clubs not that one or two clubs hold all the picks.

Compromised means compromised, which in this context I take to mean the normal or usual rules are altered to promote certain outcomes.

Thinking about it more, it is even more outrageous that AFL.com even uses the word "compromised" in relation to F/S and NGA.
 
Its a difficult situation, the best way to fix this:
If an NGA player is nominated in the top 20 of the draft, the team holding the player only get a 5% discount instead of 20% as per the normal
 

Virgin Dog

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Its a difficult situation, the best way to fix this:
If an NGA player is nominated in the top 20 of the draft, the team holding the player only get a 5% discount instead of 20% as per the normal
Unpopular opinion - discount should be removed entirely. Having dibs on a player should be enough of a benefit to the clubs involved, I see no reason they should also receive the discount. This means clubs will only match if they 100% really want the player, and not just feel like it is worth the investment thanks to getting them cheaper (effectively like drafting a slider)
 
Unpopular opinion - discount should be removed entirely. Having dibs on a player should be enough of a benefit to the clubs involved, I see no reason they should also receive the discount. This means clubs will only match if they 100% really want the player, and not just feel like it is worth the investment thanks to getting them cheaper (effectively like drafting a slider)
more rewarding the club for investing resources into the player through training camps, programs and work placement
 

Virgin Dog

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more rewarding the club for investing resources into the player through training camps, programs and work placement
I get that, but I feel like the reward is getting dibs on the player in the first place.

Also there's really no investment from the club in cases of Father/Sons. They were basically born to an ex-player, can go all the way up to the draft without a single minute of time invested from the club, and we'd still get a discount. That just seems wrong to me.

I know we've been a major beneficiary of the F/S rule (Hunter, Cordy, Libba, Wallis, West) but it still seems ridiculous that we got the discount in the first place. If a club really wants to maintain the legacy of the family's ties to the club, then they should be expected to pay the full price
 
You have a 30yo?! I suspect we’re of a similar vintage dogwatch but the fact your offspring are significantly older than mine makes me feel younger! 😀
So you’re not a 1973 baby? Or were you an early breeder?
 
I get that, but I feel like the reward is getting dibs on the player in the first place.

Also there's really no investment from the club in cases of Father/Sons. They were basically born to an ex-player, can go all the way up to the draft without a single minute of time invested from the club, and we'd still get a discount. That just seems wrong to me.

I know we've been a major beneficiary of the F/S rule (Hunter, Cordy, Libba, Wallis, West) but it still seems ridiculous that we got the discount in the first place. If a club really wants to maintain the legacy of the family's ties to the club, then they should be expected to pay the full price

I think this is how it should go for FS picks. The FS arrangements were brought in to preserve the romance of a son playing for the club his (long-serving) dad played for, not as a reward for effort or vision on the part of the club.

So if you want him, you get first dibs BUT you pay full price.

I can see there is a different argument to be made re the academy players. However the rorting / random good luck/opportunism is not a good look and undermines the aims of fair and equal competition. It needs to be scaled back somehow to genuine development which otherwise wouldn’t have taken place.

Unfortunately as long as the AFL sees a need to drip feed the northern expansion clubs it’s going to be problematical.
 

stefoid

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Its a difficult situation, the best way to fix this:
If an NGA player is nominated in the top 20 of the draft, the team holding the player only get a 5% discount instead of 20% as per the normal

That doesnt change the essence of the situation which is a random team is getting dibs on a gun player on the pretext of that player needing development help from the club, when in fact they didnt need any development help at all. That situation goes against draft equalisation and the reason the NGA was introduced.

What you want is a system that incentivises clubs to uncover talented athletes and get them into the footy system.

In practice, this might mean different things for teams in different states - WA teams might be arranging for aboriginal kids from the outback to go to school and play in metropolitan areas.

In eastern states it may be more like getting kids out of soccer and basketball teams and into footy teams.
 
Its a difficult situation, the best way to fix this:
If an NGA player is nominated in the top 20 of the draft, the team holding the player only get a 5% discount instead of 20% as per the normal

I fully agree that this be implemented in 2021.
 
Nah, 73 was when I was first able to attend games. When I was born, Stones, Beatles and Seekers were topping the charts, and Algy Vosilaitis was kicking the occasional goal!
Wow, Vosilaitis! Now there's a famous name.

So you couldn't have been born much before this one - his first senior goal ever, in 1964. He kicked 12 in 1965 and another one in 1966.



It was about then that they discovered penicillin and vosilaitis became a thing of the past. The wonders of modern medicine.
 

footscray1973

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Wow, Vosilaitis! Now there's a famous name.

So you couldn't have been born much before this one - his first senior goal ever, in 1964. He kicked 12 in 1965 and another one in 1966.



It was about then that they discovered penicillin and vosilaitis became a thing of the past. The wonders of modern medicine.


I was just a gleam in my parents’ eyes in Algy’s first season, but if my migrant parents had taken any interest in footy, I could have been in attendance late in his second season. 😉
 

King Harold

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Wow, Vosilaitis! Now there's a famous name.

So you couldn't have been born much before this one - his first senior goal ever, in 1964. He kicked 12 in 1965 and another one in 1966.



It was about then that they discovered penicillin and vosilaitis became a thing of the past. The wonders of modern medicine.


There’s some good stuff at Bunnings these days that will get rid of Algy.
 
Dec 21, 2005
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The only way I can think of for the NGA to make sense is if clubs are required to 'submit' zoned players of an appropriate age to the AFL and say 'here is a kid that meets the intentions of the NGA, can we have him?' The intentions being not some kid that is at a private boarding school and is obviously going to be a top 10 pick, but some raw unknown kid that actually needs help developing. If approved, the club just gets the kid when draft time comes around some years later, no questions asked, no bidding. Thats a big incentive to find unknowns and turn them into potential top 10 picks.
Agree with this. I think 16 is an appropriate age to call it at.
 

blagodellago

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Oct 20, 2015
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I think this is how it should go for FS picks. The FS arrangements were brought in to preserve the romance of a son playing for the club his (long-serving) dad played for, not as a reward for effort or vision on the part of the club.

So if you want him, you get first dibs BUT you pay full price.

I can see there is a different argument to be made re the academy players. However the rorting / random good luck/opportunism is not a good look and undermines the aims of fair and equal competition. It needs to be scaled back somehow to genuine development which otherwise wouldn’t have taken place.

Unfortunately as long as the AFL sees a need to drip feed the northern expansion clubs it’s going to be problematical.
The AFL doesn't do a lot right, but I for one love the father-son rule. We still need romanticism in the game.
 

_M_16_

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If we get past this years trade period without any serious changes to the NGA. I cannot see any serious changes that will impact on next year affecting us. Purely because teams would have traded picks in and out this season with future planning in mind. Imagine the uproar from a club who trades away next years first, banks up later picks, with eyes on some NGA kids, only to be told they no longer have access to them.
 
If we get past this years trade period without any serious changes to the NGA. I cannot see any serious changes that will impact on next year affecting us. Purely because teams would have traded picks in and out this season with future planning in mind. Imagine the uproar from a club who trades away next years first, banks up later picks, with eyes on some NGA kids, only to be told they no longer have access to them.
Yeah surely, but AFL tho
 
The difficult part is that we nominated him when he was 14 years old

So it's not our fault he developed into a star player
I think the better argument is that is is our fault, ie. that we developed him early and well. We didn't just jump on once he was already good.
 
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