Opinion Is father-son access going to heavily dictate the next decade of premiers?

[The Punter]

I don't think success would define 100 game players - if you had even a good role player they're bound to crack 100 games over the life of their career if they manage to stay with the club. Clubs choose to get rid of players too for their convenience so it's a 2 way street there.

We had a long list of 100+ game players after our 01-03 triple premiership, but I doubt we had a corresponding father son correlation at all, this is until Ashcrofts came along.

Father son is pot luck at best. Michael Voss is one of the greatest players for Lions but it didn't translate to his son being at that level.

The draft is, as much as is practicable, designed to remove the "pot luck" element of cycles of contention. It was invented to give the worst teams access to the best talent. The father-son rule works in the exact opposite way. It perverts the objectives of the draft for no measurable benefit to the competition.

 

[mpal6]

The draft is, as much as is practicable, designed to remove the "pot luck" element of cycles of contention. It was invented to give the worst teams access to the best talent. The father-son rule works in the exact opposite way. It perverts the objectives of the draft for no measurable benefit to the competition.

It's optional anyway, Marc Murphy and Nic Blakey didn't go father son and chose to go elsewhere. It's not as rigid as people make it to be. Just another avenue that a draftee can opt for, if they want.

I share the view in GC2015 earlier post that father son was fine until it was Victoria centric but it's reached a sweet spot now where non-vic clubs are starting to reap the benefits. Hence there is an urgency to "fix" something after 2022 Ashcroft/Fletcher draft even though it was fine during 2021 Sam Darcy /Nick Daicos draft.

 

[GC2015]

Without piling on the Dockers and their lack of success (my club is in the same boat), this is a demonstration of how the father-son rule entrenches disadvantage, because more successful clubs have more 100 game players.

The stats do back up that theory. Collingwood and St Kilda have both been in the VFL/AFL competition for the same number of years (since foundation) and of the original clubs, the Pies have experienced the most on field success compared to St Kilda's least of field success. As a result, Collingwood have had 104 players reach 100+ VFL/AFL games compared to St Kilda's 88 players that have reached 100+ VFL/AFL games.

So yes, success can breed success in a generational sense due to the father-son rule, but there's certainly a lot of luck that goes into it as well.

I share the view in GC2015 earlier post that father son was fine until it was Victoria centric but it's reached a sweet spot now where non-vic clubs are starting to reap the benefits. Hence there is an urgency to "fix" something after 2022 Ashcroft/Fletcher draft even though it was fine during 2021 Sam Darcy /Nick Daicos draft.

It's a bit rich, isn't it? Most Vics seemed cool with other Vic teams getting priority F/S access to generational top 5 draft talents like Sam Darcy and Nick Daicos, but as soon as a non-Victorian team like Brisbane gets F/S access to a player like Will Ashcroft... OVERHAUL THE WHOLE F*CKING SYSTEM!

Keep in mind, Collingwood won the flag in Nick Daicos' second season with two other prominent F/S picks in Darcy Moore and Josh Daicos also significantly contributing to that 2023 Magpies premiership team. All three those of those Collingwood F/S picks were named in the All-Australian team that year and yet, we virtually saw no calls to overhaul the F/S draft situation. Certainly nothing comparable to what we've seen over the last 2-3 years with Brisbane and the Ashcrofts. Definitely seems like selective outrage.

 

[Viceregal]

The stats do back up that theory. Collingwood and St Kilda have both been in the VFL/AFL competition for the same number of years (since foundation) and of the original clubs, the Pies have experienced the most on field success compared to St Kilda's least of field success. As a result, Collingwood have had 104 players reach 100+ VFL/AFL games compared to St Kilda's 88 players that have reached 100+ VFL/AFL games.

So yes, success can breed success in a generational sense due to the father-son rule, but there's certainly a lot of luck that goes into it as well.

.

Conversely it could be that St Kilda was worse at developing players, keeping players over a period of time, instilling loyalty, choosing coaches, developing grass roots devotion, investing time/energy etc into their zone leading to poorer off field results and fewer 100 gamers (and fewer still talented ones who had options). There is a difference between 'I was a Pie/Saint' and 'I played for Collingwood/St Kilda'

 

[RonnieRaven]

Freo will overcome adversity
And stick it right up them

 

[The Punter]

Conversely it could be that St Kilda was worse at developing players, keeping players over a period of time, instilling loyalty, choosing coaches, developing grass roots devotion, investing time/energy etc into their zone leading to poorer off field results and fewer 100 gamers (and fewer still talented ones who had options). There is a difference between 'I was a Pie/Saint' and 'I played for Collingwood/St Kilda'

No St Kilda supporter I know denies our long term incompetence. It's just that for the purposes and objectives of the draft, it's irrelevant. The draft is designed to provide the worst teams the best access to talent regardless of why the teams are the worst teams.

 

[mpal6]

It's a bit rich, isn't it? Most Vics seemed cool with other Vic teams getting priority F/S access to generational top 5 draft talents like Sam Darcy and Nick Daicos, but as soon as a non-Victorian team like Brisbane gets F/S access to a player like Will Ashcroft... OVERHAUL THE WHOLE F*CKING SYSTEM!

Keep in mind, Collingwood won the flag in Nick Daicos' second season with two other prominent F/S picks in Darcy Moore and Josh Daicos also significantly contributing to that 2023 Magpies premiership team. All three those of those Collingwood F/S picks were named in the All-Australian team that year and yet, we virtually saw no calls to overhaul the F/S draft situation. Certainly nothing comparable to what we've seen over the last 2-3 years with Brisbane and the Ashcrofts. Definitely seems like selective outrage.

In a way I'm fine with them bringing in changes. We got lucky thrice over 3 year period in father-son, but as far as I'm aware there isn't another high potential father son in the horizon for us anytime soon.

But if Vics and AFL HQ feel the urge to "fix" the system as if this is the highest priority issue going around, fine by me haha. I believe at least this time every club will equally feel the pain in future and more likely for the Victorian clubs based on past father son record. Lions may get another look at a good father son, could be in another 20 years like last time.

But happy for my club to be the catalyst to a broader change in the overall system. Bring it on.

 

[Freomaniac]

Freo will overcome adversity
And stick it right up them

Keep dreaming mate.

We ain't winning a flag soon, especially with our current coach.

I am happy to be proven wrong

 

[GC2015]

Conversely it could be that St Kilda was worse at developing players, keeping players over a period of time, instilling loyalty, choosing coaches, developing grass roots devotion, investing time/energy etc into their zone leading to poorer off field results and fewer 100 gamers (and fewer still talented ones who had options). There is a difference between 'I was a Pie/Saint' and 'I played for Collingwood/St Kilda'

That's certainly a factor, too. For context, along with Collingwood (104) other traditional powerhouse foundation clubs that have had large amounts of on field success in Carlton (105) and Essendon (106) have also had noticeably more 100+ VFL/AFL game players on their list when compared to St Kilda (88). It's probably not a coincidence that St Kilda's lack of on field success has resulted in less 100+ game players and therefore less potential F/S prospects.

No St Kilda supporter I know denies our long term incompetence. It's just that for the purposes and objectives of the draft, it's irrelevant. The draft is designed to provide the worst teams the best access to talent regardless of why the teams are the worst teams.

I think you've over simplified and possibly misunderstood the purpose of the draft. There seems to be a fallacy amongst some footy fans that the draft has only recently become compromised and the way to fix it is to 'go back to the way it used to be', when in reality it couldn't be further from the truth if you look into the history of the draft. At no point has the draft ever been uncompromised and it's because the draft was never designed to be 'fair' per se, it was designed to be an equalisation tool that the league could use to counterbalance natural advantages that the bigger or more established clubs were/are afforded.

The catalyst for the national draft being established in its current form in the mid 1980s was a Victorian named Silvio Foschini who successfully argued in court that it was a restraint of trade to be required to move to Sydney to continue his football career when South Melbourne relocated to NSW in 1982 and he was able to stay in Melbourne by moving to St Kilda (the Swans received nothing in return). So the broken draft system at the time was abolished and the league spent the next few years working on establishing an air tight national draft that would hold up in court if a player was required to move interstate to play professional football and they refused to do so. That's why we saw players like Nathan Buckley sitting out an entire AFL season in the early 1990s when he initially refused to play for Brisbane after being drafted there.

Despite what some will have you believe, convincing footballers from the southern states to play football in New South Wales or Queensland has always been a problem and we have evidence of that from the very first venture north of the Murray when the Swans moved to Sydney and Foschini took them to court. Hence, the AFL fixed that problem by introducing a modern national draft in 1986 that sought to level the playing field for non-Victorian teams and we saw Brisbane + West Coast handed zone access to the best players from their respective states as a result. Due to the lack of high quality footballers from Queensland at the time, Brisbane were also handed zone access to South Australian players, a lot of whom refused to move to Queensland. The Jarman brothers would be the most famous example of South Australians being drafted to Brisbane and refusing to move so they remained in the SANFL (similar to the Nathan Buckley example several years later).

Unsurprisingly, Brisbane and Sydney were highly uncompetitive for most of the 1980s + early 1990s while the AFL tried to work out ways to equalise the playing field for them. The turning point for the two northern clubs occurred in the 1990s when the league convinced the Ron Barassi to coach the Swans and Leigh Matthews to coach the Lions. It then became less difficult to convince high quality players from southern states like Tony Lockett and Alastair Lynch to head north and we saw those moves culminate in premierships for both clubs in the 2000s. However, player retention continued to be an issue for both clubs (even in successful years) and the AFL finally stumbled upon a real solution to the problem in the 2010s when the northern academies were established. They understood that filling the northern teams with a decent amount of AFL standard players who were homegrown could drastically alleviate the retention problems that have plagued them in the past and allow for ongoing competitivness in the northern states.

So yeah. The national draft at its core has been, and probably always will be, an equalisation tool designed to help clubs overcome natural disadvantages that can't be changed like location and that goal takes precedence over the theoretical purpose of simply sending the best players to the worst teams. We know this because the AFL has made it clear that they have no intention of abolishing priority northern academy access due to it serving as a sufficient equalisation tool for the northern clubs and they are very selective in which clubs they feel deserve priority picks to overcome their struggles. If AFL admin were being honest, I think they'd tell you that they feel a lot of St Kilda's struggles have been as a result of their own doing (as opposed to natural disadvantages other clubs face) and the Saints need to dig their way out of the hole on their own, which they arguably did last year when they went on an impressive recruiting drive.

In a way I'm fine with them bringing in changes. We got lucky thrice over 3 year period in father-son, but as far as I'm aware there isn't another high potential father son in the horizon for us anytime soon.

But if Vics and AFL HQ feel the urge to "fix" the system as if this is the highest priority issue going around, fine by me haha. I believe at least this time every club will equally feel the pain in future and more likely for the Victorian clubs based on past father son record. Lions may get another look at a good father son, could be in another 20 years like last time.

But happy for my club to be the catalyst to a broader change in the overall system. Bring it on.

If they did it now then it'll likely become a case of 'be careful what you wish for' because St Kilda have many potential F/S prospects that they can cash in on in the 2030s due to the 20-30 year lag from their successful period around the late 2000s / early 2010s. The sons of Riewoldt, Montagna, Dal Santo and Hayes could feed St Kilda around 8 F/S picks in the 2030s if all goes well. It'd be incredibly ironic if St Kilda lost F/S access to those players because of their complaints in the 2020s. Meanwhile, like you suggested, Brisbane seemingly don't have any other high end F/S picks coming through in the foreseeable future.

Having said all that, I think the penny finally dropped for St Kilda last year and they realised that their complaints were falling on deaf ears so they went into recruitment overdrive in an attempt to become a finals team again instead of continuing the 'why me' criticisms of the draft that the AFL clearly wasn't listening to. That switch in mentality should result in a far more enjoyable football experience for St Kilda fans as they stop making excuses and start getting to work.

 

[Robroy22]

That's certainly a factor, too. For context, along with Collingwood (104) other traditional powerhouse foundation clubs that have had large amounts of on field success in Carlton (105) and Essendon (106) have also had noticeably more 100+ VFL/AFL game players on their list when compared to St Kilda (88). It's probably not a coincidence that St Kilda's lack of on field success has resulted in less 100+ game players and therefore less potential F/S prospects.


I think you've over simplified and possibly misunderstood the purpose of the draft. There seems to be a fallacy amongst some footy fans that the draft has only recently become compromised and the way to fix it is to 'go back to the way it used to be', when in reality it couldn't be further from the truth if you look into the history of the draft. At no point has the draft ever been uncompromised and it's because the draft was never designed to be 'fair' per se, it was designed to be an equalisation tool that the league could use to counterbalance natural advantages that the bigger or more established clubs were/are afforded.

The catalyst for the national draft being established in its current form in the mid 1980s was a Victorian named Silvio Foschini who successfully argued in court that it was a restraint of trade to be required to move to Sydney to continue his football career when South Melbourne relocated to NSW in 1982 and he was able to stay in Melbourne by moving to St Kilda (the Swans received nothing in return). So the broken draft system at the time was abolished and the league spent the next few years working on establishing an air tight national draft that would hold up in court if a player was required to move interstate to play professional football and they refused to do so. That's why we saw players like Nathan Buckley sitting out an entire AFL season in the early 1990s when he initially refused to play for Brisbane after being drafted there.

Despite what some will have you believe, convincing footballers from the southern states to play football in New South Wales or Queensland has always been a problem and we have evidence of that from the very first venture north of the Murray when the Swans moved to Sydney and Foschini took them to court. Hence, the AFL fixed that problem by introducing a modern national draft in 1986 that sought to level the playing field for non-Victorian teams and we saw Brisbane + West Coast handed zone access to the best players from their respective states as a result. Due to the lack of high quality footballers from Queensland at the time, Brisbane were also handed zone access to South Australian players, a lot of whom refused to move to Queensland. The Jarman brothers would be the most famous example of South Australians being drafted to Brisbane and refusing to move so they remained in the SANFL (similar to the Nathan Buckley example several years later).

Unsurprisingly, Brisbane and Sydney were highly uncompetitive for most of the 1980s + early 1990s while the AFL tried to work out ways to equalise the playing field for them. The turning point for the two northern clubs occurred in the 1990s when the league convinced the Ron Barassi to coach the Swans and Leigh Matthews to coach the Lions. It then became less difficult to convince high quality players from southern states like Tony Lockett and Alastair Lynch to head north and we saw those moves culminate in premierships for both clubs in the 2000s. However, player retention continued to be an issue for both clubs (even in successful years) and the AFL finally stumbled upon a real solution to the problem in the 2010s when the northern academies were established. They understood that filling the northern teams with a decent amount of AFL standard players who were homegrown could drastically alleviate the retention problems that have plagued them in the past and allow for ongoing competitivness in the northern states.

So yeah. The national draft at its core has been, and probably always will be, an equalisation tool designed to help clubs overcome natural disadvantages that can't be changed like location and that goal takes precedence over the theoretical purpose of simply sending the best players to the worst teams. We know this because the AFL has made it clear that they have no intention of abolishing priority northern academy access due to it serving as a sufficient equalisation tool for the northern clubs and they are very selective in which clubs they feel deserve priority picks to overcome their struggles. If AFL admin were being honest, I think they'd tell you that they feel a lot of St Kilda's struggles have been as a result of their own doing (as opposed to natural disadvantages other clubs face) and the Saints need to dig their way out of the hole on their own, which they arguably did last year when they went on an impressive recruiting drive.


If they did it now then it'll likely become a case of 'be careful what you wish for' because St Kilda have many potential F/S prospects that they can cash in on in the 2030s due to the 20-30 year lag from their successful period around the late 2000s / early 2010s. The sons of Riewoldt, Montagna, Dal Santo and Hayes could feed St Kilda around 8 F/S picks in the 2030s if all goes well. It'd be incredibly ironic if St Kilda lost F/S access to those players because of their complaints in the 2020s. Meanwhile, like you suggested, Brisbane seemingly don't have any other high end F/S picks coming through in the foreseeable future.

Having said all that, I think the penny finally dropped for St Kilda last year and they realised that their complaints were falling on deaf ears so they went into recruitment overdrive in an attempt to become a finals team again instead of continuing the 'why me' criticisms of the draft that the AFL clearly wasn't listening to. That switch in mentality should result in a far more enjoyable football experience for St Kilda fans as they stop making excuses and start getting to work.

Dunno where you're getting all these facts from but:

• Nathan Buckley did not sit out a year of football because he was drafted to the Bears. He was runner up in their best and fairest (they wouldn't let him win it because he'd already told them he was leaving!), He did win the first AFL Rising Star award playing 20 games in his first AFL season.
• By the time you say the AFL stumbled upon its solution to player retention for the Northern States (you say 2010) Brisbane had won 3 Flags and Sydney had won one as well. Those successful clubs kept their players and attracted others. Brisbane lost young draftees after Matthews retired and the club was less successful. Gold Coast lost them because they didn't have success. The AFL had tried COLA for the Sydney sides but that was sorta hypocritical when all the other clubs were having their $$$ controlled by salary caps.

 

[GC2015]

Dunno where you're getting all these facts from but:

• Nathan Buckley did not sit out a year of football because he was drafted to the Bears. He was runner up in their best and fairest (they wouldn't let him win it because he'd already told them he was leaving!), He did win the first AFL Rising Star award playing 20 games in his first AFL season.
• By the time you say the AFL stumbled upon its solution to player retention for the Northern States (you say 2010) Brisbane had won 3 Flags and Sydney had won one as well. Those successful clubs kept their players and attracted others. Brisbane lost young draftees after Matthews retired and the club was less successful. Gold Coast lost them because they didn't have success. The AFL had tried COLA for the Sydney sides but that was sorta hypocritical when all the other clubs were having their $$$ controlled by salary caps.

Buckley was drafted to Brisbane as an NT zone selection at the 1991 national draft. He refused to move to Queensland and instead sat out the 1992 AFL season by playing for Port Adelaide in the SANFL where he went on to win the Margarey Medal that year. The two parties came to an agreement for the 1993 AFL season in which Buckley would play one season for the Bears and then they would trade him to the team of his choice (Kurt Tippett got banned for doing the same thing 20 years later). So yes, Buckley did sit out a season (1992) because he didn't want to move to Queensland to play for Brisbane. This is all publicly available information if you want to do your own research.

Do you not remember the 'Go Home Five' from Brisbane? The Lions played finals in 2009 and still had major retention issues with triple premiership forward Bradshaw and then BnF winner Rischitelli walking out on them less than 12 months later and that rolled into the Go Home Five disaster. It continued in the years that followed with other top 10 picks Aish and Schache walking out on the Lions after completing their standard two year draftee contract. It's well documented that the Giants and Suns have had retention issues from day one - pick 7 Josh Caddy wanted to leave the Suns in the first year, as did pick 1 Tom Boyd in his first year. I won't go into any others because I'm sure you're aware that it's happened a lot over the last 15 years, even while the Giants were regularly playing finals.

Even the Swans, while regularly playing finals, have had their own ongoing retention issues with high quality players like Jordan Dawson and Tom Mitchell leaving them. This has been a constant issue for the northern clubs and the only real remedy that we've seen to date is the production of high quality home grown academy graduates that are very unlikely to leave like Harris Andrews, Eric Hipwood, Callum Mills, Isaac Heeney etc.

History shows that it's pretty difficult to run a successful club in a northern state when your recruiters constantly have one hand tied behind their back in terms of recruiting/retaining high quality players and although there are temporary measures that can help like recruiting a legendary coach that players want to play for, those are really just short-term fixes to a long-term problem. The northern academies have proven to be a pretty successful tool to equalise that natural disadvantage that the northern clubs face every year and the AFL have made it pretty clear that they want to keep them in place for that reason.

 

[Robroy22]

Buckley was drafted to Brisbane as an NT zone selection at the 1991 national draft. He refused to move to Queensland and instead sat out the 1992 AFL season by playing for Port Adelaide in the SANFL where he went on to win the Margarey Medal that year. The two parties came to an agreement for the 1993 AFL season in which Buckley would play one season for the Bears and then they would trade him to the team of his choice (Kurt Tippett got banned for doing the same thing 20 years later). So yes, Buckley did sit out a season (1992) because he didn't want to move to Queensland to play for Brisbane. This is all publicly available information if you want to do your own research.

Do you not remember the 'Go Home Five' from Brisbane? The Lions played finals in 2009 and still had major retention issues with triple premiership forward Bradshaw and then BnF winner Rischitelli walking out on them less than 12 months later and that rolled into the Go Home Five disaster. It continued in the years that followed with other top 10 picks Aish and Schache walking out on the Lions after completing their standard two year draftee contract. It's well documented that the Giants and Suns have had retention issues from day one - pick 7 Josh Caddy wanted to leave the Suns in the first year, as did pick 1 Tom Boyd in his first year. I won't go into any others because I'm sure you're aware that it's happened a lot over the last 15 years, even while the Giants were regularly playing finals.

Even the Swans, while regularly playing finals, have had their own ongoing retention issues with high quality players like Jordan Dawson and Tom Mitchell leaving them. This has been a constant issue for the northern clubs and the only real remedy that we've seen to date is the production of high quality home grown academy graduates that are very unlikely to leave like Harris Andrews, Eric Hipwood, Callum Mills, Isaac Heeney etc.

History shows that it's pretty difficult to run a successful club in a northern state when your recruiters constantly have one hand tied behind their back in terms of recruiting/retaining high quality players and although there are temporary measures that can help like recruiting a legendary coach that players want to play for, those are really just short-term fixes to a long-term problem. The northern academies have proven to be a pretty successful tool to equalise that natural disadvantage that the northern clubs face every year and the AFL have made it pretty clear that they want to keep them in place for that reason.

So Buckley didn't actually stand out of football for a year as you claimed, he merely played in another state. Standing out of football meant not playing anywhere for the term of the contract (as some players chose to do, John Pitura was a famous one). I'm sure the Academies have and will continue to do their jobs ensuring the northern clubs with high quality local talent.

 

[GC2015]

So Buckley didn't actually stand out of football for a year as you claimed, he merely played in another state. Standing out of football meant not playing anywhere for the term of the contract (as some players chose to do, John Pitura was a famous one). I'm sure the Academies have and will continue to do their jobs ensuring the northern clubs with high quality local talent.

Well, if you want to argue on a technicality then sure, but I think most would consider it a sat out year by choosing to not play for the AFL team that drafted you and instead choosing to play lower level state footy. I would also say Liam Jones chose to sit out the 2022 AFL season due to the vaccine mandate, despite continuing to play local footy in the QAFL during the 2022 season. Remember, the Crows existed in 1991 so the SANFL was no longer the highest level of professional football that could be played in South Australia. That's the distinction between Buckley and the Jarman brothers because the SANFL was still the highest level of footy one could play in South Australia when the Jarmans were drafted to Brisbane.

Buckley wanted to play in the AFL in 1992, he just didn't want to play for Brisbane, and therein lies the problem that has constantly plagued the northern teams for decades. You're virtually never going to see a local product that's spent the last 5+ years playing for the academy team going on to turn down the opportunity to play AFL footy for that club, except in the rare case of that player also having F/S ties to another club (Bailey Scott & Kalani White). It's by far the best long-term strategy the AFL has implemented when it comes to equalising the situation for the northern teams when it comes to recruitment/retention of high quality players.

 

[Robroy22]

Well, if you want to argue on a technicality then sure, but I think most would consider it a sat out year by choosing to not play for the AFL team that drafted you and instead choosing to play lower level state footy. I would also say Liam Jones chose to sit out the 2022 AFL season due to the vaccine mandate, despite continuing to play local footy in the QAFL during the 2022 season. Remember, the Crows existed in 1991 so the SANFL was no longer the highest level of professional football that could be played in South Australia. That's the distinction between Buckley and the Jarman brothers because the SANFL was still the highest level of footy one could play in South Australia when the Jarmans were drafted to Brisbane.

Buckley wanted to play in the AFL in 1992, he just didn't want to play for Brisbane, and therein lies the problem that has constantly plagued the northern teams for decades. You're virtually never going to see a local product that's spent the last 5+ years playing for the academy team going on to turn down the opportunity to play AFL footy for that club, except in the rare case of that player also having F/S ties to another club (Bailey Scott & Kalani White). It's by far the best long-term strategy the AFL has implemented when it comes to equalising the situation for the northern teams when it comes to recruitment/retention of high quality players.

So now that the northern Academies are established and producing the goods, would you be in favour of all clubs being able to have their own academies and being allowed to draft exclusively say 2 of their own each year? Or is that not favourable enough to the Northern Clubs?

 

[GC2015]

So now that the northern Academies are established and producing the goods, would you be in favour of all clubs being able to have their own academies and being allowed to draft exclusively say 2 of their own each year? Or is that not favourable enough to the Northern Clubs?

It's really a volume issue. The volume of AFL draftees produced by NSW & QLD on average is much lower than VIC, SA & WA. The northern teams can't use the 'go home factor' to their advantage like the southern clubs can. We've seen several recent examples of this with Fremantle recruiting star players that grew up in WA like Shai Bolton + Luke Jackson and then the Dockers become a finals team again. Adelaide did the same by recruiting star players who grew up in SA like Jordan Dawson + Izak Rankine and then the Crows became a finals team again. You could argue St Kilda did something similar last year by recruiting high quality Victorian recruits like Sam Flanders and will likely return to the finals again in 2026 as a result of their recruiting.

The northern clubs can't do that because the volume of high quality QLDers or NSWmen throughout the league doesn't exist. To answer your question, I think the Next Gen Academies are a good halfway point for the southern clubs because it doesn't compromise the draft too much, but it does give the southern clubs an opportunity to develop players from target under represented areas of Indigenous + non-traditional footy backgrounds and turn them into AFL players. So I'm certainly in favour of continuing the NGAs for the southern clubs because I think it serves a similar purpose to the northern academies in terms of growing the potential draft pool with players from non-traditional footy backgrounds. I think it's great to see a player of Middle Eastern descent like Isaac Kako drafted with a first round pick and Essendon getting some reward for helping develop a prospect of a non-traditional footy background into an AFL player.

If you opened it right up and gave every southern clubs unrestricted academy access based on their assigned area, then we're just going back to the old problematic zoning system that caused major inequalities within the league and turned teams like Carlton & Hawthorn into powerhouses that regularly won the flag. So I don't think the AFL would be in favour of repeating that. I think what we've got now is pretty close to as equal as it possibly can be where every club has a legitimate chance to recruit + retain the players required to climb the mountain and win a premiership. Naturally, it will be tweaked over time as advantages/disadvantages become more obvious, but I think it's at a pretty good stage right now (it'll never be perfect) and we'll continue to see the high quality F/S + academy access roll around the league in terms of who it advantages at any given time. Carlton is up next and then it's Port Adelaide.

 

[mpal6]

So now that the northern Academies are established and producing the goods, would you be in favour of all clubs being able to have their own academies and being allowed to draft exclusively say 2 of their own each year? Or is that not favourable enough to the Northern Clubs?

Sydney offered to leave draft as far back as 2008 when NSW wasn't producing any guns regularly. They believed their academy would be good enough long term that they can manage without needing draftees from Victoria.

AFL said no - so your question still goes back to what AFL is willing to do.

Swans had plan to pull out of draft

Sydney would have completely withdrawn from the national draft and started recruiting exclusively from New South Wales under a radical proposal put to the AFL.

www.theage.com.au

 

[GC2015]

Sydney offered to leave draft as far back as 2008 when NSW wasn't producing any guns regularly. They believed their academy would be good enough long term that they can manage without needing draftees from Victoria.

AFL said no - so your question still goes back to what AFL is willing to do.

Swans had plan to pull out of draft

Sydney would have completely withdrawn from the national draft and started recruiting exclusively from New South Wales under a radical proposal put to the AFL.

www.theage.com.au

Interestingly, Sydney have been highly successful on field since the mid 1990s and haven't really had much success with the F/S rule. The only one really worth mentioning is Tom Mitchell, but he left after four years and went on to become a Brownlow Medallist at Hawthorn. So it just goes to show that luck is the biggest factor when it comes to the F/S rule.

 

[The Punter]

GC2015

The Americans invented the draft. The AFL draft has never been uncompromised, and I support a limited retention of academy access for northern states because it serves a purpose of growing the game (one player per season per club outside the draft).

But because the AFL draft has never been uncompromised is not a reason to oppose it being so in the future. And the point about the father-son rule providing no measurable benefit to the game still stands.

And the only disadvantage the draft should address is being poor. Location is irrelevant. To address locality disadvantage, use different methods other than the draft.

 

[mpal6]

If they did it now then it'll likely become a case of 'be careful what you wish for' because St Kilda have many potential F/S prospects that they can cash in on in the 2030s due to the 20-30 year lag from their successful period around the late 2000s / early 2010s. The sons of Riewoldt, Montagna, Dal Santo and Hayes could feed St Kilda around 8 F/S picks in the 2030s if all goes well. It'd be incredibly ironic if St Kilda lost F/S access to those players because of their complaints in the 2020s. Meanwhile, like you suggested, Brisbane seemingly don't have any other high end F/S picks coming through in the foreseeable future.

Having said all that, I think the penny finally dropped for St Kilda last year and they realised that their complaints were falling on deaf ears so they went into recruitment overdrive in an attempt to become a finals team again instead of continuing the 'why me' criticisms of the draft that the AFL clearly wasn't listening to. That switch in mentality should result in a far more enjoyable football experience for St Kilda fans as they stop making excuses and start getting to work.

List of players drafted to the Australian Football League under the father–son rule - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Out of a grand total of 127 father sons so far, the Brisbane-Fitzroy count of 7 has hurt the Victorian pride so badly that they're going for wholesale changes and bite the hand that has collectively fed them over a long time .

I can't wait to see this change take effect permanently and let all the clubs take a hit as a whole.

 

[Viceregal]

GC2015

The Americans invented the draft. The AFL draft has never been uncompromised, and I support a limited retention of academy access for northern states because it serves a purpose of growing the game (one player per season per club outside the draft).

But because the AFL draft has never been uncompromised is not a reason to oppose it being so in the future. And the point about the father-son rule providing no measurable benefit to the game still stands.

And the only disadvantage the draft should address is being poor. Location is irrelevant. To address locality disadvantage, use different methods other than the draft.

btw what is the objective instrument you are using to 'measure benefit to the game' ... would be helpful so as to avoid folks making their own bias's the basis of subjective feelings about stuff that they then present as objective facts.

I perceive F/s as a benefit to the game ... you do not ... so we have different vibes on the issue making an agreed upon definition and objective measure a very helpful element - looking forward to my coming enlightenment!

 

[The Punter]

btw what is the objective instrument you are using to 'measure benefit to the game' ... would be helpful so as to avoid folks making their own bias's the basis of subjective feelings about stuff that they then present as objective facts.

I perceive F/s as a benefit to the game ... you do not ... so we have different vibes on the issue making an agreed upon definition and objective measure a very helpful element - looking forward to my coming enlightenment!

It doesn't bring anything or anyone new to the game. Northern academies do: home grown heroes grow the game in new and emerging markets. But nearly everyone who supports the father-son rule was already a rusted on supporter who wouldn't walk away if the rule was abolished. And it hurts the competition because it works against the objectives of the draft.

At the very least any negligible benefit is outweighed by the cost.

We have local footy for romance, and for the four generations at the same club. The AFL is a billion dollar industry built on a competition that is too important for this sort of stuff.

 

[Viceregal]

It doesn't bring anything or anyone new to the game. Northern academies do: home grown heroes grow the game in new and emerging markets. But nearly everyone who supports the father-son rule was already a rusted on supporter who wouldn't walk away if the rule was abolished. And it hurts the competition because it works against the objectives of the draft.

At the very least any negligible benefit is outweighed by the cost.

We have local footy for romance, and for the four generations at the same club. The AFL is a billion dollar industry built on a competition that is too important for this sort of stuff.

So no to an objective measurement then ... damn

 

[Bostonian]

GC2015

The Americans invented the draft. The AFL draft has never been uncompromised, and I support a limited retention of academy access for northern states because it serves a purpose of growing the game (one player per season per club outside the draft).

But because the AFL draft has never been uncompromised is not a reason to oppose it being so in the future. And the point about the father-son rule providing no measurable benefit to the game still stands.

And the only disadvantage the draft should address is being poor. Location is irrelevant. To address locality disadvantage, use different methods other than the draft.

Father-son/daughter is wonderful for individual clubs fans and the history of their club.

Having the child of a player return to their parents club is a fantastic part of of our game and it's history.

 

[The Punter]

So no to an objective measurement then ... damn

One can never guarantee someone will like the answer given to a question they have asked, but ... new fans. Numbers of new fans.

By the same token, I've never heard a defence of it that doesn't lean heavily on romance or tradition, which are both good arguments for blacksmiths, farriers, and chimney sweeps.

 

[bungalow_bill]

Whether you like it or not f/s rule is here to stay.