Inside Trading is also reporting that Lester is expected to re-sign for next year "if he chooses to play on".
The Amazing Zorko pulls another year out of the hat
Brisbane's champion veteran has extended for another season ahead of his 300th gamewww.afl.com.au
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List Mgmt. 2025 List Management Discussion
- Thread starter Jivlain
- Start date
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Absolutey not a chance in hellThis. And top 4 clubs can only take 1 first round f/s or academy each year. Top 8 - 2.
I know many will bring up lots of arguments, but, as far as we are concerned, finals 7 years in a row and 2 grannies with a flag- the Lions do not need help.
Look at the gap between the top and bottom of the ladder this year. The AFL has to address this issue.
We all want an even competition. Every club's fans should have the right to feel that a flag is possible sometime soon.
All of this after we get Annabelle, of course
- May 3, 2015
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Not fair. What if we lost a couple of players and had multiple first rounders?
If we can find the points then we should be able to take whoever we want
If they want to make it harder to match by getting the discount thats fine but if you can find the points you deserve whoever you can match
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Just heard the Essendon Scott brother talking about this years draft.
Mother F*cker, saying that the northern clubs have a mortgage on the the top end talent in this years draft, with 5, 6, 7 of the top draftees tied to the Northern Academies. Total b.s.
There's now a real concerted push from the southern clubs coming after our rorts.
Mother F*cker, saying that the northern clubs have a mortgage on the the top end talent in this years draft, with 5, 6, 7 of the top draftees tied to the Northern Academies. Total b.s.
There's now a real concerted push from the southern clubs coming after our rorts.
We traded for Dunkley and got both Ashcroft and Fletcher, for the cost of two first round picks, and a second round pick.
In terms of "fairness", it really wasn't and if I was an opposition supporter I'd be really p!ssed off with Brisbane and Gold Coast building potential dynasty teams.
Dalions
Premium Platinum
- Aug 12, 2016
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Sounds fair to me.
If other clubs wanted to make us pay they could have bid on Ashcroft at 1, which they should have and Fletcher is probably now a top 5 pick in that draft.
Hindsight is wonderful, but the reality is teams are still only going to bid where they value a kid.
I remember many here lamenting the fact we couldn’t access the likes Paton and co when the Giants and Suns came in. The last couple of drafts with the Academy and F/S talent has meant some struggling clubs have been unable to access some top end talent which I think they do have a right to be frustrated about.
FWIW I was speaking to one of the Melbourne based recruiters and he has Annable at 5. His major knock was foot speed, but he did say we are getting another really good one which we all know will further stoke the fire and bring an end to the bidding system as we currently know it.
We played within the rules presented, and as mentioned by Dalions other clubs should have bid for Ashcroft higher than pick-5. This is on the other clubs
I still think if they want to keep F/S and academies, take away the discount, and enforce the club needs to use a pick from round-1 to match a top-10 pick.
Pure_Ownage
TheBrownDog
Yes but as an outsiders perspective that data is very heavily skewed by 3 players. Scarlett (who was very average for his first 3 or 4 years and took a lot of work to come good), Hawkins and ablett.
Now yes sure Hawkins was a rort as a) he would have been pick 1 that year under the current rules and b) we would not have had selwood (as you couldn't trade future picks then).
As for ablett while he showed some talent as a junior he was both small and a poor trainer and lazy-some at the falcons didn't even want him in rep teams but for his name. He certainly wouldn't have been a top 20 pick in his draft year no matter what the system was.
Take them out and over 3/4 of the rest of the games on that list were played by bews (who was taken basically at the last pick in his draft after every club passed on him) and Blake who while he helped in our era was very average and was so average Chris Scott left him on 99 games and then delisted him and no one else wanted him.
Most of geelongs father sons have been picks that never amounted to anything like Simpson, brownless, riccardi, Donahue, callan etc.
The irony is apart from hawkins/gaj the two most talented FS Geelong ever had were woolnough and Nathan ablett and one did multiple acls and never went anywhere and the other basically hated football so much he disappeared into the bush.
A stat table with no context can be misleading but in context Geelong hasn't benefited from FS anywhere near as much as people think. It's not as if they are producing top 10 pick level players under FS most years. Geelong is getting more out of its ability to find rookies and alternative talent players than its got from FS in most ways.
That said I'm someone that would like to see a move back to purer drafts without any clubs having FS or academy or anything else.
Elixuh
See you on the 9th green at 9
If you take out our biggest rorts we haven’t rorted that much either
Matthew Scarlett: 284 games, 6 x All Australian, 3 x Premierships, Geelong hall of famer.
Gary Ablett: 357 games (110 with GC), 2 x Brownlow's, 2 x Premierships, 8 x All Australian, 445 goals.
Tom Hawkins: 359 games, 3 x Premierships, Coleman medal, 5 x All Australian, 796 goals.
I'd say Geelong did pretty well, skewed statistics or not.
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3KZ is Football
🏆 🦍 RZSS Curator of Sticks and Stuff.
- Jun 17, 2008
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POPULAR LION TO DECIDE ON FUTURE
BRISBANE premiership defender Ryan Lester will have the opportunity to continue his career into a 16th season.For seven of the past eight seasons, Lester has lived off one-year deals and will get another one if he chooses to play on.
The 32-year-old is yet to sign a contract for 2026, but is expected to re-sign after playing a crucial role for Chris Fagan again in 2025.
Ryan Lester during the R19 match between Brisbane and the Western Bulldogs at The Gabba on July 18, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos
After arriving from the Oakleigh Chargers via pick No.28 in the 2010 AFL Draft, Lester is the longest-serving player at the club, arriving 12 months before brother-in-law Dayne Zorko, who plays game No.300 this weekend.
Lester played all 27 games in 2024, finishing sixth in the Merrett-Murray Medal following a career-best season that culminated in a flag. After playing 17 VFL games in 2022, Lester has played 67 games under Fagan since then and now has the option to build towards 250 next year.
https://www.afl.com.au/news/1396363
Darren Downunder
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- Apr 26, 2024
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I may be in the minority here, but like the father son system.
I mean, I don’t want GAJ playing for essendon
Or Naicos playing for Port Adelaide
While Jaicos plays for Freo.
I think there’s romance to the father son that’s worth keeping.
There are much more efficient ways to equalise the competition.
- Apr 12, 2015
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Can you believe both those flogs are premiership players at our club. They are dead set w
️’s, both of them, and it’s just not true.
The Ablett family would have been the best half a dozen players in the history of the game if they took their football seriously. Kevin was an absolute freak.
- Apr 12, 2015
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Nah - but if you take them out……..what was the point of that post
if you pretend it didn’t happen then Geelong haven’t had any advantage.
The benefit of the Father/Son rule is simple, here is my son and daughter (in orange) at their first AFL player signing session after a game. As a recently divorced dad way back then I purchased them annual memberships and it became our thing to go to every game. They were too young then to really remember Vossy, Lynch, Lappin, Ashcroft, Bradshaw, Fletcher but were aware enough of players like Acker, Browny and indeed their favourite for his brief stint Bushy because he was a local.
Here is my daughter this year at the Grandfinal with her uncle and myself, her favourite player is Jasper Fletcher. In those 24 years since game at the Gabba she has complete school, has 2 university degrees and is a COO of a large investment fund but we still go to every game together and finals if we make it. Yes for those long years between when the Lions hit rock bottom we sat in the rain at the Gabba when crowds didn't even make 10,000 and we got flogged over and over. My brother took up AFL in his early 50's up in Darwin (we were NSW rugby league kids) and has now represented the NT 5 times in masters footy. We are truly now generational supporters of the game and the Lions.
The greatest thing is to be in the pubs in Melbourne on Grand final day as a family and speculate on who will win, to talk about whom might play well, to remember their fathers playing like Fletcher and Ashcroft and to have that link through generations as my daughter, brother and myself are linked. Our generations have become linked to the game from a rugby league heritage and linked to a club as the players and their generations are. We feel part of a larger tribe - a family.
Families as players or families as supporters build tradition and through tradition comes retention and building of a club's tradition and supporter bases. Somewhere on the Gold coast or in Western Sydney another mum or dad is taking their little kids to the footy and that family will also move across from rugby league to become generational supporters. To water down or even diminish the father/son rule is insanity. Which ex-players have successful kids is a lottery, its simply the luck of the draw. Keep the traditions, build the links, connect the families, that is what the rule is for.
Here is my daughter this year at the Grandfinal with her uncle and myself, her favourite player is Jasper Fletcher. In those 24 years since game at the Gabba she has complete school, has 2 university degrees and is a COO of a large investment fund but we still go to every game together and finals if we make it. Yes for those long years between when the Lions hit rock bottom we sat in the rain at the Gabba when crowds didn't even make 10,000 and we got flogged over and over. My brother took up AFL in his early 50's up in Darwin (we were NSW rugby league kids) and has now represented the NT 5 times in masters footy. We are truly now generational supporters of the game and the Lions.
The greatest thing is to be in the pubs in Melbourne on Grand final day as a family and speculate on who will win, to talk about whom might play well, to remember their fathers playing like Fletcher and Ashcroft and to have that link through generations as my daughter, brother and myself are linked. Our generations have become linked to the game from a rugby league heritage and linked to a club as the players and their generations are. We feel part of a larger tribe - a family.
Families as players or families as supporters build tradition and through tradition comes retention and building of a club's tradition and supporter bases. Somewhere on the Gold coast or in Western Sydney another mum or dad is taking their little kids to the footy and that family will also move across from rugby league to become generational supporters. To water down or even diminish the father/son rule is insanity. Which ex-players have successful kids is a lottery, its simply the luck of the draw. Keep the traditions, build the links, connect the families, that is what the rule is for.
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If you think about it, do northern academies really benefit all that much from their academies anyway? In the last 2-3 years GC are definitely pumping out high level picks but they would have got them anyway because they’ve had high level draft picks.
I didn’t see Geelong complaining when they picked up GC’s pick 7 for a salary cap dump which Geelong conveniently forgot about when they continued to chase every star player under the sun and Scott was given a nice little salary package as a CEO at a company he probably didn’t even know existed.
And if you take out Jaspa, Will and Levi Ashcroft, we didn’t really benefit either. Our academy has produced Andrews (taken late pick in old rules), Payne (taken late pick in newer rules), Hipwood and Keays as notable players. Keays doesn’t even play for us now obviously. Annable is our first academy pick in ages who looks a gun. Marshall of course looks a slow burn so going on Geelong fan above’s logic, he doesn’t count.
Gold Coast has a heap of picks in the first round each year anyway which they trade out to other clubs down south, don’t see clubs complaining when they benefit from this. How many players does Sydney even pick up through their academy? Every couple of years they’ll have a guy or two but it isn’t every year.
The father-son rule will benefit and disadvantage all clubs at one point or another but it’s a great rule. There’s a great story to sons who follow in their father’s footsteps. We are benefitting right now but years ago we had players who didn’t want to come to us when we really needed them. Swings and round abouts.
The only thing that really needs to change is Gold Coast’s massive catchment area, that needs to shrink, everything else is fine. Of course if you want to tweak it, do so but leave it mostly alone.
Clubs whinge because we are so good and look like we will be for some time to come but things can change quickly and of the absolute fun drsftees we picked up along the way, well Starc, Wilmott, Lohmann, Bailey, McCluggage, Morris, Answerth and Berry were available to everyone.
I didn’t see Geelong complaining when they picked up GC’s pick 7 for a salary cap dump which Geelong conveniently forgot about when they continued to chase every star player under the sun and Scott was given a nice little salary package as a CEO at a company he probably didn’t even know existed.
And if you take out Jaspa, Will and Levi Ashcroft, we didn’t really benefit either. Our academy has produced Andrews (taken late pick in old rules), Payne (taken late pick in newer rules), Hipwood and Keays as notable players. Keays doesn’t even play for us now obviously. Annable is our first academy pick in ages who looks a gun. Marshall of course looks a slow burn so going on Geelong fan above’s logic, he doesn’t count.
Gold Coast has a heap of picks in the first round each year anyway which they trade out to other clubs down south, don’t see clubs complaining when they benefit from this. How many players does Sydney even pick up through their academy? Every couple of years they’ll have a guy or two but it isn’t every year.
The father-son rule will benefit and disadvantage all clubs at one point or another but it’s a great rule. There’s a great story to sons who follow in their father’s footsteps. We are benefitting right now but years ago we had players who didn’t want to come to us when we really needed them. Swings and round abouts.
The only thing that really needs to change is Gold Coast’s massive catchment area, that needs to shrink, everything else is fine. Of course if you want to tweak it, do so but leave it mostly alone.
Clubs whinge because we are so good and look like we will be for some time to come but things can change quickly and of the absolute fun drsftees we picked up along the way, well Starc, Wilmott, Lohmann, Bailey, McCluggage, Morris, Answerth and Berry were available to everyone.
Beautiful words Clarkythelion 
- Apr 24, 2020
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But neither of those were academy players. Most of the discussion is around academies.
GenericUsername202
Club Legend
Does this dumb **** know that Northern clubs are adding to the talent pool? All of these top end talents wouldn't even be in the league if it wasn't for the academies. Likewise, it's not our fault Victorian players have been surpassed by northerners. Maybe get your own house in order before trying to challenge ours.
Dalions
Premium Platinum
- Aug 12, 2016
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The first round of the draft will become pretty boring again.
There won’t be too much need and or desire for clubs to want to trade out of the first round anymore.
Teams will always want to trade up but it will be much harder now without teams wanting to trade out.
There won’t be too much need and or desire for clubs to want to trade out of the first round anymore.
Teams will always want to trade up but it will be much harder now without teams wanting to trade out.
GenericUsername202
Club Legend
Tbh, i don't see the AFL going through with this. The backlash would be too insane, not just because it involves academies, but NGA's and Father sons are involved as well. Clubs like Carlton, Collingwood and Essendon have future Father sons that they would want to protect. However, if it does go through, Brisbane should tell the academy player that he should tell every club that he will leave in 2 years. Make the other clubs walk from drafting him.
