News AFL overhauls Academy and FS bid matching, discussing draft lockout

[briztoon]

Sounds very exaggerated to me unless footballers are a breed unto themselves. Nothing cooler in the Year 12 world than to be heading off to study or work interstate straight after high school.

But even if true, Gold Coast have been able to turn 3 years of draft picks, Lukosius, Flanders and Ainsworth, into 10 first round draftees (3 top 5, two other top 10) whilst also trading out 4 first round picks for players. Do you think the system has levelled things or made it ridiculously lop-sided?

Oh FFS if you’re going to use this crap, at least be ****ing honest.

Gold Coast began planning for the 2023 draft in 2021.

Yes, they’ve had 3 years of good academy drafts, but they’ve spent 5 years of draft capital over those drafts.

 

[Elixuh]

So, GC traded in the biggest fish in the trade period, and still had 4 picks inside the top 20 including pick 2 and 5, and people still think the system isn't completely shithouse?

It's a joke guys. All GC did was expose it for the utter garbage most of us knew before and after the 'overhaul'.

It’s good list management

 

[Pure_Ownage]

They are closing it

It's technical given the 2 pick match rule but they aren't because they havent amended the rule that allows clubs to only carry picks to the draft if they have the list spots but then on the night trade in and use picks in excess of the list spots.

 

[sr36]

Oh FFS if you’re going to use this crap, at least be ****ing honest.

Gold Coast began planning for the 2023 draft in 2021.

Yes, they’ve had 3 years of good academy drafts, but they’ve spent 5 years of draft capital over those drafts.

Apologies - they did enter 2023 with an additional second round pick and 2 additional 4th round picks. Huge stockpiling in preparation. Seems reasonable that they were able to turn one draft hand plus those 3 mediocre picks into 5 first round picks starting at pick 3 and 3 future firsts ...

 

[sr36]

It's technical given the 2 pick match rule but they aren't because they havent amended the rule that allows clubs to only carry picks to the draft if they have the list spots but then on the night trade in and use picks in excess of the list spots.

Twomey said they're amending that.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Fair enough. I'm of the opinion that we did lose some valuable assets in order to make this happen. Did we get more in return? Perhaps... but I think it's too early to really tell. We'll have to see if all these draftees actually live up to the hype of being first round picks or if their bids came earlier than they should've because clubs wanted to make a point by bidding on them earlier than they should have. Although Uwland and Patterson were consensus top 5 picks, it's believed amongst Suns fans that Addinsall and Murray shouldn't have been bid on with first round picks and their true value was really closer to a third round / pick 40 range. So time will tell if these kids live up to the hype of being first round picks.

If you look at the 2023 draft class as an example, none of them have really set the world on fire in their first two years in the league. Ethan Read was the only one that found himself in our finals team this year and he virtually did nothing in those games (even got subbed out). Based on the available evidence, I do think it's possible that quite a few of our academy graduates have been bid on with earlier picks than they should've been and seeing them not perform at the AFL level only further confirms that theory in my mind. There's no denying that other clubs are angry about the situation and have reason to bid earlier just to prove a point. As an example, saying we landed four first round picks this year holds a lot more weight to the uninformed footy fan than just saying we landed two first round picks.


Prior to this year's trade period, it was understood that trading Flanders (pick 7) and Port Adelaide's first round pick that we secured by trading Lukosius last year (pick 8) would be enough to trade in Petracca and our other accumulated picks would be enough to match bids for Uwland + Patterson. Beyond that, we likely would've lost any other players bid on before the third round. Once the rules were confirmed, the club was motivated to keep the academy graduates beyond Uwland + Patterson so we engaged in trades for the likes of Ainsworth (pick 29), Budarick (pick 37) and Rosas (pick 51) to get enough points to match bids for Addinsall + Murray. That's essentially what happened - if you get active in the trade period over several years then you can do more when FS/NGA/NA bids occur.

I understand this but that is the crux of the issue. You should not be able to match a bid at pick 5 or pick 14 with picks 29 37 and 51 as in the real world no one is ever trading a first round pick for those later picks. So in reality you paid significant unders and what you gained was significantly more than what you gave up for it.
If the afl were smart and locked clubs first round picks to stop them trading down and still matching-then this would not occur. But the afl is either operationally useless through lack of intelligence, or deliberately useless because they want to advantage certain clubs, depending on how you look at it.

 

[briztoon]

I suspect that might have been the case when you and GC were shit, but find it hard to believe that a lot of Vic or SA kids would be unwilling to move to a good club in Qld - of all states. Some no doubt.

Nope, still the case.

However, the other half of my post, do you think what GC have been able to do concerning draft picks equalises it or creates a ridiculous advantage? Over three years where they received the average draft picks they've managed to accrue 10 first round players, some at the very pointy end, traded out 4 first rounders for players (3 top 10 picks) and only lost 2 relevant players. It's a crazy haul.

 

[briztoon]

Whilst it might not be directly funded, you do get a significantly bigger amount of the distribution than clubs with similar revenue and costs, which enables you to be running these academies. So it really is funded.

Except the Vic clubs don’t have similar costs.

They travel half the amount of games. That’s AFL and VFL level. Flights and accommodation. Players & staff.

They play half their games in a VFL owned stadium. Where as we pay $1m+ to the QLD government for each home game.

 

[sr36]

Well to put it into perspective, I suspect I’m unaware of the majority of these players, but from the rough numbers I’m aware of more players refuse to move interstate than we have taken academy picks.

So that's the equivalent of moving a spot down in the draft when they can't get the academy player - which is the part of it that isn't discussed - it's not related to the advantages for the matching club though.

 

[sr36]

Except the Vic clubs don’t have similar costs.

They travel half the amount of games. That’s AFL and VFL level. Flights and accommodation. Players & staff.

They play half their games in a VFL owned stadium. Where as we pay $1m+ to the QLD government for each home game.

The AFL funds travel and accomodation separately to the distribution.

 

[.Shotties.]

Any teams want to spend the next 30 years building their teams from 90% interstate players with very limited (like, one every ten years)trade home requests?

 

[Elixuh]

So that's the equivalent of moving a spot down in the draft when they can't get the academy player - which is the part of it that isn't discussed - it's not related to the advantages for the matching club though.

You’re either concerned about issues with the draft as a whole or you’re only concerned about academies. Most vfl supporters are just concerned about academies.

 

[sr36]

You’re either concerned about issues with the draft or you’re only concerned about academies. Most vfl supporters are just concerned about academies.

I think the academies are great. The issue has been the draft access and ridiculous bargains and the inequity and advantages it's produced. Personally, I think the AFL ****ed up and underestimated how effective the academies would be - or in particular the gold coast academy with a much more concentrated southern state demographic than the other clubs. And they reacted too slowly. And the advantages will act slowly too - playing out over the next 15 years.

But yeah - equalisation measures in general are the AFL's biggest issue - this stuff has diluted the effectiveness of the draft and the easier player movement both in terms of rules and culturally means that the salary cap doesn't work anymore - if you're a shit Vic team - you're stuffed and stuck at the bottom - having to pay heaps more to retain or recruit - why would you move or stay there with all the better choices? - their salary cap buys heaps less - hard to see an out.

 

[sr36]

Any teams want to spend the next 30 years building their teams from 90% interstate players with very limited (like, one every ten years)trade home requests?

Give us the goss Shotties. How hard has it been? Have the Swans even had a net negative in terms of recruits?

 

[WilloTree]

It’s good list management

Ok. Here's your chance.

Explain how a team that plays in a semi, gets pick 2, 5 and Petracca if they had to trade up to get the picks. ie no bullshit points system.

 

[LukeParkerno1]

Ok. Here's your chance.

Explain how a team that plays in a semi, gets pick 2, 5 and Petracca if they had to trade up to get the picks. ie no bullshit points system.

Not to mention two other first rounders. The system is farcical now we aren’t blaming GC.

Just fix the system. 2 picks to match with ONE that has to be in the first round for a first round bid. Get rid of the ridiculous discount I go for Sydney and it’s a joke- matching should be the discount it’s not complicated

The list spots as soon as the draft opens I hate too

 

[WilloTree]

Not to mention two other first rounders. The system is farcical now we aren’t blaming GC.

Just fix the system. 2 picks to match with ONE that has to be in the first round for a first round bid. Get rid of the ridiculous discount I go for Sydney and it’s a joke- matching should be the discount it’s not complicated

The list spots as soon as the draft opens I hate too

Oh I agree 100. Nobody is blaming GC. The AFL made a crap system and are too feckless to scrap it for a better one.

 

[LukeParkerno1]

Oh I agree 100. Nobody is blaming GC. The AFL made a crap system and are too feckless to scrap it for a better one.

Just wish they’d stop with the half trying efforts to band aid a problem

Just fix it and stop listening to the first club that whinges. The old “we prepared for next year” is the yearly chestnut from some club. Just fix it and frankly do it properly the first time.

It’s honestly not hard, personally

1. DVI for top 5 selections increase 25% (could be more but let’s go with that)
2. 2 picks max per bid and you cannot take a deficit more than your first selection into next year for example if you have pick 9 you can’t have more than what pick 9 is as the deficit into next year
3. No discount fair dinkum I don’t get why this is still in.

Not hard.

 

[Elixuh]

Ok. Here's your chance.

Explain how a team that plays in a semi, gets pick 2, 5 and Petracca if they had to trade up to get the picks. ie no bullshit points system.

By good list management

 

[LukeParkerno1]

By good list management

Correction: by the AFL being to gutless to make the necessary changes.

I like how they do it now after they pillaged the draft this year. You can’t have a team coming second last with pick 7. It’s beyond farcical that

 

[GC2015]

I understand this but that is the crux of the issue. You should not be able to match a bid at pick 5 or pick 14 with picks 29 37 and 51 as in the real world no one is ever trading a first round pick for those later picks. So in reality you paid significant unders and what you gained was significantly more than what you gave up for it.
If the afl were smart and locked clubs first round picks to stop them trading down and still matching-then this would not occur. But the afl is either operationally useless through lack of intelligence, or deliberately useless because they want to advantage certain clubs, depending on how you look at it.

The problem here is you're focusing on the end result and losing all context of how a club gets to the point of matching bids. So the Zeke Uwland bid was matched with picks 14, 18 and 24, but you have to ask yourself how we got to the point of acquiring those picks. On paper, you could say two late first rounders and a mid second rounder isn't enough to match that bid, but to get those picks we had to engage in trades that involved swapping five first round picks, two of which were top 10 picks (Collingwood's first rounder, Port Adelaide's first rounder, St Kilda's first rounder, our 2025 first rounder + our 2026 first rounder) so there's actually a lot more to it and more valuable assets exchanging hands than what the end result would have you think.

It's no different to Essendon trading away pick 9 last year to acquire picks 28, 40, 46 & 54, which were then used to secure picks 33 & 34 and those picks were used to match the pick 13 bid on Kako. So if you just focus on the end result again, then you could say Essendon only gave up two third rounders to acquire pick 13 and that seems unfair without the context of how they got there, but in reality they actually gave up a top 10 pick to get in a position to match the pick 13 bid and Melbourne became the beneficiary by securing that top 10 pick for several later picks.

The full context is important. The AFL say they are going to make it more difficult to match bids next year, so it'll immediately be put to the test considering the predicted top 2 picks for 2026 are F/S and Academy tied to Carlton and Port Adelaide. It's important to point out that Carlton have already acquired Sydney's 2026 first rounder and will likely look to do the same thing, but if it's significantly hard to do it next year then we may very well see the return of Carltank in 2026 in order to be in a position to match a pick 1 bid for Cody Walker. Hopefully we don't see the return of tanking because it's become too hard to retain club tied players, but it wouldn't surprise me to see Carlton do it considering there's incentive with Walker potentially being a generation talent. Tanking is potentially an unintended consequence of this tinkering with the points system.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

The problem here is you're focusing on the end result and losing all context of how a club gets to the point of matching bids. So the Zeke Uwland bid was matched with picks 14, 18 and 24, but you have to ask yourself how we got to the point of acquiring those picks. On paper, you could say two late first rounders and a mid second rounder isn't enough to match that bid, but to get those picks we had to engage in trades that involved swapping five first round picks, two of which were top 10 picks (Collingwood's first rounder, Port Adelaide's first rounder, St Kilda's first rounder, our 2025 first rounder + our 2026 first rounder) so there's actually a lot more to it and more valuable assets exchanging hands than what the end result would have you think.

It's no different to Essendon trading away pick 9 last year to acquire picks 28, 40, 46 & 54, which were then used to secure picks 33 & 34 and those picks were used to match the pick 13 bid on Kako. So if you just focus on the end result again, then you could say Essendon only gave up two third rounders to acquire pick 13 and that seems unfair without the context of how they got there, but in reality they actually gave up a top 10 pick to get in a position to match the pick 13 bid and Melbourne became the beneficiary by securing that top 10 pick for several later picks.

The full context is important. The AFL say they are going to make it more difficult to match bids next year, so it'll immediately be put to the test considering the predicted top 2 picks for 2026 are F/S and Academy tied to Carlton and Port Adelaide. It's important to point out that Carlton have already acquired Sydney's 2026 first rounder and will likely look to do the same thing, but if it's significantly hard to do it next year then we may very well see the return of Carltank in 2026 in order to be in a position to match a pick 1 bid for Cody Walker. Hopefully we don't see the return of tanking because it's become too hard to retain club tied players, but it wouldn't surprise me to see Carlton do it considering there's incentive with Walker potentially being a generation talent. Tanking is potentially an unintended consequence of this tinkering with the points system.

I understand what you are saying but you are ignoring the fact that in said deal essendon got a future 1st (which turned out to be a pick higher than 9 anyway) plus all those other picks. So they got to trade back, match the bid and pick up extra future picks as well, when in reality it should be one or the other not both. For example in the real world if uwland is in a trade scenario and clubs are working to get pick 2 to trade for him they are giving up many high end assets to do that trade, and not being able to generate side benefits of extra picks/players for themselves at the same time. This is the rort that the afl has not allowed by having the points table the way it is and allowing clubs to trade down and still match bids. I dont blame gc or any individual club I blame the afl.

I understand your points about moving parts but this is is the usual 5 C graders for an A grade gun type posts that you see on the D & T board. In a context you would understand this would be like if someone came to you and offered you ainsworth rosas Flanders luko and fiorini for Rowell or Anderson. While it looks half decent on paper in the real world even if you make it 7 C graders not 5 no smart club is trading that for one elite player. Which is why its so hard to trade up in drafts and why you rarely see picks in the top 6 traded cheap. So why should academy matching be any different.

Therefore a bid match in the top 10 (where an elite player is highly likely if the talent ID is done properly) needs to reflect what the pick would cost in the real world. Which what you have had to pay for these players absolutely does not.

On the walker example I do hope Carlton get him. But the reality is if he gets bid at pick 2 no club should ever be able to match that with picks 14 and 18 (as you can never ever buy pick 2 on the market for that). So it should cost Carlton their r1 + Sydney's and if those aren't enough the deficit should come off their future 1st (within a reasonable Max deficit limit) or the bid shouldn't be allowed to be matched in that scenario.

 

[.Shotties.]

Give us the goss Shotties. How hard has it been?

No answering questions with questions, please. Would you take the circumstances of the first 25 (27 if you want to take it up to the beginning of the academy) years of the Swans' existence in Sydney? Almost no home city or state recruits, no requests back to Victoria.

 

[GC2015]

But what you're saying is "the future is uncertain, so how can we really know if Gold Coast got an advantage, when future outcomes haven't happened yet".

Which is just a ridiculous way of framing it. We can make reasonable predictions on the future on the basis of generally true things even if there's some unbuilt certainty, like how earlier drafted players tend to have better future careers than later drafted players, even if you can't act with certainty for any given player or any given pick.

What I'm suggesting is I'm not convinced that several of these academy players that were bid on with first round picks were actually deserving of a bid at that stage in the draft order. Therefore, I won't be surprised if some of them don't end up living up to the hype of first round picks that should find their way into a permanent place in the best 22 and the evidence to date suggests that may be happening. Walter, Rogers, Graham and Lombard all found themselves in the VFL late last year when the whip was cracking and we were trying to qualify for the finals.

Ethan Read is the only academy player from the last three drafts that kept his best 22 spot and we had guys like Ainsworth, Fiorini and Budarick (who all got traded) picked ahead of those academy players. Even a retiring Dave Swallow made the cut ahead of those academy players! Now you could say it's just age / inexperience and that may be correct, but until I see these guys actually cement themselves in our best 22, then I'm going to continue to think it's possible that their draft positions may have been inflated due to several clubs that were frustrated by the bidding system.

Several best 22 players is pushing it. Bar Ainsworth they hardly were. Rosas was in the VFL, Lucosius in and out of the side, Fiorini was in and out too. I don’t blame GC…this is the AFL’s fault they could have fixed this two years ago- the changes coming in this year should have been in this year. Would have cleaned up a lot of the mess.

Hopefully the AFL get through their rather slow heads that enough is enough

Ainsworth, Fiorini and Budarick were all in our best 22 in both our finals matches this year and those guys got picked ahead of our hyped up academy graduates (as pointed out above). So yes, I do consider those guys to be best 22 players at the time of trading.

I understand what you are saying but you are ignoring the fact that in said deal essendon got a future 1st (which turned out to be a pick higher than 9 anyway) plus all those other picks. So they got to trade back, match the bid and pick up extra future picks as well, when in reality it should be one or the other not both. For example in the real world if uwland is in a trade scenario and clubs are working to get pick 2 to trade for him they are giving up many high end assets to do that trade, and not being able to generate side benefits of extra picks/players for themselves at the same time. This is the rort that the afl has not allowed by having the points table the way it is and allowing clubs to trade down and still match bids. I dont blame gc or any individual club I blame the afl.

I understand your points about moving parts but this is is the usual 5 C graders for an A grade gun type posts that you see on the D & T board. In a context you would understand this would be like if someone came to you and offered you ainsworth rosas Flanders luko and fiorini for Rowell or Anderson. While it looks half decent on paper in the real world even if you make it 7 C graders not 5 no smart club is trading that for one elite player. Which is why its so hard to trade up in drafts and why you rarely see picks in the top 6 traded cheap. So why should academy matching be any different.

Therefore a bid match in the top 10 (where an elite player is highly likely if the talent ID is done properly) needs to reflect what the pick would cost in the real world. Which what you have had to pay for these players absolutely does not.

I think there's a fairly high chance that any club could trade up the draft order into the top 5 if they were willing to trade a combination of picks 7, 8, 14, 18 & a 2026 first rounder like we were. It's just that the current system incentivises moving down the draft order to make this a reality, so we did the best thing for ourselves by trading down. If the rules had dictated that we needed to move up in order to match the bids, then we would've done so. That's a hate the game, not the player situation.

On the walker example I do hope Carlton get him. But the reality is if he gets bid at pick 2 no club should ever be able to match that with picks 14 and 18 (as you can never ever buy pick 2 on the market for that). So it should cost Carlton their r1 + Sydney's and if those aren't enough the deficit should come off their future 1st (within a reasonable Max deficit limit) or the bid shouldn't be allowed to be matched in that scenario.

Well, you should probably get ready to be disappointed again because Carlton have already traded in Sydney's 2026 first round pick and that indicates that they plan on doing exactly the same thing and trading down for those picks in order to match a bid for Cody Walker, should a top 2 bid come through for him. The only thing that may prevent it from happening again is the AFL dictating that a bid can only be matched with at least one pick that's within 5-10 places of the bid, but even then you'd just see Carlton keeping the later pick of the two that they have to satisfy the AFL's rules and trading the earlier pick for a suite of later picks to get the points required to match the bid. The fix you're looking for isn't as straightforward as you may think.

 

[danster168]

I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm just sharing my opinion. It's totally fine if you disagree with my opinion.

If we skip forward a few years from now and we're holding up the cup led mostly by these academy graduates acquired under the old bidding system then it's probably fair to suggest we got more back than we gave up. As of right now, I have no idea if these kids are actually the real deal or if their draft value was inflated by other clubs who had an axe to grind. Based on the small amount of avaliable evidence to date, it looks like most of them are struggling to live up to the hype. Remember, we don't control the end value of those players, it's other clubs that dictate their value through the bidding process and if they want to bid early just to prove a point, then that's what they're going to do.

At this stage, we gave up several best 22 players over the last few years and we've only got one of these highly touted academy graduates that's actually made his way into the best 22. I'll certainly be happy if I'm wrong because I want my team to succeed, but that doesn't mean I don't have question marks in regards when the bids that were placed on them. At the very least, I'd like to see more than one of them cement a spot in our best 22!

I literally owned u in the last post, literally showing you exactly what you lost. But you chose to not reply and ignore that. You lost absolute mediocre players, worth very little. But sure, call them 'best 22' even though the bottom 6 in every teams 22 is pretty interchangeable.