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

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I take your first point.

That second paragraph misses the point. The AFL set up the club, the SUNS were created from nothing with poor recruits (with PR in mind) and given sheds to train in, in a rugby league area. Complain all you like about the current draft rules, but you are re-writing history ignoring the issues they faced.

The big problem is the AFL set them up to fail in hindsight, which required a second round of draft concessions. Which is partly causing the current controversy.
I'm sure there was a heap of **** ups and shit decisions outside of the playing list. But to me the playing group is what reallly matters and the big difference between GC and GWS's early days was that GWS put together a group of short term senior pros alongside the talented kids to help create a club with standards. GC added loose canons and a solo artist alongside their talented kids - and got what in retrospect you'd expect - at the time though many viewed it was simple equation of talent in - success to automatically follow.
 
That and the loopholes, I mean you can't blame clubs this is the AFL and their refusal to make calls. Blind Freddy could say clubs will just open more list spots when the draft commences.

I certainly don't blame the clubs. The AFL were intentionally giving a leg up to the teams who were set to benefit - I don't know how you can read it any other way.

When they first brought in points matching it was before live trading. There was no limit to the number of picks you could take into the draft. Sydney milked it brilliantly and entered the draft with a huge pile of junk to pay for Mills and then did their clever trade out and then trade straight back in deal to hold onto their top pick as well. The AFL immediately reacted and stopped both of those things in the next draft.

Once live trading started, that number of list spots loophole opened straight back up as the rule was just about what you could take into the draft - you could do what Sydney had done the moment the draft opened. The AFL decided to leave that loophole open even after seeing the same thing that Sydney had done occuring.
 
I certainly don't blame the clubs. The AFL were intentionally giving a leg up to the teams who were set to benefit - I don't know how you can read it any other way.

When they first brought in points matching it was before live trading. There was no limit to the number of picks you could take into the draft. Sydney milked it brilliantly and entered the draft with a huge pile of junk to pay for Mills and then did their clever trade out and then trade straight back in deal to hold onto their top pick as well. The AFL immediately reacted and stopped both of those things in the next draft.

Once live trading started, that number of list spots loophole opened straight back up as the rule was just about what you could take into the draft - you could do what Sydney had done the moment the draft opened. The AFL decided to leave that loophole open even after seeing the same thing that Sydney had done occuring.

Yep I mean the clubs will take every advantage they can I sure as anything do not blame the clubs. It's the AFL stop trying to band aid a system and just fix the whole thing. Yes clubs will whinge but if I hear the rubbish of 'well clubs have prepared for it under the old rules' again I swear. Just do it right and do it once. The Rowbottom one was so hilarious though to be fair
 

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There are inequalities all over the place in the world we call AFL ... in fact it could almost be one of it's defining features ... there are variations in travel load, scheduling, fixtures, access to FTA (and thus sponsorships/broadcasting), 3rd party sponsorships, political leverage, journalistic presentation (brave going to Vic, traitors leaving etc), etc etc.

One thing we are never going to get is equality of opportunity and given that there is no way we are going to get equality of outcome ... and in an ideal sporting landscape there should be room for excellence among individual clubs and players!

At various points in this thread the concept of paying fair (usually capitalised) value is brought up and the concept that no one would trade for example pick 5 for picks (insert a group of later picks worth more summativley than pick 5) but that pick 5 for eg 12 and 14 would be fair ... in practice 'fair' is subjective and no one would trade pick 5 for pick 12 and 14 either but it gets to move the window closer to the preferred concept (no matching in most cases) and sounds good.

I remember well the depths of despair and the expectation of a never ending future of grey sub-mediocrity as a feeder-club back in the day and we really didn't think there was a light at the end of the tunnel let alone a rainbow but the club was fixed at the back end and the culture was improved and the academies helped stem the go-home stream and eventually we are where we are today.

We still face the same systemic inequalities we faced back then ... we once overcame them with the assistance of an available to all clubs retention allowance but we did too well and they took away our nice thing and down we went (aided by a raft of evil unhelpful internal decisions) ... I hope that in the rush to alleviate the current outraged feeling of unfair advantages (how dare we succeed again) that they do not tweak what was designed as an alleviation of disadvantage so far that Lord Chesterton would be spinning once more in his grave!

Will the higher DVI and two-pick alleviate the perceived over-advantage held by clubs that have Northern Academies, Southern NGAs, random Father/Son (oh wait that is almost everyone!) ... no idea but it would be nice if they made a change and waited to see how it played out before changing it again (unless bodies start piling up in the AFL Street).

Brisbane is currently well run, great coach, great environment, considered to be a good place to play (so attractive to free agents) and so it makes sense that we are doing well on the ladder ... it hasn't always been so and it won't always be so but it would be helpful if each time we do well it is not considered to be a breach in the natural order of the universe - we remember how the AFL world reacted to Geelong/Hawthorn/Richmond doing well and the sky was not falling ... except when Brisbane did well ... and when Brisbane did well again.

What seems to be never mentioned (and admittedly not somewhat redundant) is that every time a club traded out of the first round to pick up points some other club was concurrently (and delightedly) trading into that first round for the bargain price of a bunch of picks they were happy to swap with - I wonder what a table of players that each club has picked up through that process would look like...

Anyway let's see how it plays out this time
 
There are inequalities all over the place in the world we call AFL ... in fact it could almost be one of it's defining features ... there are variations in travel load, scheduling, fixtures, access to FTA (and thus sponsorships/broadcasting), 3rd party sponsorships, political leverage, journalistic presentation (brave going to Vic, traitors leaving etc), etc etc.

One thing we are never going to get is equality of opportunity and given that there is no way we are going to get equality of outcome ... and in an ideal sporting landscape there should be room for excellence among individual clubs and players!

At various points in this thread the concept of paying fair (usually capitalised) value is brought up and the concept that no one would trade for example pick 5 for picks (insert a group of later picks worth more summativley than pick 5) but that pick 5 for eg 12 and 14 would be fair ... in practice 'fair' is subjective and no one would trade pick 5 for pick 12 and 14 either but it gets to move the window closer to the preferred concept (no matching in most cases) and sounds good.

I remember well the depths of despair and the expectation of a never ending future of grey sub-mediocrity as a feeder-club back in the day and we really didn't think there was a light at the end of the tunnel let alone a rainbow but the club was fixed at the back end and the culture was improved and the academies helped stem the go-home stream and eventually we are where we are today.

We still face the same systemic inequalities we faced back then ... we once overcame them with the assistance of an available to all clubs retention allowance but we did too well and they took away our nice thing and down we went (aided by a raft of evil unhelpful internal decisions) ... I hope that in the rush to alleviate the current outraged feeling of unfair advantages (how dare we succeed again) that they do not tweak what was designed as an alleviation of disadvantage so far that Lord Chesterton would be spinning once more in his grave!

Will the higher DVI and two-pick alleviate the perceived over-advantage held by clubs that have Northern Academies, Southern NGAs, random Father/Son (oh wait that is almost everyone!) ... no idea but it would be nice if they made a change and waited to see how it played out before changing it again (unless bodies start piling up in the AFL Street).

Brisbane is currently well run, great coach, great environment, considered to be a good place to play (so attractive to free agents) and so it makes sense that we are doing well on the ladder ... it hasn't always been so and it won't always be so but it would be helpful if each time we do well it is not considered to be a breach in the natural order of the universe - we remember how the AFL world reacted to Geelong/Hawthorn/Richmond doing well and the sky was not falling ... except when Brisbane did well ... and when Brisbane did well again.

What seems to be never mentioned (and admittedly not somewhat redundant) is that every time a club traded out of the first round to pick up points some other club was concurrently (and delightedly) trading into that first round for the bargain price of a bunch of picks they were happy to swap with - I wonder what a table of players that each club has picked up through that process would look like...

Anyway let's see how it plays out this time
Should current feeder clubs get unrestricted academy players until they are winning again?
 

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