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

[threenewpadlocks]

Yeah, it's as much about creating a fan base as producing players. It's why you need the academies to be club rather than AFL run. It's a massive leg up though.

A fair chunk of the "massive leg up" in my eyes was simply the fact that the points system didn't reflect the true value of draft picks, as evidenced by the trades going all in one direction.

They've finally fixed it even though we had years of evidence of one-way trades - teams matching bids always trading fewer early draft picks for multiple later picks - that they could have updated the points system, years earlier.

Provided that the actual points attached to each pick reflects real world value, the leg-up largely comes around the 20% discount with a few other minor points (trading draft picks around when the bid might come,, if you rate your own attached player higher than other clubs you don't have to "pull the trigger" on them early, etc.), but that's really only about a 25% discount, not the 30-50% practical discount teams were getting with previous trades etc.

 

[sr36]

A fair chunk of the "massive leg up" in my eyes was simply the fact that the points system didn't reflect the true value of draft picks, as evidenced by the trades going all in one direction.

They've finally fixed it even though we had years of evidence of one-way trades - teams matching bids always trading fewer early draft picks for multiple later picks - that they could have updated the points system, years earlier.

Provided that the actual points attached to each pick reflects real world value, the leg-up largely comes around the 20% discount with a few other minor points (trading draft picks around when the bid might come,, if you rate your own attached player higher than other clubs you don't have to "pull the trigger" on them early, etc.), but that's really only about a 25% discount, not the 30-50% practical discount teams were getting with previous trades etc.

They'll certainly be less of a bargain, but they'll still be a bargain and the number of bargains will rise. Significantly, it'll increasingly give top teams easy access to top picks at a bargain, keeping them up the top.

 

[Yoda_]

My argument to the academies is they hand pick kids, often having hundreds in the academy from a young age, develop them in elite pathways, take the cream and then cut the rest.

The argument is "we dont have father sons", true but for every Nick Daicos and Levi Ashcroft you have more Jesse Smith's, Brett Peake's and Ayce Cordy's. So not really a valid argument.

On top of this, the idea that Brisbane developed a guy like Sam Marshall who lived in Melbourne for two years and played in the Sandringham Dragons squad was eligible sill astounds me.

Furthermore, the Gold Coast bounty in 2023 has obviously been somewhat addressed but imagine the drama if the AFL said, you can only pick one. The draft night pantomime would be lapped up by Damian Barrett, Riley Beveridge and co.

If you want to scrap it all, give clubs who develop these academy kids extra rookie picks or something. Say Gold Coast had two kids taken in the first round, allow them two extra rookies outside the salary cap. Would reward clubs somewhat

 

[Profop]

My argument to the academies is they hand pick kids, often having hundreds in the academy from a young age, develop them in elite pathways, take the cream and then cut the rest.

The argument is "we dont have father sons", true but for every Nick Daicos and Levi Ashcroft you have more Jesse Smith's, Brett Peake's and Ayce Cordy's. So not really a valid argument.

On top of this, the idea that Brisbane developed a guy like Sam Marshall who lived in Melbourne for two years and played in the Sandringham Dragons squad was eligible sill astounds me.

Furthermore, the Gold Coast bounty in 2023 has obviously been somewhat addressed but imagine the drama if the AFL said, you can only pick one. The draft night pantomime would be lapped up by Damian Barrett, Riley Beveridge and co.

If you want to scrap it all, give clubs who develop these academy kids extra rookie picks or something. Say Gold Coast had two kids taken in the first round, allow them two extra rookies outside the salary cap. Would reward clubs somewhat

Nothing stopping other teams picking players out of academies though. Tigers have done it plenty of times (with only so so success)

 

[LukeParkerno1]

My argument to the academies is they hand pick kids, often having hundreds in the academy from a young age, develop them in elite pathways, take the cream and then cut the rest.

The argument is "we dont have father sons", true but for every Nick Daicos and Levi Ashcroft you have more Jesse Smith's, Brett Peake's and Ayce Cordy's. So not really a valid argument.

On top of this, the idea that Brisbane developed a guy like Sam Marshall who lived in Melbourne for two years and played in the Sandringham Dragons squad was eligible sill astounds me.

Furthermore, the Gold Coast bounty in 2023 has obviously been somewhat addressed but imagine the drama if the AFL said, you can only pick one. The draft night pantomime would be lapped up by Damian Barrett, Riley Beveridge and co.

If you want to scrap it all, give clubs who develop these academy kids extra rookie picks or something. Say Gold Coast had two kids taken in the first round, allow them two extra rookies outside the salary cap. Would reward clubs somewhat

Can’t just dial back the academies or basically nuke them as you seem to want to and then keep the F/S, it’s one or the other take your pick. The new system is the best compromise in theory we haven’t seen it in action but in theory it’s the best one. What is farcical is it should have been in 5 years ago. Let’s see how this system goes but in theory unless you trade out assets you aren’t matching more than 2 first round talents

 

[briztoon]

The father-son rule is really designed to create generational connections to a specific club and there's a generational aspect to the academy as well. You place these kids in the academies and depending on their background, they either adopt Aussie rules as their preferred sport and begin supporting the northern club OR if they were already really into footy (that's the minority of these northern academy kids) then they adopt the northern club as their second team and perhaps even their first team one day in the future. That creates a new generation of supporters for the northern clubs/AFL that wouldn't have previously been possible and it flows into the next generation when their kids get to that age. It's literally a multi-generational conversion tool for the AFL because most of these academy kids aren't going to make it to the AFL, but they will always have those teenage memories of participating in the academy and will likely continue to follow footy to some degree for the rest of their life.

I call b.s. on the bolded, especially the italics bit. The vast majority of QLD academy kids drafted since 2014 are from footy families that moved to QLD from Vic or WA. A couple were from QLD footy families, where their dad played at their club when they were young, and their dads coached junior teams. A couple have come from non footy families (Lombard most recently) but they were still playing aussie rules from primary school age, at a QAFL or QFA club.

 

[powerrrrrrrrrrrr]

Clubs need to be limited to being able to match 1 player thats a first round academy prospects over a 2 year period.

The others go into the open pool.

Getting access to multiple first round talents in a year is just ridiculous.

 

[briztoon]

My argument to the academies is they hand pick kids, often having hundreds in the academy from a young age, develop them in elite pathways, take the cream and then cut the rest.

Sydney is the only northern club that has hundreds (as in 500-700) in it's academy.

Brisbane usually run with about 40 kids in each academy level, and there are three levels. Level 3 with U18's, U17's and a couple of the top U16's. Level 2 with U16's and U15's. Level 1 with U12's-U14's.

Each summer holidays, we run extended tryouts with teams from each of our zones, but these get cut down to a final squad for each level.

The argument is "we dont have father sons", true but for every Nick Daicos and Levi Ashcroft you have more Jesse Smith's, Brett Peake's and Ayce Cordy's. So not really a valid argument.

On top of this, the idea that Brisbane developed a guy like Sam Marshall who lived in Melbourne for two years and played in the Sandringham Dragons squad was eligible sill astounds me.

3 Years.

Furthermore, the Gold Coast bounty in 2023 has obviously been somewhat addressed but imagine the drama if the AFL said, you can only pick one. The draft night pantomime would be lapped up by Damian Barrett, Riley Beveridge and co.

If you want to scrap it all, give clubs who develop these academy kids extra rookie picks or something. Say Gold Coast had two kids taken in the first round, allow them two extra rookies outside the salary cap. Would reward clubs somewhat

 

[briztoon]

Clubs need to be limited to being able to match 1 player thats a first round academy prospects over a 2 year period.

The others go into the open pool.

Getting access to multiple first round talents in a year is just ridiculous.

Can we wait until after the Tassie drafts, before we go nuclear on their academies.

 

[Yoda_]

Can’t just dial back the academies or basically nuke them as you seem to want to and then keep the F/S, it’s one or the other take your pick. The new system is the best compromise in theory we haven’t seen it in action but in theory it’s the best one. What is farcical is it should have been in 5 years ago. Let’s see how this system goes but in theory unless you trade out assets you aren’t matching more than 2 first round talents

not blowing them up, allow them to develop the kids themselves is my reservation on the whole thing

 

[GC2015]

I call b.s. on the bolded, especially the italics bit. The vast majority of QLD academy kids drafted since 2014 are from footy families that moved to QLD from Vic or WA. A couple were from QLD footy families, where their dad played at their club when they were young, and their dads coached junior teams. A couple have come from non footy families (Lombard most recently) but they were still playing aussie rules from primary school age, at a QAFL or QFA club.

It's an impossible thing to measure unless you actually work for the club, but I personally know several parents from rugby league backgrounds that now have kids in the Suns academy and they've been won over to now support the Suns after previously having no interest in the sport. Other examples are the son of Gold Coast Titans legend Mark Minichiello and daughter of Melbourne Storm legend Cam Smith also having kids in the Suns academy. It's possible that it's my perception that the majority of our academy intake weren't really into footy before joining the academy, but I'm giving you real world examples of it that I've seen/read about.

As for Lombard specifically, he has stated publicly that he wanted to pusue MMA when he was younger (likely due to his famous father's MMA career) and only played footy "for a bit of fun" until he was invited to join the academy and he then saw the pathway to become an AFL player and decided to give up on BJJ/MMA to chase an AFL career. He wouldn't have pursued footy had the academy not existed and he didn't come from a family with a footy background.

I think it's important to point out that just purely looking at the ones that get drafted isn't necessarily indicative of the overall makeup of an academy intake in any given year. It's not surprising that a kid who had a footy background ends up being the one that gets drafted over a kid that doesn't have one. Anyway, I also pointed out that even the kids that previously did have footy affiliations are being converted to Suns fans and that's another benefit of the academies. We're far better off having a young Suns fan living on the Gold Coast who plays for the academy and goes to home games every second week than we are having a young St Kilda living on the Gold Coast who doesn't play footy and maybe goes to one game a year when St Kilda come to play on the GC.

 

[Elixuh]

My argument to the academies is they hand pick kids, often having hundreds in the academy from a young age, develop them in elite pathways, take the cream and then cut the rest.

The argument is "we dont have father sons", true but for every Nick Daicos and Levi Ashcroft you have more Jesse Smith's, Brett Peake's and Ayce Cordy's. So not really a valid argument.

On top of this, the idea that Brisbane developed a guy like Sam Marshall who lived in Melbourne for two years and played in the Sandringham Dragons squad was eligible sill astounds me.

Furthermore, the Gold Coast bounty in 2023 has obviously been somewhat addressed but imagine the drama if the AFL said, you can only pick one. The draft night pantomime would be lapped up by Damian Barrett, Riley Beveridge and co.

If you want to scrap it all, give clubs who develop these academy kids extra rookie picks or something. Say Gold Coast had two kids taken in the first round, allow them two extra rookies outside the salary cap. Would reward clubs somewhat

It’s a good point. If we drastically increase the funding the northern states receive for their academies then we will be able to produce much more talent as our academies will be far larger.

 

[briztoon]

It's an impossible thing to measure unless you actually work for the club, but I personally know several parents from rugby league backgrounds that now have kids in the Suns academy and they've been won over to now support the Suns after previously having no interest in the sport. Other examples are the son of Gold Coast Titans legend Mark Minichiello and daughter of Melbourne Storm legend Cam Smith also having kids in the Suns academy. It's possible that it's my perception that the majority of our academy intake weren't really into footy before joining the academy, but I'm giving you real world examples of it that I've seen/read about.

As for Lombard specifically, he has stated publicly that he wanted to pusue MMA when he was younger (likely due to his famous father's MMA career) and only played footy "for a bit of fun" until he was invited to join the academy and he then saw the pathway to become an AFL player and decided to give up on BJJ/MMA to chase an AFL career. He wouldn't have pursued footy had the academy not existed and he didn't come from a family with a footy background.

I think it's important to point out that just purely looking at the ones that get drafted isn't necessarily indicative of the overall makeup of an academy intake in any given year. It's not surprising that a kid who had a footy background ends up being the one that gets drafted over a kid that doesn't have one. Anyway, I also pointed out that even the kids that previously did have footy affiliations are being converted to Suns fans and that's another benefit of the academies. We're far better off having a young Suns fan living on the Gold Coast who plays for the academy and goes to home games every second week than we are having a young St Kilda living on the Gold Coast who doesn't play footy and maybe goes to one game a year when St Kilda come to play on the GC.

Fan conversion was not what I was replying to.

Purely looking at the kids who have been drafted in to the afl from the two QLD academies, the vast majority are from expat Vic or WA families, who were already Aussie Rules families.

I looked at this for both clubs, all kids drafted between 2014 and 2019, and Ballenden was the only kid I couldn’t trace back to a footy family, apart from Chol and Williams.

And it hasn’t changed dramatically since. Lombard, and the two PNG boys are the only three I can think of, and for all I know, Reville or Oea could have a link.

 

[briztoon]

It’s a good point. If we drastically increase the funding the northern states receive for their academies then we will be able to produce much more talent as our academies will be far larger.

Seeing as the academies are funded outside the cap, in theory each club sets the limits to it’s academy funding.

If we weren’t paying off our debt to the AFL, we could be spending a couple of million a year on our academy.

 

[GC2015]

Fan conversion was not what I was replying to.

Purely looking at the kids who have been drafted in to the afl from the two QLD academies, the vast majority are from expat Vic or WA families, who were already Aussie Rules families.

I looked at this for both clubs, all kids drafted between 2014 and 2019, and Ballenden was the only kid I couldn’t trace back to a footy family, apart from Chol and Williams.

And it hasn’t changed dramatically since. Lombard, and the two PNG boys are the only three I can think of, and for all I know, Reville or Oea could have a link.

Okay... I'll rewrite what I wrote in response to that in the last post. It's not surprising that a kid who had a footy background ends up being the one that gets drafted over a kid that doesn't have one, but that's not necessarily indicative of the overall makeup of the academy squad. For all we know, there could be 10 kids of the 40 in any given academy intake year that come from a footy background and the 1 makes it to the AFL and it happens to be 1 of the 10 with a footy background. There's still another 30 kids there that are potentially going to be lifelong AFL/Suns fans (that possibly wouldn't have cared about footy without the academy) and will likely try to get their kids into the game/supporting the Suns in the future. Do you see what I'm getting at?

It seems like you're solely interested in discussing the background of academy kids that have been drafted (not my original discussion point) and you've already researched that topic in depth. It would've been nice if we had have convinced NRL gun Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow to stick with footy instead of his first love of rugby league when he had to make a choice at 15/16. That would've been a great endorsement for our academy and converting talent juniors from non-footy backgrounds. Having said that, securing Lombard is still a great win for our academy program as he almost definitely wouldn't have made it without our academy and would likely be fighting in a BJJ/MMA promotion now instead.

 

[LukeParkerno1]

not blowing them up, allow them to develop the kids themselves is my reservation on the whole thing

Then I assume you have the same view in F/S or NGA and seeing you’ve just got an elite talent off the latter of the two it is funny the thing is after it was a benefit to your club.

The new system is as fair as can be, you can only match one high pick before going into deficit either by trading futures or players if you want to get a second. The new curve is literally making it extremely hard to match multiple players

 

[Yoda_]

Then I assume you have the same view in F/S or NGA and seeing you’ve just got an elite talent off the latter of the two it is funny the thing is after it was a benefit to your club.

The new system is as fair as can be, you can only match one high pick before going into deficit either by trading futures or players if you want to get a second. The new curve is literally making it extremely hard to match multiple players

I guess I haven't seen that in action, will be keen to see how it pans out

 

[LukeParkerno1]

I guess I haven't seen that in action, will be keen to see how it pans out

Points curve has changed, the picks become zero after the third round. Also the top round is worth a lot more. This basically means you can’t trade your first (like you did) for junk. I don’t blame you guys you played the system in front of you. The GC situation a few years ago forced a rethink but in typical AFL fashion let’s wait 2 plus years to put in a system. This one at least looks fair on paper now I know clubs will find loopholes but in theory I don’t have an issue, and if this means missing a top talent so be it. The other key thing is clubs can trade two years into the future which hopefully stops the posturing during trade week, get in there get a deal done

 

[Yoda_]

Points curve has changed, the picks become zero after the third round. Also the top round is worth a lot more. This basically means you can’t trade your first (like you did) for junk. I don’t blame you guys you played the system in front of you. The GC situation a few years ago forced a rethink but in typical AFL fashion let’s wait 2 plus years to put in a system. This one at least looks fair on paper now I know clubs will find loopholes but in theory I don’t have an issue, and if this means missing a top talent so be it. The other key thing is clubs can trade two years into the future which hopefully stops the posturing during trade week, get in there get a deal done

thats fine, El-Achkar probably 20 - 35 at the moment, Sweid a late - rookie pick if not a Cat B prospect. Still early days but im not worried, especially with so many picks in this draft now.

 

[sr36]

Then I assume you have the same view in F/S or NGA and seeing you’ve just got an elite talent off the latter of the two it is funny the thing is after it was a benefit to your club.

The new system is as fair as can be, you can only match one high pick before going into deficit either by trading futures or players if you want to get a second. The new curve is literally making it extremely hard to match multiple players

F/S is luck, with 16 of the teams all similarly likely to get lucky. With the academies, 4 clubs are much more likely to get access to highly rated draftees that still come significantly more cheaply than you could trade for the pick. Fair enough that the two clubs who don't have access to FS yet get this benefit, but the other two are just getting a significant leg up.

 

[mpal6]

F/S is luck, with 16 of the teams all similarly likely to get lucky. With the academies, 4 clubs are much more likely to get access to highly rated draftees that still come significantly more cheaply than you could trade for the pick. Fair enough that the two clubs who don't have access to FS yet get this benefit, but the other two are just getting a significant leg up.

Academies are luck too. https://www.lions.com.au/teams/academy/graduates - based on our graduate list, there is no real stand out top 5 or 10 anywhere so far. Hipwood went pick 14 but it's questionable whether he's top tier. Apart from that, all our core academy players are mid to late picks. You can make a case for Andrews being a top player now but on draft year he wasn't a top pick. Our first genuine top 10 pick might be this year in Annable. Also, you can see the number of players who have spilled over from Lions Academy and playing elsewhere with strong results like Keays, Chol, Wagner and all the AFLW players out there.

I'm totally in favor of limiting number of top end draftees a team playing finals can take. I believe AFL made a mistake removing this limit and I think they should introduce it back again. That being said, Academies are not such a sure fire hit as you've stated here.

 

[Elixuh]

F/S is luck, with 16 of the teams all similarly likely to get lucky. With the academies, 4 clubs are much more likely to get access to highly rated draftees that still come significantly more cheaply than you could trade for the pick. Fair enough that the two clubs who don't have access to FS yet get this benefit, but the other two are just getting a significant leg up.

The simplest solution is to remove any discounts or access arrangements for the northern clubs on the proviso that each of the other clubs in the league will provide substantial financial contributions from their budgets which go towards us running and resourcing the academies.

Then they can get equal access to all the awesome talent.

 

[sr36]

Academies are luck too. https://www.lions.com.au/teams/academy/graduates - based on our graduate list, there is no real stand out top 5 or 10 anywhere so far. Hipwood went pick 14 but it's questionable whether he's top tier. Apart from that, all our core academy players are mid to late picks. You can make a case for Andrews being a top player now but on draft year he wasn't a top pick. Our first genuine top 10 pick might be this year in Annable. Also, you can see the number of players who have spilled over from Lions Academy and playing elsewhere with strong results like Keays, Chol, Wagner and all the AFLW players out there.

I'm totally in favor of limiting number of top end draftees a team playing finals can take. I believe AFL made a mistake removing this limit and I think they should introduce it back again. That being said, Academies are not such a sure fire hit as you've stated here.

There's already been a significant benefit and it's not just early picks - it helps at all points in the draft - as shown by Andrews - he's a star who is in a Lions jumper due to being able to jump the order above the team who bid on him. And the benefit will increase as the academies are built to grow and are clearly growing.

If you look at the Pies and Swans - the main reason they've dodged the boom bust design of the draft is having priority access to a few players in the draft. And the number of priority access players heading North is increasing.

 

[LukeParkerno1]

F/S is luck, with 16 of the teams all similarly likely to get lucky. With the academies, 4 clubs are much more likely to get access to highly rated draftees that still come significantly more cheaply than you could trade for the pick. Fair enough that the two clubs who don't have access to FS yet get this benefit, but the other two are just getting a significant leg up.

When the other two clubs have F/S access we can discuss that, but at the moment there's significant go home draw for any player outside of NSW/QLD. All of the access has to be the same and that's exactly what they have done, streamlined it, which is exactly what they should have done 5 years ago, I said it 3 years ago, the system was the issue not the access, fix the curve and fix the discounts so that all access F/S, NGA and academy are the same. Easy quick done, yet the AFL waited how long to do this again?

 

[LukeParkerno1]

thats fine, El-Achkar probably 20 - 35 at the moment, Sweid a late - rookie pick if not a Cat B prospect. Still early days but im not worried, especially with so many picks in this draft now.

Your bunch of seconds via the 1st round trade will be enough for those players and you still hold your first plus Melbourne's at least, could well be lets say two top 10 selections, both clubs could do a Hawks from last year I wouldn't be betting on it but whatever, lets say for arguments sake you have selections 5, 8 then you match the bid on El-Achkar that will be about it, take a swing on a tall late, and hope the other falls to the rookie draft