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

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scrimshaw, Aaron hall and Lyons? LOL, elite! All whilst being gifted Mac Andrew from our Academy. Mac Andrew is worth more than those 3 players combined so still a massive net gain.
That's such a poor way of describing what really happened. Four clubs drafted players before the Suns selected Mac Andrew. He wasn't gifted to anyone - he just became available to everyone and the Suns happened to be the club that drafted him first, but it's important to point out that multiple other clubs the opportunity to draft him before the Suns did. It'd be like saying Port Adelaide were gifted Todd Marshall because he was removed from GWS's academy in his draft year. What a ridiculous thing to suggest.
 
That's such a poor way of describing what really happened. Four clubs drafted players before the Suns selected Mac Andrew. He wasn't gifted to anyone - he just became available to everyone and the Suns happened to be the club that drafted him first, but it's important to point out that multiple other clubs the opportunity to draft him before the Suns did. It'd be like saying Port Adelaide were gifted Todd Marshall because he was removed from GWS's academy in his draft year. What a ridiculous thing to suggest.
When a bank is robbed, does the bank manager care about how the stolen money was divided up?
 
When a bank is robbed, does the bank manager care about how the stolen money was divided up?
The AFL had no way of knowing that Mac Andrew would still be available once it came to the Suns' pick 5. He could've just as easily ended up at a club like North if they had rated him a little higher. Would you push the narrative that North had been gifted Mac if they had chosen to draft him instead?

Also, your statement still applies to the Todd Marshall example. GWS could make the exact same argument that the AFL 'robbed' them of access to Marshall because they changed the rules in his draft year and Port Adelaide happened to be the beneficiary. Have you seen any GWS fans complain about this for years after it occurred like you have? The answer is no.

There's lots of other examples of rules changing and clubs losing access to players on short notice like Jesse Motlop for Fremantle in the same draft as Mac Andrew, West Coast losing F/S access to Alex Rance because the games threshold was increased, Brisbane losing access to Nick Riewoldt because they removed the Gold Coast from their zone, Adelaide losing F/S access to Bryce Gibbs when the AFL chose to exclude games played after 1990.

Melbourne isn't the only club to have gone through this, but some Dees fans seem to carry on like they're the only ones.
 
The AFL had no way of knowing that Mac Andrew would still be available once it came to the Suns' pick 5. He could've just as easily ended up at a club like North if they had rated him a little higher. Would you push the narrative that North had been gifted Mac if they had chosen to draft him instead?

Also, your statement still applies to the Todd Marshall example. GWS could make the exact same argument that the AFL 'robbed' them of access to Marshall because they changed the rules in his draft year and Port Adelaide happened to be the beneficiary. Have you seen any GWS fans complain about this for years after it occurred like you have? The answer is no.

There's lots of other examples of rules changing and clubs losing access to players on short notice like Jesse Motlop for Fremantle in the same draft as Mac Andrew, West Coast losing F/S access to Alex Rance because the games threshold was increased, Brisbane losing access to Nick Riewoldt because they removed the Gold Coast from their zone, Adelaide losing F/S access to Bryce Gibbs when the AFL chose to exclude games played after 1990.

Melbourne isn't the only club to have gone through this, but some Dees fans seem to carry on like they're the only ones.
Marshall ain't no Mac Andrew. Also, the AFL purposefully changed the rules for the 2nd time, after the Dees academy got raided, just to rub salt into the wounds. That didn't happen in the Marshall situation. So that's different. You should be across this if you're going to try to compare them.

In all of your examples, the rules were changed, but they weren't then changed back soon after just to disadvantage the club even further. So none of them are remotely the same. In the WCE and Rance example, it's like increasing the games threshold so they miss out on Rance and then the following season decreasing it again. Clear corruption against the Dees and it's been going on for years.

They also made sure Islanders weren't included in the NGA stuff because the Dees had options in this space and waited until the draft cleared before announcing that they will be moving forward. It's blatant
 

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Marshall ain't no Mac Andrew. Also, the AFL purposefully changed the rules for the 2nd time, after the Dees academy got raided, just to rub salt into the wounds. That didn't happen in the Marshall situation. So that's different. You should be across this if you're going to try to compare them.
Gee whiz. You really do have victim mentality, huh?

The Marshall example is exactly the same. He was a member of GWS's academy for years and the AFL purposefully changed the rules to hurt the Giants by altering their zone access after complaints from other clubs. Even if you don't rate Marshall on the same level as Andrew, there's still the examples of rules changing and clubs losing access to superstars like Rance, Riewoldt and Gibbs.

In 1999, Eddie McGuire led the charge for Vic clubs to complain about Brisbane's zone access to prospective pick 1 Riewoldt and the rules changed. Then the Lions used the F/S rule to nab Jonathan Brown after his father played 51 games for Fitzroy and the Vic clubs got mad again so they successfully campaigned to increase the F/S threshold from 50 to 100 games, which saw West Coast lose F/S access to Alex Rance after his father played 57 games for the Eagles and Fremantle lost F/S access to Jeremy + Mitch McGovern after their father played 63 games for the Dockers.

It's also assumed that Carlton (having succesfully convinced Marc Murphy to forego his Brisbane F/S access the year before) pushed the AFL to further tweak the father-son rule in 2006 when it became obvious that Bryce Gibbs was the likely number 1 pick. That rule change made Gibbs ineligible to join the Crows under the F/S rule when it was previously believed that they would get access to Gibbs. So as you can see, there's plenty of examples of the AFL changing rules on short notice and costing clubs access to really good players. Melbourne's not the first and they won't be the last.
 
Mac illustrates what was wrong with NGA and I suspect still is. He should never be a member of NGA. He was already happily part of development system in Victoria. By his own admission, he visited Demons once per week.

Cancel NGA, set up academies in all states except Victoria (use current youth system) and run them by AFL with players going directly to draft. Problem solved. Yet, I suspect whinging to continue.

In reality, I guess probably only 4-5 teams would survive without AFL contributions. In early years, those contributions for Suns were not far off for some Victoria teams (North, Saints, Demons).


Yet, a lot people carry on like their team is great and suffers because of some other teams. Virtually, every team can come up with some unfair, unequal parameters of competition.
 
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