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

[eastfreo75]

tbf, no club had the benefit of selecting NGA players even if the club are starting to incorporate the girls into their academies. Its only becoming a thing in 2026 (better late than never)

100%.

The AFL keep changing the rules and each time it favours the Northern teams.

Is it deliberate or accidental

 

[mpal6]

QLD has had more first round picks (top 18 ) over the last 5 years than WA.

You could easily say the same about SA and WA player development and infrastructure for the top end of underage players, especially if you compare it to the TAC cup equivalent.

I would say QLD and NSW would have better development and infrastructure due to the academies.

In your fancy world - maybe. There is no grassroot system that spans across schools, training programs etc that the 2nd or 3rd level coaches can build a career and livelihood out of it in QLD. It's consistently blocked at board level across private schools even. I am paraphrasing people who are far more knowledgeable in this area than me but you can read the QAFL threads for more context. In Victoria it's pretty easy to switch across the clubs, VFL, school programs, coats, private coaching etc. The fact is such a system does not exist in NSW or QLD.

If SA and WA's development structure is diluted, that's a system issue due to poorly run programs rather than lack of opportunity to establish one as it is currently in QLD.

 

[go_the_dockers]

In your fancy world - maybe. There is no grassroot system that spans across schools, training programs etc that the 2nd or 3rd level coaches can build a career and livelihood out of it in QLD. It's consistently blocked at board level across private schools even. I am paraphrasing people who are far more knowledgeable in this area than me but you can read the QAFL threads for more context. In Victoria it's pretty easy to switch across the clubs, VFL, school programs, coats, private coaching etc. The fact is such a system does not exist in NSW or QLD.

If SA and WA's development structure is diluted, that's a system issue due to poorly run programs rather than lack of opportunity to establish one as it is currently in QLD.

WA has a lot more clubs and facilities I would assume. I travel to QLD a bit for work, and lot of the people I work with, Son's choose AFL over other sport so I can see this changing very quickly.

I would say the issue at WA especially is a lack of funding to get the top 50 to 100 players AFL ready in the state each year.

You are right, the grass roots system is their, but WA is not producing top end talent. QLD is out producing us, especially for top 5 and top 10 talent.

Year after year, our best players slide in the draft rankings, most of the time due to poor skills but no one puts any effort in to improve them.

This is what I meant, QLD and NSW are better and getting the players who could potentially play AFL ready for AFL. While WAFC is making more cut backs after another year where QLD has produced more top end talent.

 

[Jirik13]

WA has a lot more clubs and facilities I would assume. I travel to QLD a bit for work, and lot of the people I work with, Son's choose AFL over other sport so I can see this changing very quickly.

I would say the issue at WA especially is a lack of funding to get the top 50 to 100 players AFL ready in the state each year.

You are right, the grass roots system is their, but WA is not producing top end talent. QLD is out producing us, especially for top 5 and top 10 talent.

Year after year, our best players slide in the draft rankings, most of the time due to poor skills but no one puts any effort in to improve them.

This is what I meant, QLD and NSW are better and getting the players who could potentially play AFL ready for AFL. While WAFC is making more cut backs after another year where QLD has produced more top end talent.

Suns best academy kids join AFL team for at least one full pre-season having access to all facilities, personnel like AFL players. Players like Touk also work with them individually. For sure, it does help with their skills and bodies development.

 

[Yoda_]

Suns best academy kids join AFL team for at least one full pre-season having access to all facilities, personnel like AFL players. Players like Touk also work with them individually. For sure, it does help with their skills and bodies development.

you forgot the biggest one, the ability to play the same system as the parent club for the majority of the season if good enough.

How many games did Leo Lombard play before being drafted ?

 

[Jirik13]

you forgot the biggest one, the ability to play the same system as the parent club for the majority of the season if good enough.

How many games did Leo Lombard play before being drafted ?

No doubt, academy kids are familiar with Suns AFL system, Dimma's plan, and get a taste of VFL. Much easier transition for them.

Training playing with AFL players like Miller, Anderson, Rowell - they would not get that if academies would be run by AFL. Great motivation and experience for them.

Looking forward to see what Lombard can do in 2026 after shoulder reco in 2025. He goes hard in training.

 

[Sonny Hayes]

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 about something else.

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.

I doubt anyone would argue with the system you proposed, having all players going in to an open pool to be picked from is literally how it should always have been. The league should be the ones in charge and running these pathways.

 

[Sonny Hayes]

its amazing how many posters in here want to conflate father sons with academies, ignore the fact the AFL already tightened the bidding rules less than 12 months ago and completely erase the history of gold coast / brisbane / gws in particular being feeder clubs under an 'equitable draft' that is imagined to have existed at some point (hint: it never has).

do we want to discuss how how many players gold coast has lost in the last 5 years when discussing their academy haul? how about the 5 years prior to that? do we want to compare that to the number of players absolute basket cases like north melbourne or melbourne lost when they were at a nadir far greater than gold coast ever reached to show how big the disadvantage is?

some of you just want to scream 5 FIRST ROUND PICKS AND PETRACCA! without taking any of the nuance of the gold coast situation into account.

lets stop being dishonest here: you are each advocating for an 'uncompromised draft' because formal equality benefits your team. any consideration of draft rules which promote substantive equality should be thrown to the wayside because northern clubs should exist to feed talent back to the home states.

Except they were not losing players under an unfair system that was giving the poaching clubs a systematic unfair advantage.

The current system is an unfair systematic advantage, i do not care for equal outcome. I do care for equal opportunity and the current system is so far from that it is not even funny.

 

[Choppers]

The whole AFL system is unfair........and unfortunately always will be while they have a 23-24 game season.
It can't even come close to a fair system until they revert to a 17 game season(18 teams) and even then it won't be fair while 10 of the 18 teams come from 1 State.
It's an unfair system and I can't see it being anything different.........there will be advantages and dis-advantages for all Clubs and I reckon we all probably think our own Clubs suffer more than the others....just sayin'

 

[Viceregal]

The whole AFL system is unfair........and unfortunately always will be while they have a 23-24 game season.
It can't even come close to a fair system until they revert to a 17 game season(18 teams) and even then it won't be fair while 10 of the 18 teams come from 1 State.
It's an unfair system and I can't see it being anything different.........there will be advantages and dis-advantages for all Clubs and I reckon we all probably think our own Clubs suffer more than the others....just sayin'

They could do a shorter season or keep the current version and have a rotational system where teams playing eachother once alternate their home and away and the 'double ups' are a) pre-arranged (eg 1st automatically plays 2nd, 5th, 8th, etc) and b) worth half the premiership points each ... they could rotate clubs through who plays on Anzac Day and Kings Birthday and who opens the season (or have a lotto type supervised literal draw to pick who plays which games and then feed that into the fixture algorithm) and have every team a required even number of games shown on national free to air, and have the GF at either the highest ranked teams' home ground or at the biggest stadium NOT a home ground for either team playing etc etc, transparency of conditions and perks/gifts/insider trading, checking for statistical bias' of umpiring and taking repeat offenders off the roster for the teams they adore/despise etc ... there are many things that could be done if the aim of the game was to provide a level playing field ... most of them are not things you would be doing if the aim of the game was to maximise profits.

 

[briztoon]

WA has a lot more clubs and facilities I would assume. I travel to QLD a bit for work, and lot of the people I work with, Son's choose AFL over other sport so I can see this changing very quickly.

Not likely to be introduced in to the top tier of private schools (the GPS schools) in Brisbane any time soon.

The old boys associations, with the backing of Rugby QLD, are campaigning hard to block the introduction of AFL.

AFL is played in the second tier of private schools, as a summer sport, so it doesn’t interfere with Rugby Union in winter.

AFL is also played in 20 public schools across the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Ipswich and Sunshine Coast. If you travel to Brisbane regularly, you will know how big an area that is. Over 200km north to south.

I would say the issue at WA especially is a lack of funding to get the top 50 to 100 players AFL ready in the state each year.

The northern academy teams only fund their academies.

Clubs fund themselves. Parents fund their kids at school.

QLD has had 2 drafts where the Suns academy had two strong draft cohorts, other than that, your looking at 1 or 2 kids maximum as first round prospects, and rarely more than that later in the draft.

Brisbane currently has 11 QLDer’s on our list. Including Zorko, who predates the academies. (Not including Charlie Cameron, as he was drafted out of WA).

So of the remaining 10 players. Andrew’s was drafted in 2014 and Annable this year. So that’s less than 1 draftee per year.

4 were first round draftees, Hipwood, Fletcher, Marshall and Annable. One was top 10.

Keidean Coleman went undrafted in his draft year, and returned as an overage, to be drafted as a 19 year old in the second round.

Shadeau Brain went undrafted and was listed as a Cat B rookie as QLD zone selection.

Same for Bruce Reville, but he was taken as a mature age recruit, aged 22 as a Cat B rookie.

That’s leaves Gallop drafted in the 3rd round, Andrew’s drafted in the 3rd round, and so was Jack Payne, but no one bid on him, so we drafted him with our own natural pick.

You are right, the grass roots system is their, but WA is not producing top end talent. QLD is out producing us, especially for top 5 and top 10 talent.

Year after year, our best players slide in the draft rankings, most of the time due to poor skills but no one puts any effort in to improve them.

This is what I meant, QLD and NSW are better and getting the players who could potentially play AFL ready for AFL. While WAFC is making more cut backs after another year where QLD has produced more top end talent.

NSW is definitely not producing more draftees than WA, prove me wrong.

Considering QLD and NSW accounts for 60% of the population, we’re producing sfa on a per capital basis.

Once again, another poster buying in to the media driven hysteria of two anomalous draft cohorts out of the Gold Coast academy.