- Jun 23, 2014
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Always good for a competition when ex-AFL/state league players sign on for interest in the league and improves junior retention & development. Fans of other clubs might be disheartened seeing an already strong club recruiting quality players but good to see Greene returning out of the AFL. Whatever he's getting at Sandhurst, someone would've been offering more in the city so good on him giving back to his home club.Tom?
Forest was recently talking about players turning their back on the AFL (Greene, Oliver, Filo etc). To add another dimension to this discussion I have listed three players who didn't even try to play AFL, but would have been very capable at that level - Peter Moroni, Ron Best & Brodie Filo.
Sandhurst, Golden Square & Castlemaine's recruiting shows good players are coming into the BFNL so it is not all gloom and doom. Castlemaine have two VFL listed players and Kangaroo Flat another who has been VFL listed and we are only in November. Jonty Neaves (Eaglehawk) is also a class recruit. I understand clearances don't actually open until February. Unlike others I also don't see the Dragons as overwhelming favorites for the flag. Sure they have recruited well, but they have lost Hamish Hosking who is just about irreplaceable and Matt Thorton, Andy Collins & Lee Coughlan who were great players over many years. It also looks like Cooper Smith will take some time to get back on the park. For all the faults with the BFNL at the bottom end of the ladder which I am not denying or pretending everything is rosey, last years final series was a good competitive one and if Gisborne & Castlemaine can make the finals next year the competition will be much healthier.
Would be interested in seeing the stats on players going to regional leagues vs metro ones once they're finished at higher levels and how many are returning to their home clubs vs new clubs to see how much the 46 point system in metro comps is advantaging these clubs in recruiting. Less player points = less clubs who can recruit 5/6 point players = less suitors for these players & less bidding wars/less having to be paid to secure them? Should be a uniform tiered points system across the state to have more equal access to these guys.
Metro leagues continuing to use SportsTG/myGameDay over PlayHQ makes it near impossible to track player's past playing history otherwise I'd look into it myself, tried it the other day and noticed you can't even view the player points in the Eastern League or EDFL results from this season, just fails to load all together a bug or a feature!? Maybe I'm just cynical