Do the equalisation methods need tweaking?

[beta_condition]

Yes a team who got over compensated and hasn't seen finals for a decade verse a 4x premiership side who has been able to add quality to its list every year is the problem in the afl

Every team can trade, we have NOT USED free agency to gain anyone but Chip, how is that a problem?

 

[bluespooner]

I know that is how it is, but it is bullshit that a premiership club can top up season after season by poaching players from struggling teams, and not have to give up a single thing for it.

Classic re-write on history here. Melbourne were pushing Frawley out the door all of season 2014, as they wanted the compensation pick the AFL would grant them. Pick 3 for Frawley as compensation when as a trade he would have had best brought a pick somewhere between 18 - 30.

This a club that also got pick 23 for Sylvia as compensation and two top ten picks for Scully, in contrast Franklin's compensation to Hawthorn was pick 19.

To suggest struggling teams have been hurt by free agency as no club has benefited more from free agency than melbourne and the swans. Melbourne to date has pissed top picks up against the wall and they only have themselves to blame.

 

[Topkent]

Every team can trade, we have NOT USED free agency to gain anyone but Chip, how is that a problem?

I never said free agency was used by the Hawks to gain an advantage , but the idea of a salary cap was that top teams should have to trade out talent in order to stay under it , not trade their draft picks every year to bring talent in

We have gained bloody good picks
We have also lost James Frawley (FB) Jared Rivers (CHB) Brent Moloney and Colin Sylvia
So yeah we got some good young players but who's to say we won't lose them when they become free agents again to the powerful sides

 

[beta_condition]

I never said free agency was used by the Hawks to gain an advantage , but the idea of a salary cap was that top teams should have to trade out talent in order to stay under it , not trade their draft picks every year to bring talent in

We have gained bloody good picks
We have also lost James Frawley (FB) Jared Rivers (CHB) Brent Moloney and Colin Sylvia
So yeah we got some good young players but who's to say we won't lose them when they become free agents again to the powerful sides

I apologise then.

While FA may indeed extend a dominate teams era it wont create it, how many top tier players have actually left their clubs? Goddard, Franklin and dangerfield? What i'm getting at is these clubs will only be able to recruit bit players that can play a specific role, once the core which was developed by said team retires they will drop off completely. Do people really think Hawthorn can replace Hodge, Mitchell, Burgoyne and Gibson through just free agency when We've only seen 3 players of that level leave in total?

 

[mfcrox]

Classic re-write on history here. Melbourne were pushing Frawley out the door all of season 2014, as they wanted the compensation pick the AFL would grant them. Pick 3 for Frawley as compensation when as a trade he would have had best brought a pick somewhere between 18 - 30.

This a club that also got pick 23 for Sylvia as compensation and two top ten picks for Scully, in contrast Franklin's compensation to Hawthorn was pick 19.

To suggest struggling teams have been hurt by free agency as no club has benefited more from free agency than melbourne and the swans. Melbourne to date has pissed top picks up against the wall and they only have themselves to blame.

I know Melbourne's crap performance makes it tougher to keep players, and I know we have benefited from Free Agency... that is not what I am arguing.

I am arguing as to why the premiers are able to pick up a free agent of quality (straight into their starting 18) for essentially nothing when it comes to draft picks, and also be able to keep their first round draft pick for that draft too.

Once upon a time, a team had to give up something good to get something good. E.g. You want Frawley in order to build up your backline to sustain your premiership run, okay, fine, compromise by giving up youth in this coming draft. However, with this free agency bullshit, you can get Frawley, and get your kid as well.

We talk about 'equalization', but I don't think it is any coincidence that we have a team having a crack at a 'fourpeat' next season.

 

[Topkent]

I apologise then.

While FA may indeed extend a dominate teams era it wont create it, how many top tier players have actually left their clubs? Goddard, Franklin and dangerfield? What i'm getting at is these clubs will only be able to recruit bit players that can play a specific role, once the core which was developed by said team retires they will drop off completely. Do people really think Hawthorn can replace Hodge, Mitchell, Burgoyne and Gibson through just free agency when We've only seen 3 players of that level leave in total?

No you will only develop that core at the draft , but it does mean teams era will stay open for longer as they are able to fill every hole in their list
Teams like melbourne who miss a couple drafts will have to wait another decade to even contend

Top 4 teams should be excluded from FA and if that happened then you could do away with compensation as well

 

[Prudster]

Yes a team who got over compensated and hasn't seen finals for a decade verse a 4x premiership side who has been able to add quality to its list every year is the problem in the afl

Who are we bringing in every year through free agency? We've brought in one free agent, and it's only because we lost the biggest name in football!

I never said free agency was used by the Hawks to gain an advantage , but the idea of a salary cap was that top teams should have to trade out talent in order to stay under it , not trade their draft picks every year to bring talent in

We have gained bloody good picks
We have also lost James Frawley (FB) Jared Rivers (CHB) Brent Moloney and Colin Sylvia
So yeah we got some good young players but who's to say we won't lose them when they become free agents again to the powerful sides

Our salary cap no longer includes Franklin in it. If it weren't for losing him, we wouldn't have Frawley, or McEvoy, and we probably would have lost a fringe player or two.

You have 8 years to prove to those players that you might actually do something, anything, in their careers. For the 8 years of Frawley's career, you didn't show this at all. Show players why they would want to stay at your club, rather than being a pathetically run organisation who complains when people decide they don't want to waste their career playing for a dead end team.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

Which teams have done this? Hawthorn only got Frawley for 'free' because the compensation Melbourne got was far too much, giving them no incentive to match the bid and force a trade.

Frawley was an Unrestricted FA due to front-loading of his contract that was signed off before FA was introduced. The AFL provided no advice that FA status would be taken from the final year of the contract rather than the average salary over the life of the contract. Therefore Melbourne were unable to make an offer to match.

We probably would've taken pick 3 (Brayshaw) anyway and let Frawley walk, but saying we elected not to match the offer is incorrect.

 

[joy division]

We probably would've taken pick 3 (Brayshaw) anyway and let Frawley walk, but saying we elected not to match the offer is incorrect.

I thought Melbourne only got pick 3 from the Afl as compensation? So if you matched that offer to Frawley, kept him you wouldn't have Brayshaw.

 

[Prudster]

Frawley was an Unrestricted FA due to front-loading of his contract that was signed off before FA was introduced. The AFL provided no advice that FA status would be taken from the final year of the contract rather than the average salary over the life of the contract. Therefore Melbourne were unable to make an offer to match.

We probably would've taken pick 3 (Brayshaw) anyway and let Frawley walk, but saying we elected not to match the offer is incorrect.

That is correct, i made a mistake on that one. That was such a stupid situation, the AFL yet again making changes that cause issues in unexpected ways.

But my other point still stands, Melbourne did better out of free agency with Frawley out and pick 3 in, than Hawthorn did with Franklin out and Frawley in.

 

[Rotayjay]

Well, piss off free agency for starters.

 

[pacman]

Fixing free agency would be a good start.

Right now you can be Hawthorn, and have a free agent come to your club and fill a void in your starting 18, and also keep the first round draft pick that once upon a time you would have had to trade away. So they get potentially two gun players for the cost of one.

That's fair :-/

We also lost Buddy to free agency and got pick 18.
If you lost your best player and got pick 18 you'd be on the bottom for another 10 years.
Do your research before sprouting crap.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

I thought Melbourne only got pick 3 from the Afl as compensation? So if you matched that offer to Frawley, kept him you wouldn't have Brayshaw.

Frawley was an Unrestricted FA due to front-loading of his contract that was signed off before FA was introduced. The AFL provided no advice that FA status would be taken from the final year of the contract rather than the average salary over the life of the contract. Therefore Melbourne were unable to make an offer to match.

 

[Mick39]

FA compensation has also stuffed up equalisation. The bottom teams need their picks not to be pushed back because a club can't keep a player, in some cases clubs have been happy to lose FA's and push them out the door to stronger clubs to get that pick.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

We also lost Buddy to free agency and got pick 18.

This is true.

You also lost Buddy to Free Agency and went on to win the premiership in a canter, so it's not like it impacted you all that much really.

Not having a dig, the Hawks have done a remarkable job to get where they are. But the fact you lost Franklin shouldn't be seen as evidence as to why the Hawks have been hit as hard/harder than other clubs by FA. These things are relative. As you say, if a bottom team lost their best player to FA it would impact them far worse.

No one is saying a top 4 team shouldn't be able to recruit players, but in the interests of "equalisation" putting a limit on top 4 teams recruiting FA's may be a good control to have. Not to say they couldn't still trade in a player like Frawley but they couldn't get him as a FA. Now, Melbourne would probably rather the FA compo we got for Frawley than anything the Hawks would offer in a trade anyway, but Frawley may have elected to go to another club (North, Richmond, Freo for example) if top 4 clubs were prevented from recruiting in FA's. This wouldn't help Melbourne but may help to equalise the competition in other ways.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

Get rid of the veterans rule. $118k outside of the cap for 10 year players is a joke. Hawks have 4 and allows 475,000 extra to grab Frawley. If Geelong didn't have any would they be able to afford Danger? Are you telling me Hawthorn would have moved on Mitchell, Hodge, Roughead and Lewis if they had to pay their full wage?

This is an excellent point, the Veterans Rule is another example of an AFL policy which unintentionally (or intentionally?) benefits the teams at the top who are less likely to have space in the cap, more likely to have an older list and more likely to want to keep veterans around to prolong their time at the top. It effectively allows teams to go over the cap and for what purpose? Geelong are still pushing out guys like Stevie J and Chapman who want to play on.

 

[Fidel Cashflow]

This is an excellent point, the Veterans Rule is another example of an AFL policy which unintentionally (or intentionally?) benefits the teams at the top who are less likely to have space in the cap, more likely to have an older list and more likely to want to keep veterans around to prolong their time at the top. It effectively allows teams to go over the cap and for what purpose? Geelong are still pushing out guys like Stevie J and Chapman who want to play on.

Freo had 7 this year adding $815,000 to their salary cap. You've also got clubs who haven't been around 10 years and can't have any. It's a farcical rule. GWS and ourselves will soon use it to back end 4-5 year deals and then it will become an issue I bet.

 

[Newmanson]

I know Melbourne's crap performance makes it tougher to keep players, and I know we have benefited from Free Agency... that is not what I am arguing.

I am arguing as to why the premiers are able to pick up a free agent of quality (straight into their starting 18) for essentially nothing when it comes to draft picks, and also be able to keep their first round draft pick for that draft too.

Once upon a time, a team had to give up something good to get something good. E.g. You want Frawley in order to build up your backline to sustain your premiership run, okay, fine, compromise by giving up youth in this coming draft. However, with this free agency bullshit, you can get Frawley, and get your kid as well.

We talk about 'equalization', but I don't think it is any coincidence that we have a team having a crack at a 'fourpeat' next season.

Its a fair point you make. The Hawks after winning a flag last year got Frawley for compensation pick 3 to the Dees. Now was that too much compensation to the dees? IMO, a little too much. But that doesn't matter because the system shouldn't work like this. It surely doesn't seem fair that a back to back premiership team can get a pretty solid former AA backmen for nothing. I mean of course they have to pay him, but he would be playing for well unders because he wants to taste success and win a premiership. I would imagine its a bitter pill to swallow for teams that dont quite appear to be in the premiership frame, to miss out on a player like frawley because they are not considered 'ripe enough' in terms of premiership closeness. The AFL needs to have a long hard look at the draft, free agency rules etc as they are just not quite right at the moment.

 

[DT2000]

The NRL seems to have a more even competition.

Last 15 GF's - 11 different premiers and no back-to-back wins.

 

[bluespooner]

Frawley was an Unrestricted FA due to front-loading of his contract that was signed off before FA was introduced. The AFL provided no advice that FA status would be taken from the final year of the contract rather than the average salary over the life of the contract. Therefore Melbourne were unable to make an offer to match.

We probably would've taken pick 3 (Brayshaw) anyway and let Frawley walk, but saying we elected not to match the offer is incorrect.

What you're saying is a complete nonsense.

Is this the same melbourne that is so hard up on its salary cap after affording its star studded playing list that it is reputed to be offering Dangerfield over a million a season.

Melbourne did not want Frawley there, they wanted the compensation pick his leaving would bring. Why were melbourne unable to match the Hawthorn offer which was modest at 2.2m over 4 years and was dubious as to whether it should have been band 1 compensation but the AFL was always going to engineer a priority pick for melbourne. Yea, that's right they choose not to match the offer.

 

[MarkT2]

Last 15 GF's - 11 different premiers and no back-to-back wins.

Without a draft let alone FA compensation.

 

[MarkT2]

Melbourne did not want Frawley there, they wanted the compensation pick his leaving would bring. Why were melbourne unable to match the Hawthorn offer which was modest at 2.2m over 4 years and was dubious as to whether it should have been band 1 compensation but the AFL was always going to engineer a priority pick for melbourne. Yea, that's right they choose not to match the offer.

I have no doubt Melbourne were happy to be over compensated for Frawley but they didn't have the option to match an offer because Frawley was unrestricted due to his front loaded contract putting his final salary below the threshold.

 

[Hawkk]

Go back a few years do you think the ladder would look differently if say Collingwood, Hawthorn had to travel to Simmonds and play Geelong at home? or Collingwood travel to play Hawthorn at Tassie.

Remember even one loss could change the whole mix of the top 4.

Except Hawthorn dont want to host Collingwood in Tasmania - we belt them at the MCG

 

[Mick39]

FA compensation confines clubs to rebuilding. Instead of possibly keeping onto a player, the lure of compensation means they let that FA go to a challenger. It creates a two tiered competition.

 

[Furn2]

Give struggling teams a supplementary list that they can add players prior to the rookie draft which is paid for by their normal cap.

Eg every year you miss finals you get an extra space on your sup list if you want up to say 8. If Melbourne has 12 players outside their normal list and are turning over 8-10 while hawthorn has just 4 rookies turning over 1-2 it gives them a much better chance at finding a player or two without providing huge incentive to tank.