National Draft Re-vamp

[Marlin01]

With so many players requesting trades to their home states and often specific clubs, this is leaving the clubs that recruit them via the ND in losing positions.

Obviously, the one that is most pertinent to me is Brad Ebert. I don't blame Ebert for wanting to go home and nor do I blame Port for wanting to get him as cheaply as possible. Be that as it may, the Eagles recruited Ebert with their first-round pick and have subsequently played him on more occassions than any other player in his age bracket and rightly or wrongly, will not receive fair value for him.

It's an unfortunate situation and is happening frequently across the league, with Clark and Gunstan also this season.

The AFL makes special provisions for Father/Son relationships and I think this is fantastic. The new bidding system now means the son usually ends up at his chosen club, but costs the club close to market value, at least in the same round.

Why don't the AFL change the National Draft rules, so that every player can nominate a chosen club and then have a bidding process, as we see with the F/S rule?

Clubs still only have so many draft picks to use and must manage their list within the salary cap.

Is this a worthwhile idea or would it give some clubs an advantage over others?

 

[Riders of Rohan]

What's to stop the top 5 players in the draft getting together and all deciding to nominate the same club every year.

The four teams in the smaller footy states would be completely screwed compared to SA WA and Vic

 

[Marlin01]

What's to stop the top 5 players in the draft getting together and all deciding to nominate the same club every year.

The chosen club still only has one first-round draft pick.

 

[Marlin01]

The four teams in the smaller footy states would be completely screwed compared to SA WA and Vic

That's probably a fair point.

 

[Riders of Rohan]

The chosen club still only has one first-round draft pick.

Father/son picks don't have to be taken in the same round, just use the next available pick. Say the first 5 clubs in the draft all nominated the top 5 players, the club who the top 5 players chose would only have to use their first 5 picks, regardless of which round they are. Eg 1st round pick, 2nd round pick, 3rd... etc.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

While West Coast and Fremantle for example, are prone to the go home factor, being in a two team town, they have less competition for receiving a homesick player coming back to them.

Every year there would be a couple of WA guns wanting to be drafted to a team in their home state, whereas the same situation in Victoria would see many teams missing out on this opportunity because of the number of teams in Victoria.

 

[Marlin01]

Father/son picks don't have to be taken in the same round, just use the next available pick. Say the first 5 clubs in the draft all nominated the top 5 players, the club who the top 5 players chose would only have to use their first 5 picks, regardless of which round they are. Eg 1st round pick, 2nd round pick, 3rd... etc.

Ok, well under my proposal, the "chosen club" would have to use it's pick in that same round as the best bid from a rival club.

 

[Marlin01]

While West Coast and Fremantle for example, are prone to the go home factor, being in a two team town, they have less competition for receiving a homesick player coming back to them.

Every year there would be a couple of WA guns wanting to be drafted to a team in their home state, whereas the same situation in Victoria would see many teams missing out on this opportunity because of the number of teams in Victoria.

We're talking about new draftees here remember. It wouldn't solve the Ebert scenario, but it may prevent it from happening in the first place.

It's true that the WA teams would have less competition, but surely there's considerably more talent coming out of Victoria.

 

[WHUcraz]

i think the only way it could work for players that are homesick and want to go back to their home state is use a similar system to the componsation pick for GC and GWS players. but then if they were to do that than it should be done for every trade not just those specific trades.

i think in the future clubs will prioritise picks from home states.

 

[Marlin01]

i think in the future clubs will prioritise picks from home states.

That's probably the simplest solution, I suppose.

 

[fishardansin]

What's to stop the top 5 players in the draft getting together and all deciding to nominate the same club every year.

The four teams in the smaller footy states would be completely screwed compared to SA WA and Vic

I think the way around this is to include NT in Qld draft and all the towns on the Murray to count in the NSW draft.

This could then disadvantage the Vic clubs as there will then be 10 (56% of league) fighting over just one state. To make it fair then Tassie can be part of the Vic draft.

Also to make it fair players can't nominate clubs but can say they want to stay in that state.

 

[Mountain Giant]

I don't know why teams tolerate this, If players want to stay in their home state they should just play in their state league.

Apart from that - bring in free-agency.

 

[Marlin01]

I don't know why teams tolerate this, If players want to stay in their home state they should just play in their state league.

Apart from that - bring in free-agency.

I expect free agency to exacerbate this problem, albeit in a small way as free agency isn't really going to be that "free".

 

[Ashb23]

I reckon the players wanting to go home go into the draft, then clubs pick them with whichever pick they deem necessary (example Luke Ball, pick 25 or whatever it was), then as soon as that pick is read out, the team that lost the player gets the next pick

Would probably make clubs play hardball mroeso (for example Adelaide might have thought Gunston would go earleir so could have said Stuff you to the hawks.

 

[royals1922]

What about a system where each AFL team sends in their top 40 picks in ranked order in order at the same time ( say 5pm on X day) prior to the draft and if there is a clash the team with the higher draft pick gets the player ( and by inference, if a player has been earlier drafted, they get struck off the list).

Then the orders for pick 1- 60 probably would be predetermined.

The recruiters would then have to earn their money.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

We're talking about new draftees here remember. It wouldn't solve the Ebert scenario, but it may prevent it from happening in the first place.

It's true that the WA teams would have less competition, but surely there's considerably more talent coming out of Victoria.

10 clubs vs 2. Not sure the ratio of talent is 5:1.