Opinion Should the team ask for a Priority Pick 2025 edition.

[GoEaglesGoSGIO]

One of the craziest examples of Brisbane favouritism was when Fevola was sacked Brisbane didnt have to have his salary paid out under the salary cap.... Eagles had to pay Ben Cousins out under the salary cap

Infact Brendon Fevola was the only player in AFL history to receive a contractual payment that wasnt included in the salary cap since the concussion retirement rules came in

 

[Spange]

AFL - “The blueprint is there, and Swanny and the work he did at Brisbane is one," Dillon said.

 

[Obeanie1]

Its not the crowd that the issue.
WA is a factory for a large portion of their product. That factory is starting to fall to pieces meaning the product is going to become substandard. The crowd drop off will follow.
It needs addressing.

Forget about crowd numbers. AFL dont care and our fans turn up.

Start quoting drop off on TV viewership of our games due to the crap standard, then they will listen.

It effects their fat cat bonuses.

This clown only needs to be asked a couple of questions.

Do current AFL policies today provide priority access and assistance to clubs playing and winning finals and grand finals? Such as the club he ran and won the flag last year?

Do clubs struggling to rebuild and compete get the same assistance?

No they dont.

Why are strong successful clubs getting or need so much help?

 

[Aarick13]

Greg Swann was the CEO of Collingwood from 2000-2007. In 2005 they got priority pick 2 and drafted Dale Thomas.

Greg Swann was the CEO of Carlton from March 2007-2014. In 2007 they got priority pick 1 and drafted Mathew Kruezer.

Greg Swann was the CEO of Brisbane from 2014-2025. In 2016 they got (at the time) priority pick 19 which they traded to Port Adelaide for pick 12 in 2017 and used that for Charlie Cameron

23

Charlie Cameron

Age

31

Ht

180cm

Wt

76kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

12.1

3star

K

8.4

3star

HB

3.7

3star

M

3.0

3star

T

3.2

5star

G

1.5

5star

D

9.6

2star

K

7.9

3star

HB

1.7

1star

M

3.6

4star

T

1.7

3star

G

1.9

5star

D

9.6

3star

K

5.4

2star

HB

4.2

4star

M

1.4

2star

T

3.4

5star

G

1.2

4star

.

 

[Monocle]

I don't have a huge problem with the abolishing of priority picks, however they need to fix the draft.

Until the draft is fixed the AFL has a massive * against its level playing field and any sense of equality and equalisation.

 

[Spange]

But he has the blueprint! Swanny has done it many times, we just need to ask him how

 

[Lia]

Adelaide weren’t great in 2020 but how are our situations remotely comparable?

 

[Deplorable trumpster]

They are basically getting on the front foot after a bad loss and the realization we will finish the season with one win by planting a story in the west Australian newspaper with the bloke who just took over the role TODAY.


It’s pretty ****ing clear what they are trying to say. don’t ask, we don’t care…. So let’s call them out on it publicly.

They want to have the convo in the media, let’s do it.

They are trying to stop us from even asking because they don't want to officially say No and give reasons. If they do that then it boxes them in on going back on it and giving help to other clubs in the future. They want to be able to say we never got assistance because we never asked for it.

I think the writing is on the wall that we will get nothing. But we should ask anyway to make them officially say no and kick up a stink. Make them clarify what the policy is for everybody from now on to box them in. If we kick up enough of a stink it might make them think twice about saying No again this time next year assuming we are still in the bottom 4 next year.

I think the other tactic would be to start really having a go at them publicly about the Northern academies and assistance to Northern clubs. That is their achilles heal. They are very sensitive about it and don't want any public debate about it. Because they know how unfair it is and unpopular it is with the average AFL supporter. They don't want anybody stirring the pot and galvanising that anger. So lets stir the pot and let them know if we don't get a PP package there will be lots more stirring to come.

 

[RustyShacklefordFalcon]

Why don't we just go down the blackmail route and threaten to release the Jeppstein files if we don't get the Norf package

 

[MrWoollie]

They are trying to stop us from even asking because they don't want to officially say No and give reasons. If they do that then it boxes them in on going back on it and giving help to other clubs in the future. They want to be able to say we never got assistance because we never asked for it.

I think the writing is on the wall that we will get nothing. But we should ask anyway to make them officially say no and kick up a stink. Make them clarify what the policy is for everybody from now on to box them in. If we kick up enough of a stink it might make them think twice about saying No again this time next year assuming we are still in the bottom 4 next year.

I think the other tactic would be to start really having a go at them publicly about the Northern academies and assistance to Northern clubs. That is their achilles heal. They are very sensitive about it and don't want any public debate about it. Because they know how unfair it is and unpopular it is with the average AFL supporter. They don't want anybody stirring the pot and galvanising that anger. So lets stir the pot and let them know if we don't get a PP package there will be lots more stirring to come.

Agree with this entirely. They leak like a politician at budget time. They know they're going to say no, so they get it out there in advance so it doesn't come as a surprise.

Put pressure on by asking Swanny for what Swanny was given. Ask. Make them say NO.
Point out the F/S leg up the two bestteams in the comp got. Just lucky, but it's something we haven't been handed for nothing.
Point out the concussions. 2 x first round, a 5 x AA and a guy who never got a chance to show what he had.

#1 request.
The ability to set up a Western Academy that operates as per the Northern Academies.

 

[Goroyals22]

Call me crazy, but I reckon you actually enjoy us being terrible.
Most if not all of us hate the position we're currently in.
Not you.

If you weren't complaining or putting the boot in, your posting output would drop by around 99% I reckon.

Yeah I love putting my hard earned each year into a membership as I’ve done for 33 years…
Unlike most on our list though I’ve actually got to do a decent job , maintain an output and generally contribute to my team to earn the money to be able to afford said membership…

Yep it’s garbage where we are , totally rubbish.. this has been caused by us and our drop in standards.
How about we suck it up, the club acknowledges we are garbage and actually get to work about fixing things properly rather than short term sugar fixes like a priority pick…

How about we rise to the standard of other clubs rather than just keep sinking year after year into rubbish.?
This year win wise has been worse than others but until the third quarter on the weekend we have been playing much much better….. that’s a positive. How about we work to improve as opposed to to hope we will

 

[jdisc]

Onya Swannie, make the lazy sods work to pull us out of this mess, who knows maybe the development coaches might have to develop more and improve their methods, maybe we need to get better recruiters, maybe we need to go over the soft cap… maybe the players might have to do some skills work on their day off to come upto the level…or better fitness staff and the players might have to do extra on their fitness.

Nah just blame everything and everyone else.

this is the kind of bloke that will tell you to skip the avocado toast in order to afford a house before ranting about interest rates under Keating

 

[Kegs15]

It's hard cause to make the full argument for a priority pick really does sound like whinging (especially since the Vic media managed to pin that line on us at an ideal time for them). So not sure if we could genuinely argue any of this stuff, it's just things that admittedly as a biased WC fan I think would justify some priority picks (even if they're ones to be used only for trading etc).

Whinging but Worth Considering IMO

- We've been one of the hardest hit clubs by random AFL rule changes. We built our entire list around a kicking, marking, intercepting and centre clearance gameplan (obviously we peaked in 2018 but clubs including us are always planning for the future). The stand rule completely changed the way the game is played - players like Sheed, Gaff, Kelly who don't have great top line speed but at their best could cover a lot of ground and repeat lead were suddenly disadvantaged in favour of more repeat-sprint types. Sure, that's maybe luck of the draw, but it's a factor nonetheless.

- The soft cap changes hit us hard also. Our off-field stuff had a big dip right after the cuts were announced. We're not a club that's used to frugal spending - but a more valid point IMO is that the Victorian environment is so much more conductive to shuffling staff around, cheeky deals where fitness and admin staff could help each other out, players from oppo clubs training together and crucially a greater pool of talented, hungry, AFL-obsessed back of house types to be flexible with. My mate was part of a statistics course at Melbourne Uni and was in a large group of self-motivated stats heads who worked on a lot of footy stuff in their own time. He ended up landing a gig at one of the smaller Vic clubs and is doing some really cool stats based recruiting analysis for them now on a nothing wage, bringing across the collective data his group came up with that I know for a fact his club has been using (and apparently WC are one of the clubs quite behind the 8-ball on that type of stuff, at least by word of mouth). WA just doesn't have that base and frenzy off-field, and it's easier for non-Vic clubs to pull someone across if based over east/we don't get looked after like the Northern clubs.

- The extra flight times, travel times, extra rehab, getting players to and from places, putting them up, all that stuff, I assume that's not directly our soft cap but I'd say we'd be paying staff in the soft cap to facilitate that, where other clubs wouldn't need to invest those resources. Freo absolutely would have a case here too, and I do quite respect how they've managed their off-field stuff around this (though an annoying example for us).

- Further on that, I'm not sure how it's divided but I'd assume we've had to put the most soft cap resources into our seconds team of any club in the league. We're not aligned like Freo, or part of an established development league like the VFL. Terrible timing getting our WAFL side up and running right as soft cap restrictions came in, and our crap WAFL development shows it. Annoyingly Adelaide would be a good comparison for us in this regard, but I'd argue the changes came when they were already in a reset, so they could structure around it better, as opposed to us who were shooting for a flag at the time.

- Random injuries. Obviously clubs would be expected to plan around injuries but we've been the only side to actively play non-listed players, and had IMO the biggest talent list off the park across the last 5 or so years. Yeo has been a non-entity, Allen/Waterman, Shuey, critical players but things like leg injuries clubs cop. However, greater awareness around concussion, whilst good, has cost us McGovern (AA last year, likely able to keep going for a while), Sheppard (AA), Venables (first round pick in our most dire spot). Sure clubs should plan around injuries but the loss of our entire spine, our on-field leaders and crucial players I would say has been exceptional.

- We've also through luck of the draw been one of the least benefited by the league's wave of academy picks, father-sons, things like that. It's a system that some clubs have either been set up to rort (GC, Sydney) or been lucky to (Bulldogs, Pies).


All in all it's a lot of bad luck and I'm sure the league will just turn around and say "bad luck" but when you're comparing bad luck to bad management like North, I dunno. I think at the least, given the WAFL stuff, I'd want to end up with some extra NGA spots/concessions and perhaps (depending on how it works already) some allowance for spending outside the soft cap in regard to our WAFL side (if someone knows how that works plz let me know). With that in mind I'd be wanting us to shoot for the priority pick with the goal of being able to settle at least for some of those other concessions.

 

[jdisc]

the AFL ain't going to give us anything guys, what have they ever done thats actually been to our benefit

 

[Balls In]

There will be vAFL clubs in their ears demanding we get nothing. And so it shall pass. Personally I couldn't hate the way the competition is run any more than I do. Headed up by two lawyers from Melbourne Uni who have no background in the game says it all.

 

[BSD]

Yep, we should copy North Melbourne and how much assistance they received.

If we don't get the same deal for Oscar that the VaFL gave Norf as Free Agency compo, then we should sue the bastards

 

[Astro7]

The topic was just on the news, with AFL boss saying we need to make tough decisions and better choices (something along those lines). The unbiased James Hird said the obvious, why should one of the richest clubs with recent success get a priority pick?

 

[footy_basis]

They are trying to stop us from even asking because they don't want to officially say No and give reasons. If they do that then it boxes them in on going back on it and giving help to other clubs in the future. They want to be able to say we never got assistance because we never asked for it.

I think the writing is on the wall that we will get nothing. But we should ask anyway to make them officially say no and kick up a stink. Make them clarify what the policy is for everybody from now on to box them in. If we kick up enough of a stink it might make them think twice about saying No again this time next year assuming we are still in the bottom 4 next year.

I think the other tactic would be to start really having a go at them publicly about the Northern academies and assistance to Northern clubs. That is their achilles heal. They are very sensitive about it and don't want any public debate about it. Because they know how unfair it is and unpopular it is with the average AFL supporter. They don't want anybody stirring the pot and galvanising that anger. So lets stir the pot and let them know if we don't get a PP package there will be lots more stirring to come.

Possibly but they may also give pick 2 as compensation for Oscar. I think thats their way of giving compensation without it being compensation.

 

[Scotland]

the AFL ain't going to give us anything guys, what have they ever done thats actually been to our benefit

The roads, sanitation and public health?

 

[DigUpStupid]

While we can blame our predicament due to bad luck from LTI's and concussion retirements, we have no one to blame for some jump at shadows contract decisions as we've seen with Yeo and Kelly.

Watch us give Cripps 2 more years. I genuinely believe that Clarke Kent was sent as a sleeper agent.

Believing the AFL would look out for our best interests is naive.

 

[Scotland]

Possibly but they may also give pick 2 as compensation for Oscar. I think thats their way of giving compensation without it being compensation.

Personally I hope Allen gets a reasonable but not ridiculous contract (realistically he's a $500k-$1m player) from Brisbane and it still triggers band 1 compo.

Then the terms of the deal can be accidentally left on the photocopier for a journo to find just to show what a complete farce the AFL is.

 

[Scotland]

The topic was just on the news, with AFL boss saying we need to make tough decisions and better choices (something along those lines). The unbiased James Hird said the obvious, why should one of the richest clubs with recent success get a priority pick?

For how many years can you call 2018 recent? It was 7 years ago.

I mean the Lions played finals in 2009 and the AFL gave them a PP in 2016. 7 years.
The Roos played finals 2012 and 2014-16 and the AFL gave them a PP in 2023. 7 years.

If it's purely down to premierships then the bar is set at 13 years for the Lions.

 

[BartBart]

Interesting hearing Swann using his experience at Brisbane's rebuild to explain why he thinks WCE shouldn't get any help.

Obviously ignoring the exclusive access to 3 father/son players they got with the 20% discount that helped their improvement.

We are probably in the worse time of the AFL to try and improve.

* the compromised draft meaning the 1st pick of the 2nd round being in the mid 30s.

* the lower teams losing their best players to the top teams (who pay no draft capital)

* the 6-6-6 rule meaning you can't flood your defence to restrict opposition scoring

* the stand rule making it harder to put pressure on teams

* more teams now than the 12? when we first came in spreading out talent

* soft cap making it harder to spend more on coaching to fast track skills, etc.

* Concussion retirements - of which we've had 4

That said once the Tassie team restrictions happen - that will be even worse.

 

[footy_basis]

Interesting hearing Swann using his experience at Brisbane's rebuild to explain why he thinks WCE shouldn't get any help.

Obviously ignoring the exclusive access to 3 father/son players they got with the 20% discount that helped their improvement.

We are probably in the worse time of the AFL to try and improve.

* the compromised draft meaning the 1st pick of the 2nd round being in the mid 30s.

* the lower teams losing their best players to the top teams (who pay no draft capital)

* the 6-6-6 rule meaning you can't flood your defence to restrict opposition scoring

* the stand rule making it harder to put pressure on teams

* more teams now than the 12? when we first came in spreading out talent

* soft cap making it harder to spend more on coaching to fast track skills, etc.

* Concussion retirements - of which we've had 4

That said once the Tassie team restrictions happen - that will be even worse.

Pyke doesn't have the cahonas to say anything about it.

 

[jdisc]

The roads, sanitation and public health?

all built by Baz from Tongala what's your point