And so it begins in 2019. No-one saw that coming did they.
AFL reviewing northern and multicultural academies
And so it begins in 2019. No-one saw that coming did they.
AFL reviewing northern and multicultural academies
Interesting development. Based on Jake's article it seems that the newer academies gifting highly rated youngsters to Melbourne clubs are the ones most under question. Most probably the Swans will still be penalised for fine player development leading to quality products. After all, this is the Melbourne biased way these things seem to be decided. I would be very interested to know how much money North and the Pies pumped into their "academies" versus the northern clubs.
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Let's see what Eddie has to say on this seeing that Collingwood picked up Isaac Quaynor in the draft! The hierarchy fail to comprehend that the Northern clubs develop and nurture these players then have the southern clubs rip them out of the clubs reaping the benefits without contributing in their development. When will they finally realize that it is the AUSTRALIAN Football League!
Whats missing in all this is the fact that southern clubs have just as much right to draft players from the academies and the only time it comes up is when single players get drafted by the swans as a preference to being taken by other clubs . In that respect the ledger has been made more than equitable.
What they seem to forget is that if not for the academies and the boost they give to AFL (in states that frankly still consider AFL a poor cousin) , it is not inconceivable that we would never have even spoken the names Heeney and Mills in an AFL concept , let alone worrying about whether they were drafted at 2, 10 or 20. We would be back in the old days where the RAMs team mostly came out of the riverina and kids in local comps north of that area had very little pathway into AFL.
Funny how each time we produce a highly touted player from our Academy, the AFL deems necessary to review & tighten the rules around the system (it happened after Heeney, Mills & now Blakey). I predict the AFL will make no changes to the NGA's but will make it harder for Northern Academy players to be drafted by their respective club. I.E. If any of the player's parents or anyone in their family tree for that matter were born in Victoria, their respective club will no longer have option to match bid and player can only drafted by a Vic club.
Whilst above is tongue in cheek, I fear they will make changes so that father-sons eligibities like Nic Blakey and Bailey Scott (BL) will be 1st preference to be drafted by their father's club over their Academy. I say this, because David King & co were making noises about Nic Blakey all last season stating current system is not right at it dilutes the so called romance of the father-son play for same club.
They could only do this by abolishing the right of all father/sons to decline the opportunity be drafted by their fathers’ clubs. That would be pretty rough.Originally Posted by KSAS
Or by saying that a father/son who also comes from an academy is not eligible as an academy draft selection - so son either accepts the father’s club option or chooses to go into the draft.
The latter is possible I suppose ..... so no incentive for a club to select a potential father-son as a young kid into an academy. Pretty rough on kids (such as Blakey, but even more so Scott) growing up in a non-AFL state where the development options are much less advanced than in the southern states. Genes play a large part but so does development in strong peer playing groups from a young age.
(Although I suspect the Swans would always allow a kid of potential to join their academy even without the future draft option. The club has a strong record on doing the right think by young kids.)
Yep that's what I fear the AFL could implement to give the father/son rule precedence over the Academy. They may also give the Northern Clubs compensation in the form of draft points or future pick dependant on where the Academy Father/Son is selected in the draft. In the case of Nic Blakey, we would get 2019 pick 10 or equivalent points to play with in the 2018 draft (live trading).
I'm also curious whether under the current rules if a father/son can also be eligible to be drafted via a NGA? If so, I assume he'll have the same option to choose between the two? You'd think if the AFL did bring in the above rule it would also apply to NGA even though it's really free compensation compared to the Academy development system.
Last edited by KSAS; 2nd March 2019 at 08:39 AM.
I don't think the focus will be the Indigenous Academies at all. Andrew McKay is the Carlton Football Manager. He is going to be very biased toward the Vic and SA clubs.
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As you say the other clubs have every rightd to bid and do. Dougal Howard was a Giants Academy player drafted by Port at 56
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Good question. Having a look at the eligibility rules, I would assume so.
"To be eligible the player must be born or have one parent born in Asia or Africa; be of Indigenous background residing in a remote region; or have both parents born in a non-English speaking country (not Asia or Africa)."
So, just doing a hypothetical from those rules. If a two hundred game player marries an African or Asian woman, and then raises children, in a zone of another club, then those kids would be eligible to drafted through the NGA system. Because, you know, the AFL is keen to encourage, the participation of kiddies who may have never played the game.
Even sillier, would be the situation in the Tiwi Islands. The Tiwis have a current population of 2,500, but they have produced three Norm Smith medallists. Yet Essendon now have NGA access to the area, in order to establish a pathway to the AFL. And of course, if one the Tiwi players who didn’t play for Essendon, produced an AFL level son, then there probably would be a bidding war, between NGA and father/son claimants.
I dont mind this. This could work in our favour.
The NGA academies are nothing less than legitimised racism. It gives AFL boys with a different heritage a massive leg up over their competitors. All of the NGA zones are already in AFL territories and do nothing to advance the game. All they do is appease the clubs in AFL states, theVictorian clubs in particular. I'll guarantee that these clubs spend only a fraction on their academies compared to us.
As for the northern academies, I can't see them being removed because they are too important to the development of the game in those states and it costs the AFL nothing.
I can't see that happening. We operate under the same rules as the Victorian clubs. The difference is that the NGA are full of already talented AFL players and they cost the Victorian clubs almost nothing.
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