List Mgmt. 2024 Father Son watch MKIII. Operation Ashcroft jnr. Featuring various academy boys.

[Jivlain]

 

[briztoon]

The main point of the academies isn’t necessarily to bring in players from other sports although that has worked at times with Payne,

Payne had been playing AFL since he was a kid for Noosa.

He was a dual sport athlete, the same as Harry Sharp, a national level athlete.

He had to make the choice, follow a career in athletics or try for a career in AFL. Same choice Harry Sharp had to make.

Heeney and others who likely would not have played AFL without the academies. You can for sure make the case broadly that the academies haven’t increased non-players into players but what they are important for is providing a pathway to the AFL or just competitive level footy, something the traditional states have in spades. There is no need for academies in these areas and anyway creating NGA’s for 10 vic clubs is going to be logistically near on impossible to do fairly anyway.

They also keep guys playing footy through the teens and into senior footy who traditionally get lost to the sport and go play league or stop sports altogether due to lack of pathways forward ie QAFL or nothing…and very few people are getting drafted out of the QAFL. The standard has come a long way in the last 5 years or so but it is simply nowhere near the other state leagues, especially if you play for the handful of lower ranked teams which are miles off the top few at senior level.

I have a bit to do with the QAFL and I can tell you the main frustration for parents and kids in years gone by is there was virtually nowhere to go with it, the academies aren’t perfect but they at least they give these guys a way forward. Is it unfair at times…maybe, maybe not but the growth and development of QLD footy needs to be club in IMO and that requires incentives for them to do so.

 

[briztoon]

Chris Johnson’s son anyone?

Like he didn’t know what AFL footy was and because dad moved the family back to his old area, qualified for Essendon NGA. I’m all for Vic clubs NGA’s but not for circumstances like Johnson’s son otherwise you may as well call it a ‘zone’.

Also not sure I heard correctly, but isn’t Saints gripe partly to do with developing and then missing out on Mac Andrew given he was in their NGA. I personally could live with NGA’s for all clubs outside northern academies even without the need for those players to slide to outside pick 40 so that clubs like Saints could’ve had Andrew if they paid a fair price.

Mac Andrew was NGA to Melbourne.

Saints gripe is more about how the draft and free agency hasn’t led to competitive balance in the competition, and that they watched GC get AFL assistance through the draft and now they’re able to load up on top end academy kids.

All the good players being poached from Northern clubs are going to “big” Melbourne clubs.

While the Saints are stuck just using their natural draft picks at the draft. No top father sons. No access to potential top NGA kids.

Stuck in AFL purgatory.

 

[CarterS]

Mac Andrew was NGA to Melbourne.

Saints gripe is more about how the draft and free agency hasn’t led to competitive balance in the competition, and that they watched GC get AFL assistance through the draft and now they’re able to load up on top end academy kids.

All the good players being poached from Northern clubs are going to “big” Melbourne clubs.

While the Saints are stuck just using their natural draft picks at the draft. No top father sons. No access to potential top NGA kids.

Stuck in AFL purgatory.

Fair point too I'd say.

 

[Elixuh]

Mac Andrew was NGA to Melbourne.

Saints gripe is more about how the draft and free agency hasn’t led to competitive balance in the competition, and that they watched GC get AFL assistance through the draft and now they’re able to load up on top end academy kids.

All the good players being poached from Northern clubs are going to “big” Melbourne clubs.

While the Saints are stuck just using their natural draft picks at the draft. No top father sons. No access to potential top NGA kids.

Stuck in AFL purgatory.

Yeah what you’re describing is the AFL being over saturated in the Melbourne market. No one likes to say this but there are at least two too many teams in Melbourne. There’s no way around it.

The AFL is a business, they’re never going to gear things towards the smallest teams in Melbourne being powerhouses. They don’t want teams to be a laughing stock like Norf but equally a team like Norf or Saints being consistently at the top of the ladder in lieu of other teams is not in the competitions interests.

St Kilda has also suffered from the fact that they’ve failed at the draft over many years and only been able to bring in (largely) C graders by trade.

 

[Happy_Neale]

Payne had been playing AFL since he was a kid for Noosa.

He was a dual sport athlete, the same as Harry Sharp, a national level athlete.

He had to make the choice, follow a career in athletics or try for a career in AFL. Same choice Harry Sharp had to make.

Noosa wasn’t even in the QAFL at that point so I’d imagine the academy played a role in keeping him playing football

 

[Nuggo]

Fair point too I'd say.

No, the saints had their turn at securing top end talent (for the only reason of being useless) - they squandered that by not winning a flag in that time period. They weren't complaining at the time of receiving all of the priority picks.

The reality is draft talent does not automatically equate to winning premierships. Perhaps the saints need to look at themselves.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

Mate, have a look at GC’s academy haul last year and tell me elite level talent like that would ever have been drafted straight from the QAFL.

Well, Dunstall, Crosisca, Ashcroft, Voss, Akermanis, Michael and N. Riewoldt all came from the QAFL. I'd say what's changed is not whether elite level talents are produced, but how often they come around.

 

[Miller1971]

Mate, have a look at GC’s academy haul last year and tell me elite level talent like that would ever have been drafted straight from the QAFL. It is absolutely doing its job in terms of developing AFL level footballers. Half of the players you mentioned were academy players anyway.

those boys would have made it via whatever pathway was available, just like Reiwolt did and Beams did and so on

Take the period 1995-2005 just as an example.

Voss x 2, Cockatoo-Collins x 3, Green, Lawrence, Wirth, Dickfos, Keating, Bizzell, Akermanis, Michael, Hudghton, Thompson, Simpson, Woolnough, Howard x 2, Backwell, Kenna, Clarke, Knobel, Charman, Osborne, Copeland, Hahn, Morrison, Miller, Weller, Allan, Hale, Pratt, Macdonald, Hudson, Raines, Drummond, McGuane, Pask, Bail, Merrett, Mills, Roe, Hooper, Moran, Stiller, Dempsey, Gilbert, McDonnel


Thats 50 blokes from 1995 to 2005 who found their way onto an AFL list via the QAFL (or QLD pathway). 26 out of those 50 played over 100 games and more than 10 of them played 200.

Don't think the system was that broken before do you?

Jump ahead to 2006 and 13 Queenslanders were taken in a single off-season!

Howard, Tippet x 2, Hamill, Dzufer, Proud, Hunt, Renouf, Williams, Petterd, Hampson, Armitage, Harbrow.

When Geelong Father/Son prospect Jordon Bourke was taken in 2012 as the first Academy player every drafted, its been a steady decline since.

 

[The Flying Belgian]

Many would argue its driving plenty of kids out of the sport.

I don't know anyone involved in club land any more, but I'm yet to be convinced that the drop-out rates people talk about are any better or worse with the Academies in place, or more specifically that the Academy causes young mean to become disillusioned with the game.

 

[McIvor]

Been told a few times there are two maybe three things you need to work at the AFL. First is if you are female you need to have a photos in your application (I think its clear what they are interested in here), second is a big list of who you know (its all about who your dad is or how many of the current admin you can suck up to). The third one is for anyone actually talented or with a skill set, but to start out there you need to work for peanuts. They are totally happy to massively exploit a heap of people who think its their dream job.

Absolutely; I know for a fact that people who choose to work at the likes of AFL, NRL, Tennis Australia and Cricket Australia, etc, that unless you’re in the C-Suite level or Senior Executives who pay themselves a bomb, but for those outside of that, let’s call them the plebs, they are getting paid about 25-30% less than they would in private enterprise. As you rightly said, they are being exploited but also keep in mind many of those people who work at those large sports bodies are simps that are happy to be exploited just so they can say they work at said sports bodies and let me telly you, many seem to have a certain swagger about themselves all because they work there; why, I’d have no idea, maybe the odd perk but it stuns me that so many are happy to be exploited to the extent they are.

 

[McIvor]

Mac Andrew was NGA to Melbourne.

Saints gripe is more about how the draft and free agency hasn’t led to competitive balance in the competition, and that they watched GC get AFL assistance through the draft and now they’re able to load up on top end academy kids.

All the good players being poached from Northern clubs are going to “big” Melbourne clubs.

While the Saints are stuck just using their natural draft picks at the draft. No top father sons. No access to potential top NGA kids.

Stuck in AFL purgatory.

But the Saints have had a sook about Father / Son. Surely you (not you personally Briz) accept that Father / Son is such random luck as to how it shakes out. Some clubs have greatly benefited like Pies, Cats and even us to an extent and others haven’t. I think most love the romanticism of this and would hate to see it go and as has occurred, not all Father / Sons want to go to Dads club either such as Murphy, Blakey etc. Saints just need to suck it up.

 

[bungalow_bill]

Without father/sons a few teams may not have won the flags that they did. 2000's Cats, '23 Pies, perhaps even the 2000's Lions if we don't draft Brown.

 

[M Malice]

Without father/sons a few teams may not have won the flags that they did. 2000's Cats, '23 Pies, perhaps even the 2000's Lions if we don't draft Brown.

Definitely.. without the Daicos brothers no way the Pies even make Prelim finals weekend and maybe not even finals at all.

Hawkins and Ablett Jnr out of the Cats would leave a massive hole, although they did win the flag the year Ablett left for the Suns.

I'd back the 2001-03 Lions to still win its 3Peat without Browny, he was very young then, Bradshaw and Lynch would have got the job done up front.

No bias involved in my opinion.

 

[Happy_Neale]

those boys would have made it via whatever pathway was available, just like Reiwolt did and Beams did and so on

Take the period 1995-2005 just as an example.

Voss x 2, Cockatoo-Collins x 3, Green, Lawrence, Wirth, Dickfos, Keating, Bizzell, Akermanis, Michael, Hudghton, Thompson, Simpson, Woolnough, Howard x 2, Backwell, Kenna, Clarke, Knobel, Charman, Osborne, Copeland, Hahn, Morrison, Miller, Weller, Allan, Hale, Pratt, Macdonald, Hudson, Raines, Drummond, McGuane, Pask, Bail, Merrett, Mills, Roe, Hooper, Moran, Stiller, Dempsey, Gilbert, McDonnel


Thats 50 blokes from 1995 to 2005 who found their way onto an AFL list via the QAFL (or QLD pathway). 26 out of those 50 played over 100 games and more than 10 of them played 200.

Don't think the system was that broken before do you?

Jump ahead to 2006 and 13 Queenslanders were taken in a single off-season!

Howard, Tippet x 2, Hamill, Dzufer, Proud, Hunt, Renouf, Williams, Petterd, Hampson, Armitage, Harbrow.

When Geelong Father/Son prospect Jordon Bourke was taken in 2012 as the first Academy player every drafted, its been a steady decline since.

Very selective stats there mate, 2006 was clearly an anomaly for QLD AFL draftees, was a shocking draft as well so have to imagine many of those guys were missing out in a normal year. 2010 for example had no national draftees from QLD at all and other years between had a usual 2-3 per year, many of which didn’t do much in the AFL.

In fact your own post should illustrate why more focus on development is needed, you went from arguing players like Voss and Aker to bloody Dan Dzufer. QLD footy was being left behind by the early 2000’s and if it wasn’t for some generational talent coming along with Lethal as coach then the game would have been in seriously poor shape, fortunately this was realised and they now have a grass roots strategy which is far more sustainable than waiting for all time greats to fall in the lap of a park footy league. We are so far beyond being able to rely on that given the standard of professionalism and I honestly don’t know how anyone could argue otherwise, aside from possibly Winston Grange no club has the staff, money or time to pump into their youngsters the way the academies do.

 

[Happy_Neale]

Well, Dunstall, Crosisca, Ashcroft, Voss, Akermanis, Michael and N. Riewoldt all came from the QAFL. I'd say what's changed is not whether elite level talents are produced, but how often they come around.

Going back 40 years to produce 7 names is not a great argument for the standard of the league. Didn’t Voss kick 15 goals in a game as a 17 year old in the QAFL?

 

[Johnny Bananas]

Going back 40 years to produce 7 names is not a great argument for the standard of the league.

And that's why I said "I'd say what's changed is not whether elite level talents are produced, but how often they come around."

 

[briztoon]

Yeah what you’re describing is the AFL being over saturated in the Melbourne market. No one likes to say this but there are at least two too many teams in Melbourne. There’s no way around it.

Two! We're supposed to be a National competition. It's more like five (5) too many teams in Melbourne.

5 teams in Victoria, 1 in Tasmania, then the other 8. 26 round home and away season.

The AFL is a business, they’re never going to gear things towards the smallest teams in Melbourne being powerhouses. They don’t want teams to be a laughing stock like Norf but equally a team like Norf or Saints being consistently at the top of the ladder in lieu of other teams is not in the competitions interests.

St Kilda has also suffered from the fact that they’ve failed at the draft over many years and only been able to bring in (largely) C graders by trade.

 

[acuguy]

The academy actually dilutes and lowers the standards. There was once a time when the best players in the state trained and played together in the QLD team/system. Those best players spent most their time training and playing with seasoned state league players when not playing for QLD. The academy systems grow the AFL brand more than produces players.

 

[briztoon]

Noosa wasn’t even in the QAFL at that point so I’d imagine the academy played a role in keeping him playing football

I have no idea how junior footy is played anywhere. I imagine Noosa played Maroochydore and whoever else has junior teams up there. Or they played different QFA teams at junior level.

I don't doubt that the academy kept him playing football.

But my point was, Payne was playing footy from a young age, and there were pathways to the AFL before the academies existed. Pretty sure the likes of Nick Riewoldt, Beams and Zorko, made it through the pathways when no academies existed.

 

[RedmanWasHere]

Zorko

Zorks would've been.

He represented QLD in the School Sports Australia carnival for U12's Australian Football games in 2001.

 

[briztoon]

But the Saints have had a sook about Father / Son. Surely you (not you personally Briz) accept that Father / Son is such random luck as to how it shakes out. Some clubs have greatly benefited like Pies, Cats and even us to an extent and others haven’t. I think most love the romanticism of this and would hate to see it go and as has occurred, not all Father / Sons want to go to Dads club either such as Murphy, Blakey etc. Saints just need to suck it up.

The Saints have had a sook about everything, not just father sons.

 

[Happy_Neale]

I have no idea how junior footy is played anywhere. I imagine Noosa played Maroochydore and whoever else has junior teams up there. Or they played different QFA teams at junior level.

I don't doubt that the academy kept him playing football.

But my point was, Payne was playing footy from a young age, and there were pathways to the AFL before the academies existed. Pretty sure the likes of Nick Riewoldt, Beams and Zorko, made it through the pathways when no academies existed.

You can’t just wait for guys with the talent of Roo and Zorko to come along, guys with that level of talent will get drafted no matter where they go, for the most part players need to be identified at a young age and developed so the 50/50 guys end up becoming AFL quality or as mentioned earlier to prevent them being recruited to/choosing other sports with more of a ‘future’ for them

The QAFL clubs simply don’t have the resources to do this at a good enough level, the AFL has gone past park leagues as a development squad type setup. The QAFL itself would not even be a top tier suburban league in Victoria if you consider the GFL, O+M leagues, EFL, Ammo’s and school footy etc at least not when you look at the league as a whole as the quality drops off a fair bit after the handful of best teams in the league in my opinion

 

[briztoon]

You can’t just wait for guys with the talent of Roo and Zorko to come along, guys with that level of talent will get drafted no matter where they go, for the most part players need to be identified at a young age and developed so the 50/50 guys end up becoming AFL quality or as mentioned earlier to prevent them being recruited to/choosing other sports with more of a ‘future’ for them

The QAFL clubs simply don’t have the resources to do this at a good enough level, the AFL has gone past park leagues as a development squad type setup. The QAFL itself would not even be a top tier suburban league in Victoria if you consider the GFL, O+M leagues, EFL, Ammo’s and school footy etc at least not when you look at the league as a whole as the quality drops off a fair bit after the handful of best teams in the league in my opinion

I don't know what connection you have with any QAFL clubs, but most of the QAFL guys on the QLD Footy board here would disagree with you here.

Not about the resources, because it's mostly human resources at underage footy, but about the resources the Lions academy puts up.

A lot of these guys have seen their colts kids go through our academy, and in their opinion, the training programs aren't any different between their colts programs or Lions academy programs. And the Lions academy still apparently relies on a lot of parent volunteers, so these people are being pulled away from volunteering at the kids club.

What do you consider a young age?

The academy isn't getting a hold of kids until they're 12/13. I have no idea how things operate at that level with the academy. Are the kids training one or two nights a week with academy coaches or volunteer parents? Are the playing in zoned academy teams against other zoned, i.e Lions southern suburbs, Lions northern suburbs, Lions western suburbs, Lions Ipswich, Lions Sunshine Coast, i.e do we have half a dozen academy teams at U13 level, and as the kids age up, the number of teams reduce and the level of talent rises?

Or, do the kids have to balance time between academy teams and their junior club?

From the outside, our academy isn't even run at a level comparable to the Victorian Talent League teams. That's not their fault. Distance and human and funding resources make it near impossible for our academy to be run at CTL levels.

QAFL doesn't need to be at a level similar to GFL or O+M. It only needs to be at a comparable level to the Coates Talent League teams, for our kids to develop at the same level as the Victorian kids playing U16 and U18 CTL.

If a kid at 16 or 17 is up to playing QAFL every week, just like Jasper Fletcher did, then he's playing at a high enough standard to develop for the AFL, when he's drafted at 18.

 

[Thomasno]

Mac Andrew was NGA to Melbourne.

Saints gripe is more about how the draft and free agency hasn’t led to competitive balance in the competition, and that they watched GC get AFL assistance through the draft and now they’re able to load up on top end academy kids.

All the good players being poached from Northern clubs are going to “big” Melbourne clubs.

While the Saints are stuck just using their natural draft picks at the draft. No top father sons. No access to potential top NGA kids.

Stuck in AFL purgatory.

What’s their excuse for the last 100 years then?

 

[briztoon]

What’s their excuse for the last 100 years then?

The same.