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- #651
You said Adelaide have no history prior to 1990, which isn't actually true because the SANFL registered the 'Adelaide Football Club' back in 1986, but the point is the realisation of the Adelaide Crows occurred because 9 SANFL clubs combined to create a "composite" side. The definition of the word composite is "made up of several parts or elements". Virtually all the best football people in South Australia that weren't employed by Port Adelaide came together to create this club. It was almost like a merger of the 9 clubs to create a new club in an attempt to really unite the city (with the exception of Port people) behind the the Crows. The father-son rule that the AFL created was in some way a recognition of football history in SA & WA but it was also a reflection of what they felt the standard of those leagues were when compared to the VFL/AFL competition. I'm simply stating that I think, retrospectively, that the benchmark the AFL set for SA & WA teams was too harsh and the evidence appears to back that up when compared to the number of father-son picks the Victorian teams were able to secure over the same time period.
How many father-son picks would Collingwood have missed out on if the F/S criteria had been changed from 100 games to 200 games? I'll save you the time and tell you the answer - they would have lost 12 of their 17 father-son picks to date. How would you feel if Collingwood had missed out on father-son picks like Darcy Moore, Travis Cloke and Heath/Rhyce Shaw? Now before you take this out of context again, I'm simply stating that 200 games was too high of a benchmark for the rule to be considered fair and used Collingwood as an example of the father-son picks they wouldn't have had access to if the 200 game criteria had been applied to the Pies.
Except the rule didn't worked as designed. In fact, the rule was designed to NOT give Port Adelaide F/S access to Brett Ebert. It's just no one bothered to actually read the rules because everyone just assumed 392 SANFL games would fulfil any criteria. The fact that 392 games wasn't enough just proves the complications of the rule itself.
I understand what you're saying but the AFL felt it was fair to award non-Vic teams access to the sons of notable players from their corresponding local leagues in order to keep up with the Victorian teams who had access to a drafting mechanism that wasn't possible for new teams. It was purely an attempt to create a fair(ish) playing field for the new teams and perhaps create deeper links within the local footy circles. Can we move on from this point now? I understand that you don't think they should have had access but the AFL did.
You're still hanging on this point. Firstly, it is misleading because using the word "whole" implies access to every club which isn't true because the clubs were split between the two SA teams, as was the case with the WA teams as well. Secondly, it making it out like the amount of players they had access to was ridiculously high when it's already been established that the number was in fact quite low. Particularly when compared to a team like Collingwood. So yes, your use of words is misleading.
Still hung up on the same point. Read above for the response to this.
I will quickly add that I'm curious to know your thoughts on Fitzroy players that Brisbane were allowed to draft with the F/S rule. Jonathan Brown, for example, was drafted as a father-son pick to Brisbane. His father Brian Brown played 51 games for Fitzroy (a separate club based in a different state) and played 0 games for the Brisbane Lions. Jonathan Brown doesn't appear to fit your F/S criteria... thoughts?
... because the Bulldogs already had history in the league prior to the new father-son rules being introduced. They were able to draft the likes of Luke Darcy in the early 90s because his old man played for them in the 60s & 70s. There was no need to grant F/S access to Werribee players. The non-Vic teams didn't have that luxury back then so the AFL granted them F/S access to players from local clubs instead. This really isn't that complicated to understand.
How can you say it would have zero impact? Ben Cousins would likely have been drafted to Geelong under the F/S rule and Ashley McIntosh probably would have been draft to St Kilda under the F/S rule. You can't possibly say losing those two champion players would have had zero impact on the the West Coast Eagles. Both premiership players and one was a Brownlow Medallist; they clearly both had a massive impact on the club.
You're right, the F/S rule benefits established clubs and the Victorian clubs happen to be the most established clubs in the league. Therefore it's not surprising to see the F/S rule has been benefitted the Vic clubs the most. Now ask yourself, is that purely coincidental or was it designed that way on purpose?
Brisbane is unique in the sense that they essentially benefitted from every rule possible because they were a merged team based in a northern state. They had unrestricted access to any Queensland player which allowed them access to players like Marcus Ashcroft, Michael Voss, Jason Akermanis etc until 2000 when Nick Riewoldt came on the scene and Eddie got his knickers in a knot, they had father-son access to local players who had a father that played at least one game for a local club and manipulated that rule to their advantage (48 year old Barry Lawrence rode the Southport bench for one game so the Bears could get access to his highly rated son who should have gone F/S to St Kilda instead), they assumed Fitzroy's 100 year league history which gave them father-son access to their players and that allowed them to recruit the likes of Jonathan Brown, they had access to NT players in the 90s which allowed them to draft players like Darryl White, they had pre-draft access to South Australian players in the 80s which allowed them to recruit players like Richard Champion and these days they have the academy which has fed them players like Harris Andrews and Eric Hipwood. There has been no shortage of help for Brisbane over the course of their existence. So yeah, pretty difficult to compare them to the Suns when we've only had an underfunded academy with the lowest zone population of all the northern academies which is spread across the largest amount of land. We were only just recently given zone access to Darwin players (although the F/S rule still trumps this access, otherwise we would have had access to Maurice Rioli Jr two years ago) but I suspect our Darwin access will be removed soon.
I think you're framing the point the wrong way. You're looking at it as the SA & WA teams "sooking" whereas I'm looking at how uncommon it is for a player to reach 200 games (in any league) AND THEN having a son that is good enough to be drafted. The evidence clearly shows the 100 game benchmark renders more father-son picks, hence the conclusion that the F/S rule benefitted Vic teams more than non-Vic teams.
