Opinion Is father-son access going to heavily dictate the next decade of premiers?

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Only two of those became Premiership players for the team they were drafted to as F/S, and if you’re going to go that far back …

  • Brad Osborne
  • Cameron Cloke
  • Jason Cloke
  • Jaxson Barham
  • Brayden Shaw
  • Callum Brown
  • Tyler Brown
  • Will Kelly

… who didn’t become Premiership players for Collingwood.

Like all picks, you win some, you lose some
Have to admit that's a pretty good strike rate. Essentially 50% of all Collingwood F/S picks have become premiership players. Most of which were wearing black and white when they did so. Even if you just want to talk about the amount of F/S picks that won a flag for Collingwood vs those who didn't, you're still looking at over 33%. It's been a very helpful rule for the Pies.
 
F/S pick Nick Daicos finished second in the Brownlow Medal this year with the second most votes ever awarded to a player. Will Ashcroft becomes the first F/S pick to win a Norm Smith Medal in 2024 and fellow Lions F/S pick Jaspa Fletcher also wins a flag in his second season in the AFL (Joe Daniher is another F/S pick that won his first flag this year). F/S pick Sam Darcy had a breakout season in 2024 and looks like he could be well on his way to becoming one of the best key forwards in the competition. F/S pick Jase Burgoyne showed some great signs in the finals and could be set for a breakout 2025 season. Predicted number 1 pick Levi Ashcroft will be F/S'd to the Lions this year. Tom McGuane is predicted to be a high end F/S pick for Collingwood next year.

Certainly appears that the F/S rule is going to have a big say over the lay of the land in the AFL for at least a few more years.
 
Jake Waterman is a father son who was All Australian his team finished bottom 3.

Nick Daicos is a father son who chose another team his team finished outside of the finals.

Nick Blakey is a father son his team finished top.

Who cares?

I love the tradition and for every one that is a star as many are delisted or not very good at all but still I love the fact we take them on.
 

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Brisbane has effectively got two number 1 draft picks (or top 2 at worst) in the Ashcroft brothers in years they either finished very high on the ladder or won the flag, for the equivalent of several lesser picks. That's a massive leg up any way you look at it and a huge talent boost.

It's the luck of the draw that's worked in their favour but I think it gives them a huge boost over the current and foreseeable future, especially with Tassie about to come in and impact elite talent access for a few years.

I do like the F/S rule, but like anything maybe there needs to be further matching rules so that clubs need to pay more of a premium for the first round talent, in later rounds its less of an issue. The Lions luckily get in before those changes.
 
For all the bleating from Carlton fans protesting changing the rules this year because of the camporeale twins and their so called preparation for accounting for bids. It looks like neither of them will attract a bid anyway....
 
The idea they all have to be successful for the argument against this unfair, anachronistic rule to wash is disingenuous at best.

Brisbane won the flag and are about to get unfettered access to the best player in the draft and will get him for no cost and won't have to compensate the team on the bottom of the ladder (who should be getting the best player in the draft).

This is patently ridiculous.
 
The idea they all have to be successful for the argument against this unfair, anachronistic rule to wash is disingenuous at best.

Brisbane won the flag and are about to get unfettered access to the best player in the draft and will get him for no cost and won't have to compensate the team on the bottom of the ladder (who should be getting the best player in the draft).

This is patently ridiculous.

Something in the water in moorabin that only produces females
 
Something in the water in moorabin that only produces females
If it produced fully formed full forwards, the rule would still be unfair and pervert the objective of the draft.

As I have said before, explain this rule to an NFL GM and see how long it is before you get laughed out of the room.

Local footy clubs everywhere if you aren't that interested in professionalism.
 

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We are currently going through a bit of a golden age for F/S players, particularly at Collingwood and Brisbane.

My own club, of course, quite famously had a fabulous run of F/S players in the 2000s.

However, it comes and it goes, and above all, it's not the be all and end all of premierships - after all, Richmond, Geelong, Melbourne, West Coast all managed to win recent flags without a good father/son player (sorry, Jed Bews).

Don't knee-jerk react to it, IMO.

EDIT: I forgot that Hawkins played. Whoops.
 
We are currently going through a bit of a golden age for F/S players, particularly at Collingwood and Brisbane.

My own club, of course, quite famously had a fabulous run of F/S players in the 2000s.

However, it comes and it goes, and above all, it's not the be all and end all of premierships - after all, Richmond, Geelong, Melbourne, West Coast all managed to win recent flags without a good father/son player (sorry, Jed Bews).

Don't knee-jerk react to it, IMO.

Yeah, that Tom Hawkins was a scrub.
 
Jake Waterman is a father son who was All Australian his team finished bottom 3.

Nick Daicos is a father son who chose another team his team finished outside of the finals.

Nick Blakey is a father son his team finished top.

Who cares?

I love the tradition and for every one that is a star as many are delisted or not very good at all but still I love the fact we take them on.
Not a father -son. His old man never played for the Swans.
He could have been a premiership player at Brisbane though.
 
I love the tradition and for every one that is a star as many are delisted or not very good at all but still I love the fact we take them on.
As much as I would love to have the Daicos boys, Darcy, Waterman, Ashcroft etc at the Cats, I think it would be wrong to see them in other colours.

Just seeing any Ablett in that GC monstrosity of a jumper hurt enough.
 
Carlton can use one and not the other - your view is highly unsurprising.
We have two NGA kids expected to get drafted next year, nothing to do with it.

Fact is F/S picks are completely luck of the draw. Academies are not.

Academy kids are handpicked by talent scouts from an early age, often under the guise that they wouldn't end up in the system without the academies intervention. A great example of this rort is our very own Cody Walker (Andrews boy), he's the F/S of a career AFL player whos the head coach of a top GFL team... Yet somehow he's part of Richmond's NGA academy because he's indigenous and lives outside of the Metro area as if he wasn't always going to be playing footy anyway 😂😂😂

If you get lucky with a F/S where 1 - the Dad played enough games to be eligible, and 2 - the kids good enough to make the grade then I have no issue with it, they don't come around too often and it's even rarer that they're genuine guns at AFL level.

Hand picking elite junior talents and making up some rubbish about why they wouldn't have been playing AFL without the club picking them up is just laughable manipulation of the system.
 
We have two NGA kids expected to get drafted next year, nothing to do with it.

Fact is F/S picks are completely luck of the draw. Academies are not.

Academy kids are handpicked by talent scouts from an early age, often under the guise that they wouldn't end up in the system without the academies intervention. A great example of this rort is our very own Cody Walker (Andrews boy), he's the F/S of a career AFL player whos the head coach of a top GFL team... Yet somehow he's part of Richmond's NGA academy because he's indigenous and lives outside of the Metro area as if he wasn't always going to be playing footy anyway 😂😂😂

If you get lucky with a F/S where 1 - the Dad played enough games to be eligible, and 2 - the kids good enough to make the grade then I have no issue with it, they don't come around too often and it's even rarer that they're genuine guns at AFL level.

Hand picking elite junior talents and making up some rubbish about why they wouldn't have been playing AFL without the club picking them up is just laughable manipulation of the system.

Both are ridiculous. I can see the point of academies for the Northern teams, but the access is too much. The Father-Son rule makes a mockery of the objective of the draft as a redistributive and equity measure - the worst team has access to the best talent.

Premierships in part decided on the ability of past players to sire sons: sounds as ridiculous as it is.
 
Both are ridiculous. I can see the point of academies for the Northern teams, but the access is too much. The Father-Son rule makes a mockery of the objective of the draft as a redistributive and equity measure - the worst team has access to the best talent.

Premierships in part decided on the ability of past players to sire sons: sounds as ridiculous as it is.
Main change I'd like to see for both pathways is to see a cap on how many can be selected each year. Said for a while I'd like to see something like a club is only allowed to select 5 over a 5 year period or something.

That way if someone like Brisbane or GCS rate a few of their academy and F/S kids highly one year they can select their 2-3 in one off season but then they're limited in how many they can pick up over the next few years afterwards.

Prevents teams getting multiple free hits every year over and over again and makes the clubs have to weigh up who they rate the most of their selections. The fact GCS got 3 top 15 kids last year, Lombard this year and then Z.Uwland next... AND they'll have more on the way after that... It's just too much imo.
 
Main change I'd like to see for both pathways is to see a cap on how many can be selected each year. Said for a while I'd like to see something like a club is only allowed to select 5 over a 5 year period or something.

That way if someone like Brisbane or GCS rate a few of their academy and F/S kids highly one year they can select their 2-3 in one off season but then they're limited in how many they can pick up over the next few years afterwards.

Prevents teams getting multiple free hits every year over and over again and makes the clubs have to weigh up who they rate the most of their selections. The fact GCS got 3 top 15 kids last year, Lombard this year and then Z.Uwland next... AND they'll have more on the way after that... It's just too much imo.

There's no way to make Levi Ashcroft to Brisbane for no cost and no compensation to Richmond (who have the #1 pick) fair.
 
Casey Voss, Tom Hird and Jett Buckley.

Generational fathers, none of them made it. It's a total crap shoot and every club will eventually get fortunate in due time.

Prior to the Ashcroft boys (And Fletcher), the last good father-son the Lions got was Jonathan Brown in 1999. Took us 20+ years since to finally get something out of F/S, just turns out that it's all happened at once with Ashcroft x2 and Fletcher.
Casey Voss plays for Sturt in the SANFL. Not a generational talent like his dad.

He is a solid 180cm player that plays as a midfielder and defender.

I am surprised he never got a shot on a rookie list
 

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Opinion Is father-son access going to heavily dictate the next decade of premiers?

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