kickthething
Brownlow Medallist
Here are some random musings on the subject...Anything that takes the elite program out of the AFL s hands will be welcomed. Although club run u19s will be interesting ,there are Nab league/AFL club links already so it is not a stretch. The pathway, for example giving clubs first access to their 19 year olds will need heavy policing as the scholarship system means that elite talent can be filtered to a couple of clubs, Collingwood, Saints, Hawthorn perhaps come to mind as the elite schools are heavily represented in those areas and would mean players who are really out of the catchment can be bought in, even players like Cyril Rioli would be an u19 for Collingwood I suspect? and perhaps qualify for these u19 programs. Look at Oakleigh and Sandringham now as prime examples of this.
If this goes the way of the elite schools systems being the main pathway to AFL, the game will slowly recede as a large catchment of players will be left with no hope of playing at the elite level. Last year we heard the story of Bailey Lauries family, from Diamond Creek moving to have him in the Oakleigh zone and attend Caulfield Grammar to increase his draft prospects....not everyone will have that ability.
The system is hopelessly biased now, it was prior to COVID, but since COVID some of the plans are really looking to fix something that was not that broken. Make no mistake, a lot of the junior focus is moving to the girls leagues, a look at the Nab Program this year highlights this..and the pathway system has flexed to bring this focus on...the current Nab League break scheduled because there is one catch looking after all programs, so the break allows a pure focus on the girls as they ended their season and finals were in play.
So the u19 being run by clubs would need to include girls programs as well. At least they might be able to resource it better than right now.
