Expansion QLD and NSW academies

[Taper]

Is it time for all clubs to be able to access academy players via the National Draft?
Don't get me wrong I think academies are great for growing the game in rugby league heartland, and we're seeing more and more top end Australian Football talent coming through the academies.

However, I don't agree with academy players being exclusively accessible to the Swans, Lions, Suns and Giants.
It gives these clubs a huge leg up over clubs based in Australian Football heartland states.
Growing the game can be done without giving these clubs leg ups over the rest.
What are your thoughts?

 

[RUNVS]

One of the reasons for the academies is locking in local talent. Sydney have lost a few Academy players to the NRL who are able to sign players and guarantee they can stay in their local area. Without the Academy Sydney can't promise these young players the ability to stay home, and as a result they will sign with a NRL club who can.

 

[Taper]

One of the reasons for the academies is locking in local talent. Sydney have lost a few Academy players to the NRL who are able to sign players and guarantee they can stay in their local area. Without the Academy Sydney can't promise these young players the ability to stay home, and as a result they will sign with a NRL club who can.

Brisbane have benefited from double dipping recently by getting highly rated father sons as well as academy players.
I've seen my own club have some amazing father sons play for us, but imagine if we got to double dip by having the Falcons as our academy?
It wouldn't be fair, would it?

 

[powerrrrrrrrrrrr]

At a bare minimum no first round draft pick should be tied to an academy.

The academies make a mockery of trying to have an equal competition which is already filled with other flaws.

 

[WalshistheGOAT]

I've said it before but I'd be in favour of a limit of how many players you can match a bid for over a certain time period.

Say 5 every 3 years or so. If a club has 3-4 quality kids they can take all of them within a single draft, but are then restricted for the rest of that time period in how many they can match until it ticks over the allotted time. That way we don't get clubs picking up a handful of quality kids every year.

Would be fine if the same applied for F/S. Clubs can pick the ones they really want to prioritize and the rest are free game to the other clubs.

Another suggestion I didn't mind was only being able to match bids for players if you finish in the bottom 8.

 

[sunsofanarchy]

Can't get rid of the academies without getting rid of father sons

 

[Walshawk]

Can't get rid of the academies without getting rid of father sons

Of course you can. Once GWS and GC have been around for another 20 years, all clubs will have equal chance of Father-Son success. Until then, scrap the Lions and Swans academies.

 

[sunsofanarchy]

Of course you can. Once GWS and GC have been around for another 20 years, all clubs will have equal chance of Father-Son success. Until then, scrap the Lions and Swans academies.

Alright, we can stop the academies for the expansion clubs in 20 years... that's fair.

 

[bzparkes]

 

[Taper]

Alright, we can stop the academies for the expansion clubs in 20 years... that's fair.

At what point do the AFL remove the training wheels from the Swans and Lions?
First it was the retention allowance and cost of living allowance, now it's the academies.
I've had to witness my side get knocked out of the finals in 2004, 2005, 2016 and 2024 by teams benefiting from these leg ups.

 

[GC2015]

One of the reasons for the academies is locking in local talent. Sydney have lost a few Academy players to the NRL who are able to sign players and guarantee they can stay in their local area. Without the Academy Sydney can't promise these young players the ability to stay home, and as a result they will sign with a NRL club who can.

It's true. Both Heeney and Mills have stated publicly that there's no way they would have resisted the urge to pursue one of the rugby codes had it not been for the Swans academy. There's also been several 'almost' situations that would have fed ridiculously talented athletes into the AFL like Tom Trbojevic (Sydney), Kalyn Ponga (Brisbane), Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow (Gold Coast) - three of the best players in the NRL for those who are uninitiated - as well as the NBA's Josh Green (GWS). Getting elite athletes like that into our league is good for footy, but it never would have been possible if the northern clubs didn't have incentive to recruit them from other sports and develop them into footballers.

If you remove the priority access to these juniors then the incentive for the northern clubs to develop them into top end draft prospects dies and we go back to the way things were 10+ years ago when the academies didn't exist and we saw virtually zero first round prospects coming out of the northern states. For some reason, southerners have it in their mind that if you just open up access to these players for every club then everything else will remain the same. That's a flawed understanding of what's going on. The same thing happened with the NGAs when priority access was removed and we essentially saw the production line of top end talent stop coming through. It's really not that hard to understand, but people down south don't get it for some reason.

 

[stochastic]

At what point do the AFL remove the training wheels from the Swans and Lions?
First it was the retention allowance and cost of living allowance, now it's the academies.
I've had to witness my side get knocked out of the finals in 2004, 2005, 2016 and 2024 by teams benefiting from these leg ups.

You're not actually blaming your loss in the prelim to the Lions on them having an academy, are you?

We can discredit any teams success using this logic. Any Melbourne team that wins a flag at the G against an interstate opponent, it doesn't count because of the home ground advantage. At what point do we remove the training wheels from the Melbourne clubs?

 

[Cmarsh]

At what point do the AFL remove the training wheels from the Swans and Lions?
First it was the retention allowance and cost of living allowance, now it's the academies.
I've had to witness my side get knocked out of the finals in 2004, 2005, 2016 and 2024 by teams benefiting from these leg ups.

Cats get a leg up by being in an area with a long history of consistently producing a long line of quality players, much more than the Northern Academy areas ever will, and those players more often then not wanting to stay in that area or return to that area requesting to play for the Cats.

 

[sunsofanarchy]

At what point do the AFL remove the training wheels from the Swans and Lions?
First it was the retention allowance and cost of living allowance, now it's the academies.
I've had to witness my side get knocked out of the finals in 2004, 2005, 2016 and 2024 by teams benefiting from these leg ups.

As far as the lions and swans go (as a south australian), I don't see them as even keel. I think life in the Brisbane administration would be more difficult than the Sydney administration. Sydney is a premier club in the competition and haven't had the go home pressures that the other 3 northern clubs have had.

However, the reason we even have gc and gws in the competition is to grow the game in the northern states, and so if that is the goal of the AFL, limiting the academies to just the expansion clubs seems counter intuitive.

There are many inconsistencies in AFL, from the academies, to a fixed GF venue, to 10 clubs in the one state who travel substantially less, to a victorian-centric media limiting the star power and potential off field earnings a non victorian player can make, to the father sons that netted your club a dynasty.

 

[RUNVS]

At what point do the AFL remove the training wheels from the Swans and Lions?
First it was the retention allowance and cost of living allowance, now it's the academies.
I've had to witness my side get knocked out of the finals in 2004, 2005, 2016 and 2024 by teams benefiting from these leg ups.

How about making a players alternate income streams public? Not sure Geelong would be a fan of that.

 

[Taper]

You're not actually blaming your loss in the prelim to the Lions on them having an academy, are you?

We lost the 2004 preliminary final to a side benefiting from a retention allowance, and the 2005 semi final to a side benefiting from a cost of living allowance.
I don't think we would have won the flag in those years as we were still young, but it doesn't change the fact we were knocked out of the finals by sides that had extra money in their salary cap.

We can discredit any teams success using this logic. Any Melbourne team that wins a flag at the G against an interstate opponent, it doesn't count because of the home ground advantage. At what point do we remove the training wheels from the Melbourne clubs?

We have to play finals at the MCG despite being based in a city that is not Melbourne.

Cats get a leg up by being in an area with a long history of consistently producing a long line of quality players, much more than the Northern Academy areas ever will, and those players more often then not wanting to stay in that area or return to that area requesting to play for the Cats.

Queensland has already overtaken South Australia in terms of producing talent, and is on track to overtake Western Australia within the next decade.
Please tell me why the Lions and Suns need exclusive access to talent coming out of Queensland?
Would it be fair if we had exclusive access to players from the Geelong Falcons?

 

[rye]

fix the other inequalities inherent to the competition and maybe then we will consider listening to your complaints

 

[Boxo004]

Realistically getting a star from the academies is rare. At any one time there are hundreds of kids in the academy system and only 1 or 2 get picked up. Not that good of a strike rate.
In saying that Sam Marshall was an interesting case. Considering he was at boarding school in Melbourne as well as playing Coates Talent League. Once he left the Sunshine Coast the Lions shouldn’t be able to lay claims. That’s an anomaly id be sorting out.

 

[Taper]

fix the other inequalities inherent to the competition and maybe then we will consider listening to your complaints

An alternative solution is to demerge the Lions so that Brisbane don't get to triple dip with getting academy players, Fitzroy father sons and Brisbane father sons.

 

[qlderlions]

We lost the 2004 preliminary final to a side benefiting from a retention allowance, and the 2005 semi final to a side benefiting from a cost of living allowance.
I don't think we would have won the flag in those years as we were still young, but it doesn't change the fact we were knocked out of the finals by sides that had extra money in their salary cap.

We have to play finals at the MCG despite being based in a city that is not Melbourne.

Queensland has already overtaken South Australia in terms of producing talent, and is on track to overtake Western Australia within the next decade.
Please tell me why the Lions and Suns need exclusive access to talent coming out of Queensland?
Would it be fair if we had exclusive access to players from the Geelong Falcons?

Because as stated above by others there will won't be young talent coming through as you expect as they will go to rugby league and other sports. There is no draft in those other sports so they can sign talent at junior ages which the 4 northern AFL clubs cant do without an Academy. My cousin was chased by multiple NRL clubs as a 15yo with promise of money up front and a supported pathway to 18 years.

The second point on losing to Academy teams in finals you stated above: The Lions beat Geelong in 2024 but that is the first time we have beaten your team in a final in 20 years. You left out all the losses we had to you blokes such as 2022.

 

[Roylion]

An alternative solution is to demerge the Lions so that Brisbane don't get to triple dip with getting academy players, Fitzroy father sons and Brisbane father sons.

There aren't too many Fitzroy father-sons to come. It's been 29 years since Fitzroy left the AFL competition and only 110 out of a total of 1156 players to play a senior game for Fitzroy played 100 games or more.

The youngest 100 game players for Fitzroy are Stephen Paxman who is currently 54, Jason Baldwin aged 55 and Alistair Lynch aged 56.

 

[Elixuh]

Imagine if we got to double dip by having the Falcons as our academy?

If you changed the dimensions of Pork Barrel Park to the dimensions of a normal sized AFL oval I'd give you the Falcons as an academy. This offer expires at midnight.

 

[GC2015]

We lost the 2004 preliminary final to a side benefiting from a retention allowance, and the 2005 semi final to a side benefiting from a cost of living allowance.
I don't think we would have won the flag in those years as we were still young, but it doesn't change the fact we were knocked out of the finals by sides that had extra money in their salary cap.

The 2004 prelim? You mean the Brisbane "home" prelim that was played at the MCG?