St Kilda President Andrew Bassat tees off on the AFL draft system, specifically father/son and the Northern Academies

[tombomb]

What’s not perfect about a club requiring a pick within 5 spots of where the player is taken?

Because it will be incredibly difficult for teams to find selections in that range to match bids.

You may as well just blow up the academies and father/son rule if that is the solution and just have a clean draft.

Daicos, Darcy, Ugle-Hagan, both Ashcrofts, would all be playing for other clubs.

 

[bergholt]

Right that there are too many clubs in Melbourne so the smaller VFL clubs are always going to have to make up the numbers in a sense. And there is no commercial incentive to have all of these clubs up at the same time or for long periods.

Equalisation doesn't mean every club has to be up at the same time. It's zero sum so that's impossible. It means everyone has approximately equal chance to get there.

Wrong from the perspective that the Saints have had the worst drafting of any club in recent memory (which is why their list profile is god awful), have hired a coach who plays a brand of footy which isn't commercially attractive to the networks and are a club that gets significant financial contributions on par with the northern clubs to stay financially competitive.

Bassat acknowledged historical incompetence in his speech. You don't have to remind Saints fans of that, we can enumerate the **** ups in far more detail than you can.

But is your argument that if you ****ed up historically then you should never be allowed to be successful? The only ask here is for a level playing field.

 

[bergholt]

Daicos, Darcy, Ugle-Hagan, both Ashcrofts, would all be playing for other clubs.

You know their father's clubs are still allowed to draft them, right? If Collingwood really wanted Naicos then they could have traded for pick 1 or 2 and taken him there. Same with Brissie this year with Levi Ashcroft. Trade up and take him. If you don't do that, you obviously don't care enough about tradition.

 

[Milanista28]

That speech was a bit incoherent.

But I agree that the father son rule is a joke. I have still never heard a good argument for it to exist.

Warm fuzzy feelings?

 

[stavro#4]

Because it will be incredibly difficult for teams to find selections in that range to match bids.

You may as well just blow up the academies and father/son rule if that is the solution and just have a clean draft.

Daicos, Darcy, Ugle-Hagan, both Ashcrofts, would all be playing for other clubs.

Thats the point.

If a player is good enough to be pick 1 it should cost the matching club a fortune for the talent.

There has to be jeopardy involved.

 

[Bald]

Here's the number of 100 gamers each club has who were born between 1965 and 1980 (roughly the age of current father-son fathers):

35: Melbourne
34: Essendon
33: Brisbane
32: West Coast
31:
30: Collingwood
29: Hawthorn, North Melbourne
28: Geelong
27: Adelaide
26: Carlton, Western Bulldogs
25: Sydney
24: Richmond
23: St Kilda
22:
21: Port Adelaide
20:
19:
18:
17:
16:
15:
14: Fremantle


Doesn't seem super even that Melbourne have 35 tickets in the lottery while the Saints have 23 (not to mention Freo having 14). That just exposes you more to the random vagaries of reproduction. Lockett, Loewe, Burke had daughters, for instance.

It's fundamentally never going to be even. If we care about equalisation then we can't have it. If you don't care about equalisation, that's fine, just say that.

Understand the point you’re making completely but at what point are the saints responsible for having fewer 100 game players in that period than all bar two clubs?

 

[Nvent]

Because it will be incredibly difficult for teams to find selections in that range to match bids.

You may as well just blow up the academies and father/son rule if that is the solution and just have a clean draft.

Daicos, Darcy, Ugle-Hagan, both Ashcrofts, would all be playing for other clubs.

Ugle Hagen has no right to be at the WB.

 

[tombomb]

You know their father's clubs are still allowed to draft them, right? If Collingwood really wanted Naicos then they could have traded for pick 1 or 2 and taken him there. Same with Brissie this year with Levi Ashcroft. Trade up and take him. If you don't do that, you obviously don't care enough about tradition.

Do you realise how difficult it is to trade for a top five draft pick?

 

[Nvent]

Understand the point you’re making completely but at what point are the saints responsible for having fewer 100 game players in that period than all bar two clubs?

It was a different landscape back then. Players with talent were often bought by the richer clubs. Poor zones meant that players often returned home instead of playing VFL.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

The Lions being able to draft Levi Ashcroft for a handful of beans this year is ridiculous. All clubs should have to pay fair value for their F/S selections.

It was ridiculous when Tom Hawkins was drafted at pick 41 in the 2006 draft and nothing has changed.

Apart from the stupid Nintendo points system they have concocted.

A bit different now. The teams have to have list spots for all the picks accumulated. So still requires a bit of management. Will no longer have a JUH situation where a team has 50 picks and no list spots

The Hawkins thing is what changed the old system

 

[Bostonian]

The AFL should run the academies.

Then all those players are accessible to all.

 

[Nvent]

Do you realise how difficult it is to trade for a top five draft pick?

Do you realize how hard it is for a club that isn't contending to make ground on a club thats handed Heeny Mills and Blakey.

 

[bergholt]

Understand the point you’re making completely but at what point are the saints responsible for having fewer 100 game players in that period than all bar two clubs?

Of course they're responsible, that's completely the point! We were unsuccessful in that period and so ended up with fewer 100 gamers. So are you saying that we should then be condemned to lack of success forever because that cycle will never end?

 

[Pistol Night]

That speech was a bit incoherent.

But I agree that the father son rule is a joke. I have still never heard a good argument for it to exist.

We wouldn’t have won a flag without it? Thats all I’ve got

 

[SeaOfFire]

Well, I'm sympathetic.

Because I can recall all the sympathy and well-wishers who inhabited this thread and gave wonderful advice.

I also recall all the gnashing after we went on the threepeat over our salary cap, which "Equalisation Eddie" successfully campaigned to remove.

Nah, **** yas....we did our time as the whipping boys after our golden era, took our medicine and have built something bigger and better.

I'm happy you all wish to pile on and tear us down now, because when we on the ground you ALSO sunk the boot in.

So GAGF.

 

[bergholt]

Do you realise how difficult it is to trade for a top five draft pick?

Of course it is! That's exactly the point. If you want a player like Naicos (who everyone could see was going to be at least very very good) then you pay through the nose. As it stands, he cost almost nothing relative to his likelihood of succeeding.

 

[Pakenhamsaint]

Billings instead of Bont
McCartin instead of Petracca

Any amount of woe is us isn't going to solve the above issues. Not to mention giving contracts to stop gaps like Hanneberry etc.

If you had of bothered to listen he did acknowledge St Kilda has shot itself in the foot in the past.

He has the weirdest accent I’ve ever heard. Wth is that

He's deaf in one ear.

 

[bergholt]

A bit different now. The teams have to have list spots for all the picks accumulated. So still requires a bit of management. Will no longer have a JUH situation where a team has 50 picks and no list spots

The Hawkins thing is what changed the old system

Yeah, they've gradually inched towards a less ****ed up system, but only slowly because clubs with great father sons coming down the pipe always scream if they propose changing it too much.

 

[Pistol Night]

Jon Brown?

Yeah apart from that triple premiership, All Australian, Coleman medal winner. And a Norm Smith winner 3 days again. Apart from that though, NONE!

 

[tombomb]

Do you realize how hard it is for a club that isn't contending to make ground on a club thats handed Heeny Mills and Blakey.

And this system will be much fairer for players like that from next season. It should have changed for this draft.

 

[JPetro83]

well said by him. it's a joke. it's time to have a complete level playing field. AFL need to come out with a plan. for example, by 2030 all concessions go. no more academies, no more FS. the only concessions you get is if you lose someone to free agency.

 

[bergholt]

Do you realise how difficult it is to trade for a top five draft pick?

Luckily for you the Swans didn't need to for Heeney. Every knew he was going to be very good, Melbourne bid on him at pick 2, but in the system at the time the Swans were allowed to match with pick 18. Congrats on getting lucky, I guess?

 

[tombomb]

Of course it is! That's exactly the point. If you want a player like Naicos (who everyone could see was going to be at least very very good) then you pay through the nose. As it stands, he cost almost nothing relative to his likelihood of succeeding.

And that is the change that is coming in next year and should have come in this year if a majority of clubs, including multiple Victorian clubs, had agreed.

Brisbane would have to find another two 1st round draft picks to go with their current pick 15 to match a bid on Ashcroft if he goes pick 1.

Go and take it up with clubs like Richmond and Carlton who wanted the system left as is.

 

[Gavin Excell]

I understand the lottery of father son and how that effects equalisation but I don't get the claim of how this unfairly targets a club like St Kilda. Perhaps I'm missing something

 

[tombomb]

Luckily for you the Swans didn't need to for Heeney. Every knew he was going to be very good, Melbourne bid on him at pick 2, but in the system at the time the Swans were allowed to match with pick 18. Congrats on getting lucky, I guess?

Congrats on getting lucky when you were being handed priority draft picks every year. How far are we going back?