Opinion Sydney Swans Academy and Rebuild

[Heeney2Franklin]

Bullshit, what advantages does a club like Melbourne have over a club like Sydney?

Clubs like Melbourne have never been able to attract the calibre of players that Sydney has.

We all know why clubs like Sydney get the academy, it's to prop them up to keep their supporters interested to increase the media income

Melbourne has had more than enough top 5 picks over the years to build a dynasty its just been poor development and decisions off the field that has held your club back, heck the AFL paid to get Roos to your club.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

Maybe not, but the more academy kids in the AFL the stronger the AFL becomes, the greater depth the AFL has. For every academy player the Swans draft that is one fewer player we draft from a heartland state, a player another club can take, making that club better too.

Yep, the Swans getting top 5 priority picks every other year is purely altruistic, any benefit they may get is just icing

 

[Demonic Ascent]

No they don't. That's the whole problem. Every ******* year you get constant stories of a Victorian kid claiming homesickness or deliberately bombing an interview so he doesn't get drafted interstate. It happens with kids from WA & SA too.

You must have your head so far up your ass if you think every kid accepts that they have move interstate to pursue their career

Yep just like that kid Logan McDonald, such a shame he refused to move outside of WA what could have been if he'd been happy to move to the other side of the country and play for the Swans. Oh wait....

 

[Demonic Ascent]

Dubious world of AFL's Next Generation Academies

No fewer than 15 players can be claimed by 10 clubs under the contentious Next Generation Academy rules.

www.theage.com.au

"On Thursday, North Melbourne will land Tarryn Thomas, an indigenous kid from Launceston, while Collingwood will claim Isaac Quaynor, an Oakleigh Chargers kid whose father hailed from Ghana. Thomas is favored to attract a bid as high as pick eight (Adelaide) and Quaynor is expected to be slightly later, but still well inside the top 20.

How are these highly rated players tied to North and Collingwood? The short version is that each club has been allocated a zone, from which they can source Indigenous or multicultural players. Those players are subject to the same arcane bidding process – a messy points system – that applies to father-son recruits or Northern academy recruits.

But Collingwood didn’t find Quaynor from obscurity and develop him into a player worthy of being selected in the first round. The Magpies simply discovered that Quaynor – who had played footy most of his life and hailed from Paul Roos’ old club, Beverly Hills – qualified because his father had an African background. NGA players must have African, Asian or Indigenous heritage.

North, too, had next to no input in making Thomas into a player. He was the best player of his age in Tasmania as a 16-year-old; they were just blessed that he fell into their NGA zone.

The view of many within the game is that the NGA Academies were set up as a sop to the 14 clubs that believed the Northern Academies were too beneficial to the NSW and Queensland teams. "


Stop your sooking!

Unlike Sydney who rescued Blakey from obscurity and introduced him to the wonderful game of AFL. Apparently the first time he saw a footy he thought it was an emu egg but luckily he got the hang of it pretty quickly.

 

[Scotland]

Difference is that the academy players Sydney develop would mostly not be in the game without the Academy. No one can say JUH would not have been drafted if not for the Bulldogs academy.

What about players who are both father son and academy eligible?

 

[Demonic Ascent]

I don't think people really get it. Outside of the academies there is no junior development in Sydney.
Unless you count a bunch of dad "coaches" who last picked up a ball 20 years ago because they mistook it
for a league ball. As I posted earlier I was at a junior club with my boys for 14 years. Entire seasons would
pass by without anyone from the AFL making an appearance. About every third or fourth year, the Swans
would send a player to hand out the B & F awards. As for the AFL though, we weren't sure they even had an
office or employees in Sydney.

Which is a great reason why the AFL should have academies in those areas.

It doesn't explain why some clubs should get priority pick access to these players every year though.

 

[RUNVS]

What about players who are both father son and academy eligible?

He was an exception to the rule. Not going to be many Blakey's in the near or long term future.

 

[BloodySwan]

Yep just like that kid Logan McDonald, such a shame he refused to move outside of WA what could have been if he'd been happy to move to the other side of the country and play for the Swans. Oh wait....

BuT lOgAn McDoNaLd LeFt Wa

 

[Demonic Ascent]

If he was top 15 worthy he would have been bid then. Clubs don't let players get players on the cheap, they just don't. Just last year WB paid pick 1 for JUH, we paid pick 5 for Campbell.

The issue isn't the academies, it is the discounts. Get rid of them, or give clubs a token 5%. But make it the same across the board whether it be Father-son or NGA. Just make it one rule across the board. Simple. It actually isn't that hard, the AFL is trying to over complicate a very simple thing really. Why we need half the coverage in the draft about this pick is worth this minus 20% I'll never know.

One rule across the board would be good. No matching in the first round for starters so if a player gets selected in the first round he goes to the club who selected him with that pick.

 

[Heeney2Franklin]

What about players who are both father son and academy eligible?

Then like Blakey it was his choice could of gone to Brisbane or North, same as Joe Daniher.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

BuT lOgAn McDoNaLd LeFt Wa

View attachment 1093384

 

[LukeParkerno1]

One rule across the board would be good. No matching in the first round for starters so if a player gets selected in the first round he goes to the club who selected him with that pick.

As long as that is the same for Father Son bidding though shouldn’t be just academies

 

[RUNVS]

One rule across the board would be good. No matching in the first round for starters so if a player gets selected in the first round he goes to the club who selected him with that pick.

That then makes it pointless for the clubs, because it means for instance that for 10 years of work, probably around $15 million pumped into it the Sydney Swans will have gotten Wicks and Gulden from the academy. The no first rounders rule would basically kill the academies entirely.

 

[Shaq attack]

Sydney’s academy needs a nerf.

 

[Scotland]

Add to hat, teams like swans, gws, lions and gc get their victorian players raided by all 10 Victorian clubs because their managers can auction them off to the highest bidder.

Sent from my CPH2005 using Tapatalk

GWS, who have been raided, added:

Tom Scully, Phil Davis, Callan Ward at start up
Steve Johnson
Joel Patfull
Brett Deledio
Ryan Griffen
Heath Shaw
Shane Mumford

and some journeymen.

My team in the same time frame:

Drew Petrie and Sam Mitchell at 34
Jack Redden
Tom Hickey
Nathan Vardy

plus some Western Australians returning to WA.

Sydney since 2011:

Kurt Tippett
Lance Franklin
Callum Sinclair

not to mention McGlynn, Kennedy, Mumford, Bradshaw, Rhyce Shaw etc. before then.

Is living in NSW really that bad?

 

[Demonic Ascent]

As long as that is the same for Father Son bidding though shouldn’t be just academies

Completely agree, in fact I would do away with bother father son and academy selections altogether. The draft and salary cap should be pure, no ASAs in the salary cap either, no players getting paid as "ambassadors" none of this under the table bullshit that continues in the AFL so they can be get away with manipulating outcomes. That also includes players salaries being public and the AFLs FA compo matrix being transparent as well.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

That then makes it pointless for the clubs, because it means for instance that for 10 years of work, probably around $15 million pumped into it the Sydney Swans will have gotten Wicks and Gulden from the academy. The no first rounders rule would basically kill the academies entirely.

Which is why the academies should be run by the AFL and not the clubs. It's all about growing the game until there's nothing in it for them and they couldn't give a stuff.

 

[FRUMPY]

GWS, who have been raided, added:

Tom Scully, Phil Davis, Callan Ward at start up
Steve Johnson
Joel Patfull
Brett Deledio
Ryan Griffen
Heath Shaw
Shane Mumford

and some journeymen.

My team in the same time frame:

Drew Petrie and Sam Mitchell at 34
Jack Redden
Tom Hickey
Nathan Vardy

plus some Western Australians returning to WA.

Sydney since 2011:

Kurt Tippett
Lance Franklin
Callum Sinclair

not to mention McGlynn, Kennedy, Mumford, Bradshaw, Rhyce Shaw etc. before then.

Is living in NSW really that bad?

Not sure the gws mature recruits are that good tbh and they chase the money that they can't get from others and the young gws kids aren't keen on as they can get it in Melbourne

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[Demonic Ascent]

Evidently not. Apparently all you have to do is tell them you have mental health concerns and no team outside of your home state will draft you as evidenced by Bailey Smith.

The truth is most junior footballers in the southern states are extremely desperate to play in the AFL when they get older and are more than willing to live in another state to pursue that dream. The same kind of wide spread passion simply doesn't exist in the northern states. I'm generalising here but most junior athletes in Queensland and New South Wales want a convenient and clear pathway otherwise they just won't bother with Aussie rules. We've lost plenty of very talented NSW and QLD athletes to other sports like Darren Lockyer and Patty Mills because of this issue.

Isaac Heeney and Callum Mills both made it clear that ALL their friends played the rugby codes growing up and they would have converted had it not been for the Swans academy. Is the game better off for having those two exceptional talents in the league or do we lessen the talent pool because the Dees missed out on getting Heeney? By the way they got Petracca instead who has arguably been just as good, if not better.

No, we got Brayshaw instead.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

A lot different to COLA.
Like it or not unlike the Southern states AFL isn't a first choice sport for a lot of kids from the juniors, through to the seniors.
Without the academies the likes of Heeney, etc would be lost to other sports.

So what? If having a few extra kids coming through and playing Australian Football (but only for certain clubs) comes at the expense of having a fair and uncompromised draft the choice is clear.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

It helps but I think it's mostly just good drafting and good system. They've been down the bottom for a while. You forget when watching teams like Carlton, Gold Coast etc in the past, teams aren't supposed to be terrible forever.

They played in GFs in 2012, 2014 and 2016. I'd hardly say they've been down for a while.

 

[Heeney2Franklin]

No walk in the Parks: How new Blue Luke did it the hard way

The road for Luke Parks from the streets of St Ives to his impending senior AFL debut this weekend for Carlton is another big tick for the SANFL and state league graduates

www.theinnersanctum.com.au

Good luck to Luke Parks this week!

 

[RUNVS]

So what? If having a few extra kids coming through and playing Australian Football (but only for certain clubs) comes at the expense of having a fair and uncompromised draft the choice is clear.

The aim is to grow the game. Happily just sticking to the heartland states would lead to the AFL slowly dying. Grow or die.

 

[RUNVS]

They played in GFs in 2012, 2014 and 2016. I'd hardly say they've been down for a while.

Yes, and we picked up guys like McCartin, Rowbottom, McInerney and Warner with picks that were not great in that time, all 4 of whom are best 22 players.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

The aim is to grow the game. Happily just sticking to the heartland states would lead to the AFL slowly dying. Grow or die.

And Sydney getting a free top 5 priority pick every other year is just a lucky consequence...